HP Lovecraft at the Seattle Art Museum

This October 7th, 8th and 9th, the Seattle Art Museum will be hosting lively discussions, cinematic interpretations, and an art show curated by David Verba in honor of weird fiction author HP Lovecraft.

GUESTS

• S. T. Joshi: THE world authority on Lovecraft and his works is your host (http://www.stjoshi.org)
• Greg Bear: Speculative Fiction author extraordinaire joins the fray with thought-provoking insights (http://www.gregbear.com)
• Wilum Hopfrog Pugmire: Graces all with his Wilde Lovecraftiness (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._H._Pugmire)
• Jason V Brock: Filmmaker and Writer with an eye for the macabre (http://www.JaSunni.com)
• Marc Laidlaw: Esteemed writer of Science Fiction (http://marclaidlaw.com/)
• Sean Branney: Director of the acclaimed “The Whisperer in Darkness” (http://www.cthulhulives.org/)
• More guests to be announced…

FILMS

 

Friday, October 7th

• 4:30pm – 6:00pm: The Haunted Palace (AIP — 1963; 87 minutes)
• 6:00pm – 8:00pm: Dinner break
• 8:00pm – 11:00pm: TBA*

 

Saturday, October 8th

• 12:00pm – 1:30pm: H. P. Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown (Frank Woodward/Wyrd — 2009; 90 minutes)
• 1:30pm – 2:30pm: Panel discussion: “H. P. Lovecraft’s Life, Work, and Influence” (S. T. Joshi [Moderator], W. H. Pugmire, Philip Haldeman, Maryanne Snyder, Greg Bear)
• 2:30pm – 4:00pm: The Dunwich Horror (AIP — 1970; 90 minutes)
• 4:00pm – 6:00pm: The Whisperer in Darkness (HPLHS — 2010; 100 minutes)
• 6:00pm – 8:00pm: Dinner break
• 8:00pm – 9:00pm: Panel discussion: “Lovecraft in Film” (Sean Branney, Andrew Leman, Marc Laidlaw, Jason V Brock [Moderator], Justin Giallo)
• 9:00pm – 11:00pm: TBA*; Cool Air (Bryan Moore — 1999; 44 minutes)

 

Sunday, October 9th

• 12:00pm – 2:00pm: The Music of Erich Zann (John Strysik — 1981; 17 minutes); Night of the Demon (Columbia Pictures — 1957; 95 minutes)
• 2:00pm – 4:00pm: The Ancestor (Unreleased Director’s Cut of Dan O’Bannon’s The Resurrected, 1992; 120 minutes)
• 4:00pm – 6:00pm: The Last Wave (Janus Films — 1977; 106 minutes)
• 6:00pm – 8:00pm: Dinner break
• 8:00pm – 11:00pm: The Call of Cthulhu (HPLHS — 2005; 47 minutes); TBA*

 

TICKETS

 

• Individual shows: $8.00
• All day Friday: $12.00
• All day Saturday: $25.00
• All day Sunday: $25.00
• All weekend: $55.00

 

The Origin of Storms

The Origin of Storms by Larry L. Roberts

(for Willum Pugmire)

 

Providence reveals the kingdom

Arcane sects

A starry wisdom

 

Miasma of squally moisture

Swaying trance, droning chants

In Rhythmic ballets of torture

 

Borne of a yokeless egg

Under gibbous moons

Bringer of plague

 

Long dead cities under barren coasts

Slumbering nightmares

Worm white parasites feast on the host

 

Warming their hands on the embers of the burning

Pockets full of poesies

To the dust returning

 

In fog filled gloom, they gather at the gate

The siren’s hymn beckon

Sultry aquatic hunger, they eagerly await

 

Pounding at the doorway of our mind

Through the keyhole stares

Hooded vestments malign

 

The flame that never warms

Deafening silence

The origin of storms

SOME UNKNOWN GULF OF NIGHT by W. H. Pugmire Announced!

Already half sold out! Click the cover art below to reserve your copy.

SOME UNKNOWN GULF OF NIGHT by W. H. Pugmire (Signed limited Edition)

One of only 100 signed and numbered hardcover copies. Cover and interior illustrations by Matthew Jaffe.

