Catching Up With Arkham Bazaar: Cinema, Cthulhu, Cults and Dreams

The H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival and CthulhuCon is returning to Los Angeles on September 26-28th! One of the vendors making their eldritch return is Arkham Bazaar, which specializes in Lovecraftian film and audio, Cthulhu gifts, T-shirts, Uncanny art and sculpture, and other Oddities. Their wares run the gamut of Weird tale authors like H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, Clark Ashton-Smith, Robert W. Chambers, and Robert E. Howard.

We had a chance to talk with Gwen Callahan about what's in store this year!

It's been a year since we last checked in with Arkham Bazaar. What have been some of the highlights for you from the previous year?
This year has been pretty exciting! In October, we did a Best of The HPLFF night at the Hollywood Theatre, and in April we put on the 19th Annual H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival & CthulhuCon here in Portland. We marched in Portland's rose festival Starlight Parade dressed as cultists, and heard a few people shouting, "ia! ia!" along the parade route! Throughout the year we have been busy creating new products - like our Vintage style tin signs, new t-shirt and work shirt designs, a limited edition book of Dreams in The Witch House, which we partnered with Mike Dalager to include a full cd of the DITWH Rock Opera with it. We just finished up San Diego Comic Con where Mike joined us to help promote the album, and GenCon where we got to see a lot of amazing mythos themed games being released.

You're returning to the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival in Los Angeles. What were some of the popular items you had from last year Did the attendees surprise you with what they liked?

It's always a bit of a whirlwind at the festival, but people always seem to like the work shirts that we do with our Lovecraftian designs, and the limited edition glassware that we have made with our designs on them. We have a fantastic glass artisan who etched each glass by hand. We are particularly excited because we have some new designs and glasses for this year's festival!

What can we look forward to this year from Arkham Bazaar?

We will continue to create new designs to put on shirts, posters, and other wearables, and find unique items to put on the website. One of our missions is to create and find unique Lovecraftian items to bring to the fans. The thing we are most excited about for 2015 is the 20th Anniversary of the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival & CthulhuCon in Portland. We already have a few fantastic guests lined up for that!

What's been some of the Mythos news exciting you lately?

There are a ton of great new books coming out. We were particularly pleased that the IndieGoGo campaign for She Walks In Shadows (the all-woman anthology of HPL inspired stories) was funded. Huan Vu and Jan Roth - the filmmakers responsible for the amazing "Die Farbe" successfully raised funds to make their next film, "The Dreamlands," which is already in production and looks amazing! We are beyond excited that this is going to happen, and can't wait to see it!

What do you see as some of the toughest challenges in bringing forth a Lovecraftian vision from the Cthulhu Mythos?

There are so many great things being produced across all genres - film, fiction, games, art, apparel - I think the greatest challenge is keeping things fresh and original. How do you build on Lovecraft's foundation without just copying or mimicking?

What's the strangest dream you've had lately?

Brian dreamt that we were doing a Cultist ritual at DragonCon, but everything was going wrong. We forgot the robes and no one knew the chant! I am pretty sure that this stems from the anxiety of putting on two film programs in the next month! We are doing another "Best of the HPLFF" night on Oct 4, and Zompire: The Undead Film Festival Oct 11-12. I know that they will both be fantastic, but there is a lot of work leading up to it.

This year, the theme is Shadows Over Innsmouth. What was the big takeaway lesson from that story for you?

"The Shadow Over Innsmouth" explores themes that were quite pervasive in Lovecraft's fiction. The concept of the "other" tying in with xenophobia, the idea that there are things we can't see or understand just below the surface, that we are not necessarily in control of our own destinies, and that ultimately, our biggest fear might not only be the intrusion of the other into our own being, but that we might also embrace the change from our familiar self towards the other, as does the main character of Innsmouth.

Be sure to visit Arkham Bazaar at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival or go online at: http://arkhambazaar.com/

Marsh Eyes, Madness and Rock Opera: An Interview with Mike Dalager

Music and horror often collide, and the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival will be no exception. Among those coming to the Warner Grand Theatre in San Pedro, California from September 26-28th will be Mike Dalager, the visionary behind the ambitious musical, "Dreams in the Witch House: A Lovecraftian Rock Opera."

We had a chance to catch up with him to discuss his methods, madness and the macabre and more.

You can visit the Witch House yourself at: http://witchhouserocks.com
 
Tell us a little about yourself. How did you first become interested in the work of H.P.Lovecraft?

I grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii in the late 1970s and early 80s, the son of parents who really nurtured my interests in art and music. My dad was in the Navy and out at sea quite a bit, and when he was away I had an uncle who used to take me to watch science fiction and horror movies, rated "R" stuff that I was way too young to be watching.

