Mysteries of Montreal

As mentioned previously , when I was at NecronomiCon this year, I picked up a book by local Providence writers  C. M. Eddy Jr , and his wife Muriel. I had not read any of their wprks, in fact, I still have not read any of their fiction. The H. P. Lovecraft Literary podcast did an Eddy story, " The Ghost Eater " as their live show at NecronomiCon Providence 2019, and Ken doesn't hold back with his feelings on the story, and as Eddy as a writer. In fact, is was this performance (which I had to leave before the end, due to gaming commitments) that made me pick up this book in the dealers hall at the Con. I had seen  Fenham Publishing  on my last visit, and paid them no heed, but now I knew more, I went to the stall and picked up " The Gentleman From Angell Street " . Fenham Publishing, is in fact run by a grandson of the Eddys, and publishes all of their works. On purchasing the book, he also included a couple of photocopies of various newspaper articles eithe...

One of my regrets with being in Providence last August for NecronomiCon , was not making it to see the inside of the Providence Athenaeum . We managed to see the outside of it, but I didn't make it in. On our way back up to Canada from a holiday in Cape Cod this year, however, we did manage to stop off for lunch in Providence, and I finally got to see the inside of the library. It was worth the wait. Of course the library is famous for it's connections to Lovecraft and Poe and Whitman , but I was happy to learn that it had also been frequented by Charlotte Perkins Gilman . There is also, of course, the Lovecraft bust. The list of patrons was of interest, combining local Lovecraftians like Neils Hobbs, as well as international names like Guillermo del Toro. Made me smile. The above images show off the well photographed main interior of the Library, and are pretty much as I expected it to be, however, there is a lot more to the building. Downstair...

Not the author himself of course, that would be weird, but the works of HPL as a Mastermind subject.  How many answers did you get right?

Please excuse the delay between the rest of the NecronomiCon posts and this one. There is no good reason for it other than life getting in the way. These were taken whilst wandering round the town on various days, either as part of the bus tour, or just walking. Unfortunately I did not make it onto the walking tour. Maybe next time. The image above is a view of the two main hotels of the Con. On the Right, the Omni, where Kris and I were staying, and on the left, the Biltmore, where the bulk of the literature talks were, as well as the gaming room on the 18th floor. The Biltmore is supposedly haunted, by quite a number of ghosts, but we didn't run into any. Inside the Biltmore, are some ver old elevators, including one in the central lobby with the sign opposite attached. Yes that's right, it is an unused glass elevator, to be used for time travel only. No I don't know what they mean (please excuse the fuzzy picure). The bus tour I took, went around some of the mor...

Or how I survived the Con, Part 2. As I previously stated , this summary is split over five posts. The first four posts covering the days of the con, and the last being what I purchased and other pictures of things I saw. The con proper didn't start till about 1pm, so we had the morning free. First we wandered up college hill, taking some pics of the area, then into the Ars Necronomica exhibition. The level of art was really very high. We are not talking fan art here. After that, we had booked on to the Providence HPL Bus Tour. Met Keeper Dan from the  MUP . As part of the tour, we saw the site of his birthplace (his Grandfather's mansion is long gone), a couple of his homes, as well as his grave and the  Ladd observatory , where he did spend some time. There are conflicting reports as to how much time, and whether or not he had a key or did any observations The bus driver/tour guide said yes, the observatory caretaker said no, there's always...

I have returned and survived. A wonderful 4 dys in Providence R.I, at NecronomiCon 2017 . I had originally planned to do some live blogging from the Con, but I didn't have access to this account whilst away, as I only had my tablet. As it turned out, I doubt I would have had much time to have written much anyway. I just want to say, that it was a great event, where I met and gamed with so many great people. I will be posting a summary of what I did and saw, but I'll break it down into a post per day, so as not to hit you guys with a wall of text, with a few pretty pictures of Providence strewn throughout. Anyway, here's a fun little image to start things off!

Not my usual browsing space, but I share here a link to a post on Christ and Pop Culture . A bi-weekly magazine with the mission to: ...edify the Church, glorify God, and witness to the world by encouraging and modeling a biblical presence within culture that is characterized by nuance and appreciation while resisting the extremes of thoughtless condemnation and uncritical embrace. We stand on the Gospel and exist for the church. Anyway, without further comment, I direct you to the article From Cthulhu to Christ . The article gives a nice overview of Lovecraft and his work, and it is always interesting to read from an alternative viewpoint, and to "Why H. P. Lovecraft’s Cosmic Despair Is Still Worth Reading".

