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MANTICHORE

2, No 4 (WN 8)

A

Contribution by Leigh

Blackmore for the Sword &Sorcery & Weird FictionTerminus (Dec 2007mailing), & Esoteric Orderof Dagon (Feb 2008mailing) amateur pressassociations.Leigh Blackmore, 78 RowlandAve, Wollongong, NSW 2500.

Australia.

Email: lvxnox@gmail.comOfficial Website: TheBlackmausoleum

http://members.optusnet.com.au/lvxnox/

Mantic Notes(Pronunciation:'man-tik. Etymology:Greek mantikos, from mantis : of or

relating to the faculty of divination:prophetic).

As usual this issue isbeing prepared in haste. Life isbusy, and these deadlines arealways creeping up on top ofother projects. I missedcontributing to the Sept SSWFTmailing, and did an issue 7.5for the October EOD, in order

to bring myself back in line andlet Issue 8 go to both apas. I

just received my universityresult for second session of 2nd

year two Distinctions andthree Credits. An acceptableresult, although I was a bit

peeved I missed out onDistinctions in three subjectsby only one or two marks.Anyhow, next year I willcomplete my BCA (CreativeWriting) and continue Journalism. In 2009 Illgraduate BCA (Writing) andfinish the Journalism degree.Family life continues busy,though not as difficult as thelast twelve months. While weare still resolving legaldifficulties surrounding Margisinheritance of her mothershouse, where we all live,studies have gone well Margihas finished TAFE for the yearand will soon have herCertificate 3 as a Library Technician. Graham has been

busy as always at school.Rohan started a job in Sydney(lots of travelling from here inWollongong) and will finishthat just after Christmas. Hehopes to get a different IT jobearly next year with anothercompany, and probably moveto Sydney as well.

My literary accomplishments

lately have been limited butsatisfying. My story TheReturn of Zoth-Ommog (aLovecraftian tale) appeared inthe anthology Daikaiju 3: GiantMonsters versus the World(ed.Robert Hood and Robin Pen;Agog! Press, 2007). CarbonFootprints, a soundpiece I didfor a uni course was exhibited

at the uni art gallery with thesound works of other students.

mailto:lvxnox@gmail.comhttp://members.optusnet.com.au/lvxnox/http://members.optusnet.com.au/lvxnox/mailto:lvxnox@gmail.comhttp://members.optusnet.com.au/lvxnox/http://members.optusnet.com.au/lvxnox/http://members.optusnet.com.au/lvxnox/

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Regional funding has beenapproved for my radiofictodocumentary CallingWater and it should beproduced for ABC Radio

National early next year; justdont know when yet. Icompleted an essay on DonaldWandrei for a book on thepoets of the Lovecraft Circle tobe published by Mythos Books;it now seems I may be co-editing that book, along withBen Szumskyj and Phillip A.Ellis. And finally, I havesubmitted a package of storiesto an American publisher whohas expressed interest, in thehope that a collection of myhorror stories can be issued; Ihave my fingers and toes(webbed) crossed about thatone. Margi & I continue to runmagick workshops togetherand run our ritual group,MoonsKin.

Ive become a Facebook junkieand made many new friendsonline through networkingthere. Its a good site if youignore the Funwalls andthrowing of virtual cupcakes,and concentrate on the usefuldiscussion groups.

Films Seen

True Game of Death: A reallylame Bruce Lee inspired movie

The Last Bolshevik: Gooddoco by Chris Marker, mostfamous for making La Jetee.

Apocalypto: Loved this MelGibson adventure movie aboutthe Maya. Great actionsequences, thoroughlyentertaining.

Oceans Eleven : Cantremember much about this;entertaining brain candy.

Head: The Monkees moviefrom the 1960s. Goodindulgent fun, with somefreaky psychedelic sequences.Didnt really hold together,though.

Blood Diamond: Enjoyablemovie about diamondsmuggling and journalism inSouth Africa.

SuperSize Me: Quite a funny(and informative doco) aboutMcDonalds and fast food ingeneral and their effects on

the health of one man whoundertakes living only on fastfood for a month.

North Country: Excellent filmabout the case of a womanwho won legal victories forwomen by working in themens-only world of mining.

Last Days: A fairly annoying

film Gus van Sant film basedloosely on the final days ofrockstar Kurt Cobain. Deadpancamerawork, uninvolvingcharacters. Might work forsome didnt for me.

