No.39035 [View All]
In this thread: anything and everything related to the father of modern horror.
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No.48589
>>48587
It's pretty funny. At first glance, it looks like common items, but the low image quality prevents a single item from being identifiable.
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No.48597
>>48587
isnt that that NEET japanese lady that livestreams her life?
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No.48610
>>48587
It feels like it was made by a newly-made low-trained neural network. Seems like common and recognizable stuff at first, but it's actually a mess that can be seen if you analyze it for more than a second.
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No.48612
>>48610
I actually thought it could be too. Those plastic bag things on the right almost resemble animal heads, much like the Google Dreaming or whatever it was called.
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No.48616
>>48587
>>48610
>>48612
Looks like some AI program used to create deepfakes of humans was set to make random nonsense out of every day objects.
Creepy website uses AI to create 'deepfake' photos of humans who don't exist | Daily Mail Online: http://archive.vn/t4yj0
https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/
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No.48617
>>48616
I wonder if this program could be used to make unsettling monsters/environments for horror movies…
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No.48621
>>48617
It could be used to generate creepypasta pics, using normal photos AND "legit" pics of spooks as its reference material. I checked StyleGAN on github and it seems you'd need some good hardware (something I don't gave, but what about YOU, the anon reading this?) to mess around with it after you finish the coding adjustments.
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No.51660
>>45318
>Now that you've come of age, son, I think it's time your old dad let you in on our little family curse
That's too specific of a situation to be a coincidence tbh, the guy had to have come in contact with Shadows over Innsmouth at least once.
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No.51663
>>48445
Mysterious 5 on Youtube uses mysteriousuniverse as a source to make videos.
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No.52659
>>39036
>post from 1 year ago
We should still stream movies based on his work laddos. Its almost august now.
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No.52664
>>52659
Agreed! Our past horror movie marathons have been a lot of fun. I'm gonna come up with a list of possible movies for this event, but I'm open to suggestions as well.
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No.52829
Anyone got issue 33 of Lovecraft Studies from 1995? The Mega folder in this thread does contain several issues (9-21).
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No.52835
>>52829
Why are you looking for that issue in particular?
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No.52844
>>52835
There is an article in it by Will Murray on Foxfield, as well as a reproduction of the map of the town HPL drew printed on the back cover of that issue. That article was also published in Dissecting Cthulhu: Essays on the Cthulhu Mythos: http://www.hplovecraft.com/study/litcrit/dc.aspx
Here is the entry in An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia:
<Foxfield.
<Fictitious town in Massachusetts invented by HPL, although never cited in any story. A “Plan of Foxfield—for possible fictional use” in HPL’s handwriting survives in AHT; it indicates that Foxfield is east of Aylesbury and Dunwich and northwest of Arkham.
<See Will Murray, “Where Was Foxfield?” LSNo. 33 (Fall 1995): 18–23 (the back cover prints a reconstruction of HPL’s map).
The only matches are a few blogposts mentioning the article in LS & Dissecting Cthulhu: http://web.archive.org/web/20190515194039/https://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2012/03/derleth-and-mythos.html
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No.52846
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No.52881
>>52846
>no mouth of madness
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No.52882
>>52881
I am more saddened by the omission of Caltiki, the Immortal Monster and The Last Wave tbh.
Also, I watched the 2013 adaptation of Cool Air the other night, and I am still baffled how this got a DVD release. It is nothing more than an amateur film you’d expect you see on a short film festival dedicated to HPL, but padded out ad nauseam. The protagonist narrates 80% of the story, and it would have been better to get a proper narrator and release it as an audiobook.
This film also has the dubious honour of having the longest end credits sequence in recorded history. The total running time is 1 hour, 17 mins and 48 secs, but the amount of padding is ridiculous! The film opens with a 6(!) minute opening credits sequence which also contains several quotes and text going into the background of the story. Then, after six agonising minutes the film finally begins proper. The film then ends at the 1 hour 9 minute mark, so the viewer can now look forward to 7 minutes and 38 seconds of end credits. Never before have I seen end credits move this slowly. I am absolutely certain this was done to pad out the film’s running time so that it could be released as a feature film.
The acting was as bad as you might expect from an amateur short film project like this, the CGI special effects are bad, but not too overexposed I guess.
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No.52883
>>52881
I tried to make it a mix of 'must watch' movies along with 'obscure gems.' In the Mouth of Madness is definitely a 'must watch' for Lovecraft fans, but in my humble opinion it's overrated, so I figured we could skip it this time. If there's demand for it I'll put it on the list though.
>>52882
Never heard of Caltiki, to be honest. From the trailer, it looks like a Blob knock-off but instead of the monster coming from space, it's an 'ancient evil' type of thing. No offense if it's a favorite of yours, but what's so great about it that you feel saddened by its omission?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44brFG1GSeA (Kaltiki trailer)
The Last Wave seems promising. Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKvuUDBHipE
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No.52885
>>52883
>what's so great about it that you feel saddened by its omission?
