tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69212368713061850152024-03-13T09:48:27.344+01:00The Lord Bassington-Bassington ChroniclesBeing a record of the ruminations, ramblings and obsessions of a Hound of the noblest breed (or so His Lordship claims, anyway). The focus being on dark music and culture, style, spirituality and - naturally – Basset Hounds.Lord Bassington-Bassingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02879057924117948109noreply@blogger.comBlogger457125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6921236871306185015.post-44044030127850840452020-10-30T07:20:00.002+01:002020-10-30T07:20:10.420+01:00 A Lovecraftian Halloween lecture<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="2vogn" data-offset-key="4pkg1-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4pkg1-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="2vogn" data-offset-key="bingv-0-0" style="text-align: start;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="bingv-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="bingv-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">This talk was given to a select audience in honour of Halloween. So His Lordship thought it fitting to reuse here. Happy Halloween, people!</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="2vogn" data-offset-key="ciaie-0-0" style="text-align: start;"></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3ZAjf_ovP92mOZeHytt0Zf1AH0-LuD04wYuydzbzpxWOwkiOBvLA_CYxXvSVrM8KTD4JXgICv6LIyxm2Z90mvgqABHL7XvVcimCdMPcTysqQ0xYTAYqspPrc1dWq_t1gf1I3sfI3XpU4b/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="666" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3ZAjf_ovP92mOZeHytt0Zf1AH0-LuD04wYuydzbzpxWOwkiOBvLA_CYxXvSVrM8KTD4JXgICv6LIyxm2Z90mvgqABHL7XvVcimCdMPcTysqQ0xYTAYqspPrc1dWq_t1gf1I3sfI3XpU4b/w260-h400/71PF-0JJEJL.jpg" width="260" /></a></div><br /><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="2vogn" data-offset-key="bingv-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="bingv-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Hello, my name is Lord Bassington-Bassington and I have an obsessive interest in HP Lovecraft.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="2vogn" data-offset-key="9j7a9-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="9j7a9-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="9j7a9-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">If this sounds like an introduction to a support group, it is because I desperately need one. But there is no Lovecraftians Anonymous, only support groups for people who have problems with trifles such as drugs or alcohol. Therefore, you good folks will have to be my support group.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="2vogn" data-offset-key="ei1qr-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="ei1qr-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="ei1qr-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="ei1qr-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="ei1qr-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">So welcome to my talk.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="2vogn" data-offset-key="5rml0-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="5rml0-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="5rml0-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="5rml0-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="5rml0-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">My plan for the next short half-hour or so is talk a little about how HP Lovecraft created his own version of New England. I will also try to explain why it makes sense to see New England as a sand bank in the Danube. There will also be some discussion of racism, which I hope won’t bother you too much.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="2vogn" data-offset-key="4j2av-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4j2av-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="4j2av-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4j2av-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="4j2av-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">I was originally going to assume that most of you have at least a cursory knowledge of Lovecraft, since he's unavoidable these days, especially within subcultures that deal with the occult and esoteric, spiritually and musically.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="2vogn" data-offset-key="47qsc-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="47qsc-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="47qsc-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="47qsc-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="47qsc-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">But in case your life went better than mine did: HP Lovecraft was an American horror writer who died in 1937. He wrote for pulp magazines, only having one paperback of his work produced in his lifetime. He is the kind of writer that under normal circumstances would be forgotten. But his literature has qualities that has made it enduring, and today he is both a thriving part of pop culture, from Metallica to South Park. He is also canonized, a collection of his stories released in the Library of the Americas series, and lionized by writers such as Jorge Luis Borges and Michel Houellebecq.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="2vogn" data-offset-key="bpf1t-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="bpf1t-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="bpf1t-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Lovecraft is often reduced to a caricature: A pulp writer who created jungles of eldritch adjectives, jungles inhabited by tentacled god-monsters who came from the depths of space and once ruled over the Earth.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="2vogn" data-offset-key="dpdaa-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="dpdaa-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="dpdaa-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="dpdaa-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="dpdaa-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">But while his monsters and gods are undeniably interesting, his most fascinating creation is in many ways his own almost magical reimagining of his own environment. And how he used a quite bourgeois and provincial part of America as a springboard to become a kind of cosmic Kafka.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="2vogn" data-offset-key="fkl47-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="fkl47-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="fkl47-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Many writers of fantastic literature prefer faraway, exotic locations. Lovecraft definitely did try his hand at this. He wrote a story set in the Antarctic, another story set on Venus and a bunch set in the lands you can only access in dreams – possibly assisted by narcotics.