Newsweek has a letter, written by Kurt Vonnegut and dated May 29, 1945, from a new collection of the late authors writings entitled Armageddon in Retrospect. The letter details his time as a P.O.W., which would become the basis for his most famous work: Slaughterhouse-Five; or, The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance With Death.
On about February 14th the Americans came over, followed by the R.A.F. Their combined labors killed 250,000 people in twenty-four hours and destroyed all of Dresden—possibly the world’s most beautiful city. But not me.
After that we were put to work carrying corpses from Air-Raid shelters; women, children, old men; dead from concussion, fire or suffocation. Civilians cursed us and threw rocks as we carried bodies to huge funeral pyres in the city.
Reading the letter in its entirety it was interesting to note that, even in his personal correspondences, he employed the repeating “tics” that can be called a hallmark of his work.
A BBC Radio documentary originally aired in 2006 covering the life and work of the late, great Howard Phillips Lovecraft; featuring interviews with Neil Gaiman, S.T. Joshi, Kelly Link, Peter Straub, China Mieville among others.
I remember a time when ads preaching the gospel of simply reading a book were relegated to the realm of antiquated laminated posters tacked up inside a school library. All of these posters were infused with a sense of false hyper-enthusiasm, the kind that adults employ constantly when interacting with adolescents, forgetting that kids are particularly adept at noticing when they’re being treated like mongoloid chimps.
It’s nice to see a quality piece of advertising for literature, even if the necessity of marketing for books makes me cringe. Click through to the larger image to get the full effect of the piece.
Ech’h-Pi-El Speaks is a short work written by Lovecraft and published in 1972 by Gerry de la Ree in a limited run of five hundred. The piece is just over three thousand words and, according to de la Ree, is the longest autobiographical piece by H.P.L. published; at least at the time. The illustrations were done by Virgil Finlay, who was a correspondent of Lovecraft shortly before his death, although the illustration on the right was only partially finished before it was completed by Joe Wehrle in 1971.
Most of the details presented in this essay are well known to Lovecraft enthusiasts and he spends a good deal of it listing his influences. He also takes the time to point out just how much he feels his work falls short of what he would term “literature”, though “It doesn’t look so bad beside the unutterable junk forming the bulk of “W.T.’s” (Weird Tales) contents […].” His summation of his views presents, perhaps, the clearest window into the man’s work:
That’s the kind of guy I am — a cynic and a materialist with classical and traditionalist tastes; fond of the past and its relics and ways, and convinced that the only pursuit worthy of a man of sense in a purposeless cosmos is the pursuit of tasteful and intelligent pleasure as promoted by a vivid mental and imaginative life. Because I believe in no absolute values, I accept the aesthetic values of the past as the only available points of reference — the only workable relative values — in a universe otherwise bewildering and unsatisfying.
Thus I am an ultra-conservative socially, artistically, and politically, though an extreme modernist despite my 39 years in all matters of pure science and philosophy. Loving the illusory freedom of myth and dream, I am devoted to the literature of escape; but likewise loving the tangible anchorage of the past, I tincture all my thoughts with overtones of antiquarianism.
I enjoyed Chuck Palahniuk’s first four novels immensely, especially Survivor which remains his high point thus far. However, his books since Choke have been, shall we say, awful. His last novel was so bad that I didn’t even bother to finish it even though I was past the one hundred page mark which is the point of no return for me, after which I force myself to finish the book no matter how painful it may be.
All of that said, I am cautiously optimistic — or impossibly dense, take your pick — about his next novel, entitled Snuff, about an aging porn actress named Cassie Wright, who is attempting to break the record for the world’s largest gangbang but winds up dying in the process (didn’t see that one coming did you, what with the book’s title and all). This is regardless of the fact that the review from Publisher’s Weekly, which is on the Amazon product page, unenthusiastically proclaims:
There are sharp moments when Palahniuk compassionately and candidly examines the flesh-on-film industry, but mostly this reads like a cross between the Spice Channel and Days of Our Lives.