I suggested it in the current HPL thread over at /v/ as well, and included this quote from Tim Lucas on the audio commentary track: “There is actually some extra dimension to the story, hinted at in the main title’s annotation, which say ‘based on a popular ancient Mexican legend’. The kind of meta-textual framing that was typical of Bava’s favourite writer, H. P. Lovecraft. … Caltiki is not only Lovecraftian, in its formlessness, but in its ancientness, in its history as an object of worship by a lost civilization that shed blood in its name. And that reference to a wholly fictitious legend seals the deal.”
/v/ - Lovecraft games: >>>/v/16579183
The Last Wave is S. T. Joshi’s favourite Lovecraftian film, I’ve been told.
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No.53035
>>39038
'Dog Soldiers – after special forces go MIA in British forest, regular grunts are sent in with an undercover advisor to retrieve assets – assets which ate the last teams, an may even be in their mists – Best practical effect werewolves in film, ever.
The Element of Crime – sepia-noir in, say, the exclusion zone of a pre-Blae Runner post-apocalyptic future Europe ravage by an unnamed cataclysm. Identity crisis in a detective over-committed to method acting his serial killer prey.
Horse Head – A lower budget French Cure for Wellness that does certain things much better than the latter. Sins of the mother, visited upon an prodigal daughter.
Solaris – the sentient planet bit
They Live! – nightmare goggles meme's inception
Videodrome – 80's analogue deep web, elite deviance underground, gang-stalking
Eyes Wide Shut – when Cruise walks into the cafe, he is frame by Egyptian Ram of Mendes horns (very specific motif); the Finnegan's Wake of occult steganography in film.
Blackcoat's Daughter – a curse film
Killing of a Sacred Deer – an even more monstrous curse film
>>39047
>The Black Rainbow had interesting visuals but I felt it lacked substance
Took it as a black project (Paperclip Nazis) mind control 'tone poem', so to speak. The tract housing at the end reminded me of Twin Peaks S3 on recent rewatches, an the Arborea Institute and time (1983) makes it a great ~mixtape prequel to the mad government MKLUTRA scientist(s) Stranger Things. Carruth's Upstream Colour gives the same impression more satisfactorily from a narrative standpoint (similar min control/entrainment/unethical tests), with the music being the real thematic glue over large dialogue barren swathes of us observing the characters, like proctors to the experiment almost.
>>39916
>A beast they wrought, in semi-human figure,
pic related
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No.54019
Came across this interesting entry on superstition and belief in witchcraft in Rhode Island in ‘Notes & Queries’ 7th S. VII. June 1, ’89: https://archive.org/details/s7notesqueries07londuoft/page/426
<Sᴜᴘᴇʀꜱᴛɪᴏɴ ɪɴ Rʜᴏᴅᴇ Iꜱʟᴀɴᴅ. — There is apparently a large survival of folk-lore in some of the New England states. A correspondent, writing from Gloucester, Rhode Island, to the New York Tribune, April 7, gives this interesting account of a district where the belief in witches and wizards still flourishes: —
<“This wild, wooded, and rock-ribbed region, less than a day’s journey from Gen. Putnam’s historic wolf den, in North-Eastern Connecticut, is full of superstition. It is one of the queerest of localities. In the centre of Gloucester lies Ponagansett Lake, and all about the shores of this lake are the dwellings of a hale and hearty people, who make this country, far from the busy haunts of men, a veritable wonderland of legend and reminiscence. The old men delight in telling ghost stories, and the young people like to listen. Gloucester lies on the crooked old Indian trail which ran between Connecticut and the Providence Plantations.
<“For generations back the Gloucester farmers have believed in wizardry. They will do much of their work only during the full of the moon. Otherwise they would expect to die or to have very bad luck. Planting must not be done until the signs of the zodiac are propitious, and gardens must never be ploughed on Fridays. Even a tooth must not be pulled unless the stars are right; if it is, it will come hard and cause great suffering.
<“Pork, if killed during the small of the moon, will shrink to nothing in cooking, while that butchered at the full of the moon will continue with and firm. To ensure luck in the mangement of domestic animals the sign of the zodiac must be in the leg. The wishbones of all fowls are preserved on sticks. Some families keep hundreds on hand all the time. When the zodiacal sign is in the head, then the Gloucester people believe one can do the most at catching pickerel and can hook the biggest fish. Hence the almanac hung by the kitchen fireplace in all Gloucester houses is a thing the settlers could not live without. Its study, if one would reap good harvests, ‘catch’ good clamming tides, and avoid misfortune, is imperative.
<“These people also believe that if you take up a black snake and bit it your teeth will never decay; that if the nails are pared on Friday toothache will be prevented, and that a child born in the heat of the day can see into the future, and will be exempt from influences of witchcraft. A ship that has such a one on board they say will never sink.
