H.P. Lovecraft: Still rocking eldritch non-Euclidean geometries from beyond Time
The writer H.P. Lovecraft died 70 years ago last Thursday (the Ides of March), becoming more famous posthumously than he was in life. This is tragic, because I know a lot of people who would have given him their spare bedroom and taken him out to lunch every day of the week, were he still alive, because that is the way Hollywood is.His native Providence, by contrast, is cold and heartless; just look at its strip clubs.
Lovecraft, like his contemporary J.R.R. Tolkien, created an immense body of work about a vividly-realized world, using language removed from the time their books were written. Tolkien lived to see his fame, whereas Lovecraft's fans saved up to buy him a headstone 40 years after his death (the epitaph reads "I am Providence.")
Among my prized possessions is a memento from my friend Paul's wedding. For services rendered (it wasn't Prima Nocta, sadly) he gave me a Swiss Army Knife from Miskatonic University.
One of America's greatest art forms is the Jack Chick tract parody. Here is one detailing what to do when Cthulhu comes back:
Here is the showstopper from my play, the Lovecraft-inspired "The Evil Horror of Madness"
In the cold grey wastes of madness
In the putrid depths of time
I will study evil Beings
Until I go insane
Behold the sentient rhombus
Behold the lum’nous gas
Of all that is unwholesome
Until I go insane
I'm in Love with an Incomprehensibly Evil Being
It's allright
It's allright
I'm in Love with an Incomprehensibly Evil Being
It's all I need tonight, yeah
When the fires scorch the chimneys
When the maggots eat my brain
In the realm of undead children
Until I go insane
Behold the crumbling altars
Of elder gods and cruel
I will quaff the nasty goblet
Until I go insane
I'm in Love with an Incomprehensibly Evil Being
It's allright
It's allright
I'm in Love with an Incomprehensibly Evil Being
It's all I need tonight, yeah
We do our best to remember H.P. Lovecraft around our house. Our daughter keeps Cthulhu as a pet, and her favorite doll is named Brown Jenkin (read about Brown Jenkin and "The Rats in the Walls" here thanks to public domain-loving Australia).See also: H.P. Lovecraft (Wikipedia); The H.P. Lovecraft Archive
Labels: geekery
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by Marty Barrett at Tuesday, March 20, 2007
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