Life of Judy Garland: Meand My Shadows. A superbperformance by Judy Davis as

Garland, in this biopic about

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the singer. Won 5 EmmyAwards. Worth checking out.

Ive seen lots of other filmssince, but didnt keep notes

here. Some of the horror films Ireviewed at Flixster.net viaFacebook.

ORIGINAL POSTCARDFROM THE OFFICES OFWEIRD TALESMAGAZINE.

Heres one of the rarities from

my Lovecraft collection, whichI bought from a US dealermany years ago. Its anannouncement card fromWeird Tales magazine,addressed to Walter J. Coates.Coates was a poet, proprietorof the Driftwind Press (themagazine Driftwindpublishedmuch poetry by HPL and hisessay The Materialist Today) and a sporadiccorrespondent of Lovecraft.Lovecrafts The Thing on the

Doorstep (written in 1933)appeared in the January 1937issue ofWeird Tales. This cardis postmarked Dec 1936, so itwas sent out the month before

the issue. The appearance ofthis story predated HPLs deathin March 1937 by only twomonths. The card has twohandwritten notations in inkwhich appear to be story titles:Skeleton of a Porter andLilacs That You Loved. Theymay be notes that Coatesmade about stories in WT thathe liked.

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Pan at Lane Coveby Kenneth Slessor

Scaly with poison, bright withflame,Great fungi steam beside thegate,Run tentacles throughflagstone cracks,or claw beyond, wheremeditateWe poplars on a pitchy lawn.Some seignior of colonial fame

Has planted here a stone-cutfaunWhose flute juts like a frozenflame.

O lonely faun, what songs aretheseFor skies where no Immortalshide?Why finger in this dour abode Those Pan-pipes girdled at

your side?

Your Gods, and Hellas too,have passed,Forsaken are the Cyclades,And surely, faun, you are thelastTo pipe such ancient songs asthese.

Yet, blow your stone-lippedflute, and blow Those red-and-silver pipes ofPan.Cold stars are bubbling roundthe moon,Which, like some goldenIndianmanDisgorged by water spouts and

blownThrough heavens archipelago,Drives orange bows by cloudsof stoneBlow, blow your flute, youstone boy, blow!

And, Chiron, pipe yourcentaurs out,The night has looped a smokyscarf

Round campanili in the town,

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And thrown a cloak aboutClontarf.Now earth is ripe for Pan again,Barbaric ways and Paynimrout,

And revels of old Samian men.O Chiron, pipe your centaursout.

This garden by the dark LaneCoveShall spark before my musicdiesWith silver sandals; all thygodsBe conjured from Ionian skies.Those poplars in a fluting trice Theyll charm into an olive-groveAnd dance a while in ParadiseLike men of fire above LaneCove.

I was going to write anessay about Kenneth Slessorand his pagan-influenced

poetry, but the full one willhave to await a future issue.No time, no time! But I willpresent here the brief notes Imade for the article.

I like the poem printedhere for a number of reasons I grew up in Sydneys suburbof Lane Cove (my friend DannyLovecraft now lives there) andit was delightful to find Slessor

using it as a setting for thisneo-Arcadian verse from the1920s.

Paganism in Poetry:Kenneth Slessors Pan

at Lane Cove

Kenneth Slessors poem

Pan at Lane Cove was

published in Vision magazinein the 1920s. Jaffa sees this poem as anecho and re-echo from theLindsayian world (p. 51), that

is, Slessors debt to theinfluence of Norman Lindsay.He also refers to it as ablatant Lindsayian poem (p.53).

Stewart calls it utterlybeautiful and intriguing (p.4)admitting that when he firstwas exposed to it, it seemedbizarre in comparison to theconventional nature poetrywith which he grew up in NewZealand. It shows hisdistinctive music saysStewart (p. 65). Stewart pointsout that Bubbles is a key-word (or key image) inSlessors poetry.

Dutton however dislikesit, lumping it with most ofSlessors early poems and their

quality of what he refers to asfake vitality (p. 66), poemsthat are overcharged andarchaic (p. 68).Cf short story The DarkGarden (probably in Vision)which was set in the samegarden, with an old stoneconvict-built mansion, as Panat Lane Cove.`

Initially the first line read

In phosphor-green and gulesand flame (was this in Earth-Visitors, Franfrolico Press,1926?) but Slessor changed itto Scaly with poison, brightwith flame for laterappearances - One HundredPoems (Sydney: Angus andRobertson, 1944).Slessor wasinvolved with Sydney

bohemianism.References

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Dutton, Geoffrey. KennethSlessor: A Biography.Melbourne: Viking Penguin,1991. Jaffa, Herbert C. Kenneth

Slessor. US: Twayne, 1971;Sydney: Angus & Robertson,1977.Stewart, Douglas. A Man ofSydney: An Appreciation ofKenneth Slessor. Melbourne:Thomas Nelson, 1977.