Mom never knew that both my dad and uncle were exposing me to John Carpenter's THE THING and Ridley Scott's ALIEN well before my teens. Both of those movies have Lovecraftian roots, and I grew to love the genre without even knowing that H.P. Lovecraft was the man behind it all. It wasn't until 2004 when I was cast in Sean Branney and Andrew Leman's silent movie adaptation of THE CALL OF CTHULHU that I began to truly familiarize myself with the works of HPL. He's now one of my all time favorite writers, and I gravitate to his section in the bookstore whenever I go, hoping to find something I haven't read. I've still a ways to go in his catalog!

What's your favorite H.P. Lovecraft story?

The first story I fully read was "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" and it left a big impression on me. With my Hawaii roots, I naturally enjoyed the tale's seaside setting and the concept of humans evolving back to life's aquatic beginnings. The idea of living beneath the sea certainly has a romanticism about it, and with a childhood spent half on land and half at the beaches and harbors of Oahu, I felt more like a Deep One than the story's human protagonist, Robert Olmstead. It remains my favorite HPL story by far.

What inspired you to take on Dreams in the Witch House as a rock opera? Was it difficult enlisting others to help you in this undertaking?

As soon as I read "The Dreams in the Witch House" in 2011, I couldn't help but envision theatrical pictures in my mind. I had spent nearly 20 years performing on stages around the world, touring on Broadway National Tours and internationally in Stockholm, Sweden. That span of time fully devoted to performing led to a desire to produce, and after producing a string of small Musical productions in Stockholm, I felt it was time to aim for something big and ambitious. I had built a great relationship with a small Recording Studio in Stockholm called Platform Studio, founded by two extremely talented and genuine friends, Anders Ringman and Chris Laney. Both Anders and Chris are well known music producers in Sweden, with nearly twenty years in the business.

With Sweden's healthy Heavy Metal and Rock scene and own history of epic folklore, I knew that my pitching a Lovecraftian Rock Opera wouldn't be scoffed at. The contrary occurred, and Chris Laney brought in a legend in the Swedish Music Industry, Lennart Östlund of infamous Polar Studios. He's worked with recording industry giants Led Zeppelin, Abba and Genesis, to name a few. 

Once Chris, Anders, Lennart and I got to work building the Rock Opera, I approached Sean Branney and Andrew Leman of the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, whom I worked for at the time. I had already produced a highly unique music product with them, the parody album, "Ogham Waite - Live at the Gilman House Lounge", which had been received quite well by the Society's fan base, and as soon as I played a couple of raw sample tracks developed for the Rock Opera, Sean and Andrew were in and all systems were a go. From then on, it was all about continued development, momentum, project enthusiasm, financing and tenacity.

Over the project's 2 year production period, I was obsessed to drive the project home to conclusion no matter what the challenge, and there were many along the way. Passion projects don't find the finish line without some pain along the way. It was all worth it.

What's been some of the Mythos news exciting you lately?

I'm most excited to see Kevin McTurk's newest Lovecraft inspired puppet film, THE MILL AT CALDER'S END. He just released a teaser trailer for it, and it completely blew my mind. Your readers can view the trailer at this link: https://vimeo.com/103773552

What do you see as some of the toughest challenges in bringing forth a Lovecraftian vision from the Cthulhu Mythos?

I'm no expert on the topic, but I think the primary challenge is in fleshing out Lovecraft's conceptual realms and transforming them into the physical. Reading Lovecraft requires imagination and commitment, because he mainly provides a framework for his visionary horror. The reader is tasked to fill in all the voids. Whether Lovecraft did this intentionally or unintentionally, no one knows, but I've often wondered if Lovecraft himself was so horrified by his own dreams that he didn't dare fully explore and re-experience them through his writing. He provides bits and pieces, and in a sense, the reader becomes the protagonist behind the protagonist, puzzle-piecing the horrors together. It's a fully interactive experience, and that's what I've grown to appreciate the most. Lovecraft builds a movie in my mind, and he's taken me to alien lands like no other. How to translate those realms for others to experience via an extension of the Mythos is the uncracked code, and no one has totally nailed it yet because the Mythos is so personal to each reader. Music, however, offers a listener a similar experience in interpretation as literature does.

Listening to a Lovecraft tale becomes an interactive experience, allowing one to build pictures in their mind. Melody, dynamic, and the emotional power of a singer's interpretation allowed "Dreams in the Witch House: A Lovecraftian Rock Opera" to melodically marinate in the Mythos in a powerful way. The mind's eye is quite capable at building Lovecraftian realms, and music has the power to paint ultra vibrant pictures.

What's the strangest dream you've had lately?

We've got a really amazing intellectual property lawyer attached to the Rock Opera named Heidy, and I recently had a dream where I met with her in a public place and in the middle of the meeting I realized I was only wearing boxer briefs. I thought deeply on this and decided that the root of the dream was my reflection on how exposed one feels by taking huge risks. This project took everything I had, even my last pair of pants apparently.