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="2vogn" data-offset-key="fru05-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="fru05-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="fru05-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">But most of his best stories are set in the world he had right outside his doorstep. Because to Lovecraft, New England was a world in itself.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="2vogn" data-offset-key="4pue0-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4pue0-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="4pue0-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4pue0-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="4pue0-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">To those of you who aren’t Americans or Lovecraft obsessives, New England is the area to the north and east of New York on the eastern seaboard of the United States. It encompasses the states of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Vermont.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="2vogn" data-offset-key="3fuej-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="3fuej-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="3fuej-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Lovecraft was a typical genre writer. In his own words, he could never write about ordinary people because he was “not in the least interested in them”. He didn’t write about ordinary things either.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="2vogn" data-offset-key="3ea0u-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="3ea0u-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="3ea0u-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">But one of the things he learned from more “normal” literature was realism. The New England locales he writes about are extremely detailed and feel quite real. There’s a reason for this: Lovecraft had a keen interest in architecture and history.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="2vogn" data-offset-key="1hbsc-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="1hbsc-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="1hbsc-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="1hbsc-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="1hbsc-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">One of his favourite tricks was to create horror by conjuring up a feeling of great age in cemetaries and cellars and other constructions. Luckily, New England is one of the few places in America where you can pull that off since it was one of the first parts of America to be settled.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="2vogn" data-offset-key="5blcu-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="5blcu-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="5blcu-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">But while he had a fact-based approach, he of course wrote fiction. And one of Lovecraft’s most famous literary devices was to fictionalize already existing places.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="2vogn" data-offset-key="7nmub-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="7nmub-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="7nmub-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="7nmub-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="7nmub-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">His fictitious town of Arkham, site of Miskatonic University where the infamous Necronomicon is kept under lock and key, is usually considered to have been based on Salem. This didn’t take so much work, as Salem – with its history of witch trials – is already spooky enough.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="2vogn" data-offset-key="40qol-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="40qol-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="40qol-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Some more work was needed on Marblehead, a Massachusetts resort town famous for seafood and regattas. But Lovecraft’s imagination turned this quaint town into the setting of unholy holiday rituals from the time before human beings arose. And again, Lovecraft uses his realistic approach. You can follow the path the protagonist in his story “The Festival” takes into Kingsport/Marblehead.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="2vogn" data-offset-key="8gb1n-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8gb1n-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="8gb1n-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">I did this myself when I went a Lovecraftian pilgrimage of sorts about a decade ago. Yes, I did mention I have problems, didn’t I?</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="2vogn" data-offset-key="s23b-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="s23b-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="s23b-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="s23b-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="s23b-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">The coastal town of Innsmouth, the location of “The Shadow over Innsmouth”, is in Lovecraft’s own words “a considerably twisted” version of Newburyport, Massachusetts.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="2vogn" data-offset-key="540fl-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="540fl-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="540fl-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">While the Starry Wisdom Church in the story “The Haunter of the Dark” is based on a now-demolished Catholic Cathedral in Lovecraft’s home town of Providence, Rhode Island. I walked up towards where it used to stand while a hurricane was raging on the same trip. That was quite an atmospheric experience!</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="2vogn" data-offset-key="3at84-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="3at84-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="3at84-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="3at84-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="3at84-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">As a sidenote, an effect of this is that there is a tiny genre of Lovecraftian travel guides, online and print. There’s also quite a few online, and a new book is in the works through Kickstarter.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="2vogn" data-offset-key="aehef-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="aehef-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="aehef-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Another Lovecraftian trick was borrowing from other writers' creations, and encouraging others borrow from him. This created a web of cross-references which makes his literature more believable. One reason some people think Lovecraft’s fictional grimoire The Necronomicon is real, is that you find references to it so many places. Surely it can’t be made up?