Other fantasy poems bySlessor to be consideredinclude : The Ghost;Glubbdubdrib, CannibalStreet.

Labelfor a Greek

beer called

Mythos(!). I used to drink thiswhile living in Sydney with mymate , horror writer BryceStevens. It was good forstimulating discussions onmatters fantastic, Lovecraftianand batrachian.

(Above) Han Imperialis.I am sure the above artwork,done in 1957 by an artistcalled Eugene vonBruenchenhein, was notmeant to depict Great Cthulhu.Yet it has something distinctlyof the Old Ones about it. I

knew nothing about the artist,who died in 1983, but there isa very interesting article forthose want to know more, at:

http://www.ktfgallery.com/past/?object_id=86

http://www.ktfgallery.com/past/?object_id=86http://www.ktfgallery.com/past/?object_id=86http://www.ktfgallery.com/past/?object_id=86http://www.ktfgallery.com/past/?object_id=86

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SOME NOTES ONLOVECRAFT &

HAROLD S. FARNESE.

(Above)Elegy for HP Lovecraft, a piece

of music written by HaroldFarnese.

Farnese was the sourceof the quotation which for

years was taken by AugustDerleth to have been writtenby Lovecraft himself: All mystories, unconnected as they may be,are based on the fundamental lore or

legend that this world was inhabitedat one time by another race who, inpractising black magic, lost theirfoothold and were expelled, yet liveon outside, ever ready to take

possession of the earth again. (SeeJoshis HP Lovecraft: A Life, p.404). It was Farnese, whocorresponded briefly withLovecraft, whomisremembered Lovecraftsactual quotation which

appeared in a letter toFarnsworth Wright, the editorofWeird Tales, in July 1927:

Now all my tales are basedon the fundamental premise thatcommon human laws and interestsand emotions have no validity orsignificance in the vast cosmos-at-large. To me there is nothing butpuerility in a tale in which the humanform and the local human passionsand conditions and standards are

depicted as native to other worlds orother universes. To achieve theessence of real externality, whetherof time or space or dimension, onemust forget that such things asorganic life, good and evil, love andhate, and all such local attributes of anegligible and temporary race calledmankind, have any existence at all.

The work of Dirk Mosig,Richard L. Tierney, David E.Schultz and others has long

since dispelled the mistakenview held by Derleth thatLovecrafts work contained acosmic good vs evil struggle.But perhaps we have forgottenthat it was not Derleth, butFarnese, who was mainly toblame for putting this viewforward.

There is little informationabout Farnese other thangiven in Joshis biography of

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Lovecraft, from which I quote(p. 522):

A somewhat more significantpiece of recognition came fromHarold S. Farnese (1885-1945), a

composer who had won the 1911composition prize at the ParisConservatory, and was then AssistantDirector of the Institute of Musical Artat Los Angeles. Farnese wished to settwo of Lovecrafts Fungi fromYuggoth sonnets, Mirage and TheElder Pharos (both in Weird Tales forFebruary-March 1931) to music.Having done so shortly thereafter,Farnese then proposed that Lovecraftwrite the libretto of an entire operaor music drama based generally on

his work, to be titled (ratheroutlandishly) Yurregarth andYannimaid or The Swamp City butLovecraft declined the offer, citinghis complete lack of experience indramatic composition (evidently his1918 squibAlfredo did not qualify). Itis difficult to imagine what such awork would have been like.

No, I correct myself some further information onFarnese appears in Joshi and

Schultzs HP Lovecraft: AnEncyclopedia (p. 91), where welearn that Farnesecorresponded with HPL in1932-33. HPL granted permission,and by September Farnese hadwritten and performed music forMirage and The Elder Pharos..HPL never heard or saw the pieces,and it was not until HPL died thatFarnese had the sheet music printedand circulated (a page from The

Elder Pharos is printed in SL 4,facing p. 159). We learn here toothat on declining the operalibretto idea, Lovecraftsuggested Clark Ashton Smithas librettist; presumably Smithalso declined the idea ifFarnese ever approached himabout it..

