The Lovecraft Geek

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The Lovecraft Geek - Trigger # 2 Jul 05, 2014

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By popular demand, The Lovecraft Geek RSS feed and iTunes podcast of Dr. Robert M. Price, The Lovecraft Geek, is back on the Internet. Make sure to listen via the Lovecraft eZine Website: http://lovecraftzine.com/the-lovecraft-geek-robert-m-price-podcast/ Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/LovecraftZine

EPISODE13 - The Lovecraft Geek Jun 20, 2014

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If I wanted to introduce someone to the works of Lovecraft, which stories would you recommend? I was thinking "Call of Cthulhu" might be a good one. What are your thoughts on electronic and audio books? Which other authors that write Mythos stories would you recommend? What are your thoughts on Lovecraft's racism and ethnocentrism? What do you think the end of the world would be like when the stars do get right? Like a Godzilla movie? Do you think, had Lovecraft lived longer, he would have ventured into other genres? Do you think Lovecraft, or, more broadly, the weird tail, influence Noir? How do you feel about authors who enjoy the "stepping stones" of a captive, cult audience (the Mythos fans) when learning their craft, who in future after mainstream success, go on to deride Lovecraft fans? When I was reading Tim Ferris' "Seeing in the Dark" I found that a Native American sacrifice had been documented! The passage described the capture of a young girl by the Skidi Pawnee, her imprisonment and eventual sacrifice upon the arrival of Venus as a morning sky object. I'm sure Lovecraft would have read about it during his astronomy days. Might this have lent material to scenes in "Call of Cthulhu" describing degenerate Eskimo cults? In "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" Curwen means to say "Metatron" yet Lovecraft uses the name "Metraton." Do you agree with Joshi's preservation of this inadvertent error or do you think that had Lovecraft known the right name he would have used it and we should change Metraton to Metatron? Didn't Lovecraft regularly reuse themes and plot lines? Is it fair to see "At the Mountains of Madness" as a retelling of "The Nameless City" and "The Shadow over Innsmouth" as a retelling of "Dagon," "The Nameless City," and "The Horror at Red Hook"? Do you think that Lovecraft would have been successful as an astronomer if he had been able to master the mathematics involved? I am confused as to who wrote "The Loved Dead." Was the author C. M. Eddy or our Eldritch Howard? Are you aware of the Japanese anime/manga series Haiyore! Nyaruko-san, (translation: Crawl Up! Nyarko!)? It purports to be a combination of the Dreamquest cycle and the Cthulhu Mythos; and if you are do, do you have any opinions on it? In "The Shadow out of Time" we learn that the Yithians have "titan airships," "gigantic submarine vessel[s] with searchlights," and "huge boat-like atomic-engined vehicles which traversed the great roads" (cars, in other words). Wouldn't the Socialistic beings like the Great Race have invented public transit? Pleaslee mentions seeing "unspied and unknown monsters [that] spouted mountainous columns of foam into the vaporous sky" and, while underwater, "living horrors of awesome magnitude." Ought we to identify these with the Cthulhu spawn and/or the Deep Ones? Which Clark Ashton Smith story do you like best?

EPISODE12 - The Lovecraft Geek May 11, 2014

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Mark Rainey on HPL influence on the Dark Shadows "Leviathans" story arc. Is the Creature from the Black Lagoon a Deep One and are the Daleks just canned Yithians? Are there any other examples of 'esque-niverse' Lovecraftian monsters in pop culture I've missed? And do you think that King Kong is actually a retelling of "The Call of Cthulhu"? What do you think it really means when we say something is "Lovecraftian?" Gary Myers on the two Lovecraft biographies. The second part of Shub-Niggurath's epithet "Black Goat of the Woods With a Thousand Young" implies some kind of blasphemous fertility goddess whose children multiply like Tribbles and cause famine and ecological collapse. Could it be a reference to the theories of Thomas Malthus? What can "Black Goat of the Woods" mean? Could it refer to the Leviticus 16 scapegoat ritual? Have you seen any other TV shows or movies that botched HPL as badly as the "Let It Bleed" episode of the "Supernatural" TV show? How many copies of "Call of Cthulhu" do you think you have? In SALAMBO by Gustave Flaubert, the high priestess of the goddess Tanith curses the mercenary hero by calling upon various ancient gods including "the Other â?? he who may not be named." Could this passage be the inspiration for Lovecraft's references to Him Who Is Not be Named in "The Whisperer in the Darkness" and the Not-to-be-Named One in "The Mound?" Have any fake letters or stories of Lovecraft appeared on the market? There was talk back in the 80s of an original HPL manuscript in the hands of a collector in Australia, possibly Haunter of the Dark. Do we know what happened to it? Apparently one of the Providence news papers back in the 20s had a picture of HPL wearing a tricorn hat. Has this news item ever been rediscovered? There have been rumours of a lost HPL story of a haunted hotel; do you know anything about it? Your Mythos tale "The Incubus of Atlantis" concluded with the soul of Klarkash-Ton being transformed into wine. Is this supposed to be the same wine consumed by pirates in Clark Ashton Smith's "A Vintage from Atlantis"?