<“Perhaps the most curious belief still haunting these hearthstones of interior Rhode Island is that relating to the character of the little fish in Ponagansett reservoir. This pond is the source of the Pawtuxet river, which flows easterly into Narragansett Bay, and years before the building of the dam across the outlet of the lake, herring from the salt sea used to swim up the stream to the shoal waters of the lake to spawn. The old settlers who have lived about the lake all their lives aver that the shiners which now glisten in its crystal waters are naught else but the degenerate descendants of the herring race, and show the same characteristics. One of ‘the Bowen boys’ at the lake frequently says that ‘my father used to say there was no shiners before any d—d dams was built to fence out the herrin’s.’”
I find it interesting that this article uses the phrase “the stars are right”, talks about belief in witchcraft and wizardry, and the effect of a new water reservoir. Lovecraft mentions several times the superstitious folk of backwaters New England, and this article makes it seem like the belief in witchcraft in New England was still common as late as the late 1880s.
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No.54027
“When the stars were right, [The Great Old Ones] could plunge from world to world through the sky; but when the stars were wrong, They could not live. But although They no longer lived, They would never really die.”
— “The Call of Cthulhu” by H. P. Lovecraft (http://archive.vn/UlKqG)
Lovecraft was a keenly interested in science, in particular astronomy & chemistry. He wrote extensively on astronomy, and even published science magazines (http://hplovecraft.com/writings/science/), so did he have exceedingly rare astronomical event in mind when he wrote “The Call of Cthulhu”? Throughout the story there are allusions to a time “when the stars are right” for the Great Old Ones to reawaken and once more reign on earth.
A (somewhat) recent scientific paper puts forth a novel new theory in response to the Fermi paradox (http://archive.vn/Kv9cz) called “the Aestivation hypothesis”:
<Maybe we are not seeing alien civilizations because they are all rationally “sleeping” in the current early cosmological era, waiting for a remote future when it is more favourable to exploit the resources of the universe.
The Aestivation hypothesis: popular outline and FAQ | Andart II: http://archive.vn/hlQIV
[1705.03394] That is not dead which can eternal lie: the aestivation hypothesis for resolving Fermi's paradox: http://archive.vn/ZIXmE
At the same time the events leading up to Cthulhu’s awakening; a collapse of society, when humanity acts as “the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy.” This sounds just like the age of darkness, Kali Yuga, in Hinduism, and Ragnarǫk in Norse mythology/Heathenry.
<The Yuga Cycle doctrine tells us that we are now living in the Kali Yuga; the age of darkness, when moral virtue and mental capabilities reach their lowest point in the cycle. The Indian epic The Mahabharata describes the Kali Yuga as the period when the “World Soul” is Black in hue; only one quarter of virtue remains, which slowly dwindles to zero at the end of the Kali Yuga. Men turn to wickedness; disease, lethargy, anger, natural calamities, anguish and fear of scarcity dominate. Penance, sacrifices and religious observances fall into disuse. All creatures degenerate. Change pass over all things, without exception.
The end of the Kali Yuga in 2025: Unraveling the mysteries of the Yuga Cycle - Graham Hancock Official Website: http://archive.vn/mCaY0
Are there any articles on a possible astronomical event Lovecraft could have had in mind for the time “when the stars are right”? If the stars indeed were “right” in the spring of 1925, when would the stars be “right” again?
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No.54033
>>39916
>and called the thing a Nigger.
The way the rest of the poem is written so eloquently, and this part so bluntly really points to his dislike of them. You can sense him gripping his pencil tighter as he wrote it and thought about niggers.
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No.54035
>>39035
I have recently bought pic related containing all of lovecraft's works. the picture itself is not my own as the book itself is at home which i currently am not at. I am planning to read it soon and i am sure it will be a wild ride, can any anons tell me which stories will be the best in your opinion? I will also be planning to get the yellow king collection eventually.
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No.54041
>>54035
I’d recommend these stories for someone unfamiliar with Lovecraft:
* “From Beyond” – very underrated story which nicely introduces readers to the core ideas of cosmic horror
* “The Colour Out of Space” – another great start-off point; doesn’t require any prior knowledge of the overall characters/entities/places
* “The Rats in the Walls” – very good and eerie modern Gothic horror with elements of cosmic horror
* “The Call of Cthulhu” – by far his most well-known story & creation; get the feeling some consider this story to be overrated, but I find it quite good, and it is a very good introduction to his stories that deal with cosmic horror
* “The Horror at Red Hook” – IMHO one of the more underrated stories, & certainly his most derided one by normalfags, who decry it for being “racist”. It works well at introducing the idea of a worldwide, ancient cult or religion with very sinister ideas, and that even if their beliefs are erroneous, they are more than willing to act out untold atrocities because of these beliefs.
* “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” – introduces some of the larger ideas, and the atmosphere is very eerie. The scenes in Innsmouth are superb. It was written after “At the Mountains of Madness”, & at one point a character mentions “shoggoths”, who first appeared in that story. That mention is less than optimal for someone just starting reading Lovecraft, or someone who hasn’t read AtMoM, but it shouldn’t prevent anyone from reading it before that story.
