Pynchon, the normal guy

[rich]

Joshi bio is exhaustive. the man covers everything till your eyes glaze
over. but Joshi is required reading for anyone interested in HPL.
He doesnt shy away from Lovecraft's vile, backward and rather stupid views
on race, class, and other issues.

But despite that and Joshi being a person of color loves Lovecraft's work
and his insights are informative and he writes well.

I've been to Swan Point Cemetery in Providence where HPL is buried. I'm
assuming its still there since my visit was more than 20 yrs ago but near
his grave is what I would call the epitome of a Lovecraftian tree--the word
eldritch comes to mind. seemed very appropriate.

even wrote a poem about it:

finding myself at lovecraft’s grave

finding myself at lovecraft’s grave
souls a swarming
union veterans, wise bankers, abolitionists and schoolteachers
benefactors for the poor
all together in Providence’s sunny lands
jockeying for position--

but not you
near this tree in eldritch shadow
renouncing the quiet sunshine
the ineffable loneliness
and carnal stupidity
fetish bookings and collective cuttings
the endless wandering in the creamy velvet caves of mad goddess cults
the years happily playing-at- plague
building the rotting marrow of
cancerous breasts bred in the halls of these haunted northern industrial
towns
where once an ocean of abominations long ago slapped ashore
gaining the long promised kingdom of these dreadful heavenly spires
heralding such awful powers:
your dreams of longing for painless disintegration...

this life escape from life
these still remains

rich


On Wed, Dec 11, 2019 at 5:44 PM Mark Thibodeau <jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com>
wrote:

> How is the Joshi?
>
> I've been following Joshi's career and reading his Black Wings of Cthulhu
> collections, representing the best of contemporary Lovecraftian short
> fiction (of multiple different types... and featuring some wonderful stuff,
> as well as some mediocrities, unfortunately), and was thinking of picking
> up his more academically grounded work.
>
> On Wed, Dec 11, 2019 at 9:36 AM rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> i doubt I would even talk about his work if I ever got the chance to meet
>> Mr Pynchon. Probably Godzilla or favorite beer.
>> He strikes me as a normal guy in that sense.
>> I mean he's not HP Lovecraft (finally reading Joshi's exhaustive biography
>> thereof.)
>>
>> rich
>>
>> On Wed, Dec 11, 2019 at 6:32 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > I am conversationally friendly with a NYC writer online named
>> > Margo Howard. She wrote something about not showing up for the
>> > Nobel Prize and I did my bit---that is what the Swedish Academy most
>> fears
>> > as I've said here and why no Pynchon win, etc.
>> >
>> > She then riffed on TRP's reclusiveness, asking me about it, etc, esp
>> with
>> > his wife, his agent, etc.
>> > Then she said that a young man who was her assistant on a recent book
>> did
>> > get to meet Mr. Pynchon. Pronounced him "normal" to her.
>> >
>> > That's all I got, folks. And it ain't much, I know.
>> > --
>> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>> >
>> --
>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>
>