This year, the theme is "Shadows Over Innsmouth." What was the big takeaway lesson from that story for you?

I'm of mixed ethnicity, born on a very unique place on earth in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Growing up I was surrounded by half-breeds like myself, exposing me to numerous cultures, languages and traditions on a daily basis. It can be argued that "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" is a reflection of Lovecraft's fears of the time and place he lived. Exotic looking people most likely intrigued him, whether he admitted it or not. I guess it can be argued that I've got the true Marsh eyes, having a mother from the Philippines and a Swedish-Norwegian father from Minnesota. From my perspective on life, the takeaway lesson for me is that as time passes and cultures merge, the world will become Innsmouth and we'll all have the true Marsh eyes.

In the fine lyrical words of my Gilman House Lounge alter ego, Ogham Waite, "When you've got the true Marsh eyes, rejoice a little."

The Canon of Cthulhu

I recently discovered I have my own official reference code, WT10, when people are citing my short story, "What Hides, What Returns," in the Cthulhu Mythos in Wikipedia. Yes, that and a cup of coffee get you a cup of coffee, but it's nice to know my work -is- seriously considered part of the mythos.

I hope it won't be too long before the contributions to the Mythos found in DEMONSTRA get cataloged. There I introduced the Laotian Great Old Ones like Gop Nyai, the Frog Who Devours Moons, and Nyar Thep, an avatar of Nyarlathotep. Other elements include the text of the Ktulu Jataka, and the Tao Yaomo Ching, and Phra Bok, who brings doom to New Sarnath. But we'll see where it all goes. In the meantime, I'm happy enough people felt the work in "What Hides, What returns," merited a reference code throughout Wikipedia. WT10 it is!

She Walks In Shadows fully funded!

Coming out of Innsmouth Free Press, it's an all-woman anthology of stores reframing many of the classic women and entities from the Cthulhu Mythos. Officially funded, they're now in stretch goal mode. Their hope is to raise an additional $1,000 to cover interior art for the various stories being presented for this collection.

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/she-walks-in-shadows/x/1363039

Among the writers I'll be particularly watching out for in this collection are: Carrie Cuinn, who will be writing Anna Tilton from “The Shadow Over Innsmouth,” and Benjanun Sriduangkaew who is writing Pth'thya-l'yi. Ann. K Schwader is contributing poetry using Ammutseba, an original Mythos entity she contributed to the canon years ago.

I'm also keeping an eye out for Molly Tanzer, who is writing a story with Asenath Waite from "The Thing on the Doorstep" and Cynthia Ward, who is writing Mother Hydra, an entity appearing in many classic stories including "The Shadow Over Innsmouth," and "Dagon." There are several others also committed to the project well worth checking out.

Every little bit helps, but don't let that stop you from chipping in big bits, too. Or Great Old Bits, as the case may be here.

She Walks in Shadows: All-woman anthology inspired by H.P. Lovecraft

I had the distinct honor of being the first person to donate this exceptional crowdfunding campaign for an all-new anthology of stories inspired by H.P. Lovecraft, She Walks In Shadows.  This anthology will be produced by Innsmouth Free Press, maker of bizarre books, (including my latest book DEMONSTRA) and delivered in the fall of 2015.

As the editors explain: "Do girls just not like to play with squids? That's the question an editor asked on Facebook. What followed was a long discussion on Lovecraftian fiction and women. And the need for an answer. 

 The answer: Women do write Lovecraftian fiction. We aim to prove it with your support. More than a dozen female authors have gathered to write original Lovecraftiana and place it in a single volume under the title She Walks In Shadows."

Already, they've secured some amazing women writers for the project who will be writing stories based on various women established within the Cthulhu Mythos of H.P. Lovecraft and many writers since. They also have a number of wondrous perks and rewards for those who back the project at higher levels, such as a custom ukulele from the talented Karina Melendez:

But long story short: This is a great project that will break some amazing ground by the time it's all done and over, but they need to raise $8K to really do it right. If we can throw over $200,000 for a board game based on the Cthulhu Mythos, $8K really shouldn't be impossible to clear.

Let's make it happen for them! They have until March 13th to raise the funds.

[Asian Apocrypha] The Tao Yaomo Jing

In DEMONSTRA there is a rumored text of the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu referred to as the Dao Yaomo Jing: 道 妖魔 經. Literally, the Path/Way Demon Classic/Text or more figuratively, the Classic of the Demon Way. It only appears once in DEMONSTRA, mentioned in the poem "Laonomicon." This almost makes it a hapax legomenon. It emerged from questions of how a Chinese philosopher might interact with the Cthulhu Mythos of H.P. Lovecraft and other 20th century writers.