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No.54045
>>54041
Thank you anon, i will be looking forward to reading these.
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No.54051
>>54045
Threw out the idea of a Lovecraft Book Club over at /lit/; it could be interesting to go thru the stories with other anons and see their take on them, and discuss the stories and themes in great depth – I don’t think the guys who run the H. P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast came close to doing his work justice when they covered them. Far too cucked and cowardly to discuss certain things/themes that often are at the core of his stories.
Anyone here that would partake in this?
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No.54054
>>54051
I will when i have enough free time but at the moment i am unfortunately busy.
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No.54084
‘Game Of Thrones’ Duo David Benioff & D.B. Weiss Set HP Lovecraft Thriller Film At Warner Bros: http://archive.vn/BlMTq
“You may live to see man-made horrors beyond your comprehension.”
— Nikola Tesla
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No.54117
>>54041
Blump.
Excellent primer. After that, it's beyond the black rainbow, as it were.
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No.54129
>>54117
Indeed! Is this just a strange coincidence? A chance encounter with a fellow connoisseur of cosmic horror кино, or are you a fellow poppy seed?
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No.54245
The Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath is very commonly slept on in terms of Lovecraft's works. Although, I wouldn't suggest listening to it until you've read some of the other stories set around the mad arab or the old world, it's definitely my favorite story of his. It sheds so much light upon Lovecraft's dream lands as well as the old world that he describes in some of his other works.
I'd strongly recommend it to anyone who hasn't read it already.
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No.54313
>>48597
Might be thinking of Chipchan, think she's Korean.
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No.58588
In Robert M. Price’s “Crypt of Cthulhu” №. 22 there is an article titled “John Buchan: A Possible Influence on Lovecraft” written by by Sam Moskowitz: https://archive.org/details/Crypt_of_Cthulhu_022_v03n06_Roodmas_1984/page/n13/mode/2up
John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir was a Scottish novelist, historian and politician, best known for his 1915 novel “The Thirty-Nine Steps”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Buchan
He wrote a collection of short-stories in 1902 titled “The Watcher at the Threshold”, so August Derleth must also have been familiar with Buchanan, since he wrote a posthumous 1945 “collaboration” with Lovecraft titled “The Lurker at the Threshold”. According to S. T. Joshi 1200 of the 50.000 words in the finished “collaboration” were written by Lovecraft.
The article quotes an excerpt from Lovecraft’s essay “Supernatural Horror in Literature”:
<In the novel Witch Wood John Buchan depicts with tremendous force a survival of the evil Sabbat in a lonely district of Scotland. The description of the black forest with the evil stone, and of the terrible cosmic adumbrations when the horror is finally extripated, will repay one for wading though the very gradual action and plenthora of Scottish dialect. Some of Mr. Buchan’s short stories are also very vivid in their spectral intimations; “The Green Wildebeest”, a tale of African witchcraft, “The Wind in the Portico”, with its awakening of dead Britanno-Roman horrors, and “Skule Skerry”, with its touches of sub-arctic fright, being especially remarkable.
"Supernatural Horror in Literature" by H. P. Lovecraft: http://archive.vn/tV3C4 / http://web.archive.org/web/20200718004720/https://hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/essays/shil.aspx
The Wind in the Portico: http://archive.vn/8KTgl#c04 / http://web.archive.org/web/20200629160039/http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0301381h.html#c04
Sidonius in Clubland: John Buchan’s ‘The Wind in the Portico’ – Sidonius in Antiquity and Modernity: http://archive.vn/HQVsC / http://web.archive.org/web/20200123234213/http://research.shca.ed.ac.uk/sidonius/2016/06/10/sidonius-in-clubland/
Skule Skerry: http://archive.vn/8KTgl#c09 / http://web.archive.org/web/20200629160039/http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0301381h.html#c09
Orkneyjar - The Selkie Folk of Orkney Folklore: http://archive.vn/6XwK
The Grove of Ashtaroth by John Buchan: https://web.archive.org/web/20120414141659/https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/b/buchan/john/grove_of_ashtaroth/index.html
The Grove of Ashtaroth by John Buchan: https://archive.org/details/blackwoodsmagazi187edinuoft/page/802/mode/2up
Witch Wood by John Buchan: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.201849/page/n11/mode/2up
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No.58857
This is out on Netflix right now.
>Nicholas Cage
>Nicholas Cage speaking with Trump's speech mannerisms because he's dying to return to real acting
>Hideous creature from beyond time and space known as Joely Richardson plays the wife
>Some amazing visuals
>Some really, really gross shit that would have made Lovecraft kill himself
>Characters who earn and deserve literally none of our sympathy
>Nicholas Cage
The body horror in this movie would make David Cronenberg and Clive Barker give up and open a bakery together. Also, the mysterious color is magenta, which, frankly, is disappointing. Also, additions of witchcraft bullshit that adds nothing to the story.
Captcha: Yawntp. Boring toilet paper.
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No.58863
YouTube embed. Click thumbnail to play.
