Pieces of Me: How I Met H.P. Lovecraft
Nov. 14th, 2005 03:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ellyssianAs dawn breaks through the trees,
lonely town falls to their knees,
a solemn belfry begins to toll.
The mass begins sing familiar hymns,
man in black has his back to the crowd.
Spreads his wings and turns around,
as my heart begins to pound.
lonely town falls to their knees,
a solemn belfry begins to toll.
The mass begins sing familiar hymns,
man in black has his back to the crowd.
Spreads his wings and turns around,
as my heart begins to pound.
Fates Warning - Night on Brocken
The band Fates Warning had a certain feeling - noticeable on their first three albums - of New England, and of certain things that might be darker and lurking just below the surface of this green and pleasant land (Hey, it's not called "New" England without good reason, wot? =)
Although they don't come out with song titles like "Call of Ktulu" (Metallica) or "The Thing That Should Not Be" (ditto), Fates Warning shares many characteristics with a certain writer of horror who I had not - as late as perhaps 1987 - had the pleasure of meeting.
You see, I - how can I say this? how else? Quoth Sam's comment to the Frog Brothers: "I don't read horror." And here I was, in the mists, in Newburyport, waiting in the car on a street lined with colonials that were, well, actually built during the colonial days. And all because of Fates Warning, and a girl named (for purposes of this story) Tammy. She was just the middle-man in this affair, as it were, and Fates Warning were more of a conduit than anything else. Or something like that.
I knew Tammy from the metal club scene in Boston - The Channel, specifically, which was still in business at that time. She happened to know of a vocalist, Richie, who was into similar music as I was. So here I was, outside this particular colonial, because Richie was inside, and he was visiting his girlfriend at her friend's house.
Confused? I was - but I sat in the car listening to Fates Warning and it was good, and it fit the mood that I felt in the air around me.
Although the stories of the various adventures I would have with Richie would fill dozens of these episodes (even if cut-tags were filled to the burstin'), there was one critical thing that happened on our first meeting, not long after we dropped off his girlfriend out on Plum Island, and we discussed the actual business of music composition, performance, forming a band, and so forth.
Richie said: "Have you ever read H.P. Lovecraft?" After discerning this Aych Pee guy was a horror writer, I gave the aforementioned quote and shut down the conversation early.
Thankfully, Richie had a stubborn streak.
Before I left to head down to more southerly climes, away from the disconcerting mists of Amesbury and Newburyport and Rowley (with Arkham, Kingsport, and Innsmouth thrown in for good measure - although I didn't know it at the time), Richie handed me a copy of The Tomb and other stories and said, "Just read it. He writes like you do."
I think it took a few weeks, but something like that is a powerful enticement - not "You write like he does", which implies that ", thou foul plagiarist!" is appended to it, but the other way around. This guy (dead, but I wasn't sure at this time, and still wonder about these days) who is published and famous and so forth writes like I do...
Once I started reading, I couldn't stop, and I cleared out booksellers of every tome I could find... the end result, of course, that if I didn't write like he did before, I certainly have a touch of it now, and no mistake.
Because you, you're the one I
saw in flight, at Walpurgis Night.
You've betrayed and cursed the light,
at Walpurgis Night.
You're the one I saw in flight,
at Walpurgis Night.
At the setting of the sun.
saw in flight, at Walpurgis Night.
You've betrayed and cursed the light,
at Walpurgis Night.
You're the one I saw in flight,
at Walpurgis Night.
At the setting of the sun.
Fates Warning - Night on Brocken
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-14 03:22 pm (UTC)Friday night at Granny's
Date: 2005-11-15 06:03 pm (UTC)i am going to try and write something new before next months poetry night....alas off I go into the darkened night upon which therin lies a prescence undefined.