Jason Thompson – Page 2

The SFFaudio Podcast #491 – READALONG: Some Notes On A Nonentity: The Life Of H.P. Lovecraft by Sam Gafford and Jason C. Eckhardt

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #491 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Marissa, Mr Jim Moon and Wayne June talk about the PS Publishing hardcover comic (graphic novel) Some Notes On A Nonentity: The Life Of H.P. Lovecraft by Sam Gafford and Jason C. Eckhardt

Talked about on today’s show:
the first readalong of a comic book, a momentous occasion, Jesse’s mortgage completion, a hardcover “graphic novel”, the phrase is pretentious, Maus, Watchmen, fuck you it’s a comic book, dense art, rich, Lovecraft’s father is masked, plague doctor, a Venetian masque mask, died in an insane asylum, his mental malady, and THAT is all I care to say on the matter, the broken mask, his wife, out of Lovecraft’s own head, Lovecraft’s biography, poetry, In The Mountains Of Madness by W. Scott Poole, so racist, one year in New York, gets robbed, each story gets a big illustration, feeling bad, tearing up, that last panel, alone standing on the stage, moving, the first time seeing it, emotionally invested in his story, so human, how mad he was, super weird, fucked up, a gentleman doesn’t work, she had a mastectomy, living the life of a country gentleman, writing for amateurs, submitting on his behalf, he made it so hard for his friends, the desire to be the aristocracy, class distinctions, a time of transition, New England, a class system in operation, full of very old rich families, bad investments by his uncle, the whaling industry, super-super-rich, the details, a garbage can on page 52, Eight O’clock Coffee, hitting harder home, Lovecraft was offered the editorship of Weird Tales, Chicago, selling the furniture, a disaster caused by his 17th century deal of himself, the story of their entire marriage, rooted in the wrong place, so many biographies, a weird outsider, 1920s the Great Depression, debt collection service, not suited for the job, coax or hit, flower them into paying, the hard times coming, Ohio, outright rejection, sitting down and reading Weird Tales magazine, editorial response to letters, poems, the first two issues of Weird Tales, Farnsworth Wright, maybe it’s a good thing Lovecraft didn’t take that job, or maybe it’s a terrible thing, which it would be, a crazy, this is the magazine where everyone worships Lovecraft, every letter asks for more Lovecraft, he’s not connecting, as soon as Lovecraft dies the magazine fills up with Lovecraft, eminently forgettable, jealousy, The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward, so many scenes just alone in a room (and enjoying that), how much he loved to travel and adventure, three times to Quebec, retracing Lovecraft’s footsteps, chronological version of his life, when things happend in relation to the story, R.H. Barlow, the format, an entertainment style, no dry intellectual series of facts, why comics are so great, rewarded with pictures, seeing all the major players, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, Loveman and Galpin, how different Lovecraft’s America was, architecture, page 74, Sonia in deep pain, a painful episode, moving a cow, a cat on his head, what a weird dude he was, Edith Miniter, why this is such a great book, showing the connection between experience and fiction, Superman, Batman, DC Comics, Marvel, X-Men, underground comics, Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, Fat Freddy’s Cat, drug dealers handing out comics, headshops, Guru, crystals, hemp pants, the preserve of shops like this, collected editions, Knockabout Press, Jason Thompson’s Mockman comics, Savage Sword Of Conan, black and white comics, so much more to see in black and white, the line of the mouth, how the room is organized around distancing characters apart, arm-in-arm, Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud, the Fungi From Yuggoth Cycle, three sonnets, the stacks on high, never designed for colour, bullshit complaint, Jesse shut himself down, what if I’m wrong, even the fonts, a whole sense that you can’t get when reading a regular biography, a one man job, each page is signed (and dated), years of labour, a treasure of art and information, the framing, on a stage, back on the stage, the last image on the last page, the empty stage, the other perspective, page 77, a gentleman does not divorce his wife, the little Janus head, people chasing after him, the night walks, what a great biography, a work of genius!, written in first person, a cool way to sneak in his opinions and thoughts, to segue into his letters, seamless, page 60, humming, finances are not great, every time Jesse calls Wayne or Jim, The Recluse, Supernatural Horror In Literature, an amateur magazine, a guy desperately in need of a Patreon, Wayne is no gentleman, the Weird Tales letters pages, huge proof, almost getting a major collection, the worst salesman ever, the copyright, with the kind permission of, maybe sometimes you’re doing work for hire when you don’t know you were, an entire issue of Weird Tales could have been under copyright, the collection was under copyright, persisting in comics, Image Comics, Alterna Comics, working for Marvel, Steve Ditko, Roy Thomas, so many times his life could have gone a lot better, a gentleman doesn’t press the matter, barristers and solicitors, no resources, exasperation in his life, to hell with it, what would WWI have taught Lovecraft had he survived enlistment?, artillery making mush, gas, just war?, subject to propaganda, a terrible shame, a pointless war, Mr Jim Moon studied the WWI at university, who said what to who’s aunt, the assassination, pride, self-destructive pride, a full page for Arthur Machen, The Bowmen, Out Of The Earth, tell me more about that, what’s that dude melting?, the whole genre of weird fiction, that little bit of Latin, the devil incarnate is humanity in truth, the first issue of Weird Tales, the attention to detail that you never get in commercial works, done because they love it, really inspiring, to honour it, in the best tradition, the Necronomicon convention in Rhode Island, The Journal Of William Hope Hodgson Studies, Carnacki, mummy horror, Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Machen with Jack The Ripper, Saucy Robot Stories, pulp fiction from the 1930s, Helen O’Loy, prolific, a Lovecraft expert, covers for Necronomicon Press, annotated H.P. Lovecraft, the Jason C. Echkardt Tumblr, The Derelict by William Hope Hodgson, Lovecraft as a communicable disease, you should write a story about this location, I haven’t been kissed by a woman since I was a very small child, working the night-shift as a movie theater ticket taker, R’Lyeh theatre, a 900 word biography, the connection between amateur magazines and blogs and podcasts, done for the love of the stuff, Wayne needs his own booth, a whole bunch of people who’ve read, holy shit that’s Kim Stanley Robinson coming up the escalator, that’s Larry Niven asleep beside me, go in disguise, that getting out of bed thing, eye contact is the start of a lot of terrible, a Venetian mask, cosplaying as Wayne June, stock left, PSPublishing, Best Eldritch Wishes, Best Lovecraftian Wishes, attention to detail, collecting author signatures, there’s so much going on on the internet, it’s a big place, bigger than you can imagine, two pages with hand drawn maps, damn it’s got it all!