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No.59238
>>58857
Was sorta looking forward to this, especially after seeing Cage in Mandy, where he was brilliant, but the more I read about the director, the less interest I had in the film. Then the trailer hit and I was done; not even gonna watch this one.
Sadly the director is planning a trilogy of films, and he is suffering from white guilt and TDS. On top of the absolutely awful-looking Lovecraft Country, these films will taint the good name of Lovecraft and could end up emboldening/empowering deranged leftists to hijack the Mythos even further.
Two Barbara Crampton Lovecraft films coming up though; a remake of the 1995 Castle Freak by Stuart Gordon, now with full-on Lovecraftian references, and a wholly original story, Sacrifice, which blends folk horror and Lovecraftian cosmic horror.
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No.59264
Anyone got Weird Realism: Lovecraft and Philosophy by Graham Harman? It is not in the Mega Lovecraft Material collection: >>47704
https://www.hplovecraft.com/study/litcrit/wrlp.aspx
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No.59418
Let’s talk about the Elder Sign… I much prefer the Elder Sign Lovecraft came up with rather than the clichéd and blatantly occult eye and star symbol Derleth made. Derleth’s symbol looks cheesy and so blatantly sinister and occult, rather than some ancient runic or hieroglyphic symbol that might have originated with an alien culture.
In The Shadow Over Innsmouth (1931) Allen says:
<In some places they was little stones strewed abaout – like charms – with somethin’ on ’em like what ye call a swastika naowadays. Prob’ly them was the Old Ones’ signs.
"The Shadow over Innsmouth" by H. P. Lovecraft: https://archive.vn/uIp1k / https://web.archive.org/web/20201208090745/https://hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/soi.aspx
Although it is referred to as the sign of the “Old Ones”, this must be the Elder Sign. However, in a letter to Clark Ashton Smith, dated 1930, he draws the now accepted Elder Sign.
In “The Haunter of the Dark” (November 1935) there is mention of what may be the Elder Sign as a handsign:
<On Federal Hill there were watchers as anxious as he, and rain-soaked knots of men paraded the square and alleys around the evil church with umbrella-shaded candles, electric flashlights, oil lanterns, crucifixes, and obscure charms of the many sorts common to southern Italy. They blessed each flash of lightning, and made cryptical signs of fear with their right hands when a turn in the storm caused the flashes to lessen and finally cease altogether.
"The Haunter of the Dark" by H. P. Lovecraft: https://archive.vn/XcZjD / https://web.archive.org/web/20201112020910/https://hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/hd.aspx
If I remember correctly S. T. Joshi hypothesises that this handsign was the Elder Sign in his annotated The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories.
Since life on earth was made by the Elder Things – perhaps they hardcoded the fear of this symbol into the DNA of their creations as a safety measure?
This explanation fits with Lovecraft’s materialist worldview, I think, better than what we could call “magic”, like a cross repelling a vampire for religious reasons. Science has now showed that fears and traumatic memories can be passed down through the generations, added to the genes as an evolutionary safety guard.
Fear of a smell can be passed down several generations | New Scientist: http://archive.vn/fwTIL / https://web.archive.org/web/20190414113324/https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24677-fear-of-a-smell-can-be-passed-down-several-generations/
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No.63070
Found the aforementioned map of Foxfield from Lovecraft Studies #33 (1995), HPL’s own hand drawn map of Arkham, and Will Murray’s map of the Miskatonic region from Lovecraft Studies #13 (Volume 5, Number 2 Fall 1986).
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No.63511
>>63070
Update: I found HPL’s hand drawn sketch map of Foxfield quite by chance included in the manuscript of The Dreams in the Witch-House at Brown University’s Digital Repository: https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:425235/
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No.64165
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No.64353
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No.64666
All the issues of Lovecraft Studies currently on The Internet Archive:
Lovecraft Studies 8 (Volume III, № 1 Spring 1984): https://archive.org/details/lovecraft-studies-8
Lovecraft Studies 9 (Volume III, № 2 Fall 1984): https://archive.org/details/Lovecraft_Studies_09v03n02_1984-Fall_CosmicJukebox
Lovecraft Studies 10 (Volume IV, № 1 Spring 1985): https://archive.org/details/Lovecraft_Studies_10v04n01_1985-Spring_CosmicJukebox/mode/2up
Lovecraft Studies 11 (Volume IV, № 2 Fall 1985): https://archive.org/details/Lovecraft_Studies_11v04n02_1985-Fall_CosmicJukebox/mode/2up
Lovecraft Studies 12 (Volume 5, № 1 Spring 1986): https://archive.org/details/Lovecraft_Studies_12v05n01_1986-Spring_CosmicJukebox/mode/2up
Lovecraft Studies 13 (Volume 5, Number 2 Fall 1986): https://archive.org/details/Lovecraft_Studies_13v05n02_1986-Fall_CosmicJukebox/mode/2up
Lovecraft Studies 14 (Volume 6, Number 1 Spring 1987): https://archive.org/details/Lovecraft_Studies_14v06n01_1987-Spring_CosmicJukebox/mode/2up
Lovecraft Studies 15 (Volume 6, Number 2 Fall 1987): https://archive.org/details/Lovecraft_Studies_15v06n02_1987-Fall_CosmicJukebox/mode/2up
Lovecraft Studies 16 (Volume 7, Number 1 Spring 1988): https://archive.org/details/Lovecraft_Studies_16v07n01_1988-Spring_CosmicJukebox/mode/2up
Lovecraft Studies 17 (Volume 7, Number 2 Fall 1988): https://archive.org/details/Lovecraft_Studies_17v07n02_1988-Fall_CosmicJukebox/mode/2up
Lovecraft Studies 18 (Volume 8, Number 1 Spring 1989): https://archive.org/details/Lovecraft_Studies_18v08n01_1989-Spring_CosmicJukebox/mode/2up
Lovecraft Studies 19/20 (Fall 1989): https://archive.org/details/Lovecraft_Studies_19-20_1989-Fall_CosmicJukebox/mode/2up
Lovecraft Studies 21 (Spring 1990): https://archive.org/details/Lovecraft_Studies_21_1990-Spring_CosmicJukebox/mode/2up
By far the best podcast is Robert M. Price’s The Lovecraft Geek. It has been a while since the last episode, but there is a huge backlog of episodes to go through.