</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="2vogn" data-offset-key="eu68q-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="eu68q-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="eu68q-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Lovecraft was also a rationalist, and he could use his knowledge of science to create a feeling of the magical and unreal.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="2vogn" data-offset-key="4n7os-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4n7os-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="4n7os-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4n7os-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="4n7os-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">One example is his use of the anthropologist Margaret Murray’s book “The Witch-Cult in Western Europe”. In the book Murray argues that the accusations underpinning the witch-trials in early modern Europe were true, in the sense that witches </span><span data-offset-key="4n7os-0-1" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic;">actually</span><span data-offset-key="4n7os-0-2" style="font-family: inherit;">belonged to a real pre-Christian religion which worshipped a horned god. This thesis was discredited already in when the book came out in 1921. But Lovecraft saw that Murray’s thesis was a great fictional premise and could use Murray’s non-fiction book to make his own fiction more believable.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="2vogn" data-offset-key="4itf9-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4itf9-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="4itf9-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4itf9-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="4itf9-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Another example was the discovery of Pluto in 1930. Lovecraft used this new planet to great effect in “The Whisperer in Darkness”, published the year after. Here Pluto becomes Yuggoth, from whence comes strange aliens infiltrating the woods of Vermont.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="2vogn" data-offset-key="abv5n-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="abv5n-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="abv5n-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Today, using quantum physics to argue that anything is possible is a new age cliché. But when Lovecraft did this to explain magic in “Dreams in the Witch-House” in 1932 this was groundbreaking.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="2vogn" data-offset-key="a295u-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="a295u-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="a295u-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="a295u-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="a295u-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Nothing says “verisimilitude” like giving your short stories scientific footnotes!</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="2vogn" data-offset-key="cj4fd-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="cj4fd-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="cj4fd-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">If you want a good model for understanding Lovecraft’s New England, I heartily recommend a story by another writer. The writer is Algernon Blackwood, an Englishman most known for his ghostly stories, and the story is “The Willows”.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="2vogn" data-offset-key="147tg-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="147tg-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="147tg-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="147tg-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="147tg-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">We know that Lovecraft was inspired by this story because in his essay "Supernatural horror in literature" he writes gushingly about it.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="2vogn" data-offset-key="c4fcs-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="c4fcs-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="c4fcs-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="c4fcs-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="c4fcs-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">“The Willows” is a simple story: Two friends are canoeing down the Danube river. They make camp on a sand bank on which there is a thicket of willow trees. During the night they become aware that there is some sort of mysterious, supernatural presence in the willows. This presence is never explained, but gives the two friends a glimpse into a larger, terrifying reality.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="2vogn" data-offset-key="157dl-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="157dl-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="157dl-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="157dl-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="157dl-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">My feeling is that in Lovecraft's fictional New England is easier to understand if you look at it in the light of this story. If you think of New England as this sand bank in the Danube, with the waters of the cosmos splashing at its shores, eating away at it and one day perhaps submerging it.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="2vogn" data-offset-key="d9csi-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="d9csi-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="d9csi-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Also, like in Blackwood’s “The Willows” Lovecraft doesn’t necessarily give you more than a glimpse of this awe-inspiring cosmos. Instead he goes for the feeling of alien dread, an overwhelming mystery.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="2vogn" data-offset-key="1vtfv-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="1vtfv-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="1vtfv-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="1vtfv-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="1vtfv-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">This vision of New England as a haven under attack from outside forces feeds into some of Lovecraft’s own personal quirks. He disliked the modern world, wore old-fashioned clothes and called himself Grandpa Theobald. He was also a Tory, and considered himself a subject of the Queen.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="2vogn" data-offset-key="ajk8o-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="ajk8o-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="ajk8o-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="ajk8o-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="ajk8o-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Harmless enough, but another side to this was his racism.