Some Notes On A Nonentity The Life Of H.P. Lovecraft by Sam Gafford and Jason C. Eckhardt

Some Notes On A Nonentity The Life Of H.P. Lovecraft by Sam Gafford and Jason C. Eckhardt page 6

Some Notes On A Nonentity The Life Of H.P. Lovecraft by Sam Gafford and Jason C. Eckhardt page 34

Some Notes On A Nonentity by Sam Gafford and Jason C. Eckhardt page 75

Some Notes On A Nonentity The Life Of H.P. Lovecraft by Sam Gafford and Jason C. Eckhardt page 65

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #401 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Celephaïs by H.P. Lovecraft

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #401 – Celephaïs by H.P. Lovecraft, read by Gordon Gould. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the short story (16 Minutes) followed by a discussion of it (by Jesse, Paul Weimer, and Wayne June.)

Talked about on today’s show:
The Rainbow, May 1922, Marvel Tales, 1934, Weird Tales, Jun-July 1939, “A Posthumous Weird Fantasy”, a story about H.P. Lovecraft’s life,

Kuranes was not modern, and did not think like others who wrote. Whilst they strove to strip from life its embroidered robes of myth and to show in naked ugliness the foul thing that is reality, Kuranes sought for beauty alone. When truth and experience failed to reveal it, he sought it in fancy and illusion, and found it on his very doorstep, amid the nebulous memories of childhood tales and dreams.

so Lovecraft, reality ain’t pretty, always in fantasy, consciousness and objective reality, Jason Thompson comic book adaption, detail and attention, London, Yeasto and Beefo, Thomas Shap, gleefuly smashing a cat, opiates, a hashish man, the anonymity of Kuranes’ dream visage (in Jason Thompson’s rendering), Understanding Comics, wearied and wizened, a board game, an amazing adaptation, the page 8 sequence, the valley of Ooth Nargai, where form does not exist, a violet coloured gas, compass and protractor, manga style, hot air balloons, toward distant regions where the sea meets the sky, the domes are the same shape as the balloons, The Thing On The Doorstep, a script of imagery, going deep into the story, spending weeks in just 19 minutes, Fungi From Yuggoth, Dreamland-like,

XVII. A Memory

There were great steppes, and rocky table-lands
Stretching half-limitless in starlit night,
With alien campfires shedding feeble light
On beasts with tinkling bells, in shaggy bands.
Far to the south the plain sloped low and wide
To a dark zigzag line of wall that lay
Like a huge python of some primal day
Which endless time had chilled and petrified.

