Comments on: The Vistas!

The Vistas!

mannequito — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 11:05:06 -0800

Read any good books lately? How about bad books? With Halloween around the corner, maybe we should take a moment to revisit The Necronomicon. (slyt)

By: MrMoonPie

MrMoonPie — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 11:10:48 -0800

Right now, before anyone gets started--it's Cthulhu. Not Cthulu. Cthulhu.

By: benzenedream

benzenedream — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 11:12:41 -0800

*gibbers*

By: Artw

Artw — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 11:16:29 -0800

Most people just read the Latin, so much better in the original Aklo.

By: Mister_A

Mister_A — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 11:21:37 -0800

Necronomicon is for dabblers; it's Pnakotic Manuscripts or nothing for me. Also, this stuff is getting a little old, even for me.

By: Durn Bronzefist

Durn Bronzefist — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 11:22:36 -0800

Right now, before anyone gets started--it's Cthulhu. Not Cthulu. Cthulhu. Oh sure, but how do you tend to pronounce "R'lyeh"? Don't tell me, you say "Ry-leh" to avoid the darker consequences of correct pronunciation.

By: Artw

Artw — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 11:24:31 -0800

Do not go down into any tunnels with cultists you don't know. Seriously.

By: immlass

immlass — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 11:29:57 -0800

It would have been less funny if I hadn't been hit up on in exactly that way by proselytizing Christians in college.

By: New England Cultist

New England Cultist — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 11:31:09 -0800

Also, this stuff is getting a little old, even for me. Another one falls by the wayside.

By: Mister_A

Mister_A — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 11:32:37 -0800

Hey, I'm still down with chthonian horrors and gibbering madness!

By: Iridic

Iridic — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 11:50:02 -0800

Cthulhu - "[voiceless velar fricative] - thool - hoo." R'lyeh - "[uvular trill] - lee - eggggggghhhhhhhhhh." Yog-Sothoth - "Fan-shaw."

By: Artw

Artw — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 11:56:11 -0800

Elder Sign - Star or twig? Oh, and this should probably be where I mention that Yog Sothoth Dot Com now has a new podcast... News from Pnakotus, "a periodic podcast covering all things Lovecraftian, weird and Cthulhu-related. " - Chris Lacky of the H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast co-hosts.

By: quin

quin — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 11:59:42 -0800

When this goes horribly wrong, know that there is only one way to pacify the Necronomicon... Klaatu Barada... Necktie... Nectar.... Nickel. Noodle? Definitely an "N" word.

By: alasdair

alasdair — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 12:00:24 -0800

Yog-Sothoth - "Fan-shaw." HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

By: Cool Papa Bell

Cool Papa Bell — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 12:05:26 -0800

THE GOAT WITH TEN THOUSAND YOUNG WILL OVERTHINK A PLATE OF BEANS.

By: sebastienbailard

sebastienbailard — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 12:10:02 -0800

Also, this stuff is getting a little old, even for me. Christ, I know. It's got an antagonist called "The Dentist"?!? Snow Crash was good, 'tho.

By: sebastienbailard

sebastienbailard — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 12:10:38 -0800

Not to say that Dentists aren't terrifying in their own right. (Not dentist-ist)

By: SaharaRose

SaharaRose — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 12:10:51 -0800

I've never read Lovecraft. I feel like I've osmosed a lot of the salient references from many of my friends. As for other excellent scary books: doesn't get better than reading Dracula for the first time. He's the One, True Vampire. Edward and Lestat can just suck it. as it were...

By: Mister_A

Mister_A — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 12:11:01 -0800

What is the Klingon term for "golf clap?"

By: ShawnString

ShawnString — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 12:11:27 -0800

only vistas huh?

By: Artw

Artw — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 12:16:41 -0800

I've never read Lovecraft. Where to start

By: Navelgazer

Navelgazer — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 12:16:57 -0800

I'm trying to figure out if sebastienbailard is kidding or not.