EPISODE11 - The Lovecraft Geek Apr 25, 2014

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Do you have a favorite invocation of Lovecraftian horror? Jason Colavito seems to have successfully traced many of the ideas that appear in UFO and ancient alien claims back to HP Lovecraft and other Weird Tale writers! Your thoughts? I'd like your thoughts on Thomas Ligotti's work. In "The Shadow out of Time" we see a future where mankind disappears from galactic history and Cthulhu seems absent as well. The beetles that inherit the Earth from humans do not seem to have been troubled by Cthulhu and his ilk. Might this be because humanity is assumed to have evolved defenses against Cthulhu but was destroyed in the process? There doesn't seem to be any good solution to the Arkham / Salem dichotomy, but what if Salem and Arkham were originally sister towns which were growing larger and eventually overlapped? A few decades after the witchcraft trials and because of the "bad press" Salem got from them, the people of the now abutting towns of Salem and Arkham agreed to incorporate as a single city named Arkham. Since then, some people still refer to historical Salem as "Salem" but that is no longer the name of the unified city. What made Lovecraft dislike Plato? What's up with Lovecraft and architecture? In many stories he uses the architecture of a culture or society as a metaphor for the society itself. Might the fly in "The Winged Death" have been inspired by Don Marquis' Archy, the poet cockroach? He too had to jump from key to key to type his messages. Criticism of L. Sprague de Camp's biographies of Lovecraft and Howard. Re "The Statement of Randolph Carter," was there any indication in future stories as to WHAT was down in the burial chamber? Did the Night Gaunts ever resurface in future stories? Do you think the movie "2001: A Space Odyssey" could have been influenced by H. P. Lovecraft? I question your explanation that Lovecraft had to write his narrators as weak-willed sidekicks to their domineering best friends because readers wouldn't be able to sympathize with the mad scientists or demented occultists. Lovecraft was no stranger to unsympathetic --and, dare I say it, perverted -- narrators. I think there's more to the trope of intense male bonding in Lovecraft's fiction than just a narrative convenience. All the evidence, in my opinion, points to HPL being an asexual man who liked men. Do you feel that Lovecraft's true genius lies not just in his unique literary style, his aggrandizement of antiquarianism, his depiction of cosmic indifference or even in his inventive use of morphology, but his re-defining of the Greek Tragedy? I am curious if the cuttlefish might have had an influence in the image and name of Cthulhu? Might the magical conception of Wilbur Whateley be a satirical parallel to that of Jesus in the gospels? I have frequently encountered the phrase "That Which Should Not Be." Should not be what, exactly? Can you recommend any other weird fiction with an obvious Gnostic influence? And are there any other real historical religious sects, cults or movements like the Gnostics that strike you as being particularly Lovecraftian in their beliefs?

