All this, and a bag of tentacles!
I awoke this afternoon...and it really was afternoon...after about ten hours of sleep. Oh, and I dreamt about a Nazi invasion, and being some sort of resistance freedom fighter. But, er, where to begin. I'm not going to attempt a con report, because a) I'd be insulting the HPLFF by calling it a con, and b) I suck at making con reports. That which is not dead can not be summarized. You really had to be there. So, what I will do is strew random comments higgledy-piggledy through this entry and those for the next few days, comments which, when taken as a whole, will provide some vague impression of the past weekend.
It was almost perfect, this past weekend. It would have been a perfect weekend, if not for the nonsense that began at the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport and forced us to go to Detroit in order to get back to Providence. And except for my iPod apparently biting the dust (in all fairness, it was more than five years old, and there's that whole idiotic planned obsolescence thing to consider).
Before I forget, an announcement from Subterranean Press. It would seem that the warehouse has yielded a nearly full carton of The Ammonite Violin & Others, which we thought had sold out on publication. So, if you missed out, here's an unexpected second chance!
---
I do want to try to thank everyone who made HPLFF 15 so marvelous for me. Inevitably, I'll leave people out, because I am a forgetful beast with an addled brain, and for that I apologize ahead of time. Also, I'm not even going to attempt any sort of organized "thank you." Embrace the higgledy piggledy. So, first and foremost, thanks to Andrew Fuller, who not only writes a mean screenplay, but also ferried me and Spooky about all weekend, with infinite patience and punctuality. And to Andrew and Linda Miglore and all the other festival organizers and staff for pulling this amazing thing off pretty much without a hitch. My thanks to all the filmmakers (and I'll post a list of my favorites in another entry) who put their art and hearts up there for all to see. My thanks to Scott Connors and Ron Hilger for all four volumes of the The Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith (Night Shade Books). My thanks to S.T. Joshi for volumes one and two of I Am Providence: The Life and Times of H.P. Lovecraft (Hippocampus Press). And let me tell you, lugging these books back home in our carry-on luggage was all sorts of fun (10 lbs.!) My thanks to Ellen Datlow (ellen_datlow), who sort of seemed to keep me grounded all weekend. My thanks to Tony Starlight's Supper Club and Lounge for naming a menu item after me, if only for one weekend (Caitlín's Garlic Fries, "Fit for Mass Consumption, and 'Spooky' Good!"), and to Scott Glancy of Pagan Publishing, because sometimes you just have to say, "Fuck it, Dude. Let's go bowling." Oh, and thanks again to Scott Connors, who brought Spooky a great big bottle of oak moss, and to Cassandra Brewster (whiskeychick) for the Voodoo Doughnuts. Someone else brought a bag of Voodoo, but we don't know who. And everyone at Portland's White House, including Amara and Prescott, for the grand accommodations. And Lee Moyer, for, among other things, introducing me to Henry Clewes.
You know, this whole "thank you" thing is starting to sound like one of those Oscar speeches that goes on far too fucking long. But, it was great meeting so many people I should have met a long time ago, including Wilum Pugmire, Mike Shea and Lynn Cesar, Rachel Edidin and everyone else from Dark Horse, Edward Morris, Marc Laidlaw, Cody Goodfellow, and all the longtime fans and LJ readers like Chris Walsh (chris_walsh) and amberite (and everybody I'm forgetting, REALLY).
A special thank you to everyone who came to my reading on Sunday. I am told it was the best attended reading of any HPLFF ever.
And, gods, I met William F(ucking). Nolan!
Oh, and it was great meeting and conversing with Sean Branney of the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, and also seeing sneak-peeks of the forthcoming HPLHS adaptation of "The Whisperer in Darkness," which looks awesome (yes, I said "awesome," even though the internet seems intent upon ruining that word forever and ever, because the eighties didn't quite finish it off).
I'm serious, the weekend was beautiful. The only part I'd subtract from it are Robert M. Price's sudden bursts of Islamophobia. Apparently, he actually believes that the inhabitants of Innsmouth should be viewed as "islamofascists." Um, yeah. Anyway....
---
Today, I'm going to finally get Sirenia Digest #58 out to subscribers, and I do apologize, again, for the delay.
---
And here are four random photos from the HPLFF (and there are many more to come):
Opening night. I'm the fool in the foreground who looks like she's trying to flag down a train.
The cover that should have been (thank you, Sissy). I can't remember who gave me this to sign, but thank you for tearing off that horrible PR atrocity and replacing it with the One True Cover.
Meet Cute Cthulhu Girl. Apparently also known as Michelle. But I like "Cute Cthulhu Girl" better.