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No.64752
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No.64778
>>64752
Cheers! Got a bunch of links and notes that could be of interest to others; some of it I had saved for a /lit/ book club, other notes I had intended to leave as comments on the Tentaclii blog (https://jurn.link/tentaclii/).
Commonplace and Trivial: http://archive.is/KXhcc / http://web.archive.org/web/20150201001037/http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~cje/mythos/cb.html
This is the only serious source examining HPL’s commonplace book. Some of these ideas he later worked into stories, a few other writers in the literary circle used, and most are unused but interesting to look into and maybe develop into stories.
Entry #22 in the commonplace book (dated 1918? or 1919?) goes: “Mermaid Legend—Encyc. Britt. XVI—40.”
Lovecraft famously used the ninth edition of Encyclopædia Britannica to research elements for his stories.
Here is page 40 of the sixteenth volume of the ninth edition of Encyclopædia Britannica: https://archive.org/details/encyclopaedia-britannica-9ed-1875/Vol%2016%20%28MEN-MOS%29%20193479089.23/page/40/mode/2up
The article on mermaids/mermen begins on the previous page, 39, and mentions Dagon. Lovecraft wrote the short story Dagon in July 1917. During the summer of 1926 he wrote The Call of Cthulhu which shares many similarities with Dagon. He wrote The Shadow over Innsmouth from ca. November to 3 December 1931, in which Dagon and Mother Hydra are mentioned and their degenerate cult is called the Esoteric Order of Dagon.
The entry on Dagon in Encyclopædia Britannica, ninth edition, VI page 761: https://archive.org/details/encyclopaedia-britannica-9ed-1875/Vol%206%20%28CLI-DAY%29%20193819109.23/page/760/mode/2up
No entry on Atargatis in the ninth edition of EB, but the name and the description of her followers, effeminate crossing-dressing priests who would mutilate and castrate themselves, on Wikipedia is too close to the hermaphroditic goddess Agdistis/Atys/Cybele/Kybele AKA Magna Mater for it to be a coincidence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atargatis#Priesthood
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybele
https://www.theoi.com/Phrygios/Kybele.html
https://www.theoi.com/Phrygios/Agdistis.html
Magna Mater is mentioned by HPL in The Rats in the Walls, where a cult has survived in secret as a debased and degenerate cult of cannibals.
If I remember correctly the Catholic Church lifted the hat of the pope, mitre, from Dagon. Compare the papal mitre to the headgear worn by Dagon in ancient depictions. The pope also wears a gold ring called the Ring of the Fisherman.
CYBELE, or Rʜᴇᴀ Cʏʙᴇʟᴇ in Encyclopædia Britannica, ninth edition: https://archive.org/details/encyclopaedia-britannica-9ed-1875/Vol%206%20%28CLI-DAY%29%20193819109.23/page/744/mode/2up
ATYS, Aᴛᴛɪꜱ, or Aᴛᴛᴇꜱ in Encyclopædia Britannica, ninth edition: https://archive.org/details/encyclopaedia-britannica-9ed-1875/Vol%203%20%28Athens-BOI%29%20193639017.23/page/64/mode/2up
Even more interesting is the presence of Dagon in puritan/colonial New England. In addition to the May Pole debacle and the place-name Mount Dagon (Merrymount), there are certain old gravestones with Cthulhu/cephalopods decorations known as Dagons.