Of course, this is where I must explicitly assert that no such text 'exists' any more than the Necronomicon or the Golden Goblin Press editions of various occult texts such as Nameless Cults or the Revelations of Hali. The idea that it exists is as preposterous as a surviving copy of Aristotle's supposed lost treatise on comedy, or the lost manuscripts of Bruno Schulz, Were such a text to exist, we can only hope they would be preserved in a remote, well-secured library or archive of some note, awaiting discovery by one destined to make good use of such forbidden knowledge.

But WERE any aspect of the horrendous Dao Yaomo Jing to have survived into Lao Tzu's more well-known Taoist text, the Dao De Jing, or more commonly, the Tao Te Ching, perhaps the most concrete hint is found in Chapter 25. In the common, albeit controversial translation of Gia-fu Feng and Jane English the chapter is typically presented as:

Something mysteriously formed,
Born before heaven and earth.
In the silence and the void,
Standing alone and unchanging,
Ever present and in motion.
Perhaps it is the mother of ten thousand things.
I do not know its name.
Call it Tao.
For lack of a better word, I call it great.

Being great, it flows.
It flows far away.
Having gone far, it returns.

Therefore, "Tao is great;
Heaven is great;
Earth is great;
The king is also great.
"These are the four great powers of the universe,
And the king is one of them.

Man follows the earth.
Earth follows heaven.
Heaven follows the Tao.
Tao follows what is natural.

For reference, Chapter 25's original Chinese is typically written as:

有物混成，先天地生。寂兮寥兮，獨立不改，

周行而不殆，可以為天下母。吾不知其名，字之曰道，強為之名曰大。

大曰逝，逝曰遠，遠曰反。

故道大，天大，地大，王亦大。域中有四大，

而王居其一焉。人法地，地法天，天法道，道法自然。

Scholars of the Lovecraftian and the Cthulhu cult doubtless need no further remarks. Religious scholars understand the name Lao Tzu or Laozi is occasionally translated into "Old/Venerable Master," and was worshiped as "Supreme Old Lord," or given the title "Supremely Mysterious and Primordial Emperor" in at least one dynasty. This is not to suggest connections to the rumored Great Old Ones or Elder Things, of course.

Of minor interest to scholars who dabble in such matters, there are numerous Taoist myths that purport Lao Tzu's conception was the result of a "falling star" his mother gazed upon. He was born a fully grown man after 62 years in his mother's womb, imbued with physical characteristics typically associated with wisdom and almost unnaturally long life. This account is, of course, rejected by reasonable and rational souls as patently absurd. It is no more plausible than some giant, bat-winged octopus-dragon falling from the stars to slumber in some sunken city of impossible geometry until celestial bodies are in some arbitrary alignment.

There are additional legends that claim Lao Tzu was eventually reborn 13 times, and in the last incarnation lived 930 years, traveling to reveal the Tao. Naturally, this, too, is impossible within a conventional understanding of historical time and space.

Let it also be firmly noted that it is quite unlikely Lao Tzu conversed with any denizens of Innsmouth, Im Boca, or similar cities and villages, despite his rumored nigh-immortality. Researchers are advised to treat any rumors of an actual copy of the 道 妖魔 經 with great skepticism as it will most likely not be labeled as such by those preserving it for whatever particular purpose they may have. One is more likely to find an intact copy of the 7 Cryptical Books of Hsan. But do with this information what you will.

[DEMONSTRA] The Terror in Teak

One of my favorite short stories that I wrote for Innsmouth Free Press was "What Hides, What Returns," which appeared in their anthology, Historical Lovecraft in 2011. 

In that short story, I introduced the character of Saeng, who was a bit of a Lao rascal and raconteur, a professional guide who accompanied different groups of colonials on various expeditions while living on the outskirts of Luang Prabang. 

The central premise was that there was an unorthodox copy of a famous Lao epic that was more detailed, yet more mad, than other texts covering that famous story. If read carefully it could lead to a long-forgotten temple built by ancient beings. It was an homage to many of the classic Lovecraftian tales I'd grown up with, and an experiment in how well those themes could mesh with a Southeast Asian perspective and our traditional beliefs.

From a poet's perspective, I was also curious if a prose poem could work with a similar premise, and the primary experiment in which this was implemented in DEMONSTRA is the poem "The Terror In Teak," the eighth poem in the collection.

"The Terror in Teak" would primarily be an examination of Lovecraft's short story, "The Call of Cthulhu," and a number of his other short stories, and those of other writers who worked within Lovecraft's strange cosmology.There are certainly great questions, like "How does a landlocked nation far from the oceans address tales of such a being?"

As with many of Lovecraft's works, this necessitated using a first-person perspective. Which isn't particularly my favorite, but it made sense in this case.

Set in the modern day, "The Terror in Teak" mentions a real French fort, Fort Carnot, and several other real texts and locations. It also provided me an opportunity to address some concerns such as the environment and the role of anthropology abroad to make sense of things.