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="2vogn" data-offset-key="2g6h7-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="2g6h7-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="2g6h7-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">To be fair, pretty much everyone was racist in Lovecraft’s time. That’s not the point. The point is that Lovecraft was more racist than was normal for his time, at times ludicrously so.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="2vogn" data-offset-key="70vvl-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="70vvl-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="70vvl-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="70vvl-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="70vvl-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">So for many Lovecraft fans it’s tempting to try to separate his fiction from his racism. This is impossible. A lot of his recurring themes, such as human mixing with non-human to create hybrids, and invasions from alien creatures, are quite racist themes. And I think Lovecraft’s virulent racism is one reason why these horror stories are as powerful as they are.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="2vogn" data-offset-key="876rd-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="876rd-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="876rd-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="876rd-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="876rd-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">There’s been a growing debate in recent years about Lovecraft’s racism. Speaking as someone from a country where one of our most famous writers, Knut Hamsun, was a full-fledged Nazi and collaborated with the German occupiers during WWII, I think I can predict that this debate will eventually end up somewhere constructive.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="2vogn" data-offset-key="f46hk-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="f46hk-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="f46hk-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="f46hk-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="f46hk-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">But back to New England. Lovecraft’s fiction is at its most powerful when his cosmic vision of a vast, cold universe is anchored in a New England that he knows very well. It’s an approach I think can be summed up as “think cosmically, write locally”.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="2vogn" data-offset-key="f52jj-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="f52jj-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="f52jj-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="f52jj-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="f52jj-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Lovecraft was a lifelong atheist and science advocate. So you could perhaps say it’s ironic that he became an inspiration for occultists and magicians, to the point where you got get people like Anton LaVey, Kenneth Grant and many others trying to create real Lovecraftian rituals and spirituality. Aren’t these people missing the whole point?</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="2vogn" data-offset-key="41vki-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="41vki-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="41vki-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="41vki-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="41vki-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Quite the contrary, I think they’re </span><span data-offset-key="41vki-0-1" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic;">getting</span><span data-offset-key="41vki-0-2" style="font-family: inherit;"> the point. Lovecraft wanted to create a new myth for a Godless age, just like Tolkien wanted to create a new mythology for England. And just like Tolkien mixed Germanic and Celtic mythology with his own creations, Lovecraft used science and New England to similar effect.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="2vogn" data-offset-key="8dq86-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8dq86-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="8dq86-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8dq86-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="8dq86-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">And that people take Lovecraft’s creations seriously to the point where they try to create real spiritualities based on it is proof that he succeeded.</span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="2vogn" data-offset-key="avaoc-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="avaoc-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="avaoc-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="avaoc-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="avaoc-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Perhaps that is the ultimate compliment.</span></div></div></div></div><p><br /><br /><br /><br /></p>Lord Bassington-Bassingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02879057924117948109noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6921236871306185015.post-27300963959658032752020-10-13T19:49:00.000+02:002020-10-13T19:49:03.917+02:00A new Moineau<p>Something is brewing in the <a href="https://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-soundtrack-for-summer.html">Jännerwein</a> camp. <a href="https://www.facebook.com/moineau-323154867715403">Moineau</a> is the project of Benjamin Sperling.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/POZIg5cCSyw" width="320" youtube-src-id="POZIg5cCSyw"></iframe></div><br /><p><br /></p>Lord Bassington-Bassingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02879057924117948109noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6921236871306185015.post-25224424850661722982017-10-21T13:28:00.000+02:002017-10-21T14:01:08.079+02:00Librarian ritualism<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsruayWTpvdoBuyqFyDeJajYML3XgTmRkkNemWw-J_rVF4CENEbx2iVyL5v5GmtIEVkjhIpi3DwXffl18kquT9WbD_tFLPIHZCXwVOmQNv-l_Gek6-eXfkXU0bvlKPctRzZ-KEU9IS0Fcd/s1600/KNUTSALTER1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsruayWTpvdoBuyqFyDeJajYML3XgTmRkkNemWw-J_rVF4CENEbx2iVyL5v5GmtIEVkjhIpi3DwXffl18kquT9WbD_tFLPIHZCXwVOmQNv-l_Gek6-eXfkXU0bvlKPctRzZ-KEU9IS0Fcd/s400/KNUTSALTER1.jpg" width="285" /></a></div>
