Yesterday I read the new Sirenia Digest which contained a new Caitlin R. Kiernan story called "A Buyer's Guide to Commonplace Bizarreness". It's a little excursion into Lovecraft's Dreamlands, to Dylath-Leen, as well as a dovetailed vision of our waking world. Or supposed waking world. It's the kind of disorienting blend Lovecraft touched on occasionally but may remind a reader more of movies like Videodrome or Inland Empire. It's lovely. Caitlin includes a phot of the basalt formation called the Giant's Causeway in Ireland that influenced Lovecraft's conception of Dylath-Leen.
I love Lovecraft. My nice hardback copies of his stories are among the books I miss the most back in storage in California. I've been resisting the temptation to buy them again. My resistance is aided by the fact that they seem to be much more expensive on Amazon now.
This month, the Criterion Channel has a playlist called "Grindhouse Gothic" featuring Roger Corman's film adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe. Included is The Haunted Palace, which is actually based on Lovecraft's The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, and contains only a couple references to Poe's "The Haunted Palace". In the '60s, Poe was the more bankable name. I wonder if that's quite reversed now. Anyway, I watched a bit of it again. Corman makes the plot a lot sillier but the production design is pretty and Vincent Price is always terrific.
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