Doubleday is betting that you won’t care or don’t read Publisher’s Weekly or Amazon before you reflexively hit the Pre-Order button and to help advertise it have given Cassie Wright her own myspace page, complete with this kitschy trailer for one of her films, The Wizard of Ass with the promise of two more coming soon. No doubt I will be picking it up, if only for the probability of repetitive, descriptive lists of sexual acts and porn etiquette.
No nudity but still may be unsafe for your workplace. Time to get a job that allows you to view Ectomo without fear of reprisal!
Upon first meeting Fulton I was struck by the choice of facial hair, its sparseness said —at least to me — that this was a headstrong youth whose taste was of dubious quality. My first impression of the boy was one of revulsion, I admit. Later I would be shocked to discover the fame and high regard he had earned from the other rent boys and members of my particular circle. It was only upon seeing him again — devoid of that hirsute monstrosity — that I understood why.
Bernard, John. Oscar Wilde: Images From the Life Of Britain’s Most Famous Homosexual With Commentary Taken From His Many Correspondences London: Leatherman Press, 1929.
Christie’s, the auction house dealing almost exclusively in amazing things that I will never be able to afford, will be offering up a mouthwatering prize for the Victorian-era enthusiast striving for the ultimate in authentic furnishings for their study; namely the desk once owned by Charles Dickens on which he wrote Great Expectations The proceeds of the auction, to be held in June, will be going to the Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital, which the desk was gifted to by Jeanne–Marie Dickens, Countess Wenckheim. The desk is expected to fetch between £50,000-£80,000, or eight hundred billion American dollars.
Certainly such a price is a trifle when one imagines the value in being able to sit snug in their meticulously reconstructed office, taking nib in hand to inscribe intricately constructed sentences overflowing with poetic prose, running on and on — seemingly forever — a vast torrent of elegant, meandering descriptors, strung together with a delicate chain of commas and semicolons wending their way through a variety of subjects and encompassing the expansive gulf of human emotion in its brilliant and contradictory entirety and in doing so, laying out a map of the societal landscape, a grid work of people’s interactions with other people and the effects of these interpersonal relationships in regards to society especially in terms of the class system which, regardless of how much man has progressed, has yet to be exorcised completely — and indeed in some ways has become even worse — the gully between the wealthy and poor becoming akin to an awesome canyon; a canyon filled with a deep morass of misery and despair from which the destitute can only struggle helplessly glancing upwards on occasion to see the rich, the masters of this brave, new, industrialized world looking down upon them, greedy sneers curling their lips as they watch the less fortunate desperately try to raise themselves up, while only pushing others down further into the muck until they themselves become worn-out, weary, and weak and the next struggling body comes along to begin the whole process again; a twisted and deliberate cycle perpetrated by those on high, licking their lips at the spectacle laid out before them, a spectacle from which only they reap the rewards but at the cost of their eternal souls.
Ray Bradbury, distinguished author, visionary, and crusader for personal travel via pneumatic tubes helps the disembodied voice of Stan Freberg pimp Sunsweet Pitted Prunes.
It’s Saturday! These are cartoons! It is not, however, morning. Two out of three ain’t bad though!
• FLCL continues and just gets stranger and stranger.
• Courage the Cowardly Dog. Why isn’t this how on DVD? WHY? This episode, entitled “The Tower of Doctor Zalost” is among the show’s best. The second short included in this particular show was entitled The Mask which is about a cat and a bunny who are lesbians. Unfortunately I couldn’t find it. Feel free to link to it in the comments if you come across it.
• Darkwing Duck in “Twin Beaks”. I loved this show when it was on. This particular episode is a brilliant spoof of, you guessed it, Twin Peaks and includes references such as a talking log, and a diner with excellent pie and “darn good coffee”. They manage to make it just as surreal as David Lynch’s murder mystery. Also, bonus Far Side joke!
