S. T. Joshi Visits Wilum Pugmire

S. T. Joshi talks about the Lovecraft film festival in Seattle and many of his upcoming projects…including those with yours truly here at Arcane Wisdom.

Hunter and Gatherer

There are two kinds of book lovers and they are as different as night and day, polar opposite as north and south.  If you were to mix them in a bowl they would separate like oil and water.

On the one side we have what I would call the consumer booklovers, they are the carnivores in the book jungle.  They gather for no other reason than to consume.  They don’t care what edition they purchase, whether it’s a hardback or paperback, if it’s a first edition or the 100^th printing. All they require to fill their book loving bellies is a copy, any copy.  You will often see these folks using their paperback for a drink coaster when not being read, or bending over the pages to mark their spot.  They will feel no remorse and no tick of pain when they pull back the hardcover boards until they snap and crack like an old man’s muscles doing his morning stretch.  To these booklovers books are meant to be devoured, in whole and in parts if necessary.  They will leave their books in cars, in an inflatable raft floating in the pool, or even as a doorstop.

I once remember seeing a women reading on a park bench who was tearing each page out of the book after finishing it.  When I asked her why she was tearing out the pages her reply was simply, “I don’t have a bookmark”.

Now don’t get me wrong these aren’t bad folks, many of these people are our neighbors, our family and our friends.  They see books as entertainment or educational and nothing more.  Once the volumes have been read, and the entertainment or knowledge absorbed, there is little use for them; their purpose has been served.

On the opposite end of the spectrum we have the collector who sees books as all the things the consumer booklover sees but also sees them as works of art.  To these bibliophiles books are a storehouse of knowledge and memories, they are history, and in some way, even before they open the cover, something to be admired for more than mere words.   They want the closest thing that they can find to the author who created the work and in most cases that is the true first edition.  For them, the true value lies with the first impression of the book produced for the public.

The collector booklover believes that books have an aesthetic quality not only to the eyes but also to the touch that, not unlike the lover of paintings, the collector feels merely from  being in the presence of a great book. The experience enhances their quality of life.

These collectors tend to care for their books like they would anything else of value, with care and diligence.   The books in the collector’s library are often seen as extensions of their heritage, beliefs, interests and passions.  They are a reflection of themselves.  A time capsule of sorts showing where they’ve been, what they’ve experienced what they believe and how they’ve come to those beliefs.

Now it’s not to hard to understand why then, to a collector, the condition of a book is so important, because quite simply it is a symbol of what they’ve come to treasure in life.  To break it down to its core, the collector has moved from just hunter to the hunter and gatherer.  The collectors want to ensure that they can enjoy the feast of reading the books  in their collection more than once and even seeing those volumes on the shelf brings back the reminder of the pleasure had upon its first reading.

The purpose of the small press horror collector is a significant one.  These written works will one day be seen as treasures by the masses rather than the few.  And we, as collectors, are simply the caretakers of these treasures.

For example, society is just now starting to see the real influence that H.P. Lovecraft’s fiction had on American literature, film and art, a half century after his death.   August Derleth’s passion for this genre took shape when he published some of the best dark fantasy in the world, with his Arkham House imprint.  Yet even as the rest of the world is starting to realize the importance of “Weird Fiction” its influence has yet to be fully recognized.

I believe that the small press horror collector’s role in our world history will prove to be a significant one.  We line our walls from floor to ceiling with these dark works of fiction because they teach us about the significance of life, its frailty and the ease with which it can be taken away.  They afford us the opportunity to look at life as something very precious and worthy of our reverence. Without the collectors, most books  would likely only be collected as rubbish by our local sanitation department and buried with yesterday’s dinner.  Without these libraries we would likely lose some of our folklore, mores and folkways that are now written in between the pages of today’s small press horror literature.  I believe that the importance of this genre hasn’t yet realized its influence on our “life ways,” but will, in retrospect, prove to be the reflection of the dark side of our nature through no less than five wars, concentration camps, occult suicides and school yard playground rampages to mention only a few.  These works reflect our history and our lives over the past few centuries.  Our genre reflects the darkness of our past and shines a light of promise and interpretation upon its future.

Episode 70 – The Mound – Part 1

Another great H. P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast with Chad Fifer & Chris Lackey.

THE MOUND by H. P. Lovecraft & Zealia Bishop

Here is a link where you can read THE MOUND for free.  http://bit.ly/giwh0k

IF you want to see some pictures of real mounds click the picture below.

Remembering Gerry de la Ree

Here at Miskatonic books we love new, cutting edge horror. However, it feels that there is such a disconnect between readers today and the antiquarian thread that leads back through history to great professionals and fans of yesteryear. We try to remind the seasoned seniors of good memories and new fans of what they missed and may want to check out.

In the mid-1950′s, Gerry de la Ree was a stalwart of horror and science fiction conventions and ran a mail order operation from his New Jersey home. [1] Perhaps his most notable contributions to fandom was his small run indie press in the 1970′s featuring Lovecraft, Poe, and a series of Virgil Finlay’s work.

In those days when long distance phone bills were as pricey as your teenager’s texting invoice, people used – shock! – snail mail. Yes, the good old (then reliable) U.S.P.S. If you wanted something, you clipped an ad from a comic book, a pulp, or some other magazine and sent a SASE (stamped self-addressed stamped envelope) for more information, or a return reply.

Circulation through distributors was spotty even in big cities, so it was common to miss an issue of your favorite issue. Therefore, folks like de la Ree provided a service to young fans. He also looked for talent, and when he spotted it, he supported it through recommendations or small spot jobs as he could afford it.

For a time in the 1950′s Gerry de la Ree worked for the Bergen/Hackensack “The Record” working with sports editor Al Del Greco, with Gerry de la Ree doing the layout. Robert Weinberg tells stories of visiting him (and Sam Moskowitz, another NJ stalwart) and how when Virgil Finlay got cancer, he helped sell art to pay some bills.

Sadly he passed too soon at the age of 68 in Saddle River, NJ. Back in January 1993. Featured is perhaps the first news story of young de la Ree’s career from 1953.

S. T. Joshi Announces MODERN MYTHOS LIBRARY On His Blog

From S. T. Joshi’s blog:

January 29, 2011

I’m excited to announce that Larry Roberts of Bloodletting Press and I are teaming up to launch a new series, the Modern Mythos Library, to be issued by one of Larry’s sub-imprints, Arcane Wisdom. This series will publish vital and significant contemporary works of Cthulhu Mythos fiction by leading authors. Our first two selections have been chosen: Rick Dakan’s splendid novel The Cult of Cthulhu and Jonathan Thomas’s novel The Color over Occam. The latter is a loose sequel to “The Colour out of Space” and is one of the finest supernatural novels I have read in many years. I don’t know the schedule of publication for these titles, but I hope they can appear this year.

My work on the Modern Mythos Library coincides with my withdrawal from the New Millennium Mythos published by Perilous Press. I hope that Perilous continues this worthy series.

You can read the full blog post by clicking here.   http://www.stjoshi.org/news.html