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Showing posts from 2018

Ask Lovecraft - The Festival, Corrected

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new Cadabra

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Frogmarsh in German

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I was told, long ago, that ye original spelling of "Pugmire" was the German word for frog marsh or frog pond. I liked that, although I had no idea if it true; and I began to sign my personal correspondence "Capt. Frogmarsh". So I got a wee thrill to-day when ye postman brought me copies of my newest book, a German collection of my short stories. I love ye cover illustration.  Ye Contents: "Das  Fenster zwischen den Welton" "Das Tal aus Sand und Wind" "Hinter dem Tor der tiefen Traume" "Das Zeichen des Gesichtslosen Gottes" "Der Kuss des Nyarlsthotep" "Die Lauschende Leere" "Die tausend Saulen von Irem" "Der Blick hinter die Welt" That first title is a full-page poem, & ye rest is fiction. The idea of translation interests me: how can a writer with a very distinctive style have her work faithfully translated into another language?  Along with ye book came a journal,

carry'd away, aye...

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Been having a bit o' fun ordering stuff on Amazon, using some retirement $$$ that I had deposited into me bank account. Now that I am old and can't get around easily due to arthritis and tendonitis, I spend moft of me life in my living room armchair, reading and watching telly. I've been having a rather dismal morning trying to watch ye 2015 film version of Poltergeist , a ghost film I find singularly lacking in atmosphere. Thankfully, ye poftman just saved me by delivering to-day's haul: dvd of Shakespeare's TWELFTH NIGHT--LIVE FROM STRATFORD-UPON-AVON; two-disc special edition of the film SOUTH PACIFIC; ye book HENRY JAMES, OSCAR WILDE AND AESTHETIC CULTURE by Michele Mendelssohn; audio cd of music from ye original DARK SHADOWS tv series; ye mystery novel SWAN SONG by Edmund Crispin; special edition dvds of ye films MY FAIR LADY and THE SOUND OF MUSIC; dvd of Hammer Film's THE MUMMY (1959); the hammer horror series dvd featuring ye films BRIDES OF DRACULA

new tee

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Once again YouTube has marred my video by introducing gaps that edit out some few seconds of dialogue. Moft notable here it happens when I begin to explain that I am hesitant to record videos these days because of ye appalling condition of my teeth, whut I don't want to reveal to an innocent publick. Wishing ye all a Happy All Hallow's!!

Ado about Naught

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Alas, my dears; ye Shakespeare "controversy" bollocks yet thrives. I just went to Safeway to get some laundry detergent, wearing one of ye five new Shakespeare t-shirts that arriv'd in to-day's poft. Ye cashier look'd at my t-shirt and said, "You know, Shakespeare didn't write the plays. Have you see the film Anonymous ?" I laugh'd and sadly shook me noggin. I have quite a few books on the authorship controversy; and also ye magnificent New Oxford Shakespeare Authorship Companion --& I remain convinc'd the ye poet fro Stratford did indeed write the plays & poems attributed to him. Apparently having studied ye topic in books means nothing when one can get solid historical facts from cinematic treatment.  Ah well, I shall conentrate this day on listening to ye poetry of my brothers in fantastic fiction & verse, Robert E. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith, with ye newly releas'd audio cds of readings by Donald Sydney-Fryer, wh

THE HAPPY PRINCE Official UK Trailer (2018) Oscar Wilde

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fun with trolls

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It's so amusing when Internet trolls try to intimidate or con you, especially when you're a slightly mischievous queer punk yob. Got this email from someone calling themself "Rosemary Sexton": "I am Rosemary. I have the taped video of your cam which shows your indecent stimulated doings and clip you viewed on the porno videos because that website was infected with my backdoor. You happen to look stunning in the video. ... I'll send your video to your friends unless you pay me 3000 USD via bit coin within the next 24 hours." Well, I'm sorry fool; but trying to intimidate someone who dresses as shewn in ye photo to ye right just ain't gonna work. And such a nasty video of me doesn't seem likely, since I have been celibate since ye days when I worked downtown as a male whore in 1983 (it's funny how being a whore can put you off sex...). There are plenty of videos of me on YouTube, but moft of yem are me yakking about books and being an a

clulu great againe

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live eldritch

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an eldritch horror indeed...

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When I first saw ye image of Gregory Nemic's cover art for Black Wings of Cthulhu 6  online, I thought someone was playing a joke. That ridiculous example of horror comic art, perhaps something from ye old Creepy  magazine, could not POSSIBLY be ye intended art for a volume in S. T. Joshi's esteem'd BLACK WINGS series. But, bitches, IT IS. Ye rotting corpse is bad enough, but ye addition of bleedin' tentacles is just too much. One of ye "themes", if so I may name it, of S. T.'s Lovecraftian series is that he does NOT include traditional (i.e. typical) mythos stories fill'd with Lovecraftian genre stereotypes. Gawd!! Once we get past the wretched cover, things improve tremendously.  Ye Contents are: Introduction--S. T. Joshi Pothunters--Ann K. Schwader The Girl in the Attic--Darrell Schweitzer The Once and Future Waite--Jonathan Thomas Oude Goden--Lynne Jamneck Carnivorous--William F. Temple On a Dreamland's Moon (poem)--Ashley Dioses

Oscar

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My talented friend Gwabryel has just created a colour version of his illustration for me wee prose-poem sequence, "In Memoriam: Oscar Wilde". I love everything about this new version, & hopefully it can be included in some future book of my work. Wilde has had such a mammoth impact on my imagination and approach to writing. It is because of my study of writers like Wilde and Henry James and H. P. Lovecraft that I became obsess'd with trying to write beautiful prose and create art via language. hus, my forthcoming book from Centipede Press, An Ecstasy of Fear and Others , is ye definiative presentation of my art.