• Ducktales: “Much Ado About Scrooge”. Scrooge and the boys go after the lost, cursed play of William Drakespeare. Ducktales and Darkwing Duck were set in the same world and characters like Launchpad and Gizmoduck featured prominently in both shows.
• Paranoia Agent: “Double Lips”. After being attacked by Lil’ Slugger, Yuichi’s name is cleared and he can finally relax. His tutor, Harumi Chono,unfortunately has other things to worry about. She has a second personality named Maria who spends her nights as a prostitute. Harumi has no control of herself during this time, nor can she recall what happened afterwards. After receiving a marriage proposal, Harumi decides to get rid of Maria, but can she? This one has some sex edited out of it so that YouTube wouldn’t take it down. Just an FYI.
Part of me feels that the title should read S. Petersen’s Field Guide to Cthulhu Monsters!!! as the exuberant enthusiasm that the phrase “Cthulhu Monsters” evokes is deserving of the additional punctuation.
The author of The Jungle Book and Just So Stories For Little Children, among others, and of whom Henry James famously said: “Kipling strikes me personally as the most complete man of genius (as distinct from fine intelligence) that I have ever known.” and whom, in turn, George Orwell found the stench of imperialiam. His well groomed moustache, methinks, lends credence to both claims.
Four Red Bulls, twenty hours, and a bag of squid chips later, it is done. The very first Ectoplamosis print broadside is ready for distribution.
But soft, ye say, what in blazes am I talking about? I’ll let Warren Ellis, Big Daddy to Ectomo’s Little Sister, explain:
The broadside has a centuries-long history as a device for disseminating news and ideas. I mean, flyers go up on the web to be printed off, sure. But it’s not quite the same thing. Getting an idea, or a piece of writing, on a single sheet and saying, yes, print this off, copy it and distribute it wherever you like — that’d be interesting.
In short, a single-page guerilla publication, distributed by xerox and zealous reader in coffee shops, cubicle farms, club bathrooms, 24-hour greasy spoon diners, on telephone poles, shoved under windshield wipers, wiped under windshield shovers, safety-pinned on unsuspecting hobos, and fluttering in a comet tail behind us, wherever we may roam.
The first episode of ECTOPLASMOSIS! is offered in three editions:
This broadside is formatted specifically for easy printing and xeroxing, and features original artwork, an updated version of my famous Toxoplasmosis article, vintage illustrations, and an octobee coloring contest! Those of you who wish to curry our excellent favor, print and distribute with zest and enthusiasm! You will be rewarded in this life, and the next.
Stay tuned for more information about the coloring contest, a distribution contest, and other blunt mutterings from Brownlee.
This Christmas, in an effort to clear our heads of the noisome din involved with visiting family members you don’t see all too often, my brother and I took a brief break in my hovel on the hill. My apartment is not like the other EctoEditors; it is not a bright, urban loft filled with offensive artwork like Brownlee’s, it isn’t rife with aged mahogany bookshelves and leather bound books as I imagine Rosenberg’s (having always been blindfolded and told to keep my hands at my sides during visits), nor is it a kiddy pool full of filth-water bordered by a trough, parked in front of a bank of monitors like Eliza’s.
No, where I rest my head is a dark, cold, cement affair; a soul crushing void in which only a few, deeply troubled, individuals find respite. Bookshelves of varying size and description, many hastily constructed with wood scraps and exposed nails with a taste for blood, line the walls, supporting a vast collection of graven images, idols, and blasphemous literature.
It had been quite some time since my sibling’s last visit to my pit, and though he was obviously fearful of my tentacular accoutrements, I felt the need to show off my recent acquisitions; soothing fear with knowledge like the Greek scholars of old, but with less catamitism. Continue Reading…
In sheer defiance of the World Wide Web Consortium's will, Ectomo was designed using a non-web-standard font. Luckily, it is included in the excellent font pack released by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, which can be freely downloaded in Mac and PC formats here. Ectomo should still look fine without it, though.