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Several of Lord Bassington-Bassington's ideas have started out as jokes. And on one occasion when <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2009/11/meetings-with-remarkable-libraries.html" target="_blank">The World's Coolest <span class="highlight" id="0.7035451654300986" name="searchHitInReadingPane">Librarian</span></a> had fed His Lordship with yet another interesting tidbit of information, the droopy-eared one quipped something along the lines of "O <span class="highlight" id="0.4944350957797663" name="searchHitInReadingPane">librarian</span>, font of all coolness, we should erect an altar in thine honour".<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeXrbuSrOPdkFs793ojIp8bGKoijkcFTrMiBFJ2FW-QxB0X5yqfv8nvhurHd7ufVX7NY0yAnDV3ynA21rBexT1o3DjsQMNdj5yAwM2lNTZDYo7-o5kMIzcbRgJRt20gOMN-DXFfWd73Q2r/s1600/KNUTSALTER3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeXrbuSrOPdkFs793ojIp8bGKoijkcFTrMiBFJ2FW-QxB0X5yqfv8nvhurHd7ufVX7NY0yAnDV3ynA21rBexT1o3DjsQMNdj5yAwM2lNTZDYo7-o5kMIzcbRgJRt20gOMN-DXFfWd73Q2r/s400/KNUTSALTER3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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And thus the genie was out of the bottle. This had to happen. A piece of furniture here at Bassington Manor was turned into an impromptu altar or site-specific installation. Depending on your point of view. What you are witnessing is a plethora of references to The Librarian's life and loves. From a Hawaiian shirt to science fiction paperbacks, all thrown together in a frame referencing traditions as diverse as voodoo, wicca and – of course – the Lovecraftian.<br />
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It would be misleading to say that Lord Bassington-Bassington enlisted the help of artist <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2013/10/altarior-motives.html" target="_blank"><span class="highlight" id="0.13837456740697174" name="searchHitInReadingPane">Peter</span> Horneland</a>, as Mr. Horneland qucikly took charge of the project and His Lordship's contribution mostly consisted of fetching various objects from
around Bassington Manor. A very appropriate task for a Basset hound, one might say!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4of27h8cmizCbnh-b1aNhDrbuhbDzRY-i2Gx11whrrhX11ymxPnLUKvcCPlixFMRsHVSkBEo3T8HO6fg_zLuzQ92evcdJLsGe4w8uPDbzf85kPNzkujloj61Vu8HRlbb8KmRRNa1dFL3x/s1600/KNUTSALTER5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4of27h8cmizCbnh-b1aNhDrbuhbDzRY-i2Gx11whrrhX11ymxPnLUKvcCPlixFMRsHVSkBEo3T8HO6fg_zLuzQ92evcdJLsGe4w8uPDbzf85kPNzkujloj61Vu8HRlbb8KmRRNa1dFL3x/s400/KNUTSALTER5.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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And as the intrepid Mr. Horneland isn't only an accomplished artist but also describes himself as an "on again/off again ritual magician", this might even qualify as His Lordship's first actual ritual work.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCHgaEZ3vdJRLbhJxeO9u6bhNucwNS6AgGxUaEbch037aC_cgw9ACKGc-ZNEPoEPa7VzDcOdoOXKFIwr1gp2lqKK0lrMJopbHmBJro7sPGjwihO_TaY24Hr3IpFanPyDO0rMTtpsJHLl4P/s1600/KNUTSALTER7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCHgaEZ3vdJRLbhJxeO9u6bhNucwNS6AgGxUaEbch037aC_cgw9ACKGc-ZNEPoEPa7VzDcOdoOXKFIwr1gp2lqKK0lrMJopbHmBJro7sPGjwihO_TaY24Hr3IpFanPyDO0rMTtpsJHLl4P/s400/KNUTSALTER7.jpg" width="266" /> </a></div>
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So what's the next project for this growing cult of The World's Coolest Librarian? To elevate this eminent dispenser of book-lore to some sort of sainthood, of course. If He isn't there already.<br />
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(More of Mr. Horneland's works can be found at his <a href="http://peterhorneland.com/" target="_blank">website</a>). Lord Bassington-Bassingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02879057924117948109noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6921236871306185015.post-31151688100567865182017-07-08T14:48:00.002+02:002017-07-08T14:50:30.889+02:00Introducing AltarmangThree of Lord Bassington-Bassington's favourite things – vinyl records, pointy moustaches and the music of <a href="https://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2009/11/par-bostrom-ambient-maestro.html" target="_blank">Pär Boström</a> – are finally together! There's scarcely a night here at Bassington Manor that some of Mr. Boström's somnambulistic soundscapes are spun in the compact disc player or on the turntable.<br />
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This release has obviously been ordered, and His Lordship has been reminded that he has been too disorganized to order His secretary to order the last Cities Last Broadcast disc. This situation is intolerable and will have to be rectified promptly.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WjmhSQBPdeE" width="480"></iframe>Lord Bassington-Bassingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02879057924117948109noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6921236871306185015.post-20629220189026519162017-03-21T16:32:00.003+01:002017-03-21T16:32:48.483+01:00Magazine loaded<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj98DsiTSguziGQj97oIAKd4sLKS4r9hiIpUw84K5K1Y2gTr3g7wmj0bxswe8AjyY3L8HKrToRPXHTOWm2WOywup5cRnWdHtTX-U5wi-vgWIy1vJPFsVI0qNMmYkhXTl0n_gOFPm6r521D/s1600/17424954_1827198430864215_8874086559687236215_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj98DsiTSguziGQj97oIAKd4sLKS4r9hiIpUw84K5K1Y2gTr3g7wmj0bxswe8AjyY3L8HKrToRPXHTOWm2WOywup5cRnWdHtTX-U5wi-vgWIy1vJPFsVI0qNMmYkhXTl0n_gOFPm6r521D/s400/17424954_1827198430864215_8874086559687236215_n.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
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Lord Bassington-Bassington has long been on the lookout for style magazines to supplement his favourite publication <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2009/11/magnificent-manifestoes.html" target="_blank">The Chap</a>. Modern style mags tend to be filled with, well, modern clothes, and let's not even get into the pointless interviews with random celebrities.<br /><br />But lo and behold, help comes from Germany, and His Lordship has found a new magazine to paw through. <a href="http://theheritagepost.com/en/home-en/" target="_blank">The Heritage Times</a> is an excellent German-language magazine which has also launched an English edition. And a revelation it is. Why don't <i>all</i> lifestyle magazines feature Lederhosen?<br />
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The latest issue has a lot of good stuff for the subculturally interested (such as a pretty solid piece on skinheads). But what <i>really</i> takes the Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte is a this most neofolky fashion shoot. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjepe42PIMzHUkGde6E4_nOaR-jXzwumttcJ4YS25iNB-i2EytwhrkCVr3UTE1uIf1AcmjT3YB-ne2HW2fnlsdtK5ClMXyIpfnSelohCiyOuytBPdrbRS7lfuUXnBXTYr-FNfRny1I2d0Ke/s1600/17362039_1827198434197548_666977501659873921_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjepe42PIMzHUkGde6E4_nOaR-jXzwumttcJ4YS25iNB-i2EytwhrkCVr3UTE1uIf1AcmjT3YB-ne2HW2fnlsdtK5ClMXyIpfnSelohCiyOuytBPdrbRS7lfuUXnBXTYr-FNfRny1I2d0Ke/s640/17362039_1827198434197548_666977501659873921_n.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<br /><br />Copyright laws probably prohibit us here at the Chronicles from stealing the whole thing, but Lord Bassington-Bassington found it imperative to share this fabulous photo, which His Lordship likes to call "<a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2010/02/darkwood-nibelungenland.html" target="_blank">Darkwood</a> in tandem with <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2010/02/schattenboxen.html" target="_blank">Sturmpercht</a>".<br /><br />Which, come to think of it, sounds like a great double bill, if it wasn't a bit impossible now that lead Percht Max has deserted neofolk for new adventures in <a href="https://thump.vice.com/de/article/markus-presch-pmg-vs-frank-gossner-der-labelbetreiber-der-frueher-goebbels-zitierte-afrofunk" target="_blank">Afro-funk</a>. Which makes the skin tone of the model on the back of the bike even more appropriate.<br /><br />