Joshi doesnt mentionElegy, which presumably

was composed by Farnese inmemoriam when HPL died in

March 1937 (the music iscopyright 1937). The copy Ireproduce here was circulatedin one of the Lovecraftianapas sometime in the 1980s,

probably by Randy Everts Isuspect.

Two (edited) letters byHPL to Farnese appear inSelected Letters IV (nos 566and 570), both dated 1932. The first of the two letters(Sept 22, 1932) outlines insome detail Lovecraftsaesthetic of the weird, beforedeclining the proposal of theopera libretto:

I have never as yetemployed drama as a medium ofexpression. Probably the reason isthat in the sort of work I am trying todo human characters matter verylittle. They are only incidental details,& can well be left in the puppet stage since the real protagonists of mytales are not organic beings at all,

but simplyphenomena.The second letter, dated

Oct 12, 1932, is briefer, andhas a paragraph on sources ofartistic inspiration, and(strangely, in light of theearlier declining of the librettooffer), what appears to be awelcoming of a collaborativeeffort on this very idea:

I shall, as I said before, beexceedingly glad to hear more ofyour ideas for a fantastic libretto - &

it may well be that I could collaborateon such a thing to much betteradvantage than I could create itoutright. No doubt you would wish tolay the scene on some sunken orforgotten continent such as Atlantis,Mur, or Lemuria or in the (thentropical) Artic or Antarctic. TheAntarctic has always exerted apeculiar fascination over me, and mymost ambitious story (rejected byWeird Tales) has its scene laidthere

It would be interesting toknow if the Farnese side of the

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correspondence survives. Doesanyone know? According toDonovan Loucks website TheHP Lovecraft Archive, (seehttp://www.hplovecraft.com/lif

e/myths.asp), After Lovecrafts death,

Derleth wrote Farnese, asking if hecould borrow the letters fromLovecraft. Farnese gladly agreed,and mailed the letters to Derleth..

So these letters may be in theDerleth estate somewhere. Ah,no I see that David E.Schulzs important article TheOrigin of Lovecrafts Black

Magic Quote (online athttp://www.epberglund.com/RGttCM/nightscapes/NS08/ns8nf2.htm)

has more about Farnese,and indicates that that theFarnese correspondence toLovecraft is in the John HayLibrary. Farneses letters toDerleth are in the StateHistorical Society of Wisconsin.

Joshis HP Lovecraftbibliography (Kent StateUniversity Press 1981) lists (atIII-D-248) an article by KennethW. Faig about this and otherpieces : A Note Regarding theHarold Farnese MusicalPieces, which appeared in theDark Brotherhood Journal 1, No1 (June 1971). If anyone has

a copy of this, Id vastlyappreciate them sending itto me. Likewise a piecewritten by James Wade:Lovecraft and Farnese inHarmony and Discord (TheMiskatonic, 5

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scholars. Perhaps RandyEverts (if it was he whocirculated the copy I havereproduced here) may castfurther light on the origins of

the piece, and the location ofthe original?

MANTICHORUS:MAILING NOTES

I humbly apologise, but Isimply dont have time tomake individual comments oneveryones contributions fromthe last mailings. Itsfrustrating, but I have anumber of things demandingmy time, including manuscriptassessments for pay, editorialwork on other projects, andfamily responsibilities. I doassure everyone that I readthoroughly all the contributionsand enjoyed them all. Perhapsin my next issue I can

endeavour to make amends,though Im hesitant topromise. Congratulations to allmembers of both SSWFT andEOD for your thought-provoking writings, Im verysorry that I cant respond line-by-line, as Id love to do.

Chris Perridas has a

worthwhile blog with someinteresting articles aboutLovecraft at:

http://chrisperridas.blogspot.com/search/label/Lovecraft%20Letters%20and%20Ephemera

http://chrisperridas.blogspot.com/search/label/Lovecraft%20Letters%20and%20Ephemerahttp://chrisperridas.blogspot.com/search/label/Lovecraft%20Letters%20and%20Ephemerahttp://chrisperridas.blogspot.com/search/label/Lovecraft%20Letters%20and%20Ephemerahttp://chrisperridas.blogspot.com/search/label/Lovecraft%20Letters%20and%20Ephemerahttp://chrisperridas.blogspot.com/search/label/Lovecraft%20Letters%20and%20Ephemerahttp://chrisperridas.blogspot.com/search/label/Lovecraft%20Letters%20and%20Ephemera