Why is Cthulhu on this 300-year-old gravestone?: https://archive.ph/SuVEt / http://web.archive.org/web/20101129210038/http://io9.com/5699875/why-is-cthulhu-on-this-300+year+old-gravestone
The mystery of “J.N.” | Tentaclii: https://archive.ph/PVBJc / https://web.archive.org/web/20241004212126/https://jurn.link/tentaclii/index.php/2010/12/02/the-mystery-of-j-n/
Dagon in Puritan Massachusetts by Will Murray in Lovecraft Studies 11 (Volume IV, № 2 Fall 1985): https://archive.org/details/Lovecraft_Studies_11v04n02_1985-Fall_CosmicJukebox/mode/2up
NEW ENGLAND FOLKLORE: Thomas Morton and the Maypole of Merrymount: https://archive.ph/5lgqN / https://web.archive.org/web/20250220013757/https://newenglandfolklore.blogspot.com/2010/05/thomas-morton-and-maypole-of-merrymout.html
The other day I came across, quite by chance, the 2024 film The Little Mermaid. Although based on the fairytale by H. C. Andersen, it amps up the horror and it seems like they are also taking influence from Lovecraft.
The Little Mermaid (2024) Official Trailer - Mike Markoff, Lydia Helen: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=O1dfTzpfXdo
https://www.fangoria.com/the-little-mermaid-horror-movie/
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No.66495
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No.66517
Lovecraft's cosmic horror is about the terror of being insignificant before vast forces. Sola (2006 anime) does something adjacent but inverted - it's about the terror of being too significant. Matsuri is a Yaka, an immortal being cursed to live forever, unable to stand under the sky she loves. Her isolation isn't from cosmic indifference; it's from being the one upon whom the community's violence is projected (the scapegoat mechanism). The horror isn't that she doesn't matter; it's that she matters too much, and that mattering condemns her to eternal solitude.
Full analysis here: https://interpretatingculture.substack.com/p/sola
What other works invert Lovecraft's cosmic indifference into something more intimate?
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No.66615
Some notes I have collected about the locations in Lovecraft’s works, commonly called Lovecraft Country, or the Miskatonic region (by S. T. Joshi). It is probably impossible to find all the corresponding locations HPL had in mind, but it has been fun trying to play detective. One clue to identifying some of the locations might be to look at the real life towns HPL does not mention in his stories and poems. Amesbury, Rockport, Manchester-by-the-Sea, are not mentioned, so perhaps they are identical with HPL’s own locations – Aylesbury, Kingsport, Arkham, &c.
Arkham – Will Murray has an interesting article titled In Search of Arkham Country in Lovecraft Studies #13 (Volume 5, Number 2, Fall 1986) where he suggests that HPL originally had Arkham identified with Oakham in his stories before 1931. In a letter to F. Lee Baldwin dated 29 April 1934 HPL writes that “My mental picture of Arkham is of a town something like Salem in atmosphere & style of houses, but more hilly (Salem is flat except for Gallows Hill, which is outside the town proper) & with a college (which Salem hasn’t). The street layout is nothing like Salem’s. As to the location of Arkham—I fancy I place the town & the imaginary Miskatonic somewhat north of Salem—perhaps near Manchester. My idea of the place is slightly in from the sea, but with deep water channel making it a port.” — HPL to F. Lee Baldwin, 29 April 1934: https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:424600/
The IRL Quabbin Reservoir is undoubtedly the inspiration for the Arkham reservoir mentioned in The Colour Out of Space, and is the primary water supply for Boston, sixty-five miles to the east. It is unlikely the Arkham water reservoir is located very near the city of Arkham as it is claimed in Atlas Lovecraft (2025) by Laurent Gontier & Alain T. Puysségur. IMHO the planned reservoir is at least as far west as Chebacco Lake/Manchester Watershed, or the Putnamville Reservoir or likely beyond that even. Stanza VIII – The Port – of Fungi from Yuggoth states that “Ten miles from Arkham I had struck the trail / That rides the cliff-edge over Boynton Beach, / And hoped that just at sunset I could reach / The crest that looks on Innsmouth in the vale.” https://cthulhufiles.com/arkham.htm
Amesbury – HPL writes about his visit to the town (& Newberyport) in a letter dated May 1923: https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:423599/
He does not mention any witchy folklore associated with Amesbury but the WPA’s 1937 guidebook Massachusetts: A Guide to its Places and People mentions witches and their meeting place in town, Barrow Hill, perhaps identical with the presently named Powwow Hill: https://archive.org/details/massachusettsgui00unse/page/508/mode/2up
“Left on this road is a shrub-concealed boulder marking the Site of the Home of Susanna Martin, better known as Goody Martin, a famous Amesbury witch, tried, convicted, and sentenced to hang at Salem in 1693. The story goes that on the scaffold she uttered incantations which caused the rope to wriggle and dance about so that the hangman could not tie the knot, till a crow, flying overhead, cawed down the advice to try a noose of willow with. When this was done, the execution was successfully completed.” Susannah Martin (née North) was executed 19 July 1692 according to Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susannah_Martin?useskin=vector
The guidebook goes on to say that “Amesbury was especially favored by the powers of darkness. Goody Whitcher was another town witch, whose loom kept banging day and night even after she was dead. […] In the early years, too, Barrow Hill was the scene of witches’ routs. Late at night the light of their fires could be plainly seen on its top, as shadowy forms danced and sailed around its summit in the eerie glare.” This scene of the gathering place is mirrored in an entry in HPL’s commonplace book dated 1922(?): [#]96 Unknown fires seen across the hills at night.