I shivered oddly in the cold, thin air,
And wondered where I was and how I came,
When a cloaked form against a campfire’s glare
Rose and approached, and called me by my name.
Staring at that dead face beneath the hood,
I ceased to hope—because I understood.

The Gardens of Yinand from Celephais:

One night he went flying over dark mountains where there were faint, lone campfires at great distances apart, and strange, shaggy herds with tinkling bells on the leaders; and in the wildest part of this hilly country, so remote that few men could ever have seen it, he found a hideously ancient wall or causeway of stone zigzagging along the ridges and valleys; too gigantic ever to have risen by human hands, and of such a length that neither end of it could be seen. Beyond that wall…

it’s a dream but it is also real, Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a teetotaler, far more fascinating is the man himself, at points in his life, his dreams live on, eighty years later, immortality, he’s alive for a lot more people than he was when he was alive, horrifying vs. a slow sad tragedy, reflecting H.P. Lovecraft’s life, uncompromising, attitudes towards money, lies and untruths, up-selling, The Diary Of Alonzo Typer, William Lumley, a Thomas Shap character himself, the pathetic people who tell lies about their own life experience in order to make life more tolerable, the last paragraph, played mockingly, Trevor Towers, the purchased atmosphere of extinct nobility, offensive brewers, The Great Gatsby, that resentment, so tragic, so awesome, the two images of Trevor Towers, thinness of reality, and the neighbouring regions of dream, his eye, the naked ugly reality, he’s killed himself, you’re out king!, The Coronation Of Mr. Thomas Shap by Lord Dunsany, tongue in cheek, ironic, to persuade customers, a more compromised Lovecraft, a dignity of nobility, your everyday fella, particularity imaginative, a fable, don’t let it effect your work, living on the skeleton of his ancestry (or he’s a writer), tweeting dreams, the writer’s life,

XXVIII. Expectancy

I cannot tell why some things hold for me
A sense of unplumbed marvels to befall,
Or of a rift in the horizon’s wall
Opening to worlds where only gods can be.
There is a breathless, vague expectancy,
As of vast ancient pomps I half recall,
Or wild adventures, uncorporeal,
Ecstasy-fraught, and as a day-dream free.

It is in sunsets and strange city spires,
Old villages and woods and misty downs,
South winds, the sea, low hills, and lighted towns,
Old gardens, half-heard songs, and the moon’s fires.
But though its lure alone makes life worth living,
None gains or guesses what it hints at giving.

there’s that wall again, the wall as representative of the line between life and death, Ex Oblivione, they’re all dream-quests, “rift”, how the words associate with one another, all the abysses that Lovecraft talks about, The Strange High House In The Mist, a god having lunch, being thrown off the Earth, and yet…, a gate, a void, astral projection, the only way to the dream world (and space), super resonant, that’s great!, the wall over which the imagining and expectancy of what could be, that alone makes life worth living, embracing the fact you’re going to be extinct, that depth is unplumbed, a “problematic depth”, A Voyage To Arcturus by David Lindsay, wanting to be an astronomer, going on night walks, it’s isolating, he’s walking alone here, the “rift”,

Faith had urged him on, over the precipice and into the gulf, where he had floated down, down, down; past dark, shapeless, undreamed dreams, faintly glowing spheres that may have been partly dreamed dreams, and laughing winged things that seemed to mock the dreamers of all the worlds. Then a rift seemed to open in the darkness before him, and he saw the city of the valley, glistening radiantly far, far below, with a background of sea and sky, and a snow-capped mountain near the shore.

skip down

But three nights afterward Kuranes came again to Celephaïs. As before, he dreamed first of the village that was asleep or dead, and of the abyss down which one must float silently; then the rift appeared again, and he beheld the glittering minarets of the city, and saw the graceful galleys riding at anchor in the blue harbour, and watched the gingko trees of Mount Aran swaying in the sea-breeze.

and

XXIX. Nostalgia

Once every year, in autumn’s wistful glow,
The birds fly out over an ocean waste,
Calling and chattering in a joyous haste
To reach some land their inner memories know.
Great terraced gardens where bright blossoms blow,
And lines of mangoes luscious to the taste,
And temple-groves with branches interlaced
Over cool paths—all these their vague dreams shew.