EPISODE10 - The Lovecraft Geek Mar 31, 2014

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Is Joshi's Lovecraft biography really much superior to L. Sprague de Camp's Lovecraft biography? Or is it just more deferential to Lovecraft? What do you think of de Camp's Howard biography? The Wikipedia article on Lin Carter indicates that there was a falling out between Carter and de Camp towards the end of Carter's life. Can you provide any details? What do you know of Lovecraft's sexuality? I'm aware of his marriage and some of its issues. Was he generally disinterested in sex or romance? Old fashioned? Conservative? Repressed? There are very few significant female characters in his work, and they are often fearful or loathsome creatures, with the possible exception of Charles Dexter Ward's heartbroken mother, whose only desire was the safety of her child. On the flipside, many of Lovecraft's stories do focus on homosocial, male relationships. In typical pairs, one is more dominant and engaged in supernatural doings, which may bring about their grizzly demise, and one is more submissive and may or may not go insane at the end. The narrator and stand-in for Lovecraft tends to be the latter. Example stories include The Statement of Randolph Carter, Herbert West: Reanimator, and Pickman's Model. My question pertains to the ongoing theme of piping cracked flutes such as the ones surrounding Azathoth, the masked and indescribable priest in yellow silk, and the lunar frog beasts. When I first read about them I envisioned the meandering flute or oboe melodies from Arabic musicians. My partner has a different take on the flute playing, interpreting it as radio static. Did HPL ever comment on this in his letters? Discovering HPL via a joke in a Ray Bradbury story. What would you characterize as the specific traits, tropes, characteristics, etc., of the "weird fiction" genre? What makes weird fiction distinct/separate from the gothic? Or, would you say it is more accurate to classify weird fiction as a sub-genre of the gothic? Would you characterize Lovecraft as a Romantic writer? Or would it be more accurate to think of him as a really pessimistic Enlightenment thinker?. Can you discuss the place of poetry in the writing of Lovecraft (and perhaps Clark Ashton Smith)? Can you recommend other "weird fiction" and/or Lovecraftian/Chambersian poetry collections or authors, whether contemporary or "classic"? What does "Lovecraftian" Horror mean to his geekiness?

EPISODE9 - The Lovecraft Geek Mar 17, 2014

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On the correct pronunciation(s) of "Cthulhu." Have there ever been action figures based on Lovecraft characters? Is there any Lovecraft inspired music that you're particularly keen on? Can you recommend any Lovecraft Mythos inspired music? How about good music to read Mythos tales by? Do we have a personal bibliography of what books and materials Lovecraft read and owned? How would you describe the "moral" of Oedipus Rex? What do you think of the theory of Dr. Johan Carlson, an archaeo-astronomer in Maryland, who believes that Lovecraft's image of Cthulhu came from viewing some Precolumbian art of monstrous, clawed Mesoamerican gods squatting on stone blocks, which would have been displayed in New York City while HPL lived there? And since there are no Mesoamerican gods with the head of an octopus, where do you think the image of Cthulhu's head came from? I think that HPL might have borrowed the image of H. G. Wells Martians. In Algernon Blackwood's "Ancient Sorceries" a traveler stops at a village in France and slowly discovers that he has a strange and sinister link to the weird inhabitants of the town, despite the fact that, to his knowledge, he has never been there before. How much was Lovecraft's "The Shadow over Innsmouth" inspired by Blackwood's story? And who inspired Blackwood? Please talk about The Yellow King, Lovecraft's relationship with this book, and how you feel Chambers compares and contrasts with the Old Gent? Has anyone expanded on or referenced the dream/letter 'The Very Old Folk'? I've found a few Sword and Sandal Mythos tales, chief among them the works of Richard Tierney. Do you have any other leads to authors who mix tentacles and togas?

EPISODE8 - The Lovecraft Geek Feb 07, 2014

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Has anybody drawn a correlation between the worm creatures in "Challenge from Beyond" and the worm-like creature in "Haunter of the Dark"? Both seem to have some sort of relationship to an artifact that activates when stared into. Lovecraft's narration of the history of the Old Ones in "At the Mountains of Madness" seems to parallel his view of the history of the American colonies. The Shoggoths might stand for African slaves, then "unsavory" immigrants, etc. Is this racist subtext really present in "At The Mountains of Madness," or am I, myself, mad? Are you familiar with the Lovecraftian tales of Stephen King ("Jerusalem's Lot," "Crouch End," THE MIST? And what are your thoughts on them? How about Alan Moore's Lovecraftian work? Could you discuss how Lovecraft came to ghostwrite "The Mound" and how much Zealia Bishop contributed to it? I was wondering if you knew of any completed Sci-Fi/Lovecraftian crossover stories, if you have any familiarity with Lovecraftian comics, and if there were any favorites you could share. Are you familiar with the great adaptations of "The Call of Cthulhu" and "The Whisperer in Darkness" by the HP Lovecraft historical society? What do you think of other HPL movie adaptations? Do you think Lovecraft could have done well as a comedy writer? In "At the Mountains of Madness," it is revealed that the Elder Things created the Shoggoths as a slave race. It is also revealed that the Elder Things had a great war with the Deep Ones eons ago. However, in the story "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" the Deep Ones are said to have Shoggoths as well. Is there any explanation as to the change of ownership? Did I hear you correctly when you stated on a recent Lovecraft Geek that the protagonist of the "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" was named "Olmstead"? Has it been remarked that this name reminds us of the Olm, the European cave dwelling amphibian that retains gills all its life and is wholly aquatic? Might Robert E. Howard's Conan have been influenced by the barbarian hero Ursus in Henryk Sienkiewicz's 1896 novel "QUO VADIS"?