By: Comrade_robot

Comrade_robot — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 12:25:59 -0800

And remember, the magic words are: Klaatu barada nikto.

By: Mister_A

Mister_A — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 12:29:51 -0800

No, the way I heard it, it's Khlav Kalash

By: Artw

Artw — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 12:32:16 -0800

Ka nama kaa lajerama.

By: Mister_A

Mister_A — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 12:33:37 -0800

Arseface, is that you?

By: Admiral Haddock

Admiral Haddock — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 13:04:05 -0800

Y'AI 'NG'NGAH, YOG-SOTHOTH H'EE—L'GEB F'AI THRODOG UAAAH

By: Zed

Zed — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 13:06:02 -0800

Where to start Word on the street is that the recent three Penguin editions have the most authoritative versions of the text available. They're annotated by S.T. Joshi (and may make the Annotated H.P. Lovecraft and More Annotated H.P. Lovecraft entirely redundant -- I'm still waiting for two of the Penguins to arrive so I can compare.) I'd advise against the Barnes & Noble complete collected Lovecraft which has obvious typos (and is too big to hold) -- I'm going to be getting rid of mine. And here's Kenneth Hite's selection of which Lovecraft stories are great. Last week I scored the three impossible-to-find-at-non-ludicrous-prices volumes of the Arkham House Selected Letters of Lovecraft on Ebay for (relatively) cheap. I was hoping a thread would come up where I could boast about that...

By: Artw

Artw — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 13:10:11 -0800

oooh - thanks for that. I was actually looking for that list and for some reason never managed to find it.

By: JaredSeth

JaredSeth — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 13:13:28 -0800

Somewhere around here I have my Miskatonic U t-shirt. Oddly enough I haven't seen it since I tried to explain the reference to my wife.

By: homunculus

homunculus — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 13:17:32 -0800

With Halloween around the corner, maybe we should take a moment to revisit The Necronomicon. I associate it more with Christmas.

By: Zed

Zed — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 13:28:16 -0800

Yeah, I was rereading some Tour de Lovecraft on his blog and was happy to find he'd actually enumerated them. (I was going to buy Tour de Lovecraft but it's out of print and instantly skyrocketed to silly prices. Hite referred in passing to a second printing but I see no actual plans for such.)

By: Artw

Artw — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 13:31:52 -0800

I have a copy but until we get proper shelving in our house I'm pretty sure I'll never see it again as the piles of books have formed a non-euclidean mess. I would check local games and comic stores - I'm pretty sure I've seen a few copies at Gary's Games in Seattle at non-stupid prices for example. The prices you are seeing on the internets are the results of idiots, scalpers and scanbots, and I;m pretty cure than no real person has ever paid them.

By: Zed

Zed — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 13:37:13 -0800

I would check local games and comic stores Good idea. The prices you are seeing on the internets are the results of idiots, scalpers and scanbots, and I;m pretty cure than no real person has ever paid them. Yeah, I suspect it's the phenomenon not that girl referred to here.

By: Pickman's Next Top Model

Pickman's Next Top Model — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 13:46:25 -0800

I'm reticent to trade in my worn-out Del Rey paperbacks, but I think I might need to get the Penguin editions. Good call-out...

By: Artw

Artw — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 13:48:20 -0800

Yeah, I suspect it's the phenomenon not that girl referred to here. It pretty much kills anyones chances to get Delta Green materials at decent prices, which is something I'm sad about.

By: Eideteker

Eideteker — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 13:56:25 -0800

So much for my plans to make a sytcom called "Life of R'lyeh."

By: Artw

Artw — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 13:59:05 -0800

Thanks too Alan Moore I may never be able to read the words "three lobed burning eye" again without a very different set of associations.

