Cthulhu Macrofasciculumque and his Daughter
Darf ich vorstellen? Cthulhu Macrofasciculumque und Cthylla Microfasciculumque. Die beiden sind ein paar Mikrometer große Parasiten, die in Termiten leben und weil sie wie Octopusse aussehen, hat man die beiden nach Cthulhu und seiner Tochter Cthylla benannt. Iä! Iä! Shub-Niggurath! As a foulness shall ye know Them.
The researchers decided to name them after monstrous cosmic entities featured in Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos as an ode to the sometimes strange and fascinating world of the microbe. “When we first saw them under the microscope they had this unique motion, it looked almost like an octopus swimming,” says UBC researcher Erick James, lead author of the paper describing the new protists, published in the online journal PLoS ONE.
The octopus-like movements and appearance of both protists reminded James of the horrid Cthulhu and Cthylla, and the little protists were baptized after the two monsters. Cthulhu is often depicted as a giant, octopus-like entity with wings. Cthylla is his daughter, and has a similar appearance.
UBC: Tiny octopus-like microorganisms named after science fiction monsters (via The Lovecraftsman)
Paper: Cthulhu Macrofasciculumque n. g., n. sp. and Cthylla Microfasciculumque n. g., n. sp., a Newly Identified Lineage of Parabasalian Termite Symbionts
Cthulhu Emoticons
Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthuloticons R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn: /|\≈{;„„;}≈/|\ Iä Iä!
Basic (;,;)
Wide Body (;,,,;)
Blight Eyes (°,,,°)
Gull-wing ~^(;,;)^~
Ostentatious /|\(;,;)/|\
The European :€
Vintage Interview with Lovecraft, handwritten in tiny Letters on a single Postcard sent back and forth
Der Mann mit dem grandiosen Namen Arthur H. Goodenough hat 1927 ein Interview mit H. P. Lovecraft geführt – auf einer Postkarte. Auf einer einzigen Postkarte, die die beiden hin- und hergeschickt und in winziger Handschrift vollgeschrieben haben. Whoa! Nick Mamatas hat die Karte in einem Buchladen in Brattleboro, Vermont, gekauft, die Story aufgeschrieben und das Interview transkribiert.
One day [Sherwood, the owner of the Baskets Bookstore/Paperback Palace] handed me a postcard sent between H.P. Lovecraft and Arthur H. Goodenough, an amateur press enthusiast living near Brattleboro. Goodenough isn’t talked about much today, but Brattleboro is still full of Goodenough — there’s a road named for the family (or was the family named for the road?), a trash removal firm, you name it.
Lovecraft was acquainted with Goodenough, and Lovecraft’s visits to Goodenough in Vermont in 1927 and 1928 are the basis of his wonderful novelette “The Whisperer in Darkness.” After the story was published in Weird Tales, Goodenough sent Lovecraft a congratulatory card, and also asked the author a couple of questions. Rather than responding with a card or letter of his own, Lovecraft wrote the answers in a tiny hand and then apparently gave the card to Vrest Orton — a bookman and eventual founder of The Vermont County Store — who returned the card to Goodenough personally during a trip to the Green Mountain State. Then Goodenough sent the card back to Lovecraft again, with follow-up questions written in a nearly microscopic hand. I suppose he knew the local postmaster, and was able to get the card back into the mail system without a problem. Amazingly, Lovecraft managed to fit the answers to the questions on the postcard in an even smaller hand. Sherwood told me that he’d guessed that Lovecraft used a magnifying glass and a sewing needle dipped in ink.
Brattleboro Days, Yuggoth Nights – An Interview with Howard P. Lovecraft (as uncovered by Nick Mamatas) (via Daniel)
Science of Cthulhu: The elder Gods live in a Space-Time-Bubble
Grandioses Paper (PDF) von Benjamin K. Tippett, Mathematiker und Physiker, der die Ereignisse in H.P.Lovecrafts Shortstory „The Call of Cthulhu“ wissenschaftlich belegt. Demnzufolge wohnt Cthulhu in R’lyeh in einer Blase voller gekrümmter Raumzeit, der Mann entwirft hier per Mathematik eine Realität, in der Cthulhu existieren könnte. Grandios! Iä! Iä! Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh Bubb’le of loca’lized Space’time Curvature wgah’nagl fhtagn. The Math of Cthulhu. Ich kann gar nicht genug betonen, wie sehr ich solchen Scheiß liebe. Epic Science is epic!
In 1928, the late Francis Wayland Thurston published a scandalous manuscript in purport of warning the world of a global conspiracy of occultists. Among the documents he gathered to support his thesis was the personal account of a sailor by the name of Gustaf Johansen, describing an encounter with an extraordinary island. Johansen’s descriptions of his adventures upon the island are fantastic, and are often considered the most enigmatic (and therefore the highlight) of Thurston’s collection of documents. We contend that all of the credible phenomena which Johansen described may be explained as being the observable consequences of a localized bubble of spacetime curvature. Many of his most incomprehensible statements (involving the geometry of the architecture, and variability of the location of the horizon) can therefore be said to have a unified underlying cause.
