2009 Esoteric Book Conference

If there really were a Necronomicon, it would show up at Seattle's Esoteric Book Conference slated for this fall. The event will host a large series of panels, presentations, and merchandise related to occult materials. While the admissions are somewhat pricey, ranging from $50 for day passes up to $110 for a deluxe pass to the whole weekend, the conference truly looks like one of a kind. It will run from September 19-20. Don't take my word for it, see what their detailed website has to say, if this description stirs an appetite for more:

The Esoteric Book Conference is an annual international event to bring together authors, artists, publishers and bookmakers working in the field of esotericism. In addition to presentations by notable authors and scholars, the conference opens it doors to publishers and booksellers showcasing new & used books as well as rare and hard-to-find esoteric texts. For two days the conference hosts the largest selection of esoteric books under one roof. Contemporary esoteric publishing, finepress book arts and antiquarian texts are offered to augment the libraries of readers, scholars and collectors alike.

This multi-disciplined conference will feature presentations by contemporary authorities researching and working in esoteric currents both East & West. Western Esotericism, Gnosticism, Theosophy, Mythology, Shamanism, Rosicrucianism, Sacred Sciences, Occulture and World Religions are among the subjects to be represented. An esoteric book fair and art show will also be on site allowing education, vending and networking in a unique field of literary, historical and cultural arts.

This conference will offer several opportunities for promotion, networking and exhibition for publishers, authors and artists who work in the esoteric publishing field. There will be two days of presentations wherein authors and scholars may present lectures as well as a book fair with scheduled book signings.

Anyone with an interest in the ideas and mystery literature that have so thoroughly influenced weird fiction from its inception may want to attend this venue of strange wonder. There may not be a real seventh century Necronomicon, but there are sure to be a multitude of bizarre grimoires with a firm basis in reality and the unusual.

-Grim Blogger

2009 Esoteric Book Conference

Read more...

Weird News: Large Squid Assault San Diego

As if the biological muck in Alaskan waters reported last week weren't enough, San Diego has come under attack by oversized squid. It appears there isn't any rest for the American Pacific Coast this summer. Agents of the Deep are working overtime, aiming to bypass seaside defenses and wriggle onto land in an effort to uppercut land dwelling civilization. Residents of towns from southern California to British Columbia ought to have their pitchforks and firearms waiting for the fishmen and their allies as they come ashore later this year.

San Diego Menaced by Jumbo Squid

-Grim Blogger

Weird News: Large Squid Assault San Diego

Read more...

Edgar Allan Poe Art Show

This Youtube video is a comprehensive roundup of Edgar Allan Poe inspired artwork that was exhibited at Halloween Town's Parlour Gallery this past spring. All manner of ghoulish delights were shown off for epicures of the terrible, and thanks to Youtube, they can enjoy an even wider audience. You'll find the images and sculptures to be a well proportioned mix of artistic monstrosities drawn from Poe's fiction as well as biographical details and pictures of the author himself. The adept works of these fifteen artists do justice to Poe, in this year of his bicentennial, and prove without doubt that he is still an influential wind in the niche of horror art.



-Grim Blogger

Edgar Allan Poe Art Show

Read more...

Unfilmable: A Film Based on Blackwood's "The Willows"?

It seems a script is in the works for a cinematic version of Algernon Blackwood's celebrated tale "The Willows," a weird story H.P. Lovecraft famously considered the finest in weird fiction. If it pans out, this will be the first great attempt in recent times at bringing Blackwood's work to the movies. It's also an overdue, but encouraging sign, as an increasing number of classical weird writers have their literary products translated to screen, theater, and games. Here's what the "Unfilmable" blog has to say about it:

Wayne Spitzer (Shadows in the Garden, see: Monday, July 13) has completed a "scriptment" for a feature-length film based on Algernon Blackwood's The Willows, a supernatural tale that H.P. Lovecraft considered to be the finest in English literature. Spitzer's adaptation also contains elements from several other stories by Blackwood including The Centaur, The Man Whom the Trees Loved, The Temptation of the Clay and The Glamour of the Snow...

