Lovecraftian School Board Member Urges Pro-Madness Curriculum to Prepare Students for Awaiting Chaos
Nyarlathotep
A concerned Arkham, MA school board member believes that Nyarlathotep Academy (formerly known as Abraham Lincoln High) inadequately prepares students for the black seas of infinity.
Arguing that students should return to the fundamentals taught in the Pnakotic Manuscripts and the Necronomicon in order to develop the skills they need to be driven to the very edge of sanity, Arkham school board member Charles West continued to advance his pro-madness agenda at the district’s monthly meeting Tuesday.
“Fools!” said West, his clenched fist striking the lectern before him. “We must prepare today’s youth for a world whose terrors are etched upon ancient clay tablets recounting the fever-dreams of the other gods—not fill their heads with such trivia as math and English. Our graduates need to know about those who lie beneath the earth, waiting until the stars align so they can return to their rightful place as our masters and wage war against the Elder Things and the shoggoths!”
Read more about his quest to provide students with regular field trips to the Miskatonic University medieval metaphysics department.
Via Mystery of the Haunted Vampire
Creepy Cute Cthulhu, Nosferatu, and Death
Apparently fiendish little toys don’t just make themselves. Luckily Christen Haden, a.k.a. NeedleNoodles, has written an instructional guide called Creepy Cute Crochet. From the back cover:
Creepy Cute Crochet features more than 20 unique patterns for totally loveable zombies, ninjas, Vikings, vampires, aliens, robots, and even Death himself. Each easy-to-follow pattern is presented with step-by-step diagrams, hilarious commentary, and full-color photographs of the bloodcurdlingly sweet creatures in their natural environments.
There are also instructions for crocheting Nosferatu, Cthulhu, a devil, and a skeleton bride and groom. You can view photos of completed dolls in the Creepy Cute Crochet Flickr pool. They’re way better than crocheted puppies and bunnies!
If you aren’t the crafty type, finished dolls are available at the NeedleNoodles Etsy shop. No crocheting required.
The Recently Deflowered Girl with Illustrations by Edward Gorey
Do you know the right thing to say when you’ve been deflowered by the elevator operator? What if said deflowering is at the hands of a mustachioed marimba player, a Chinese detective, or a perfect stranger? Miss Hyacinthe Phypps, maven of feminine etiquette, has the most practical of advice in her 1965 guide, The Recently Deflowered Girl: The Right Thing to Say on Every Dubious Occasion.
Illustrations by Edward Gorey are paired with text by Mel Juffe in this simultaneously innocent and hedonistic volume attributed to the delightful Miss Hyacinthe Phypps. Her “simple rules of propriety and common sense have helped a generation of girls over the threshold to womanhood.”
The book is out of print, but a complete set of scans may be viewed on Joey deVilla’s blog. Copies are occasionally available on Amazon and at other online used booksellers.
One final thought: it seems like the text of this book was heavily influenced by the wit and whimsical humor I associate with Edward Gorey. I wonder whether Gorey’s involvement extended beyond illustrating The Recently Deflowered Girl.
Found via The Presurfer
Lovecraft on Fiendish Deliciousness
McSweeney’s brings us these brilliant Selections from H.P. Lovecraft’s Brief Tenure as a Whitman’s Sampler Copywriter. Included are these Lovecraftian descriptions:
White Chocolate Truffle: What black arts could have stripped this chocolate of its natural hue? The horror of the unearthly, corpselike pallor of this truffle’s complexion is only offset by its fiendish deliciousness.
Nut Cluster Crunch: This eerie candy will test the sanity of all but those who possess the strongest of constitutions. Strange congeries of almonds, walnuts, and pistachios dance hypnotically within, promising to reveal their eldritch secrets to anyone foolish enough to take a bite of these ancient nut clusters!
Dark Chocolate Fudge: Dark! All-encompassing, eternal darkness! Human eyes cannot penetrate the stygian blackness of this unholy confection!
Chocolate Cherry Cordial: What deranged architect could have engineered this non-Euclidean aberration? I dare not speculate.
More at McSweeney’s.
via Serious Eats
The Masque of The Red Death
This wonderfully done animation of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Masque of The Red Death captures the baroque Gothicism of Poe’s ode to the lost art of the Masque without losing the essential morality of Poe’s work. Earthly pleasures are fleeting and cannot long keep at bay the harsh reality of the inevitable death and decay of all things:
The Return of Sir Richard Grenville
Robert E. Howard’s stirring yet maudlin poem about friendship and loyalty features the ghost of a long lost comrade of Puritan adventurer Solomon Kane returning from the dead to fight alongside his former friend. A touching tribute to the enduring power of those bonds of brotherhood we forge in our youth, and mourn as we age, the poem’s strength is enhanced by the moody noir atmosphere of this short film by artist Mike Kane.
I found this movie on an old post at Pulp Reader.
If the film has you yearning for derring-do check out this collection of Howard’s Solomon Kane stories.