Spooky Small Town America (August 2015 Literary Meeting)

Posted on August 16, 2015 at 11:33 am by Joshua Tuttle
"Welcome to scenic Dunwich!"

“Welcome to scenic Dunwich!”

Welcome to the August 2015 Literary Meeting!

The most recent literary theme has been “Spooky small town America.”  This is a topic for which there is an abundant supply of literary material, so the theme ran for two months rather that one.  Our goal was to examine what constituted Spooky small town America throughout literature in the past three centuries or so.  As always, I’ve made informal references in text, with full references listed at the end (I wasn’t very consistent this time with what I cited as a reference; sometimes I cited the publication we actually read from, while for others I did not).

Aromatic Accompaniment: Black Birch by Chesapeake Bay Candle.

Gustatory Accompaniment: Moscato D’Asti, Ruffino (2013) and Huckleberry D’Latah, Latah Creek.

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Your Tuesday Dose of the Spooky: Train Tunnels

Posted on August 11, 2015 at 9:45 am by Joshua Tuttle

Original Cascade Tunnel

It’s Tuesday again!  Time for your weekly dose of the Spooky, culled from around the web, the world, and life.  Every week I’ll have something new to send a shiver down your spine.

This week’s theme is train tunnels.

I don’t know what it is about train tunnels, but they scare the snot out of me.  The idea of a shaft, made by men, burrowing deep into the side of a mountain, just seems so crazy. Maybe it’s because I grew up in the California sun, but looking at pictures of tiny ovals of blackness that lead sometimes miles underground doesn’t make me feel great.  Mankind was meant to stand in the sunlight, in my opinion.  Or perhaps it was the story my mother told me about her foolish youth, when she and her friends decided to run through a train tunnel near Indian Springs, only to have an unexpected train chase them out–they barely made it.

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Your Thursday Dose of Apology

Posted on August 6, 2015 at 8:15 am by Joshua Tuttle

Hello everyone, I’m sorry that I didn’t post anything Spooky on Tuesday.  I was out of town and I got back late.  Not to worry though, I’ve got something good ready for next week.

I also owe you a post for the July 2015 Cinematic Meeting, which I hope to get done this weekend.

See you on Tuesday.

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July 2015 Cinematic Meeting: Spanish Lovecraftian Horror

Posted on July 30, 2015 at 11:00 pm by Joshua Tuttle

la_herencia_valdemar

Welcome to the July 2015 Cinematic Meeting!

The theme for this meeting was Spanish Lovecraftian Horror, which can mean only one thing: The Valdemar Legacy.

Spanish horror is fantastic.  Spanish cinema is fantastic, actually.  It’s a shame they don’t have a bigger market, which is why it is my duty, as Chairman, to introduce you to these things if you didn’t beat me to it.

Aromatic Accompaniment: Midnight Berry by Chesapeake Bay Candle.

la_herencia_valdemar_posterI first saw this film at the 2013 HP Lovecraft Film Festival in Portland, Oregon, where patrons were bulging out of the back of the theatre in order to see the screen.  I myself was lucky enough to have a wall to lean on.  Regrettably, it was very difficult to find this movie until recently.  It has only recently become available to an American audience, as it has finally debuted on Amazon Instant Watch (and is free for Prime members!) this year.  The last time I checked it was not available on Netflix (even on DVD).

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Your Tuesday Dose of the Spooky: The Baltic Sea Object

Posted on July 28, 2015 at 10:17 am by Joshua Tuttle
The Object

The Baltic Sea Object

It’s Tuesday again!  Time for your weekly dose of the Spooky, culled from around the web, the world, and life.  Every week I’ll have something new to send a shiver down your spine.

This week’s theme is The Baltic Sea Object.

At some point, everyone fantasizes about what might lie beneath the murky ocean depths.  The more optimistic of us imagine treasure, or perhaps Atlantis.  The more adventurous imagine shipwrecks.  It’s the deep darkness of the ocean that fascinates me.  My first exposure to it was a stack of National Geographic magazines someone gave me in the early 90’s.  One of them was the Titanic issue.

The image of something made appearing faintly out of the darkness captivated my four-year-old mind and hasn’t let up.  It isn’t just the darkness that scares me.  I think it’s the fact that for something we made to appear out of the darkness like that it first has to be lost.  The thought of something slowly (or quickly) sinking beneath those inky fathoms terrifies me in a way that little else does.

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