-Grim Blogger

Unfilmable: A Film Based on Blackwood's "The Willows"?

Read more...

LSD: The Game and Ligotti

The video game "LSD" is an old favorite of mine. It originally appeared on Sony's Playstation game system, and was released in Japan as the first and only "dream emulator" of its kind. Through bootleg, import, and emulator, however, it eventually made it across the Pacific to the U.S. Despite an underground history here and abroad, it remained fairly obscure and never really became a highly sought item for gamers or aesthetes. Now, it lives on primarily through PC driven emulators (software allowing computers to play console games), Youtube videos like the one below, and in freakish memories.

Why am I commenting about it here? Because this offbeat item holds a very tenuous, but almost certainly unintentional tie to the weird. The plotless game's origins are said to derive from a creator's "dream diary" and a lot of drug induced visions (or at least imagined approximations of what LSD-laced nightmares would be like). Without knowing it, the game was crafted into a terrible stage performance of weird horror whose best literary representative is unquestionably the fiction of Thomas Ligotti.

"LSD" takes the digital dreamer through many nightmare realms: a deserted urban setting next to the sea, decaying houses peeping through greenish haze, and wild psychedelic environments that hurt the eyes with their senseless imagery and ultra-vibrant colors. Although there are moving objects like rainbow colored trains, wind up soldiers, and balloon elephants, one never encounters another person besides a shadowy figure that stalks the player and, in one curious dream, kills him temporarily with a single well placed gunshot. The deathly loneliness and outlandish dreamscapes, vacillating between bleak and beautiful, are like Ligottian visions teleported to screen.

As one progresses through the dreams, they tend to get weirder and weirder, interspersed with strange video vignettes of carnivals and UFOs, among other things. The missionless exploration of the video game coupled with its unsettling surroundings and interactive isolation definitely make what can be labeled a weird video game experience. And, in some instances, a Ligottian experience: one that worms through the brain with direct auditory and visual cues, rather than processed literary ones. "LSD" is a genuinely weird performance, perhaps a better video game analog to supernatural literature than any other thus far seen, despite its unanticipated origin that probably didn't have the weird at all in mind when it was strung together.



-Grim Blogger

LSD: The Game and Ligotti

Read more...

Leather Cthulhu Mask

Ukraine's Bob Basset's art group has created a domineering mask of Cthulhu out of leather. No mere ski mask or cloth trinket, this stylish face pairs the inquisitor with the eldritch. Though it doesn't yet appear on their products for sale page, the creation will probably set you back at least a few hundred dollars--the retail cost of most of their wares. It's nice to see Lovecraftian fashion made by such skilled hands! Check out their website for more about the weird mask and a large collection of other curiosities.

-Grim Blogger

Leather Cthulhu Mask

Read more...

Weird News: Alaskan Waters Invaded by Biological Goo

The sea off Alaska has been infested with a slimy scourge of mysterious origins. Cthulhuvian connotations aside, one wonders how those who believe in a conscious Earth that is growing tired of human meddling will react to this news--especially if the esoteric slop turns out to have ill effects. Personally, the notion of a world capable of an eco-consciousness able to perceive and attack the human race is as nightmarish as an alien presence aiming to do the same. On the bright side, either of these concepts applied to this biological goo seem equally outlandish...so far, that is.

Huge Blob of Arctic Goo Floats Past Slope Communities

-Grim Blogger

Weird News: Alaskan Waters Invaded by Biological Goo

Read more...

Derleth Mythos Breakdown from Lovecraft is Missing

If you've ever sought a straightforward overview of the enduring controversy over H.P. Lovecraft's fiction and August Derleth's injection of his own ideas into the Cthulhu Mythos, then look no further than this new article from Lovecraft is Missing. The piece covers the strange case of the Cthulhu Mythos, from the promotion of the term by Derleth following Lovecraft's death to today's notions of what is meant by "Lovecraftian" and "Cthulhu Mythos." Derleth's alterations to the Mythos and the very idea of these words, for better or worse, still seem to comprise the outer ring of popular culture's understanding of Lovecraft.