Robert Barlow, 1931 H.P.L. was in the news in this recent New Yorker article , written by the author Paul La Farge, which has clearly come from the research for this book , looks at the relationship between Lovecraft and Robert Barlow . The article contains another attempt to guess at Lovecraft's sexuality through his associations with others, but I think the article pins it with this phrase, even if it continues afterwards to try to suggest otherwise. " the salient feature of his sexuality really seems to be how indifferent he was to it " Even the choice of image to accompany the article is provocative There are many more existing images that could have been used, even of Lovecraft and Barlow together . However, it is an interesting article in how it goes on to talk about Barlow himself. I have heard of him, but he isn't someone I looked into a great deal, and that seems a shame, as he looks to be an interesting character. It does strike me though, that Barl...

This is not news. Nor is this link to a recent article, but is is to an article well worth reading , as it hits all the salient points, without being apologist.

Although I have yet to read it in full, it would be very remiss of me to let this go across my radar without linking to it here, on my Cthulu blog. HPL's racism is very much in the limelight in the current debates on his work. This essay, by gamer writer and thinker, Morgue , goes into details of the racist phrases and issues within HPLs great work, the Call of Cthulhu, and disects it, finally asking the question, "can the racist elements of “The Call of Cthulhu” be challenged and reimagined without doing great violence to the text?"  Well, can it? I'll avoid the spoilers and just link you to the whole essay on taleturn .

That little phrase in the title has become a meme unto itself, as a way of expressing that something that is idiotic, or stupid on the internet (that covers a lot of said internet). What is not so well know, is that good ol' HPL himself was the originator of said meme, as this neat little essay claims to prove. Go read it, then read some Lovecraft, it'll give you a whole host of new ways to express your emotions at online idiocy.

We took a bit of a last minute decision to go and visit Quebec City this week, so I went and looked out the travel books I have for the city: I'll stick them both in my bag to take with me, but even though I have just finished my last book (One Summer by Bill Bryson, but more on that later) I doubt I'll actually get through reading HPL's travelogue of Quebec City , which is apparently the longest written work he ever produced, and the trip to Quebec was the only time he ever came to Canada. However, there are some nice little observations in there, and some great drawings the man himself drew to accompany the work, so I will at least skim through it, and compare my trip to his. Unfortunately, we're only going for the weekend, so I won't be able to visit all the places he did, but fingers crossed I'll find some of them.

I came across this whilst on another google search of all things Lovecraft and Mthos in Montreal. Indeed, I am surprised I haven't chanced acros it before. Based in Montreal is The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies. The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies is a non-profit, community-based curriculum through which established horror writers, directors, scholars and programmers/curators celebrate horror history and culture while helping enthusiastic fans of the genre to gain a critical perspective. One reason I may not have come across them previously is that my recent searches on the Montreal Mythos have not been concerned solely with the 1920-30s. The second reason is that the Institute itself has only existed since 2010. Mostly it seems to be a forum for discussion of the Horror genre in film, however, there is an uncoming course/event running for 5 weeks called H.P. Lovecraft – From Cosmic Horror to Heavy Metal  that I am seriously considering going along to. So w...

  Merry Christmas to you all. For something a little festive, may I suggest the H.P.Podcraft's reading s of H.P.L.s Christmas poetry. Set one , set two and set three .    As for me, I have a bunch of posts lined up for the new year. I hope to use the next couple of weeks off to make some headway.  Here's to a mysterious 2014.

Follow t his link to the BBC radio's version of At the Mountains of Madness, read by Richard Coyle. This will open in BBC's iPlayer, so be ready to be in the UK, or somehow fool the internet into thinking you are. Thanks to Craig Oxbrow for the heads up.

The dream quest of unknown Kadath was one of HPL's longer works of fiction, and gives a great deal on insight into the man himself (it's no secret Randolph Carter is HPL's Mary Sue). The very reasoning behind the Dreamworlds in my opinion makes it difficult, if not unrealistic, to map, however, a guy called Jason Thompson  has given it a good go  for his new graphic novel. One of the things I’ve been working on for the Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath graphic novel is a map of the Dreamlands, as described in Dream-Quest and other Lovecraft stories. The results which will appear in the book are here , or here if you want a closer to full-size version.