With SOME UNKNOWN GULF OF NIGHT, Wilum Pugmire continues his aesthetic exploration of the prose-poem and vignette sequence, many of which may be found in his last collection, THE TANGLED MUSE.  With this new title from Arcane Wisdom Press we have a book-length sequence of semi-interconnected pieces, all of which are inspired by H. P. Lovecraft’s superb sonnet sequence, FUNGI FROM YUGGOTH.   Each numbered segment is an imaginative response to that numbered sonnet in Lovecraft’s sequence, and Pugmire’s Lovecraftian influence is the main force that drives this present work; yet other influences burrow from his fevered brain – Oscar Wilde, Edgar A. Poe, Baudelaire and the Decadents.  Like some freakish soul who has lost his place in modern time, Pugmire’s style is like that from another era, and yet it too is tainted by his neoteric experience as a punk rock queen and street transvestite.  Like his literary heroes such as H. P. Lovecraft and Thomas Ligotti and Henry James, Pugmire strives to create what he does not hesitate to call “literary art” – prose pieces that are beautifully poetic and imaginatively deranged.  This perverse concoction is best when sipped slowly, occasionally, and this is not a book to rush through in one sitting.  Let it plant its poisoned fungi gradually upon your innocent brain, and thus blemish forever your paltry soul.

Wilum Hopfrog Pugmire began to write fiction while serving as a Mormon missionary in Omagh, Northern Ireland, under the inspiration of his friend and correspondent, Robert Bloch.  When, upon returning to the States, he discovered Arkham House and the fiction and Selected Letters of H. P. Lovecraft, he became an obsessed Lovecraftian determined to join the ranks of modern Mythos writers, and to that end he has devoted himself as an author.  After a brief stint as a male whore, he discovered punk rock, which saved his soul and gave him a new fictive voice.  Thus his works are a conjoining of traditional Lovecraftian horror with up-ye-arse Decadence.  His books include SESQUA VALLEY & OTHER HAUNTS, THE TANGLED MUSE, and, forthcoming, THE STRANGE DARK ONE—TALES OF NYARLATHOTEP.  His next book will be a collection of mostly non-Lovecraftian prose-poems and vignettes, UNCOMMON PLACES, to be published at the death of this year by Hippocampus Press.

Wilum Pugmire discussing SOME UNKNOWN GULF OF NIGHT

Arcane Wisdom to Publish SOME UNKNOWN GULF OF NIGHT by Wilum Hopfrog Pugmire

Arcane Wisdom will be publishing SOME UNKNOWN GULF OF NIGHT by Wilum Hopfrog Pugmire in April of 2011.  Including cover and interior illustrations by renowned artist Matthew Jaffe. We’ll post cover art and synopsis soon.

Some information on Wilum Hopfrog Pugmire

Wilum Hopfrog Pugmire (born May 3, 1951) is a writer of horror fiction based in Seattle, Washington. His works typically are published as W. H. Pugmire. His adopted middle name derives from the story of the same title by Edgar Allan Poe.

Strongly influenced by the works of H. P. Lovecraft, many of Pugmire’s stories directly reference “Lovecraftian” elements (such as Yog-Sothoth of the Cthulhu Mythos). Pugmire’s major original contribution to the Cthulhu Mythos is the Sesqua Valley, a fictional location in the Pacific Northwest of the United States that serves as the primary locale for much of his fiction. According to his official biography, his “goal as an author is to dwell forevermore within Lovecraft’s titan shadow.”

His stories have appeared in major horror anthologies, and collections of his fiction and poetry have appeared under small press imprints such as Necropolitan Press, Mythos Books, Delirium Books, and Hippocampus Press. His most recent stories were “The House of Idiot Children” (with Maryanne Snyder) in the January/February 2008 issue of Weird Tales magazine and “The Pornography of Puppets” (with Chad Hensley) in Allen Koszowski’s Inhuman #4. In April 2011 a major retrospective of his work will be published by Centipede Press.

Here is an interesting video of Wilum Pugmire talking with Lovecraft scholar S. T. Joshi