No one told me John Goodman would be there! I'd have brought my bowling shoes.
Yes. The weekend was this cool. The platypus, the mothmen, and the dodo concur.
All photographs Copyright © 2010 by Kathryn A. Pollnac.
It was almost perfect, this past weekend. It would have been a perfect weekend, if not for the nonsense that began at the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport and forced us to go to Detroit in order to get back to Providence. And except for my iPod apparently biting the dust (in all fairness, it was more than five years old, and there's that whole idiotic planned obsolescence thing to consider).
Before I forget, an announcement from Subterranean Press. It would seem that the warehouse has yielded a nearly full carton of The Ammonite Violin & Others, which we thought had sold out on publication. So, if you missed out, here's an unexpected second chance!
---
I do want to try to thank everyone who made HPLFF 15 so marvelous for me. Inevitably, I'll leave people out, because I am a forgetful beast with an addled brain, and for that I apologize ahead of time. Also, I'm not even going to attempt any sort of organized "thank you." Embrace the higgledy piggledy. So, first and foremost, thanks to Andrew Fuller, who not only writes a mean screenplay, but also ferried me and Spooky about all weekend, with infinite patience and punctuality. And to Andrew and Linda Miglore and all the other festival organizers and staff for pulling this amazing thing off pretty much without a hitch. My thanks to all the filmmakers (and I'll post a list of my favorites in another entry) who put their art and hearts up there for all to see. My thanks to Scott Connors and Ron Hilger for all four volumes of the The Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith (Night Shade Books). My thanks to S.T. Joshi for volumes one and two of I Am Providence: The Life and Times of H.P. Lovecraft (Hippocampus Press). And let me tell you, lugging these books back home in our carry-on luggage was all sorts of fun (10 lbs.!) My thanks to Ellen Datlow (ellen_datlow), who sort of seemed to keep me grounded all weekend. My thanks to Tony Starlight's Supper Club and Lounge for naming a menu item after me, if only for one weekend (Caitlín's Garlic Fries, "Fit for Mass Consumption, and 'Spooky' Good!"), and to Scott Glancy of Pagan Publishing, because sometimes you just have to say, "Fuck it, Dude. Let's go bowling." Oh, and thanks again to Scott Connors, who brought Spooky a great big bottle of oak moss, and to Cassandra Brewster (whiskeychick) for the Voodoo Doughnuts. Someone else brought a bag of Voodoo, but we don't know who. And everyone at Portland's White House, including Amara and Prescott, for the grand accommodations. And Lee Moyer, for, among other things, introducing me to Henry Clewes.
You know, this whole "thank you" thing is starting to sound like one of those Oscar speeches that goes on far too fucking long. But, it was great meeting so many people I should have met a long time ago, including Wilum Pugmire, Mike Shea and Lynn Cesar, Rachel Edidin and everyone else from Dark Horse, Edward Morris, Marc Laidlaw, Cody Goodfellow, and all the longtime fans and LJ readers like Chris Walsh (chris_walsh) and amberite (and everybody I'm forgetting, REALLY).
A special thank you to everyone who came to my reading on Sunday. I am told it was the best attended reading of any HPLFF ever.
And, gods, I met William F(ucking). Nolan!
Oh, and it was great meeting and conversing with Sean Branney of the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, and also seeing sneak-peeks of the forthcoming HPLHS adaptation of "The Whisperer in Darkness," which looks awesome (yes, I said "awesome," even though the internet seems intent upon ruining that word forever and ever, because the eighties didn't quite finish it off).
I'm serious, the weekend was beautiful. The only part I'd subtract from it are Robert M. Price's sudden bursts of Islamophobia. Apparently, he actually believes that the inhabitants of Innsmouth should be viewed as "islamofascists." Um, yeah. Anyway....
---
Today, I'm going to finally get Sirenia Digest #58 out to subscribers, and I do apologize, again, for the delay.
---
And here are four random photos from the HPLFF (and there are many more to come):
Opening night. I'm the fool in the foreground who looks like she's trying to flag down a train.
The cover that should have been (thank you, Sissy). I can't remember who gave me this to sign, but thank you for tearing off that horrible PR atrocity and replacing it with the One True Cover.
Meet Cute Cthulhu Girl. Apparently also known as Michelle. But I like "Cute Cthulhu Girl" better.
No one told me John Goodman would be there! I'd have brought my bowling shoes.
Yes. The weekend was this cool. The platypus, the mothmen, and the dodo concur.
All photographs Copyright © 2010 by Kathryn A. Pollnac.