This can be seen across the internet, as Cthulhu is held up (more often than not humorously) as a symbol of the ultimate cosmic evil, rather than an entity whose prime "evil" lays in extreme indifference to the puniness of mankind. The conscious malevolence of Cthulhu and other Old Ones is a predominantly a creature of Derleth's mind, not Lovecraft's.

Zealous readers of Lovecraft and the posthumous Cthulhu Mythos already know this dualistic introduction of good-evil into Lovecraftiana stemmed from Derleth, and many of these same readers seek newer Mythos works that consciously seek to omit Derlethian good and evil. However, few followers of Lovecraft's life and literary career can fail to note the hefty role played by Derleth and company after HPL's death in promoting his fiction to a wider audience--a point of order Derleth's crusaders use as the basis for defending him today. This debate may sound arcane and confusing to the newly or little initiated in the world of Lovecraft and broader weird fiction. Fortunately, the article at Lovecraft is Missing effectively spells out the historic actions that sparked this debate. So, head over for a breakdown of the facts, whether you're looking at them for the first time or just seeking a refresher.

-Grim Blogger

Derleth Mythos Breakdown from Lovecraft is Missing

Read more...

Blast Magazine: Losing at Lovecraft

Ray Huling of the "Blast Magazine Blog" has written a fairly extensive commentary on the board game Arkham Horror and his personal involvement with the author's fiction. Huling's article is an exemplary breakdown of Lovecraftian themes and symbols, especially in the context of the game he analyzes. Further, it's an observant foray into looking at a complex relationship long held between Lovecraft and games of all types: namely, how well Lovecraft's stories translate to gaming, or even whether they should translate that well. Huling also scratches the surface of feedback into the Lovecraftian genre through his literary transformation into gaming and back again.

Besides being a quality read on the immediate subject matter, I think it represents a good example of where Lovecraft scholarship has yet to tread. There are still towers of lines to be typed about how popular culture has affected Lovecraft the literary phenomena, but at least the foundation is being laid in insightful blog posts like Huling's contribution.

-Grim Blogger

Blast Magazine: Losing at Lovecraft

Read more...

Discussion on H.P. Lovecraft at Pulpfest

A discussion on H.P. Lovecraft is due to be held at 11:00 PM on July 31st at the Pulpfest 2009 Convention in Columbus, Ohio. The talk will be headed by Ian Lohr, editor of a series of Lost Pulp Classics by the Howling Wolf small press. Further details are available below, or at the linked Pulpfest website. The convention runs from July 31-August 2, 2009 at Columbus' Ramada Plaza Hotel and Convention Center.

Today recognized as a master of supernatural fiction, during his lifetime Lovecraft was an impoverished writer who subsisted on canned pork and beans while spinning what would become some of the most widely respected tales to emerge from the pulp market. In such stories as "The Call of Cthulhu," "The Colour Out of Space," and "The Shadow Over Innsmouth," Lovecraft combined the elements of Gothic horror with the emerging field of science fiction to create some of the most unique fiction of his day or any day.

In his voluminous correspondence, Lovecraft encouraged other writers to develop further the ideas he was exploring in his own fiction. Soon, Frank Belknap Long, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard and others were refining their colleague’s "Yog-Sothery," now better known as the Cthulhu Mythos.

Lovecraft’s influence is felt even today in the fiction of Poppy Z. Brite, Neil Gaiman, Stephen King and others as well as in other areas of popular culture such as film, comic books, role-playing games, Scandinavian heavy metal music and a wide array of contemporary mythologies.

So join Ian as the witching hour approaches for an evening of cosmic horror, pop culture and philosophy.

