There seems to me no point in any other narrator even attempting to narrate H.P. Lovecraft’s Dagon. Wayne June mastered it. He conquered it. He embodied it. And he has made all other attempts, at least those not done for one’s own pleasure, a deaf and pointless exercise.
Like an inescapable crushing force June’s narration works upon your mind, flooding a cool swaddling of algal bloom round the the abyssal depths of your fear center, pulling you down into his narration like a black ocean of horror from which nothing and no one can ever truly be freed.
Dagon
By H.P. Lovecraft; Read by Wayne June
1 |MP3| – Approx. 16 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Audio Realms Podcast
Podcast: August 12th 2008 The testament of a tortured, morphine-addicted man who plans to commit suicide over an incident that occurred early on in World War I when he was a merchant marine officer. First published in the November 1919 edition of The Vagrant (issue #11).
And here’s a |PDF| made from a publication in Weird Tales.
Talked about on today’s show:
the classic Tarzan yodel, the dum-dum service, Tarzana, California, those beautiful Burroughsian run-on sentences:
“From this primitive function has arisen, unquestionably, all the forms and ceremonials of modern church and state, for through all the countless ages, back beyond the last uttermost ramparts of a dawning humanity our fierce, hairy forebears danced out the rites of the Dum-Dum to the sound of their earthen drums, beneath the bright light of a tropical moon in the depth of a mighty jungle which stands unchanged today as it stood on that long forgotten night in the dim, unthinkable vistas of the long dead past when our first shaggy ancestor swung from a swaying bough and dropped lightly upon the soft turf of the first meeting place.”
A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain (and SFBRP #151), Edgar Allan Poe should be read aloud, The Return Of Tarzan, racism, Esmeralda, Gone With The Wind, minstrel shows, Chicago, Arizona, the mammy archetype, radio drama racism, Jar Jar Binks, Star Wars: Episode III, October 1912, historical dialect, Jane (the white lady), “you just shot a woman in the head”, cannibalism, Conan Tarzan lynches his mother’s killer, rope tricks, out of context vs. in context, Tarzan as a god, Ballantine Books, the dum-dum scholars, Project Gutenberg edition, ERB Incorporated, Tarzan The Censored by Jerry L. Schneider, Tarzan Of The Apes censorship and “improvements” since the original publication, “an English grammar Nazi”, The Heathen by Jack London, taking out or changing a few words can hurt the story, Earnest Hemingway and William Shakespeare are “too wordy”, Tab Cola, Tarzan’s relationship with the cannibal villagers, “mankind and civilization aren’t”, colonialism, the Belgian Congo, King Leopold II, contemplating cannibalism, “the white god of the woods”, Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984), Wisconsin, Tarzan’s ape father is driven away by Kerchak (and turned into a museum exhibit), “the Evil village of Scotland”, the sadness that comes with the deaths is powerful, Paul D’Arno, Obi Wan Kenobi, “Tarzan was the blockbuster hit of the twentieth century”, A Princess Of Mars, Ruritania, The Mad King, “complete in one issue”, All-Story, the scanty Science Fiction elements, feral children, Romulus and Remus, Mowgli, Tarzan is a wild child, “this line from a book”, all of Burroughs characters are excellent language learners, when Tarzan writes a note, Lord Of The Jungle (Dynamite Entertainment), the mistaken dual identity, “Jane has massive bosoms”, Green Mansions (starring Rima, The Jungle Girl), Johnny Weissmuller, “the Sheena of South America”, Audrey Hepburn and Anthony Perkins, Psycho, significantly more significant, the primary driver of fiction of this period is character, Nancy Drew, book serials, Rudyard Kipling dissed Burroughs’ writing and grammar, White Fang is kind of like Tarzan Of The Apes, first person vs. third person, you can’t admire the character from afar if the story is told first person, Sherlock Holmes, “that turn towards character is a turn towards the third person omniscient POV”, “that heroic distance” (1910-1950), Raymond Chandler, “I read Chandler”, Tarzan is the only Burroughs series that doesn’t turn to first person narration, John Carter’s character, why is Tarzan such a big character, Tarzan Alive: A Definitive Biography Of Lord Greystoke by Philip José Farmer, Tarzan as a quiet sophisticate, Doc Savage, The Green Odyssey by Philip José Farmer, Farmer is a fan of character, a stranger in a strange land, what ruined Julie for religion, The Mastermind Of Mars (is PUBLIC DOMAIN), “Tur is Tur.”, copyright, copyfight, jungle Tarzan vs. cafe absinthe drinking Tarzan, “the machine”, the Weissmuller Tarzan, where does he get his razor?, “that knife was his father”, “next book please”, Tarzan And His Mate , “lots of wet people”, “skin friendly”, melon-farmer vs. motherfucker, Boy and Cheeta are Hollywood, Scrappy-do, what did Tantor have to say?, Sabor the lioness, “there are no tigers in Africa, Ed”, Crocodile Dundee, Beyond Thirty, The Mucker, yellow peril looking dudes, The Girl From Hollywood, The Man Eater, early road trips, The Land That Time Forgot, The Lost World, the Caspak series, WWI, “sheer headlong adventure”, The Asylum, closing words, “it’s not what you think”, “really really good fun”, baby ape skeleton in the cradle, a classic of writing, a touching story, “and vengeance is his”, serialization in newspapers, cliffhangers, Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins,
Discussed in our latest podcast, and one of the best adaptations of a Lovecraft story I have heard, here is Julie Hoverson’s audio drama of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Temple.