So if you're looking for Lord Bassington-Bassington, he will be curled up on the sofa engrossed in The Heritage Post, to a soundtrack of… well, you guessed it!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVwwi8mVOlxKih62iiwHmO1ubzmpS_CroDUFgrIxjzy3M94VCmB3uL-Rx-lddR-eR3_-HFmZj-LSf-Oh-w8rKzalPZrpY3zQ5PGZLfTTe1Lh-ngKXLxQYHEfzGln8m0acu06mxUOifx6Bm/s1600/17264923_1827204500863608_5026780868354339063_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVwwi8mVOlxKih62iiwHmO1ubzmpS_CroDUFgrIxjzy3M94VCmB3uL-Rx-lddR-eR3_-HFmZj-LSf-Oh-w8rKzalPZrpY3zQ5PGZLfTTe1Lh-ngKXLxQYHEfzGln8m0acu06mxUOifx6Bm/s400/17264923_1827204500863608_5026780868354339063_n.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Time to order some more issues of The Heritage Post soon. And perhaps some Afro-funk.Lord Bassington-Bassingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02879057924117948109noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6921236871306185015.post-72338111057716111752016-12-22T19:22:00.003+01:002016-12-22T19:23:57.115+01:00First release<div style="text-align: center;">
So Lord Bassington-Bassington's life revolves (hah!) around records these days. Here is <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2016/11/the-rebirth-of-record-label.html">Café Grössenwahn Grammophon's</a> first release, just arrived from the printers.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrvWfYh5yewClZi8tKGVQNiFbua_CfMLu7iuPVXzIVfFSwbxV3_71BdgJSUfnHYc_e-kyqc3cWPrfMgZW4e79bghAQGO8vZdRH-VJYloOPovzZ-hNrBax5-k6htnhgFDzieCZ1lMSxGZDn/s1600/15492397_1786671971583528_1815272668694994237_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrvWfYh5yewClZi8tKGVQNiFbua_CfMLu7iuPVXzIVfFSwbxV3_71BdgJSUfnHYc_e-kyqc3cWPrfMgZW4e79bghAQGO8vZdRH-VJYloOPovzZ-hNrBax5-k6htnhgFDzieCZ1lMSxGZDn/s400/15492397_1786671971583528_1815272668694994237_n.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
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More information to follow, stay tuned!</div>
Lord Bassington-Bassingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02879057924117948109noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6921236871306185015.post-1109855981398272242016-12-20T09:18:00.002+01:002016-12-20T09:18:43.427+01:00Recording Inspiration<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFi-vThAl662tqOQIINa4XdXhqCjxYBXQsEoMI6rDvyTSL-rZ54ql6W17_K5mpIWFj49aKWFHGqJZHSliCMhkSTuMU96KpqXQ9oK7Q7C9Hsc7cgN8YLa62vSEVIZa_53SmpbLTMeCOqffD/s1600/solblot+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFi-vThAl662tqOQIINa4XdXhqCjxYBXQsEoMI6rDvyTSL-rZ54ql6W17_K5mpIWFj49aKWFHGqJZHSliCMhkSTuMU96KpqXQ9oK7Q7C9Hsc7cgN8YLa62vSEVIZa_53SmpbLTMeCOqffD/s400/solblot+1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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So now that Lord Bassington-Bassington is one of the proprietors of a <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2016/11/the-rebirth-of-record-label.html">recording label</a> it shouldn't surprise anyone that His Lordship takes some outfit inspiration from records...</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0MI2S-tdXJifnFppx2Yugi_MD_WdhUEyCgqcgWXwyAWMnoWthDRHrensPoX-wYsJ4nDNKVXfgSpvpz7HPH4UaOMHPm-N4HPuSrykTukdGfdz4CYHA_BvkapBs6plpGxLgDbQayq5-XSTB/s1600/solblot+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0MI2S-tdXJifnFppx2Yugi_MD_WdhUEyCgqcgWXwyAWMnoWthDRHrensPoX-wYsJ4nDNKVXfgSpvpz7HPH4UaOMHPm-N4HPuSrykTukdGfdz4CYHA_BvkapBs6plpGxLgDbQayq5-XSTB/s400/solblot+2.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
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Vinyls by <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2013/04/a-toast-to-solblot.html">Solblot</a>. Tweeds by <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2011/06/town-travel.html">Walker Slater</a>.</div>
Lord Bassington-Bassingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02879057924117948109noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6921236871306185015.post-51595383495129021312016-12-17T07:37:00.001+01:002016-12-17T09:55:18.706+01:00Left Paw Path<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGj59TZNgAlQQ6ulbrZb5BIG0z3KY5MapnZrwN0dqWwUI_XR6cjMZOrG8Z07nfi9Lo5zpXBZvfUzgnNzFXKhbWpFPuVcdgLqynBwbwZ6io7ZpMhhIlMzmosJ_VrVJNV9EGtICNFsYokTOZ/s1600/15541182_1785144538402938_8420968791999533198_n.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGj59TZNgAlQQ6ulbrZb5BIG0z3KY5MapnZrwN0dqWwUI_XR6cjMZOrG8Z07nfi9Lo5zpXBZvfUzgnNzFXKhbWpFPuVcdgLqynBwbwZ6io7ZpMhhIlMzmosJ_VrVJNV9EGtICNFsYokTOZ/s400/15541182_1785144538402938_8420968791999533198_n.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
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"The Key of Joy is disobedience"</div>
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(<a href="https://allpoetry.com/Hymn-to-Lucifer">Aleister Crowley</a>)<br />
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"Hey, I'll use that as a fancy excuse for not bothering to pair my socks properly!"<br />
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(Lord Bassington-Bassington, <i>not</i> aka The Great Basset 666)</div>
Lord Bassington-Bassingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02879057924117948109noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6921236871306185015.post-12789518057571435742016-11-27T08:55:00.000+01:002016-11-27T08:55:07.438+01:00The (re)birth of a Record Label"Café Grössenwahn" – "Café Megalomania". Such was the nickname of several cafés in Central Europe at the end of the 1800s. Here they would sit, the demagogues, dreamers and drunkards who would leave their mark on the coming century.<br />
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These cafés in turn gave name to a <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2010/03/announcing-cafe-grossenwahn.html">music club</a> in Oslo, Norway, where a select invitation-only door policy, strict dresscode and artists such as <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2012/03/invictible.html">Tony Wakeford</a>, <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2011/02/pictorial-megalomania.html">Spiritual Front</a>, <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2010/05/cafe-grossenwahn-opening-night.html">Solblot</a> and <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2010/07/cafe-grossenwahn-summer-on-summerisle.html">The Green Man</a> created a suitably megalomanic atmosphere. The absinthe fountain helped a bit too...<br />
