March 19th, 2009 / 8:09 pm
Author Spotlight
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Author Spotlight
Literary Lessons from Metal Magazines: A Constant Variation in a Series
Cradle of Filth, uh, Rock.
Let’s head bang! I picked up the magazine Metal Edge (I like free CDs) the other day and I must say, I think I like Metal Maniacs better. Metal Edge’s list of the Greatest Frontmen in Metal made my eyeballs spit bacon (thanks Blake!). But I hate to complain. All these hard working metal journalists, not to mention the bands, make me happy. I had known about H. P. Lovecraft’s invented monster/thing/force, Cthulhu, but I didn’t know all the various bands that refer to him/it in their music (Metallica, Cradle of Filth, Black Sabbath, Mercyful Fate, Catacombs, The Black Dahlia Murder (I like James Ellroy’s WORK, WORKEDY WORK- that is for you Blake, and I once owned a first edition of White Jazz signed by Ellroy with this inscription “Fear this evil book”- it was stolen by a douchy editor from New York Magazine))! I also really enjoyed the little write up on Cthulhu by Matt Cibula and thought it worthy to share with my fellow htmlgianters who dig metal:
Cthulhu is just one of the Great Old Ones, alien gods of great power who have been slumbering on and around Earth for many years. Cthulhu itself (himself?) has a horrfying form: as big as a mountain, it is roughly humanoid with a multi-tentacled cuttlefish-like face, droop claws, useless bat-wings, and a generally unpleasant greenish ooziness about it. Cthulhu is dead but not-quite dead, waiting in the underwater city of R’lyeh to be re-awakened– and when this happens, it will pretty much be curtains for us and everything else in this world. In the meantime, it sends its freakish dreams into unsuspecting victims’ minds and drives them insane.
Tags: Cthulhu, h. p. lovecraft
“My reason for writing stories is to give myself the satisfaction of visualizing more clearly and detailedly and stably the vague, elusive, fragmentary impressions of wonder, beauty, and adventurous expectancy which are conveyed to me by certain sights (scenic, architectural, atmospheric, etc.), ideas, occurrences, and images encountered in art and literature.
“I choose weird stories because they suit my inclination best–one of my strongest and most persistent wishes being to achieve, momentarily, the illusion of some strange suspension or violation of the galling limitations of time, space, and natural law which forever imprison us and frustrate our curiosity about the infinite cosmic spaces beyond the radius of our sight and analysis.” – Lovecraft
Maybe my favorite quote ever on why a writer writes what he writes.
“My reason for writing stories is to give myself the satisfaction of visualizing more clearly and detailedly and stably the vague, elusive, fragmentary impressions of wonder, beauty, and adventurous expectancy which are conveyed to me by certain sights (scenic, architectural, atmospheric, etc.), ideas, occurrences, and images encountered in art and literature.
“I choose weird stories because they suit my inclination best–one of my strongest and most persistent wishes being to achieve, momentarily, the illusion of some strange suspension or violation of the galling limitations of time, space, and natural law which forever imprison us and frustrate our curiosity about the infinite cosmic spaces beyond the radius of our sight and analysis.” – Lovecraft
Maybe my favorite quote ever on why a writer writes what he writes.
GREAT quote. Thanks David.
Ia Ia Yog Sothoth!
Ia Ia Yog Sothoth!