19 Nocturne Boulevard – The Temple
By Julie Hoverson; Adapted from the story by H.P. Lovecraft; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 34 Minutes [AUDIO DRAMA]
Podcaster: 19 Nocturne Boulevard
Podcast: April 19, 2011 The crew of a WWI U-boat finds that some danger runs…. very deep. First published in Weird Tales, September 1925.
Cast:
Cap. Karl Heinrich … Rick Lewis
Lt. Keinze … Julie Hoverson
Shawn Connor … crewman
Bryan Hendricksen … crewman
The SFFaudio Podcast #174 – The Temple by H.P. Lovecraft, read by Mirko Stauch. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the short story (37 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Mirko, and Julie Hoverson.
Talked about on today’s show:
who’s the womanish Rhinelander?, Rhinelanders are manly(!), superstitious swine, Julie has a transsexual voice in the morning, Julie’s reading of The Temple, renaissance fairs, big crazy hats, Julie’s audio dramatization, the explanation, what’s with the curse, the practical and science-minded captain, insanity, The Call Of Cthulhu RPG, “panzaism”, WWI, unrestricted submarine warfare, The Crime Of Crimes by H.P. Lovecraft (a poem written in response to the sinking of the Lusitania), The Abyss, supernatural dolphins?, a heroic action villain, The Horror At Red Hook by H.P. Lovecraft, Herbert West: Re-animator, The Call Of Cthulhu, Cool Air vs. Sunset Boulevard, a consistent philosophy, WWI vs. WWII, Kaiserliche Marine, Portland, New York, a proto-nazi, an “iron German will”, unrestricted submarine warfare, submarines don’t have windows, “stop hitting yourself”, the laurel wreathed figure, Atlantis, The City In The Sea by Edgar Allan Poe, Below (2002), Zach Galifianakis, cosmic horror vs. karmic punishment, teasing the insane, creepy sped up dolphin laughter, […UNTRANSLATABLE…], The Island Of Doctor Moreau by H.G. Wells, nautical tales, William Hope Hodgson, 20° North, 35° West, Yucatan, S.T. Joshi, Mu and Lemuria, wrong ocean(!), the cousin of Cthulhu, Dagon by H.P. Lovecraft, a collection of short stories, poems, and propagandistic essays.
Here’s a recording of The Temple by H.P. Lovecraft. It was the his first professional sale. And, it’ll be the subject of an upcoming podcast.
It’s read for us by Mirko Stauch, a massive fan of Lovecraft, and a cool German dude with an authentic German accent – something highly appropriate for this story. He is a first time audiobook narrator, and yet, I think he’s done a fine job with it. Check it out for yourself!
The Temple
By H.P. Lovecraft; Read by Mirko Stauch
1 |MP3| – 37 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Provider: Mirko Stauch
Provided: August 2012 The skipper of an Imperial German Navy U-boat, in World War I, documents the disaster and ruin of his ship and crew after they torpedo an enemy ship at sink it’s lifeboats. First published in Weird Tales, September 1925.
Powerful podcasting, that’s what Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History was. Carlin used to put out the most powerful podcasts I’d ever heard. With episodes like Punic Nightmares, Ghosts Of The Ostfront, and Steppe Stories (now available as audiobook downloads). Half-way through them I’d be calling up friends and telling them “Hey, new Dan Carlin is out!” and then start telling them how awesome the show was.
And over the years I can’t say the show ever went bad – because it really never did – it just didn’t consistently hit the incredibly high highs that it had earlier. That is until just before this point this morning…
…where I realized that there was a new classic Dan Carlin out.
Carlin’s connective thread in this episode – that the insane choices of 20th century history are in fact a kind of horrific logic – delivered with fascinating historical evidence and illustrated with his incredible storytelling skill, shows the inevitable, frightening, awful logic of bombing cities full of people – even with nuclear weapons.
Carlin poses questions like. ‘In war, how many enemy civilians are you willing to kill in order to save one of your own people’s lives?’
And of course if that number is not equal to zero you’re down the path towards logical insanity.
Dagon
19 Nocturne Boulevard – The Temple