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Which leads us to Café Grössenwahn Grammophon, created as a living monument – or perhaps a folly – to the club we loved. We aim to bring together some of our favourite artists both in music and the pictorial arts.<br />
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Our first release will be an extended play record entitled "Ghostly Whistlings". It is a tribute to the greatest ghost story writer of all, Montague Rhodes James. Four bands: Sol Invictus, Solblot, Sonne Hagal and Of the Wand and the Moon each deliver their interpretation of an M.R. James story set in their own country.<br />
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Cover art is by Swedish artist <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2011/05/fenris-wolf-and-art-of-magick.html">Fredrik Söderberg</a>, and sleeve design is by <a href="http://trineogkim.no/">Trine og Kim Design Studio</a>. A small peek at the work can be seen above (Trine og Kim also created the Café Grössenwahn "absinthe grail" logo).<br />
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The record will be a strictly limited (250 copies) 10 inch record in art-edition gatefold cover.<br />
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More information will be forthcoming soon. A web page is being (re)built and a release event is planned for late January. In the meanwhile, feel free to follow the proceedings on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Caf%C3%A9-Gr%C3%B6ssenwahn-Grammophon-251436491922458/">Facebook.</a><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh3UfckVMaLOgub_k60Bjwmjlb_qHTYFFIE0IIuc5J5nCO8qhN5kIruk6UAocFO27DgM610UJcUgrr_A-yF6xSrl8D-yQ0WbKw3t3qztm2hE03lQLv68ZOiZGD9sMV9nK51vsD4YXmERWG/s1600/gro%25CC%2588ss.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="88" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh3UfckVMaLOgub_k60Bjwmjlb_qHTYFFIE0IIuc5J5nCO8qhN5kIruk6UAocFO27DgM610UJcUgrr_A-yF6xSrl8D-yQ0WbKw3t3qztm2hE03lQLv68ZOiZGD9sMV9nK51vsD4YXmERWG/s400/gro%25CC%2588ss.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>Lord Bassington-Bassingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02879057924117948109noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6921236871306185015.post-49298188973727004022015-06-30T09:45:00.001+02:002015-06-30T09:45:28.122+02:00The soundtrack for summerWe here at the Chronicles have tried to get a coherent comment from Lord Bassington-Bassington on the new <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2015/03/jannerwein-live.html">Jännerwein</a> album. But so far to no avail, as his lordship just plays the record over and over while running in rings, barking and howling and saying things that sounds like "the pop-neofolk album I've been waiting for all these years" and "my Dog, all the songs are in German and it's so awesome" and suchlike.<br />
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So while we've given up on getting any serious response from the droopy-eared one, you can check out the album for yourself here. Or just do what Lord Bassington-Bassington did, buy the CD after hearing just two songs. There's rumours of an upcoming ultra-limited vinyl version in the fall, which his lordship really hopes to get his paws on.<br />
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<iframe style="border: 0; width: 350px; height: 470px;" src="http://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=925062820/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/tracklist=false/transparent=true/" seamless><a href="http://jaennerwein.bandcamp.com/album/eine-hoffnung">Eine Hoffnung by Jännerwein</a></iframe><br />
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We have a strong suspicion that this will be the soundtrack for summer here at Bassington Manor.<br />
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<iframe width="420" height="236" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/u73cnzbAfK4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Lord Bassington-Bassingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02879057924117948109noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6921236871306185015.post-606510641184987562015-06-02T12:48:00.000+02:002015-06-02T12:48:56.697+02:00The perfect basset-cessoryIt would hardly be an exaggeration to say that Lord Bassington-Bassington likes to accessorize, whether we're talking about <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2012/12/the-riddle-of-style-part-one.html">bow ties</a> or, well, more eccentric <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2013/12/a-styling-challenge.html">accoutrements.</a> <br />
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A nice thing to liven up an otherwise down-to-earth outfit is the thing known in modern parlance as <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2011/05/neofolk-bling.html">bling,</a> which His Lordship is also quite fond of. Indeed, he could even be accused of joining clubs to get even <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2009/10/society-news-his-lordship-joins-club.html">more</a> such accessories.<br />
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So imagine the droopy-eared's delight when he received this generous gift from in-laws, a lovely hand-crafted pin that is a perfect depiction of the above young lady, the lovely Balbina – award-winning member of the extended Mju clan.<br />
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The silver pin is indeed the perfect accessory, and gives even the sturdiest Harris tweed a touch of velvety basset-eariness. But it works particularly well with Lord Bassington-Bassington's recently acquired summer tweed jacket.<br />
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This might well lead to some outrageous style experiments, because His Lordship finally has a tweed jacket that can be worn with shorts. A bit over the top, perhaps, but hey – it's all about basset pride, saying it loud, being tricolor and proud and all that.<br />
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As one says in India, as important as having a good spouse is to get good in-laws. And we can safely say that Lord Bassington-Bassington is lucky enough to be very well off on both regards.Lord Bassington-Bassingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02879057924117948109noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6921236871306185015.post-79588930259092123122015-05-31T17:34:00.004+02:002015-05-31T17:34:51.968+02:00Your garden still blooms<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_Wol7_DBjJ3Ivv67J253l0ExOQKoz4QFnpQsLntSdRCczvXKE0kVViqaZu3Za5JTtr4gtFL3qn9BpRaJHxHQZiIVvhOwcwioPxrHMnCNnhCXPg8RauuwBKa-N7COZ4vDOX2hj16WkK9cX/s1600/suf.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_Wol7_DBjJ3Ivv67J253l0ExOQKoz4QFnpQsLntSdRCczvXKE0kVViqaZu3Za5JTtr4gtFL3qn9BpRaJHxHQZiIVvhOwcwioPxrHMnCNnhCXPg8RauuwBKa-N7COZ4vDOX2hj16WkK9cX/s400/suf.jpg" /></a></div><br />
As Lord Bassington-Bassington and Lady Mju found themselves in those parts of Oslo, a return to the house of the mysterious <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2009/11/meetings-with-remarkable-libraries.html">Sufi master</a> was suddenly on the books.<br />