-Grim Blogger

Discussion on H.P. Lovecraft at Pulpfest

Read more...

Zalgo on Youtube

Not surprisingly, the pseudo-Lovecraftian phenomena of Zalgo has migrated to Youtube the past few months. Zalgo, as previously discussed on this blog, is best described as the psychotic (and often humorous) vandalizing of popular cultural icons and internet memes with near Lovecraftian madness embodied in the phrase/deity ZALGO. He comes? Oh, yes, and now in video form.

The clips below feature the Old One like entity's finest appearances on Youtube to date. The Zalgo carnival has seemingly settled into a slower, but no less insidious type of growth the past few months since initially bursting onto the internet from the black pools of websites like 4chan.org and SomethingAwful. Still, interest in the emotional cocktail generated by Zalgo media will probably remain great in the short term, especially if these recent films are any indication.







-Grim Blogger

Zalgo on Youtube

Read more...

Weird News: Latvians Pledge Souls for Loans

As the world economy plummets further (yes, the media's late green shoots are poorly crafted fables), it's not as easy to get credit. Particularly in countries like Latvia, where government resources are not as abundant to pump into institutions "too big to fail" for the sake of keeping the debt web strong and sticky. Now, however, some particularly ghoulish financiers have raised the stake by offering loans to borrowers willing to pledge their immortal souls to the banking daemons of this world--and perhaps others. While this probably draws on old superstitions as a clever deterrent to defaulting on the loans, it's hard to imagine even the most rational spendthrifts feeling wholly at ease when agreeing to these otherworldly terms.

Would You Pledge Your Soul as Loan Collateral?

-Grim Blogger

Weird News: Latvians Pledge Souls for Loans

Read more...

Kenneth Hite's Top Twenty Lovecraftian Tales

This past week Kenneth Hite, a longtime observer of Lovecraftiana, posted his well targeted list of what he sees as the Top Twenty Lovecraftian tales. While his inclusion of Thomas Ligotti's "Nethescurial" under "Ten Best Stories About Cthulhu Not by H.P. Lovecraft" is somewhat baffling, his general taste in stories is close to impeccable. Here you will find a fine selection of Cthulhuvian (and not so Cthulhuvian, but still Lovecraftian) stories by the most well respected writers orbiting or launching from Lovecraft's work in recent decades. In one respect, the list even reads like a brief Who's Who in Near Contemporary Weird Fiction.

Hite's career as a writer and thinker on matters Lovecraftian culminated in his book published last year, Tour de Lovecraft. His work in the Lovecraftian and broader weird genre for "Weird Tales" magazine in its latest issues is also well received. Additionally, it's not uncommon that lists like these say as much coming from authorities on the weird as reams of scholarship about a particular story or two would. Don't miss this breakdown of Lovecraftian horror tales, not just to get an idea of how various authors are faring in the lenses of professional observers, but to read some ripping works you may not have digested yet.

-Grim Blogger

Kenneth Hite's Top Twenty Lovecraftian Tales

Read more...

SkepticReport: 19th Century Supernatural Belief

A recent article from the "SkepticReport" blog nicely breaks down a historical outline of supernatural beliefs in the 19th century. Interestingly, ghostly fictional works by Charles Dickens, M.R. James, and Sheridan Le Fanu are mentioned in passing, as the author Stephen Dewey muses on the persistence and popularity of the supernatural in this era. As anyone remotely acquainted with the finest weird fiction writers realizes, this century was crucial in creating the type of literary atmosphere needed to launch the more traditional careers of M.R. James, Machen, and Blackwood, and crack the door open for newer models of the outre represented by the likes of H.P. Lovecraft.

The skeptic blog's contribution intelligently and accurately describes the supernatural forces waning to obscurity as others rose to prominence in the Victorian age. Believers in the paranormal may find that parts of this piece ruffle their feathers--it is, after all, hosted on a skeptic's website that takes the usual snarky tone and ultra-rational viewpoint common to much of the internet's self-described skeptic community. However, you would be hard pressed to find a more recent analysis of supernatural trends critical to the rise of the weird aesthetic as we know it, so even the most zealous paranormal examiner should be able to set aside their own bias and that of the skeptic for an enlightening look at the supernatural in history.