They search the sea for marks of their old shore—
For the tall city, white and turreted—
But only empty waters stretch ahead,
So that at last they turn away once more.
Yet sunken deep where alien polyps throng,
The old towers miss their lost, remembered song.

a sunken city, the city waits for them too, I don’t like it when people give me presents, faking it, for a minute or two, in that moment, Wayne always appreciates more cash, The City In The Sea by Edgar Allan Poe, Lo! Death has reared himself a throne, J.R.R. Tolkien, no Usher-ness, Little Princess Mee, Shap = Shaper (dream) or shop, profound, where the sea meets the sky, “Faith had urged him on, over the precipice and into the gulf, where he had floated down, down, down”, and “Endlessly down the horsemen floated, their chargers pawing the aether as if galloping over golden sands; and then the luminous vapours spread apart to reveal a greater brightness, the brightness of the city Celephaïs, and the sea-coast beyond, and the snowy peak overlooking the sea, and the gaily painted galleys that sail out of the harbour toward distant regions where the sea meets the sky.”, a dream written down, keep reading the same story over and over again, Paul’s map (or depiction) of Celephais, Campaign Cartographer, inspired to art, the abandoned village is Innsmouth, a river running through it, a completely inverted vision, ancient atavism vs. beauty and a new golden age, steering into The Dreamquest Of Unknown Kadath, Carter once knew Kuranes in waking life, Carter knows me, the more muscular adventurer, all around the Dreamlands, the infection of dream travel, Kuranes’ last name is Trevor, a hit of this hookah, back to reality, back to childhood, The Dream-Quest Of Vellitt Boe by Kij Johnson, exiled to reality, better off in the real world, the reverse, Wayne June’s audiobooks for Thomas Shap and Celephaïs, a dream fiction collection, have them all together, at your terrible job, retire to the sea-coast and go for a sleep walk, read it on your own.

Celephais - illustration from Marvel Tales, May 1934

Celephais illustrated by Alva Rogers from The Acolyte, Issue 10, Spring 1945

Celephais adapted by Jason Thompson

Celephais by H.P. Lovecraft - illustration by Jesse

Celephais map by Paul Weimer

Celephais by H.P. Lovecraft - illustrated by Jesse

Celephais - illustration by Jason "Mockman" Thompson

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #328 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The White Ship by H.P. Lovecraft

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #328 – The White Ship by H.P. Lovecraft; read by Mr Jim Moon. This is an unabridged reading of the story (1 hour 23 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Seth, and Mr Jim Moon.

Talked about on today’s show:
a Science Fiction, Horror, or Fantasy story?, hard to classify, Idle Days On The Yann by Lord Dunsany, wistful elements, The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner, a spiritual or psychological analog, a long prose poem, describing lands that never were, a lovely little tale, narrative isn’t exactly the point, the bird, the bird as an eidolon of the ship, the eidolon Lathi, Jason Thompson‘s comic adaptation of The White Ship, the ghost ship, why is the bird blue?, over the cataract, falls as if it wasn’t going to, the world ending, a description of Cathuria, aloe and sandalwood, an imagined land, dreaming Cathuria into existence, the sacred river Narg, Kublai Khan, a dream snatched away and smashed, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Edgar Allan Poe, Dream-Land by Edgar Allan Poe,

By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have reached these lands but newly
From an ultimate dim Thule—
From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime,
Out of SPACE—Out of TIME.

