A Sunday of Lovecraftian Horrors
Oct. 5th, 2014 09:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
valarltdStill in New Orleans.
This Sunday, it's all Lovecraft.
Some of the works can be found online here:
http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/
(they missed Nyarlathoptep and the poetry)
More can be found here: http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/
Including The Fungi from Yuggoth, part XII of which, the Howler, haunted me for years.
First, a perennial favorite, "The Great Old Pumpkin" by John Aegard:
http://www.strangehorizons.com/2004/20041025/pumpkin-f.shtml
You must know, Doctor, that I did not choose to seek psychiatric help. I have no faith that I shall exit this room a healed man; I know now that I have been destined for the asylum since childhood. No mere conversation with you can steer me clear of that fate. That said, let us proceed with this court-compelled farce before my mad prattle provokes your crabbiness further.
As you are no doubt aware, I am the issue of solid Dutch stock—the prosperous Van Pelt family of St. Paul. Mine was a comfortable and happy childhood, and I spent much of it in the devoted service of the Great Old Pumpkin. For him, I cultivated an annual pumpkin patch—mostly Autumn Gold and Big Max, as I thought he would find the Atlantic Giants tacky. I also evangelized him in the community, relating the tale of how, every year on Hallowmas Eve, the day when the spiritual most strongly encroaches on the substantial, this mightiest of gourds would rise to revel across the world with the most sincere of his adorers. My neighbors were understandably skeptical; after all, not once had this superbeing ever chosen to grace my pumpkin patch or any other place in our town. I vowed that I would coax him into my backyard, and I set out in the manner of a learned man to discover how I might do this.
This quest led me into mouldering libraries, cramped basement antiquaries, far-flung correspondences, and, on one occasion, frightening and persistent telephone conversations with a lunatic in Boston. The last raised alarms in my family. I promised them I would turn away from my studies, all the while resolving to continue them in secret. I committed everything I knew to memory, burned all my papers, and embroidered my most unfathomable and precious secrets in near-invisible thread on my security blanket, which as you can see, I carry still.
Sounds and Sights of Madness:
The Call of Cthulhu, read by Garrick Hagon (SW fans know him as Biggs Darklighter)
My favorite Lovecraft movie. (you know, dude, when John Glover is your intake doctor and David Warner's your shrink? You're already in Hell)
But it's closely rivaled by this one:
Pictures from Lovecraft's World:
Hosted by the house where he wrote "Call of Cthulhu"
the world's oldest subway tunnel, dating to 1814, and possible location for The Horror At RedHook
The Witch house in Salem MA, site of "The Dreams in the Witch House"
This Sunday, it's all Lovecraft.
Some of the works can be found online here:
http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/
(they missed Nyarlathoptep and the poetry)
More can be found here: http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/
Including The Fungi from Yuggoth, part XII of which, the Howler, haunted me for years.
First, a perennial favorite, "The Great Old Pumpkin" by John Aegard:
http://www.strangehorizons.com/2004/20041025/pumpkin-f.shtml
You must know, Doctor, that I did not choose to seek psychiatric help. I have no faith that I shall exit this room a healed man; I know now that I have been destined for the asylum since childhood. No mere conversation with you can steer me clear of that fate. That said, let us proceed with this court-compelled farce before my mad prattle provokes your crabbiness further.
As you are no doubt aware, I am the issue of solid Dutch stock—the prosperous Van Pelt family of St. Paul. Mine was a comfortable and happy childhood, and I spent much of it in the devoted service of the Great Old Pumpkin. For him, I cultivated an annual pumpkin patch—mostly Autumn Gold and Big Max, as I thought he would find the Atlantic Giants tacky. I also evangelized him in the community, relating the tale of how, every year on Hallowmas Eve, the day when the spiritual most strongly encroaches on the substantial, this mightiest of gourds would rise to revel across the world with the most sincere of his adorers. My neighbors were understandably skeptical; after all, not once had this superbeing ever chosen to grace my pumpkin patch or any other place in our town. I vowed that I would coax him into my backyard, and I set out in the manner of a learned man to discover how I might do this.
This quest led me into mouldering libraries, cramped basement antiquaries, far-flung correspondences, and, on one occasion, frightening and persistent telephone conversations with a lunatic in Boston. The last raised alarms in my family. I promised them I would turn away from my studies, all the while resolving to continue them in secret. I committed everything I knew to memory, burned all my papers, and embroidered my most unfathomable and precious secrets in near-invisible thread on my security blanket, which as you can see, I carry still.
Sounds and Sights of Madness:
The Call of Cthulhu, read by Garrick Hagon (SW fans know him as Biggs Darklighter)
My favorite Lovecraft movie. (you know, dude, when John Glover is your intake doctor and David Warner's your shrink? You're already in Hell)
But it's closely rivaled by this one:
Pictures from Lovecraft's World:
Hosted by the house where he wrote "Call of Cthulhu"
the world's oldest subway tunnel, dating to 1814, and possible location for The Horror At RedHook
The Witch house in Salem MA, site of "The Dreams in the Witch House"
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Oh suuuuure!
Date: 2014-10-07 06:21 am (UTC)*sigh* I didn't want to get any sleep tonight anyways...
Re: Oh suuuuure!
Date: 2014-10-08 01:43 am (UTC)Re: Oh suuuuure!
Date: 2014-10-09 01:17 am (UTC)"I've never seen this because it's only on VHS not DVD and I don't own a working VCR. AND it's a Youtube link therefore it could be gone tomorrow."
Must...watch...now... ;-)