We propose a simplified example of such a geometry, and show using numerical computation that Johansen’s descriptions were, for the most part, not simply the ravings of a lunatic. Rather, they are the nontechnical observations of an intelligent man who did not understand how to describe what he was seeing. Conversely, it seems to us improbable that Johansen should have unwittingly given such a precise description of the consequences of spacetime curvature, if the details of this story were merely the dregs of some half remembered fever dream.
We calculate the type of matter which would be required to generate such exotic spacetime curvature. Unfortunately, we determine that the required matter is quite unphysical, and possess a nature which is entirely alien to all of the experiences of human science. Indeed, any civilization with mastery over such matter would be able to construct warp drives, cloaking devices, and other exotic geometries required to conveniently travel through the cosmos.
Possible Bubbles of Spacetime Curvature in the South Pacific (PDF), hier der Blogeintrag dazu: Iä! Iä! Cthulhu Fhtagn (via /.)
Tentacled H.P.Lovecraft-Sculpture
Der olle Lovecraft mit Tentakeln als Bronzefigur von Lee Joyner, Making Of-Bilder will er demnächst auf seinem Blog veröffentlichen. (via Superpunch)
Cthulhu Carpets
Kirill Rozhkov hat Illus für ein paar von Lovecrafts Cthulhu-Mythos inspirierte Teppiche gemalt: „I created a collection of illustrations called Dark Water for Danish company EGE in production of carpets. And creating of the artwork was inspired by the stories H.P. Lovecraft and Cthulhu mythology. The project was implemented in 2010.“
Geology of the Mountains of Madness
Toller Artikel von Scientific American über Geologie in Lovecrafts Werk:
Lovecraft apparently was fascinated by the theory of continental drift as proposed by Wegener in the 1920s, as he describes the discovery of an ancient topographic map of unknown origin in a dead city, showing the slow movement of the continents on the surface of earth.
“As I have said, the hypothesis of Taylor, Wegener, and Joly that all continents are fragments of an original Antarctic land mass which cracked from centrifugal force and drifted apart over a technically viscous lower surface- an hypothesis suggested by such things as the complementary outlines of Africa and South America, and the way the great mountain chains are rolled and shoved up-receives striking support from this uncanny source.“
For Lovecraft the geology and the detailed description of the discovered fossils is an essential part to present the idea of deep time, especially the pre-Cambrian, when according to the knowledge of his time no life existed on earth. However the expedition of Dyer discovered in rocks dated to this ancient period the traces of highly evolved creatures, referred only as Elder Ones. They are far superior in their culture, technology and abilities to our civilization, most important they are immeasurable older than humans and Lovecraft’s tale ends with a warning: compared to the almost unimaginably vastness of the age of earth (and these creatures) we should feel quite humble (and afraid).
Lovecrafts Peanuts
Julien Bazinet masht die Peanuts mit Lovecraft. Letzte Woche ging schon das Blog Paperback Charlie Brown rum, die Arbeiten waren mir allerdings zu schlampig geshoppt. Die Lovecraft-Peanuts aber sind süß, Shirt mit Cthulhu-Snoopy gibt’s hier, alle Strips nach dem Click. (via Daniel)
TinTin and the Re-Animator (plus other Milou-Creatures lurking in the Dark)
Murray Groats TinTin Lovecraft-Remixe hatte ich schonmal vor rund einem Jahr, aber damals waren es nur so’n paar wenige und mittlerweile sind da einige dazugekommen. Immer noch sehr großartig! (via Daniel) Drei weitere nach dem Klick und nach wie vor gilt: Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Tintin R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.
Yellow Submarine Cake at the Mountain of Madness
Schöner Kuchen von Carla Ikeda mit jeder Menge Farben, Beatles und gelben U-Booten. Mehr ihrer Sachen in ihrem Flickr-Set (via Neatorama) und wo wir grade bei schönen Kuchen sind:
Anlässlich des Geburtstags von H.P. Lovecraft am Wochenende haben ein paar Leute die Erstausgabe von „At the Mountains of Madness“ gebacken… und dann das Ding auf eine völlig unpassende, ebense essbare (?) Unterlage gesetzt, die das komplette Aussehen des Kuchens völlig ruiniert hat. Sowas regt mich ja immer sehr auf. Sehr! Wenn eigentlich supertolle Ideen (Erstaushabe von Mountain als Lovecrafts Geburtstagskuchen) so völlig unnötig und dilettantisch zerstört werden. Aber wenn man sowieso grade nen U-Boot-Kuchen am Start hat, kann man ja auch gleich noch den Erstausgaben-Happen in einem Nebensatz erwähnen.