Lathi and Thalarion, Celephais, The Dream Quest Of Unknown Kadath, an old dreamer and lighthouse keeper of Kingsport town, fewer and fewer ships, a great delusional fugue state, a white spar and a blue bird, Polaris, a watchman in a watchtower, a beautiful symmetry, structural similarity, a beautiful dead woman, Eleonora, Ligeia, Morella, un-whimsical, Hypnos, the bearded mentors, astral projected journey, going to far, moon-beams, The Moon-Bog, a bridge of moon-beams, big ancient cities, civilization, you can’t have books without cities, lore x 3, he was given many books in his youth, when he was young and filled with wonder, Thanatos the Greek god of death, the throne of Azathoth, a dream of falling, the sin, Randolph Carter is seeking in the dreamlands, where the gods dwell, the gods have conquered, the person from Porlock, Jeff Vandermeer’s dream, William Hope Hodgson, fungal growths,

Then came we to a pleasant coast gay with blossoms of every hue, where as far inland as we could see basked lovely groves and radiant arbours beneath a meridian sun. From bowers beyond our view came bursts of song and snatches of lyric harmony, interspersed with faint laughter so delicious that I urged the rowers onward in my eagerness to reach the scene. And the bearded man spoke no word, but watched me as we approached the lily-lined shore. Suddenly a wind blowing from over the flowery meadows and leafy woods brought a scent at which I trembled. The wind grew stronger, and the air was filled with the lethal, charnel odour of plague-stricken towns and uncovered cemeteries. And as we sailed madly away from that damnable coast the bearded man spoke at last, saying: “This is Xura, the Land of Pleasures Unattained.”

The Valley Of Unrest by Edgar Allan Poe,

Once it smiled a silent dell
Where the people did not dwell;
They had gone unto the wars,
Trusting to the mild-eyed stars,
Nightly, from their azure towers,
To keep watch above the flowers,
In the midst of which all day
The red sun-light lazily lay.
Now each visitor shall confess
The sad valley’s restlessness.
Nothing there is motionless—
Nothing save the airs that brood
Over the magic solitude.
Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees
That palpitate like the chill seas
Around the misty Hebrides!
Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven
That rustle through the unquiet Heaven
Uneasily, from morn till even,
Over the violets there that lie
In myriad types of the human eye—
Over the lilies there that wave
And weep above a nameless grave!
They wave:—from out their fragrant tops
External dews come down in drops.
They weep:—from off their delicate stems
Perennial tears descend in gems.

what the heck does that mean?, nameless things that feast upon the corpses of men, a large layer of death, allegorical symbolism, the platonic forms,

“On the green and flowery mountains of Cathuria stand temples of pink marble, rich with carven and painted glories, and having in their courtyards cool fountains of silver, where purl with ravishing music the scented waters that come from the grotto-born river Narg.”

what good writing!, Fungi From Yuggoth XVIII: Gardens Of Yin

Beyond that wall, whose ancient masonry
Reached almost to the sky in moss-thick towers,
There would be terraced gardens, rich with flowers,
And flutter of bird and butterfly and bee.
There would be walks, and bridges arching over
Warm lotos-pools reflecting temple eaves,
And cherry-trees with delicate boughs and leaves
Against a pink sky where the herons hover.

All would be there, for had not old dreams flung
Open the gate to that stone-lanterned maze
Where drowsy streams spin out their winding ways,
Trailed by green vines from bending branches hung?
I hurried—but when the wall rose, grim and great,
I found there was no longer any gate.

verse for birthday cards, The Haunted Lake, Christmas poems, a concordance of themes, all the shades of Lovecraft, The Picture In The House, The Bells, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, the discover of sanity blasting horrors, ebbs and flows, soul and sanity loss, cosmic transcendence, drawing what we see,

“For the aeons that I dwelt there I wandered blissfully through gardens where quaint pagodas peep from pleasing clumps of bushes, and where the white walks are bordered with delicate blossoms.”

Basil Elton’s sin, distant whispers, really?, better than Sona-Nyl?, “Dude you’ve always lived alone!”, a sea-faring Tyler Durduen, a Coleridgian-Obi-Wan Kenobi, a big eastern theme, fantastical oriental places, like Narnia, Arabia mythologized, a marked contrast, Lovecraft as a homebody in the center of a great American port, like living in Atlanta and never getting on an airplane, Citizen Of The Galaxy by Robert A. Heinlein, wherever you go, there you are, an interesting visualization, Celephais, writing down dreams, a penniless tramp, travels tell me, King Kuranes, his spirit lives on in the dreamlands, scented monsters, the basalt pillars of the west, Jason And The Argonauts, the Pillars of Hercules, Gibraltar, DC Comics, Thalarion and Themyscira, The H.P. Lovecrafts‘ song The White Ship, late-sixties hippies and beatniks, wow these are AMAZING!, J.R.R. Tolkien.

Providence 02 - The White Ship illustration by Jacen Burrows