EPISODE7 - The Lovecraft Geek Jan 12, 2014

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When a cold, indifferent and uncaring universe of forces beyond your capacity for comprehension tosses you lemons, it's already too late. This podcast's questions may help hasten you on your journey. Various works of Poe appear in elementary and high school literature texts. Which work(s) of Lovecraft do you think would be suitable or most likely to appear in school text books? A listener says: It was a real treat to be on the Lovecraft Geek and I liked the answer.... The movie that became my introduction to Lovecraftian storytelling was, surprisingly, Ghostbusters. I was disappointed that the sequel film abandoned the initial movie's form of universe building. What are your thoughts on Ghostbusters as a gateway Lovecraft introduction? Of the chaosium fiction compilations, is there one that you are most proud of? If you could adapt any Lovecraft story into a feature film, which story, which director, and who plays the lead?

EPISODE6 - The Lovecraft Geek Dec 20, 2013

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What are your thoughts about the relation of Ridley Scotts' "Prometheus" to Lovecraft and "At the Mountains of Madness"? What was HPL's attitude to prohibition? I was wondering who you would cast as pivotal characters in any film adaption of HPL's stories if you had the power of casting director. Do you picture an actor's face when you read any stories? What did that poor girl find at the end of Machen's The White People and what happened to her? What the heck is a Voorish Dome? or Voor for that matter? There are quite a few hard-to-pronounce names and places in Lovecraft's work. How many of these alien sounds did Lovecraft actually specify in his letters or other works? Although HPL always talked about our cosmic insignificance, what is with the preponderance of cosmic entities, alien races, etc., on Earth?

EPISODE5 - The Lovecraft Geek Dec 05, 2013

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Which Lovecraft story (or stories) would you suggest to a new reader and why? I have heard you speak of the canon and canonicity in the past and would like to hear you introduce the idea vis-a-vis the works of Master Lovecraft. How would you go about defining what is and is not in the Cthluhu canon? Crypt of Cthulhu is coming out as a series of books. Do you believe that the promise of Hell in Abrahamic religions is more horrifying on a cosmic scale, compared to the fate of Lovecraftian protagonists? Does an equivalent of "afterlife" exist in Lovecraftian canon, for example in Dreamlands, or is it strictly defined in materialistic terms (death = the end of suffering)? Do you see so-called Outer Gods as literal deities or metaphors for the unknowableness of Cosmos. Do you see a parallel between Sutter Cane (In the Mouth of Madness) and Nyarlathotep from the story of the same name? Both involve a psychological contagion, transmitted by an obvious but ineffable and incomprehensible vector, and both Cane and Nyarlathotep seem only the smallest appendage of a larger threat, like the glowing lure of an anglerfish. Can the Geek provide any insight? Are there any Lovecraft pieces that you think are unjustly overlooked in favor of the big ones? If so what are they and what brings you back to them? Do you think contemporary Lovecraftian writers have enlarged upon any of the themes or subtexts in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward? Would HPL like the cooperative rather than competitive modern Mythos games? What is your interpretation of the ending to the Lovecraft story "The Picture in the House"? In the October 20th episode you mentioned an article in which you explore the faces of evil in Lovecraft. Do you know where we can find it? Also do you think that Lovecraft's cosmicism might have been influenced by the relatively recent discoveries of the age of Earth and the fossils of dinosaurs, or would it be safer to suppose that Lovecraft's immense knowledge of Astronomy would have been sufficient? Favorite Lovecraft stories.

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