This is the first poem to make an effort to transliterate the name of the Cthulhu cult in Lao. There will doubtless be other suggestions and corrections, but one of the nice things about working with this subject is that there's really no right way to spell Cthulhu anyway, especially among those who'd worship such a horrific entity in Southeast Asia.

In many ways "The Terror in Teak" was also composed as a way of starting a conversation about some of the unusual messianic legends and rumors that were running rampant in the early 20th century, especially among those living in the mountains and hills, where people were more free to build such beliefs. I wanted to ask what happened if we took such beliefs to an extreme, where people emerged who would invite the inhuman into their lives because things had deteriorated to such a point that pacts with the inhuman made as much sense as maintaining the status quo.

From a poetry point of view, the challenge was to create the work in such a way that it can only really be best experienced as a poem, and not as a short story, a film, or a comic book, although I would not rule out an experiment in graphopoetics for this piece in another project.

In narrative, there is a significant pressure to create logic, consistency, a coherent story that can be followed. With poetry, there is the same but the rules are also somewhat fluid. I get to try and tell you a "story" in a way that's not a story. We see how far language can and can't take us. 

Much like a work by Picasso and other modern artists, any use of language, particularly in an intercultural context, is an exercise in abstraction and certain social agreements. So the interesting question for artists and thinking humans is, how far can we take things to still express ideas for which all human language is presently insufficient to express?

"The Terror in Teak" is far from the last word on this matter, but it is a foray, one I hope my readers found enjoyable.

The Catullus Conundrum

Catullus was an ancient Roman poet whose life holds significant lessons, ok, warnings, for other poets.

While he enjoys a significant readership after death, he lasted into the modern world of letters not so much as an outcome of intentional effort but undignified happenstance. The legendary account, which may or may not be true, as always seems to be the case with poets, is that his work was discovered as a stopper in a barrel of wine in some medieval basement. Egad.

There are no reports over whether it was a particularly good barrel of wine, at that.

Bear in mind, there are plenty of Roman poets whose beloved words were deliberately kept intact by appreciative audiences, scholarly and otherwise. But I keep the legend of Catullus in my mind that we can never be truly certain our work will survive into the next age. Nor can we be certain how it will be discovered. This can be both dreadful and reassuring, the chaos of the poet's calling.

Some people get a bit manic and testy, saying as a writer, you shouldn't be concerned about the longevity of your work. They argue it hamstrings you, it takes you out of the present and you lose a certain dynamic and value to your voice if you're just trying to become famous and widely-read. Every writer treads a line between quality and the mercenary, trying to keep one's self and family fed without gauche pandering and compromise.

If you're a writer, and one with a very finite lifetime, you should be taking your craft seriously enough to be of use and entertainment to others, even as you appreciate that fate is arbitrary and whimsical. Obviously, looking at my own body of work, that's not a belief that all of your subjects are supposed to be serious, but when you write comedically, you need to be writing the best comedy you can.

For all of your accolades and honors, it is entirely possible within a century, and even more so in the centuries beyond, that if you do survive, it will only be a fraction of your output, and what future generations find compelling may well be that which you least expect.

You may find your work in the H.P. Lovecraft scenario, where no one gave his work much attention while living.  Consider the issue of Weird Tales where his classic, "The Call of Cthulhu" appears first. The editors thought Elliot O'Donnell's "Ghost Table" would be the one that moves copies that month. Lovecraft wasn't among the ones editors expected to have a great readership years or even nearly a century since his death. I guess you could call it "The Last Laugh of Cthulhu."

My best advice on this is to write as well as you can, whenever possible, because you don't want to be that writer where you have a body of amazing, soul-searing work, but the only example that survives into the next century is your "Ode to a Skanky Possum."

There's another tale that in the old days, a Roman general had a servant constantly whispering in his ear, "Memento Mori." Even on the days of his greatest triumphs, he was constantly reminded he was mortal and could be brought down by anything in the world. Catullus, on the other hand, reminds us as poets that in our art, anyone can survive, both the high and the low. So try to leave a good body of work behind.

Or at least make friends with people who keep cellars filled with barrels of wine for centuries. Something.

Lao Village: Muang Nhiam, 1885

An engraving of the Lao village of Muang Nhiam printed in 1885. Images lie this helped to inspire my story "What Hides, What Returns," for Innsmouth Free Press' Historical Lovecraft. 

Dates announced for the next H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival

The 2014 H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival-Los Angeles will occur September 26-28 at the Warner Grand Theatre in San Pedro. Aaron Vanek will be jointly running it with James Knouse and Miguel Rodriguez.

Thanks to them, everyone will only go partially insane and not totally insane next fall! James did the 2013 HPLFF-LA social media (a few posts reached 46K hits) and makes Cthulhu Pickles, and Miguel runs the Horrible Imaginings Horror Film Festival of San Diego. It's a good crew, and I look forward to working with all of them to make the next year even bigger than this last one!