Cthulhu Card Game
Ein neues Card Game von Atlas, bei dem es das Ziel des Spielers ist, endlich den erlösenden Tod zu finden, während man die Mitspieler am nervigen Leben erhalten muss. Klingt nach ‘nem Game für mich.
From Dunwich to Innsmouth, from the halls of Miskatonic University to the Charles Dexter Ward at Arkham Sanitarium, trouble is in the air. The stars are almost right, and terrors from beyond space and time are beginning to break through. When Cthulhu rises, we’re all doomed — but whose downfall will be the most entertaining?
In Cthulhu Gloom, you control a group of Lovecraftian protagonists and guide them down a path of horror and madness to an untimely death, while keeping your opponents happy, healthy, and annoyingly alive. While your characters Gibber With Ghouls and Learn Loathsome Lore to earn negative points, you’ll encourage your opponents to be Analyzed by Alienists and to Just Forget About the Fungus to pile on positive points. When one group finally falls prey to the interdimensional doom that awaits us all, the player whose characters have suffered the most wins.
Cthulhu Gloom – A transparent card game from Atlas Games, mehr Bilder bei Boardgame Geek (via Lovecraftsman)
H.P. Lovecrafts Story-Drafts
Bruce Sterling hat in seinem Blog auszüge aus Lovecrafts „Commonplace Book“ gepostet, das sich Bücher, in denen Schriftsteller grobe Ideen, Fragmente und Skizzen zu Storys festhalten.
1 Demophon shivered when the sun shone upon him. (Lover of darkness = ignorance.)
2 Inhabitants of Zinge, over whom the star Canopus rises every night, are always gay and without sorrow. [x]
3 The shores of Attica respond in song to the waves of the Aegean. [x]
4 Horror Story Man dreams of falling—found on floor mangled as tho’ from falling from a vast height. [x]
5 Narrator walks along unfamiliar country road,—comes to strange region of the unreal.
6 In Ld Dunsany’s “Idle Days on the Yann” The inhabitants of the antient Astahan, on the Yann, do all things according to antient ceremony. Nothing new is found.
“Here we have fetter’d and manacled Time, who wou’d otherwise slay the Gods.” [x]
7 Horror Story The sculptured hand—or other artificial hand—which strangles its creator. [x]
8 Hor. Sto. Man makes appt. with old enemy. Dies—body keeps appt.
9 Dr. Eben Spencer plot. [x]
10 Dream of flying over city. [Celephaïs]
11 Odd nocturnal ritual. Beasts dance and march to musick. [x]
12 Happenings in interval between preliminary sound and striking of clock—ending—
“it was the tones of the clock striking three”. [x]
13 House and garden—old—associations. Scene takes on strange aspect.
14 Hideous sound in the dark.
15 Bridge and slimy black waters. [Fungi—The Canal]
16 The walking dead—seemingly alive, but—. [x]
H. P. Lovecrafts complete strange Fauna illustrated
Michael Bukowski illustriert seit einem Jahr jede Kreatur, die H. P. Lovecraft in seinen Stories jemals erwähnte. Hier das „White Polypous Thing“:
WHITE POLYPOUS THING
“There were legends of a hidden lake unglimpsed by mortal sight, in which dwelt a huge, formless white polypous thing with luminous eyes.”
H.P. Lovecraft, The Call Of Cthulhu
Yog-Blogsoth (via WBCenobyte)
Shortmovie: Late Bloomer – Sex Education with H.P. Lovecraft
(Youtube Direkttentacles, via Clockworker)
Kurzfilm Craig Macneill und Clay McLeod Chapman vom Sundance Filmfest 2005, jetzt auch online gelandet: „Late Bloomer is a compelling and humorous short film about 7th grade sex ed class gone horribly wrong. Loosely based on the dark tales of H.P. Lovecraft. “ Tolle Idee, leider ein bisschen zu lang geraten.
Lovecrafts complete Works as free E-Books
Von der Dame, die neulich auch schon Lovecrafts Lieblingsworte zusammengestellt hat: Sein Gesamtwerk als Epub und Mobi-Files, iPad kommt damit auch zurecht.
The Complete Works of H.P. Lovecraft contains all the original stories which Lovecraft wrote as an adult. It begins in 1917 with “The Tomb” and ends in 1935 with his last original work “The Haunter of the Dark.” The book is ordered chronologically by the date the story was written. Because Lovecraft was a terrible businessman and left no heirs to his intellectual property, all of his works are already in the public domain. I did not include collaborations or revisions because some of those works may still be under the co-author’s copyright.
Free Complete Works of H.P. Lovecraft for Nook and Kindle (via Swen)