-Grim Blogger

SkepticReport: 19th Century Supernatural Belief

Read more...

Parody: H.P. Lovecraft Meets Twitter

The ever popular social networking site Twitter has been introduced to H.P. Lovecraft in a clever jab at the writer's legendary penchant for labyrinthine sentences. The culprits are from "The Parody Files" website, which was also responsible for this recent faux letter by Lovecraft to "Penthouse." It's difficult to imagine how Lovecraft would have reacted if his life had been moved up about a century. Developmental influences of the pre-computer age aside, it's likely Lovecraft would have found the rise of textspeak more than frustrating, a mortifying bastardization of the literary beauty and archaic complexity of the English language he admired.

Interestingly, "The Parody Files" even went so far as to create a real Twitter account for H.P. Lovecraft. It doesn't look likely it will remain active, but future truncated posts by the irritated Lovecraft could definitely generate ongoing laughs.

-Grim Blogger

Parody: H.P. Lovecraft Meets Twitter

Read more...

The Real Music of Erich Zann?

This video captures a wondrous attempt at bringing H.P. Lovecraft's "The Music of Erich Zann" to life. Several talented classical music performers take to their instruments of choice and unleash a strangely enticing tune that would make Zann, and perhaps Lovecraft, very proud. It appears to be a taped part of an old performance from the late 1990s at Monterey Peninsula College Music Hall. In parts, the ominous blend of cello and piano approaches being a bit too vibrant to wholly reflect the darkness of the music spotlighted in Lovecraft's tale, but the effort must be applauded.

The imagined Erich Zann composition reverberates with a basis in what seems to be period appropriate (late 19th century) music, rudely distorted by rising madness. All in all, even musical ignoramuses like myself can appreciate the incredible reality and weird beauty of this ode to H.P. Lovecraft and the fictional Zann. Few can deny the power these musicians have in conveying an exotic otherness dancing just behind the familiar frame of traditional concert music, not unlike the unknowable insanity frothing behind the dilapidated outline of Zann's window. Bravo!



-Grim Blogger

The Real Music of Erich Zann?

Read more...

Arthur Machen and the Occult

The Order of the Twilight Star website was recently brought up on Thomas Ligotti Online, and is easily one of the best I've found discussing Arthur Machen's real life occult connections. Despite the website's dated look, it contains a small treasury of scholarly observations and speculations on the weird writer's involvement with certain underground rituals and beliefs of his day. Machen's time in the Golden Dawn is a well documented fact that still raises the eyebrows of many readers of his weird fiction today.

Beyond merely being interesting, however, the high probability that Machen inserted symbols and other bits of the 19th century mystical order deserves attention. Luckily, the Order of the Twilight Star site does an excellent job of summarizing Machen's known activities with the Golden Dawn, and highlights some well warranted curiosities in his fiction derived from the group. The question of how thorough the Golden Dawn's influence is in Machen's work remains unsolved, and not terribly well studied. Perhaps drudging up older websites like the Order of the Twilight Star can help direct new energy from Machen enthusiasts into studying this bizarre link between fact and fiction.

-Grim Blogger

Arthur Machen and the Occult

Read more...

Weird News: The Global Ant Colony

Man routinely finds the idea of other intelligences capable of challenging (or emulating) him equally loathsome and fascinating. Just look at the prevalence of horror and sci-fi in today's culture for proof. Insects and insect-like things , which can regularly seem both humanoid and unlike any other creature on this earth, have a long tradition of popping up in the weird genre and elsewhere as mysterious rivals to human intelligence. This is why it's hardly surprising to find the ingenious imperialism of the ant colony discussed below. They may not threaten our own species any time soon, but their uncanny spread is certainly impressive and unusual...