Personally, I think it might have to be a year where we see a big focus on the games of Cthulhu, as well, because a number of Cthulhu-centered games supported by Kickstarter and other methods are anticipated to be coming out for that year. 

From a  poet's perspective, it's also the 100th anniversary since the publication of Lovecraft's poems "Ad Criticos," "On a Modern Lothario," "The End of the Jackson," "To the Members of the Pin-Feathers on the Merits of Their Organisation, and of Their New Publication, The Pinfeather," "To the Rev. James Pyke: On His Unpublished Verse," "To General Villa," "To the Rev. James Pyke," and "New England". Which weren't exactly all time classics of his we really read any more, but they're also among his earliest forays into published writing. But 20 years later, in 1934 he'll be publishing poem like "Dreams of Yith" with Duane Rimel.

2014 will also be 80 years since Lovecraft first published the short story "From Beyond," in 1934 and 90 years since he published his classic short stories "The Rats in the Walls," and "The Hound," which has his very first mention of the dreaded tome The Necronomicon. I'd also take note that in that year he wrote "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs" with Harry Houdini. Several of these have been adapted to short films and feature films.

Cinematically, it's 20 years since Full Moon Pictures' adaptation of "The Lurking Fear," although I'm not quite a fan of that version, nor Cornerstone Films' 1989 adaptation, "Dark Heritage: The Final Descendant," which would be celebrating its 25th anniversary.

Barring some non-Euclidian calamity, for the next year's festival, I'll also have copies of DEMONSTRA on hand in 2014, and will be doing interviews again with many of our featured guests who are participating.

So start dusting off your scripts, finishing up your films and pondering what will happen when the stars are right, because 2014 is going to be a fantastic experience!

[DEMONSTRA] Looking back

As we prepare for the launch of DEMONSTRA in December, here's a breakdown of the poems in the collection that appeared elsewhere previously, to give you a sense of what you'll find in my new collection.

“Idle Fears,” Buddhist Poetry Review, 2012

 “The Deep Ones,” Illumen, 2007. Also reprinted in On the Other Side of the Eye, and Future Lovecraft.

“Fragment of a Dream of Atlantean Yellows,” “Laonomicon," “Dead End in December," Innsmouth Free Press, 2012-13

“Songkran Niyomsane’s Forensic Medicine Museum,” “Ba,” “Dream,” “Democracia,” “Temporary Passages,” “The Tiger Penned At Kouangsi Falls,” On the Other Side of the Eye, 2007

“The Last War Poem,” “The Spirit Catches You and You Get Body Slammed,” Bamboo Among the Oaks, 2002

“Kinnaly,” Tanon Sai Jai, 2009

“Stainless Steel Nak,” Lontar, 2013

“Dreamonstration,” The Missing Slate, North By Northside, 2012

“Japonisme, Laoisme,” Asian Pacific American Journal, 2004, vol. 12.

“Destroy All Monsters!” “Song of the Kaiju,” “The Moth,” “The Big G Walking,” “Kaiju Haiku,” G-Fan, 2006

“Projections through a Glass Eye,” Kartika Review, 2010

“Swallowing the Moon,” BARROW, 2009

“What Is The Southeast Asian American Poem of Tomorrow?” Angry Asian Man, 2012         

“Full Metal Hanoumane,” Strange Horizons, 2013

“The Robo Sutra,”  Expanded Horizons, 2013.

One week left to the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival-Los Angeles Kickstarter!

We're in the final stretch for the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival: Los Angeles Kickstarter this year! We're 50% of the way there, but we need your help to spread the word, or, even better, to chip in. :)

With less than a week to go, we need to raise the remaining funds, or see none of it, under the all-or-nothing rules of a kickstarter campaign. As we explain at the kickstarter:

"The HPLFF started almost 20 years ago in Portland, Oregon by Andrew Migliore. After years of attending and contributing, filmmaker Aaron Vanek went insane and spawned an HPLFF in his hometown of Los Angeles. This is a licensed franchise of the Portland fest, but each festival has its own distinct brand of madness. The first three LA festivals were successes but paid for out of pocket and just missed breaking even each time. Unfortunately, it is not possible to provide the same excitement and entertainment this year without your help. Our savings are drained so without YOU we'll be hard pressed to maintain and improve the quality this independently run horror and weird tale film festival has had in the past."

There are some amazing guests lined up for this year who will make it extremely worth happening:

Brian Yuzna (Re-Animator producer, Beyond Re-Animator director, plus many other Lovecraft movies)

Stuart Gordon - (Dagon and Re-Animator director)

Jason Thompson (artist, writer for The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath and many other Lovecraft graphic adaptations)

Jean-Paul Ouellette (director, The Unnamable 1 and 2)

Mark Kinsey Stephenson (actor, "Randolph Carter" in The Unnamable I and The Unnamable II: The Statement of Randolph Carter)

Nancy Holder (New York Times Bestselling author)

Gary Myers (author, The House of the Worm and the new The Country of the Worm)

Cody Goodfellow (writer, All-Monster Action, Radiant Dawn, Ravenous Dusk)

Ross E. Lockhart (editor, Books of Cthulhu I and II)

D.H. Covey (artist, Dagon, Beyond Re-Animator)

Macabre Fantasy Radio Theater - performing another thrilling audio drama on stage!