Goody Whitcher was perhaps the inspiration for Goody Watkins who appears in stanza XII – The Howler – of HPL’s long poem Fungi from Yuggoth, written 27 December 1929 to 4 January 1930. This Goody Watkins was hanged in 1704 and “left a certain monstrous aftermath.” The narrator hears “faint howls, as from a room upstairs”, and sees a glimpse of a “four-pawed thing with human face.” This is very reminiscent of Keziah Mason, the witch in the story Dreams in the Witch-House, and her familiar Brown Jenkin. The setting for this stanza is a village called Zoar and the narrator takes the “Briggs’ Hill path” although being warned not to do so. This could be the tiny village of Zoar, MA.,with a former train station, as there is a town named Briggsville to its northwest. HPL’s Dunwich must also be in the northwestern part of the state as he mentions the Pocumtucs in The Dunwich Horror.
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No.66616
Aylesbury – probably west of Dunwich, & located in the northwestern corner of Massachusetts. Stanza VII – Zaman’s Hill – of Fungi from Yuggoth states that a great hill called Zaman’s Hill hung close over an old town, and that when the village suddenly vanished overnight, people from Aylesbury came “to stare”. In stanza XXVI – The Familiars – it is mentioned that Aylesbury has a “town farm”, a kind of madhouse or sanitorium. John Whateley “lived about a mile from [Aylesbury]” and dabbled in the occult; when three men from the “town farm” came to fetch him he was found talking to “two crouching things” who “flew off on great black wings” – night-gaunts?
Dunwich – HPL writes ti August Derleth 4 August 1928 that the story The Dunwich Horror “takes place amongst the wild domed hills of the upper Miskatonic Valley, far northwest of Arkham…” In a letter to Clark Ashton Smith dated 31 August 1928 HPL says the story “belongs to the Arkham cycle.” There is a small village named Whately just south of Deerfield – perhaps connected to the Whately family in The Dunwich Horror. Dunwich was perhaps one of the towns/villages submerged by the water reservoir mentioned in The Colour Out of Space as the town is not mentioned by HPL afterwards.
https://cthulhufiles.com/dunwich_map.htm – a marker from Zaman’s Hill reads “two miles to Dunwich” in The Ancient Track: https://cthulhufiles.com/stories/lovecraft/lovecraft-poem-the-ancient-track.html
Foxfield – not mentioned in any story/poem, but HPL has drawn a map of it. According to An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia “Foxfield is east of Aylesbury and Dunwich and northwest of Arkham.” Will Murray has an article titled “Where Was Foxfield?” in Lovecraft Studies #33 (Fall 1995).
Haverhill – Birthplace of the protagonist in The Shadow Out of Time, Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee, is “the son of Jonathan and Hannah (Wingate) Peaslee, both of wholesome old Haverhill stock.” His wife, Alice Keezar, is also from Haverhill.
Innsmouth – probably situated around Crane Breach. Beyond the salt marshes south of Innsmouth – Crane Wildlife Refuge – the road leads south to Arkham (Manchester-by-the-Sea).
Kingsport – Rockport? “At the hospital they told me I had been found half frozen in Kingsport Harbour at dawn, clinging to the drifting spar that that accident sent to save me. They told me I had taken the wrong fork of the hill road the night before, and fallen over the cliffs at Orange Point…” The Festival – in Marblehead there is a promontory named Peach’s Point. The church in The Festival is identical with the real life St. Michael’s Episcopal Church in Marblehead, and there is, according to Robert M. Price, a Frog Lane by the church, & likely the inspiration for St. Toad in stanza XXV – St. Toad’s – in Fungi from Yuggoth, though the spire of St. Toad’s is described as being black, while the church in The Festival is a “great white church” and with a “ghostly spire”. Gloucester is mentioned at least once, in The Horror at Martin’s Beach, so Rockport seems a likely candidate for the location of Kingsport, though the town is based on/inspired by Marblehead.
Martin’s Beach – only appears once, in The Horror at Martin’s Beach by HPL & his wife, Sonia. Captain James P. Orne of the fishing smack Alma of Gloucester sailed “south to the wealthy resort district of Martin’s Beach”. There is at least one hotel, the Wavecrest Inn. The small village of Magnolia is to the south of Gloucester and was a popular vacation destination where prominent families built holiday homes, mansions by the beach. Magnolia had a grand hotel called The Oceanside: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnolia,_Massachusetts
Zoar – perhaps identical with the real life Zoar in Massachusetts? Mentioned twice by HPL; once in stanza XII – The Howler – of Fungi from Yuggoth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoar,_Massachusetts?useskin=vector
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