Ant Mega-Colony Takes Over the World

-Grim Blogger

Weird News: The Global Ant Colony

Read more...

Modern Film Zine on H.P. Lovecraft

The "Modern Film Zine" blog has a fairly extensive article up about H.P. Lovecraft's influence in films, radio, and elsewhere. While this piece is hardly the first to try its hand at analyzing Lovecraft's cultural imprint today, it contains a number of good observations in one cohesive presentation. The article also mentions the recent audio dramas put out by the H.P. Lovecraft Radio Hour--a new group of radio performers who attempt to recreate Lovecraft's tales in early 20th century radio fashion using appropriate narration and sound effects.

Though Lovecraft has become more popular, articles taking a serious look at his works in relation to contemporary historical events and trends are not easy to find. So, anyone with an interest in this matter should find the "Modern Film Zine" entry sufficient in satisfying at least a few of their curiosities.

-Grim Blogger

Modern Film Zine on H.P. Lovecraft

Read more...

Extensive List of Free Ewers' Translations Available Online!

The website "Anarchist World" is hosting a large list of translated short stories by the little known weird writer Hanns Heinz Ewers, courtesy of Joe E. Bandel. Ewers was beloved in his own day for his strange stories, and garnered acclaim from weird contemporaries like H.P. Lovecraft in his essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature." Today, Ewers is not well known in the realm of the weird, perhaps in part because of its English-speaking dominance. Until Bandel appeared on the scene, it was not an easy task to track down works by the author translated from German.

The German writer also remains somewhat of a controversial figure in some circles because of his Nazi ties. In this blogger's opinion, the writer's political leanings need not taint an otherwise quality career of fiction which certainly doesn't include many fascistic ideas in the words themselves. Of course, I'm sure there are plenty of academics and sensitive post-modern types who will think otherwise--the same people who can't get past Lovecraft's loathsome, but not-so-relevant racism. Discover Ewers and support the hardworking Joe Bandel today by visiting his website for an exploration of the outre you won't soon forget.

-Grim Blogger

Extensive List of Free Ewers' Translations Available Online!

Read more...

"Fallow" Trailer

"Fallow" is a film that touts itself as being built upon influences from haunted prairies and the works of H.P. Lovecraft. This eyebrow raising trailer suggests it might combine the two impulses in a way never even approached before. While it appears to opt for more of a gruesome path than the traditional weird aesthetic, the unique plot may use gore in a way that enhances the strangeness rather than undermining it.

The film's description accompanying the trailer blow is as follows:

**WORLD PREMIERE FANTASIA 2009**
In a remote pocket of the prairie, members of a secretive farm community make a grisly discovery: stillborn calves with barbed wire impossibly threaded through their bodies. It's a sign that a generations-old pact between the community and a powerful presence in the very soil itself is about to be broken by an outsider, and the consequences will be horrifying. Drawing upon elements of H.P. Lovecraft and prairie gothic fiction, FALLOW is a new mythology born in the land, in the flesh, and in the blood.

-Grim Blogger

"Fallow" Trailer

Read more...

Cthula Hoops: Mythos Good

The Lovecraftian food industry is one of the most explosive in today's dour economy. Cthula Hoops is part of an expanded product line sure to fill your local grocery store in the near future, alongside the gourmet iced cream and seafood delicacies rolled out earlier this year by the Innsmouth based company. Their factory in the small seaside town has done wonders for the local economy, nurturing a long stagnant economy back to a level of wealth not seen since the 19th century.

Cthula Hoops and other Cthulhuvian foodstuffs represent a delicious beacon of hope to the struggling hamlets of Meltdown gripped America and beyond. If the malformed, but happy Dagonites of plucky little Innsmouth slithered their way back to prosperity with the strength of their own two...or three...or seven tentacles, then so can you!

(Image courtesy of B3ta.com forum thread).

-Grim Blogger

Cthula Hoops: Mythos Good

Read more...