Eben Brooks (The man responsible for the squamous, rugose filk song “Hey There Cthulhu”)

And many others are being lined up as well. Check it out at:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/906612014/hp-lovecraft-film-festival-and-cthulhucon-los-ange

The H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival promotes the works of H.P. Lovecraft, literary horror, and weird tales through the cinematic adaptations by professional and amateur filmmakers. The festival was founded in 1995 by Andrew Migliore in the hope that H.P. Lovecraft would be rightly recognized as a master of gothic horror and his work more faithfully adapted to film and television.

Primeval Thule: Swords and Lovecraft

IO9 has a nice interview with the Richard Baker, whose new company, Primeval Thule "blends the sword and sorcery of Robert E. Howard with the cosmic horror of Lovecraft. This heady blend of pulp action and horror will be available for Dungeons and Dragons 4E, Pathfinder, Pelgrane Press' 13th Age, and the Call of Cthulhu RPG."

They have a kickstarter going on at the moment to check out.

As you can imagine, I find myself intrigued at this setting for Lovecraftian adventures, although it is yet another setting drawn from a largely Eurocentric sensibility, and I don't particularly think the mythos function well as just a campaign of wandering from wasteland to wasteland slashing these entities apart. But it's possible the rules will address this and we can all find a happy medium where the formless spawn aren't just another set of stats to whack.

But for now, give it a look and see what you think.

Comic-Con, the Necronomicon and I

Innsmouth Free Press and the Press Enterprise are both giving nice mentions of my upcoming appearance at the San Diego Comic-Con where I'll be looking at the horror and Lovecraftian panels (although there aren't that many this year). I'll be giving a talk on Saturday at 8:30 PM with noted luminaries on H.P. Lovecraft and the history of the Necronomicon.

As a reminder, among the other fine folks I'll be presenting with are Brian Yuzna (director/producer of Re-Animator, From Beyond, Dagon, Necronomicon, and more), Mark Kinsey Stephenson (actor, "The Unnamable"), artist Mike Dubisch, editor Leslie Klinger (upcoming "Annotated H.P. Lovecraft"),author Cody Goodfellow ("Radiant Dawn" "Ravenous Dusk", others) and HPLFF-Portland organizer and Arkham Bazaar owner Brian Callahan.

The official panel description is:

H.P. Lovecraft and the Necronomicon: 75 years of mingling fact and fiction 2013 marks the 75th anniversary of the "History of the Necronomicon," a short essay written by iconic horror author H.P. Lovecraft and published a year after his death. Since then, the dread book written by the Mad Arab Abdul Alhazred has appeared in movies, books, comics, cartoons, art, music, and games. Although originally a literary hoax, there are hundreds of products that bear its name today. Come explore the truth and legend behind the greatest creation of the 20th century's greatest weird fiction writer, and learn how and why the book and its creator continue to influence all aspects of culture.

Some of the elements I'll be discussing include my position that a great deal of what the vision of the Necronomicon, or Al Azif actually is, is rather misunderstood and we could actually go in some fascinating directions if we presented it as a book of poetry, not a spell book or encyclopedia.  One of Lovecraft's most famous lines is in fact the couplet "That is not dead which can eternal lie, / and with strange aeons, even death may die."

For those of you who can't make it, you can find some of my notes on how a Lao translation of the Necronomicon might be plausible if you wanted to work with the existing canon, although I don't see a particular reason you necessarily need to be bound to that if you can make a good story of it.

A very big thanks to the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival for also helping to get me on the panel!

HP Lovecraft Film Festival Kickstarter launched!

The H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival in Los Angeles has officially launched its kickstarter, hoping to raise at least $8,000 in the next 30 days!

As they explain:

"The HPLFF started almost 20 years ago in Portland, Oregon by Andrew Migliore. After years of attending and contributing, filmmaker Aaron Vanek went insane and spawned an HPLFF in his hometown of Los Angeles. This is a licensed franchise of the Portland fest, but each festival has its own distinct brand of madness. The first three LA festivals were successes but paid for out of pocket and just missed breaking even each time. Unfortunately, it is not possible to provide the same excitement and entertainment this year without your help. Our savings are drained so without YOU we'll be hard pressed to maintain and improve the quality this independently run horror and weird tale film festival has had in the past."

Having attended the festival last year, I can tell you Aaron puts his heart and soul into this amazing effort and it's a real delight to be a part of it. If you can, please consider chipping in to the kickstarter, and we'll see you at the movies!