By: Zed

Zed — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 14:09:36 -0800

I feel like I've osmosed a lot of the salient references from many of my friends. Well, too often, Lovecraft joke-references could mislead one to believe that his work's about "things with tentacles want to eat you." But the real horror in Lovecraft lies not in the existence of powerful entities with malice toward humans, but that for the really powerful entities, we're entirely beneath contempt or notice. If we get underfoot, we'll be stepped on; if we don't, we won't. And, either way, we'll never understand why, which we should count as a blessed relief, because before we could understand how the universe works, we'd go crazy in the attempt. I find it reassuring.

By: GuyZero

GuyZero — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 14:11:24 -0800

De Vermis Mysteriis is a pretty good read too. Cultes des Goules is over-rated and the English translation I have always tries to keep the same metre in English as the original French which makes the English so horribly stilted. I think the Toronto Public Library system still has a copy of Parchments of Pnom if you know which librarian to ask and if you have an Elder Sign to protect you. Unaussprechlichen Kulten is more practically oriented than the Necronomicon. Anyone want to have a meetup to put on a performance of The King in Yellow?

By: GuyZero

GuyZero — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 14:15:50 -0800

Do not go down into any tunnels with cultists you don't know. Seriously. I did that once and inadvertently made "The Yellow Sign." It did not work as I had been told it would.

By: magnificent frigatebird

magnificent frigatebird — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 16:13:58 -0800

I can vouch for the Penguin Classics editions. The quality of the texts is excellent, and Joshi provides copious endnotes, thorough bibliographies, and insightful commentary. (Although I can't say I really go for his analysis of At The Mountains of Madness.)

By: PhoBWanKenobi

PhoBWanKenobi — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 17:30:25 -0800

Ooh, you guys just reminded me that I DLed The Complete Lovecraft on my Nook like a week ago (for two bucks!). Time to go read.

By: weston

weston — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 18:32:23 -0800

This shouldn't be a SL post. The companion Elder Sign commercial is an equally great parody of another set of commercial conventions. (h/t to the Gangrene Film Festival, where I saw both in September)

By: mannequito

mannequito — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 19:34:40 -0800

sorry weston, I watched that one as well and considered pairing them up for the post

By: Artw

Artw — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 22:57:44 -0800

Scooby Doo Vs (thinly veiled) Lovecraft - with Harlan Ellison!

By: fearfulsymmetry

fearfulsymmetry — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 03:23:27 -0800

Zoinks! Does Harlan grab Velma's tits at any point?

By: Dr Dracator

Dr Dracator — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 04:45:10 -0800

But the real horror in Lovecraft lies not in the existence of powerful entities with malice toward humans, but that for the really powerful entities, we're entirely beneath contempt or notice. This is an excellent point. August Derleth, Lovecraft's friend and publisher is one of the main culprits in this, as he consistently tried to recast HPL's main themes of cosmic horror, fear of the unthinkable and insanity into a traditional good-vs-evil narrative, inventing several Elder Pokemon along the way.

By: stormpooper

stormpooper — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 06:27:45 -0800

You can keep you Necronomican. I prefer Funk Phenonmenon

By: Zed

Zed — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 09:57:13 -0800

Last night I finally watched the linked video and the Elder Sign commercial. Good stuff -- is the Necronomican one spoofing a specific bible commercial?

By: Zed

Zed — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 10:41:13 -0800

Tintin in Innsmouth Tintin in R'lyeh

By: Artw

Artw — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 10:47:14 -0800

Does Harlan grab Velma's tits at any point? They didn't water Ellison down at all. He told Velma "jinkies" wasn't a real word & ripped Shaggy a new one for using "like" as a pause.

By: groggi42

groggi42 — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 11:16:57 -0800

Is this serious or meant to be a spoof? I was wondering throughout when the canned laughter might ring out, but I guess it's a genuine ad?!?

By: quin

quin — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 11:41:57 -0800

Sometimes things are made more funny by playing it completely straight and not telling the audience "you should be laughing, just like this..."

