Showing posts with label h. p. lovecraft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label h. p. lovecraft. Show all posts

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Movie Sunday - Writers Shaping Their Own Worlds

Well, Movie Saturday has become Movie Sunday this week because of a terribly unreliable ISP. Anyway, here's what inspires us this week.

A meditation on future event potentiality can be seen as a quantum state in which all possible actions, outcomes and phenomena existing until attention from the observer solidifies it into a single state. Here are three very different examples of artists who saw things not as others saw them, but the worlds they conceived shape the one we're in in strange ways.



PKD was paranoid and thought he was under surveillance. So did Hemingway, and it was thought until recently that Hemingway's paranoia had no basis in reality, but he had indeed been watched by government agencies. PHilip K Dick raised many questions in his work that we had better find answers to. As irksome as recent years have been, without reflecting on the issues of consciousness, the very real threat of being subject to pre-crime punishment and many other topics he originated that seemed so fantastic at the time.
Philip.K. Dick documentary on BBC's "Arena" originally broadcast on 9th April 1994.  
Elvis Costello Interviewee
Philip K. Dick (archive footage)
Thomas M. Disch
Terry Gilliam
Himself - Interviewee
Kim Stanley Robinson
Himself - Interviewee




Consider this - a recluse from Providence writes tales for a tiny fringe publication and ends up influencing writers generations later. Through the continued popularity of his work and spreading influence of those he influenced weave their way throughout culture. Culture shapes thoughts, and thoughts determine actions. I have put forth the idea that all narrative is myth, and that political, commercial, cultural and religious myth is largely what determines what manifests as the world in which we live. The Chthulu mythos is like the mythological equivalent of "art for art's sake". Freeing the imagination from mundane perception is as valuable as conscious memetic engineering. There is real value in not having to justify everything in practical, pragmatic and material terms. Our current political/corporate power structure is Terry Pratchett's Auditors possessing human institutions. we can take comfort in the cold, indifferent universe and rest assured that the Old Ones will awaken and chaos never died...

http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title/lovecraft_fear_of_the_unknown 
H.P. Lovecraft was the forefather of modern horror fiction having inspired such writers as Stephen King, Robert Bloch and Neil Gaiman. The influence of his Cthulhu mythos can be seen in film (Re-Animator, Hellboy, and Alien), games (The Call of Cthulhu role playing enterprise), music (Metallica, Iron Maiden) and pop culture in general. 
But what led an Old World, xenophobic gentleman to create one of literature's most far-reaching mythologies? What attracts even the minds of the 21st century to these stories of unspeakable abominations and cosmic gods? 
LOVECRAFT: FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN is a chronicle of the life, work and mind that created these weird tales as told by many of today's luminaries of dark fantasy including John Carpenter, Guillermo Del Toro, Neil Gaiman, Stuart Gordon , Caitlin Kiernan, and Peter Straub. 




It's fashionable to hate on Crowley in certain circles these days, but I'm not inclined to take part in that. What are the current tendencies towards social control but an old Aeon struggling to live on while in its death throws?
Aleister Crowley "The Wickedest Man in the World." Featuring the Voice of Joss Ackland and Music Score by Rick Wakeman.

Friday, November 6, 2009

the smallWorld: Back in a BIG way!

Hello! I’m back!

Yep, after nearly two years the Small World is back in action.

We just heard an excerpt from The H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast (http://www.hppodcraft.com), which is actually an excerpt from H.P. Lovecraft’s short story, The Picture in the House.

Chris Lackey and Chad Fifer are the host of the H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast and we’ll talk with them shortly. But before we talk with Chris and Chad I’m going to very quickly bring you up to speed with what I’ve been up to.

Back in late 2007 the Small World website was hacked. Hacked so badly that I had to nuke the entire database and start from scratch. That really took the wind out of my sails because starting from scratch meant updating the site with 496 shows.

And to be completely honest, I was more than a little burnt out. I had produced nearly 500 shows and the workload was taking it’s tole on me. I had to arrange the interview. do the interviews and then produce three shows a week. And remember, this is a labor of love, not a paying gig.

So when my site was hacked it was the final straw.

Since then I’ve been producing a show called Solipsistic Nation, where I play the best of all genres of electronic music. Along with playing great music I also interview people from the electronic music community: musicians, record labels, festival organizers, etc.

If NPR produced had an electronic music show then it would sound a lot like Solipsistic Nation.

Producing Solipsistic Nation is a lot of fun but I’ve always had that itch ti interview people about things that fascinate me that have nothing to do with electronic music. When Joe Matheny suggested that I archive the Small World on Alterati I thought it would be a perfect time to re-launch the Small World on a twice a month basis, which is a workload I can handle.

You’re probably asking yourself: what the hell is Alterati?

Alterati is like a word that you don’t know the exact definition of but you know what it means. Rather than try to explain Alterati to you right now, we’ll talk to Joseph Matheny, Alterati’s founder, on the next show and have him explain it.

So… let’s get to today’s show.

As I mentioned, our guests are Chris Lackey and Chad Fifer. Chris and Chad produce the H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast and H.P. Lovecraft was a science fiction slash horror writer who died in 1937.

You may or may not know Lovecraft but his writings have had an amazing impact on popular culture: from movies and comics like Hellboy to bands like Metallica and Black Sabbath. He’s also had a profound impact on writers like Stephen King, Jorge Luis Borges  and Neil Gaiman.

The H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast treats the work of Lovecraft with a deft touch. Each week features excerpts from one of Lovecraft’s stories accompanied with insightful and often hilarious commentary from Chris and Chad.

Today’s incidental music was provided by Veil of Thorns with the track “The Reflection” from their album, Necrofuturist. You can hear more of their Necrofuturistic music at http://www.veilofthorns.com

We’re going to keep with the funnier side of H.P. Lovecraft and close the show with a bit from Smart Bomb Radio with “Cthulhu Is My Co-pilot” and Tom Smith’s “Cthulhu Fthagn.”

Smart Bomb Radio can be found at http://www.myspace.com/smartbombradio and Tom Smith can be found at http://www.tomsmithonline.com

You can reach me at smallworldpodcast@gmail.com or follow me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/smallworld

Listen @ Alterati.com
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