Update: San Diego Comic-Con Panel: H.P. Lovecraft and the Necronomicon

 

If you're attending San Diego Comic-Con this year, I'll be part of a panel with Aaron Vanek, chair of the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival (Los Angeles), along with many other Lovecraftian luminaries discussing the fabled Necronomicon in art and media on Saturday at 8:30 PM in Room 8 H.P.

Among other amazing panelists with us will be Brian Yuzna (director/producer of Re-Animator, From Beyond, Dagon, Necronomicon, and more), Mark Kinsey Stephenson (actor, "The Unnamable"), artist Mike Dubisch, editor Leslie Klinger (upcoming "Annotated H.P. Lovecraft"),author Cody Goodfellow ("Radiant Dawn" "Ravenous Dusk", others) and HPLFF-Portland organizer and Arkham Bazaar owner Brian Callahan.

The official panel description is:

H.P. Lovecraft and the Necronomicon: 75 years of mingling fact and fiction 2013 marks the 75th anniversary of the "History of the Necronomicon," a short essay written by iconic horror author H.P. Lovecraft and published a year after his death. Since then, the dread book written by the Mad Arab Abdul Alhazred has appeared in movies, books, comics, cartoons, art, music, and games.

Although originally a literary hoax, there are hundreds of products that bear its name today. Come explore the truth and legend behind the greatest creation of the 20th century's greatest weird fiction writer, and learn how and why the book and its creator continue to influence all aspects of culture.

It's really a wonderful gathering of perspectives and voices. Join us, if you can! Or dare!

Cthulhu Wars Kickstarter on a roll

One of the fun projects I've been supporting this season has been Sandy Petersen's Cthulhu Wars board game. Petersen is one of the key figures whose work creating the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game introduced me to the wonder and cosmic horror of early 20th century writer H.P. Lovecraft.

With just under 2 weeks left, Cthulhu Wars is approaching almost $1 million in support for what is essentially the game of a lifetime, giving longtime fans a game featuring amazing miniatures drawn from the most well-known and far-flung corners of the Cthulhu mythos.

Some time back I outlined a number of established Lovecraftian entities that might reasonably appear in Laos and Southeast Asia, such as the alien Great Old One known as Chaugnar Faugn above.

Others, such as Nyarlathotep, the moon beasts, serpent men, Cthulhu, deep ones, the Wendigo and others appear in my forthcoming book, DEMONSTRA. So, naturally, I'm quite excited for this, as the game pieces will also be compatible with any number of other role playing games such as Pathfinder, Fate, Dungeons and Dragons, and of course, Call of Cthulhu.

Below is the concept art for the aquatic entity known as Mother Hydra, and it makes me wonder how well Lao around the world might connect to the horror of such imaginative entities, and where it might fit in with our existing traditions of beings such as the Nak or Nyak.

Sandy Petersen and his team are putting together an amazing project. And I wonder what stories we tell today will capture the imagination of readers 100 years from now.

Interview with Steven Roy on Black Rednecks and Space Zombies

Just finished a very interesting interview with writer Steven Roy, who is currently running a kickstarter for his newest novel, Black Redneck vs. Space Zombies, which is proving to have a significant amount of literary rigor and depth in addition to the fun and horror one would expect from a book whose title is, after all Black Redneck vs. Space Zombies. The Lovecraftian elements and a protagonist of color is selling me on this particular project.

The interview will be appearing soon at Innsmouth Free Press as my latest Innsmouth Inktank column, but in the meantime, while we're waiting, check out his kickstarter and consider chipping in, if you can.

94 Asian Speculative Authors

I was recently listed on Carrie Cuinn's list of "94 Asian Speculative Authors" which is a great overview of those of us working in prose. At the moment, I'm the only Lao writer on the list, but I know that will change soon, thankfully, particularly once Sery Bounphasaysonh gets more work out. What he's shown so far is very intriguing and I encourage folks to keep an eye out for him in the future.

I don't have that many easy to find prose stories out there, with the majority found in Paj Ntaub Voice, Bamboo Among the Oaks, Innsmouth Magazine and the Historical Lovecraft anthology. Speculative poetry, on the other hand, well, that's all over.

H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival LA Coming!

The H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival is coming back to Los Angeles September 27-29th at the Warner Grand Theater in San Pedro. I'll be there, and I hope you will, too!

The festival promotes the works of H.P. Lovecraft, literary horror, and weird tales through the cinematic adaptations by professional and amateur filmmakers. The festival was founded in 1995 by Andrew Migliore in the hope that H.P. Lovecraft would be rightly recognized as a master of gothic horror and his work more faithfully adapted to film and television.

This year's poster artwork for the Los Angeles H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival is by Guest Jason Bradley Thompson, the author and artist of numerous comics, including H.P. Lovecraft's The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, Clark Ashton Smith's Hyperborea, The Stiff and King of RPGs (with Victor Hao).