By: Zed

Zed — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 09:36:14 -0800

may make the Annotated H.P. Lovecraft and More Annotated H.P. Lovecraft entirely redundant I checked the notes in Penguin's "Call of Cthulhu" against the ones in More Annotated Lovecraft. The text of the notes is different and generally a little shorter in the Penguin. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as Joshi can go on. The Penguin's notes omitted (or maybe just put in a place I haven't found yet) a good story about how "Call of Cthulhu" was originally rejected by Weird Tales. Another writer, during a meeting with the editor (knowing of the rejection), casually brought up how he'd read Lovecraft's latest story, and how great it was. And Lovecraft had been talking about sending it to venues other than Weird Tales; the writer could only but assume Lovecraft was intent on expanding his audience. It worked, and the editor bought it. So (based on comparing just some of the notes in just one story), I think I'll be keeping my Annotated Lovecraft volumes, but if I didn't already have them, I wouldn't feel a great need to seek them out to supplement the Penguins.

By: Artw

Artw — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 09:38:36 -0800

Well, you know, you're going want to want your Tour De Lovecraft and your HP Lovecraft Literary Podcast to go with that as well...

By: Zed

Zed — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 09:47:41 -0800

I've downloaded all the HPLLPs and plan to listen along as I reread the HPL, and to reread the Tour on Hite's blog. But I'll be hoping for a second printing. (Downtown Berkeley's game stores didn't have the Tour, but Games of Berkeley did have Where the Deep Ones Are and The Antarctic Express, which look adorable.)

By: Artw

Artw — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 09:51:27 -0800

To be honest, I'm not sure the print version has that much over the web one other than convenience, better formatting and a nice introduction, so I wouldn't sweat it too much.

By: Artw

Artw — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 09:52:18 -0800

(That said, it's always nice to give back a little when someone has done a good job on something, and buying the thing would be a good way of doing that, if it were available)

By: Zed

Zed — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 09:53:30 -0800

And with Halloween approaching, let me point everyone toward "The Great Old Pumpkin" (audio recording) by Mefi's own Sauce Trough (previously recommended here four years ago by people who weren't even me.)

By: GuyZero

GuyZero — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 10:19:47 -0800

To be honest, I'm not sure the print version has that much over the web one other than convenience, better formatting and a nice introduction, so I wouldn't sweat it too much. I've heard that Elder Signs made on the Kindle work OK but they don't work at all on the iPad. I think it's the contrast ratio.

By: Artw

Artw — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 10:25:21 -0800

Well, you lot all use the fucking star version, which is wrong and won't work properly anyway.

By: Artw

Artw — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 10:27:50 -0800

Whoever made signs for Wikipedia appears to have thrown every 90s style photoshop filter they have at them, god knows what effect that would have. Ia! Ia! Kai's Powertools!

By: fearfulsymmetry

fearfulsymmetry — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 11:49:44 -0800

Disco!

By: benzenedream

benzenedream — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 12:04:23 -0800

I can vouch for the Penguin Classics editions. Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!

By: sebastienbailard

sebastienbailard — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 15:01:17 -0800

h.p. wuvcraft

By: Zed

Zed — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 15:17:37 -0800

Similar territory has been explored in Young Lovecraft.

By: Artw

Artw — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 15:19:56 -0800

Some day I need to make these bigger. And fix that apostrophe.

By: Hoopo

Hoopo — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 11:25:11 -0800

A couple of years back I went as Ash from Evil Dead II for Halloween. I made my own Necronomicon prop by painting with acrylics on a hardcover notebook I bought (it's my profile pic). I also hacked open one of those "record your voice" greeting cards, and recorded the "I'LL SWALLOW YOUR SOUL" line from the movie on it, and rigged it so when you open the Necronomicon it starts screaming at you. That was awesome, and you shoulda seen my chainsaw hand! I'm entirely too into Halloween. And Evil Dead II.