<br />
The <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2010/02/in-western-and-wintry-rose-garden.html">roses</a> are gone, but the garden still blooms, which of course led His Lordship in a leap (or waddle) of thought from Sufism to neofolk. Typical of absent-minded bassets, really.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVrFP5TOaz1mUkNIMzBlIq3Jr5t2JYalZi5Mj1VC_dfmejHrJRQBod9Z95x35CkZfr14-hC5AjEJIpewaGb_lsOgaJeyIWoSJUHDzHgfDx7eFBofyy291KxPnbMpWOWY1960QUnGpvvoRH/s1600/11011959_1579457022305025_4873631929817763082_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVrFP5TOaz1mUkNIMzBlIq3Jr5t2JYalZi5Mj1VC_dfmejHrJRQBod9Z95x35CkZfr14-hC5AjEJIpewaGb_lsOgaJeyIWoSJUHDzHgfDx7eFBofyy291KxPnbMpWOWY1960QUnGpvvoRH/s400/11011959_1579457022305025_4873631929817763082_n.jpg" /></a></div><br />
Well, the sight of the blooming garden led Lord Bassington-Bassington to consider the sad fate of Forseti frontman <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2010/09/here-in-black-jena.html">Andreas Ritter</a>, and to remember this beautiful tribute to him by German group Sonnentau.<br />
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<iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WsHDlWr_wfg?showinfo=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
<br />
And as His Lordship is also a bit of a (cough) <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2013/07/confessions-of-norwegian-record-buyer.html">record enthusiast</a>, here is a picture of Forseti's Windzeit vinyl box set, perhaps the ultimate neofolk release and certainly Lord Bassington-Bassington's most expensive Discogs purchase.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_BkqKjYWwtWMUPaMGaumMnfniJxnLJOaoA56VbvfQNQT2UU3BHpUOD9ZLG4sLAttbMtSSVd41MY2ovI3E_HXbTYfnV5MVdgnaKgZJuFC8zy3l7aymuKE4XISc_1jEvT5bLRCF5hnzOSAo/s1600/R-690856-1231859015.jpeg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_BkqKjYWwtWMUPaMGaumMnfniJxnLJOaoA56VbvfQNQT2UU3BHpUOD9ZLG4sLAttbMtSSVd41MY2ovI3E_HXbTYfnV5MVdgnaKgZJuFC8zy3l7aymuKE4XISc_1jEvT5bLRCF5hnzOSAo/s400/R-690856-1231859015.jpeg.jpg" /></a></div><br />
(Pictures stolen from the <a href="http://www.discogs.com/artist/161471-Forseti">Discogs</a> Forseti page. Yes, morals are sorely lacking in Basset hounds).<br />
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Sorry for rambling, we promise the next post will be more coherent. Possibly.Lord Bassington-Bassingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02879057924117948109noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6921236871306185015.post-71332601752432664082015-05-31T17:27:00.000+02:002015-05-31T17:27:20.066+02:00Confessions of a Norwegian Record-BuyerApropos of a <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2013/02/a-solemn-promise.html">previous post...</a><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlF-s0MJypa2P0oeiO4HopXytGiJiBBF660U7q6aaADnvcdbMvWh72-9YqR7AIvXeVRnYK7QurCT9xpT3VSxv2BqCzRbDIl63CypPojiinEjvh2DAlk-_5T0kNo2m-Qd3_-XZv66su9Cvq/s1600/crumb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlF-s0MJypa2P0oeiO4HopXytGiJiBBF660U7q6aaADnvcdbMvWh72-9YqR7AIvXeVRnYK7QurCT9xpT3VSxv2BqCzRbDIl63CypPojiinEjvh2DAlk-_5T0kNo2m-Qd3_-XZv66su9Cvq/s400/crumb.jpg" width="273" /></a></div><br />
Picture by comics genius Robert Crumb.Lord Bassington-Bassingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02879057924117948109noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6921236871306185015.post-87692540287943752932015-05-02T19:58:00.001+02:002015-05-02T19:58:40.701+02:00Dandy revolutionists?Does dandyism have political implications? While Lord Bassington-Bassington certainly has political opinions, he likes to think that they have little relevance to how he dresses. Even if his taste for the classic might reveal a predilection towards conservatism. And sure, today people assume that if you dress a bit old-fashioned it's because you long for the days when the lord of the manor held sway, peasants knew their place and pheasants lived in fear.<br />
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An assumption as stupid as suspecting that all who wear jeans hanker back to the social order during the Wild West.<br />
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For men who take an interest in clothes come in all shapes, sizes and colours, from all <a href="https://www.tumblr.com/search/working%20class%20dandy">walks of life</a> and hold all sorts of <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2011/06/radical-dandyism.html">political</a> convictions. So while perusing an edition of <i>The Communist Manifesto</i> the other day, Lord Bassington-Bassington was pleased to find these comments on the connection between men's dress and revolution in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._J._P._Taylor">A.J.P. Taylor's</a> insightful introduction.<br />
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<i>"None of them (Marx' early disciples) was a proletarian in the new Maxist sense; none, that is, was a factory worker. Their occupations provide striking examples of the class from whom revolutionaries are often drawn. Most of them were tailors - an occupation which gives a man much time for solitary revolutionary reflection and also perhaps an intimate distaste for the upper classes."<br />
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"In old England the village cobbler was always the radical and the Dissenter. After all, the lord of the manor had to have his boots made and mended, whatever the cobbler's political opinions."<br />
</i><br />
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So how better to celebrate these astute observations than to publish a picture of Russian Futurist poet <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Mayakovsky">Vladimir Mayakovsky?</a> Lord Bassington-Bassington first saw this picture when still a puppy, on the back of an LP of Swedish punk and hardcore, and it's fair to say that it has exerted a certain influence on how His Lordship dresses.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm72zYKjHxKuPQg_p6_YAud6-71OVVqE2cJF8Fp69xDQ4w6luK_O0xeQefBbMnDJ2oac9ktAXpaTKchJ2qeRz1b9N5ScRY59xSB2mkXIMOVjcPVWlN60qHY4-NTKfqgwqAEJfNXJ9QfZcS/s1600/majakovski.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm72zYKjHxKuPQg_p6_YAud6-71OVVqE2cJF8Fp69xDQ4w6luK_O0xeQefBbMnDJ2oac9ktAXpaTKchJ2qeRz1b9N5ScRY59xSB2mkXIMOVjcPVWlN60qHY4-NTKfqgwqAEJfNXJ9QfZcS/s400/majakovski.jpg" /></a></div>Lord Bassington-Bassingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02879057924117948109noreply@blogger.com26tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6921236871306185015.post-17344762608721844572015-05-02T19:41:00.000+02:002015-05-02T19:41:08.506+02:00A gentleman's armour<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpZXGH2fLbNf7OTYQXaxhOU2Bxah3hH-5Wci_yvc5OtgZ4u64-WZRE4UlzshKYIZp25VkAO3Z6XVRlJnR9xiqnaftHmNYqrDRzgh1aq7IrUUHGE5SiPu8eU3Qk6wUeABBJ17BN8XxIsBAe/s1600/Rupert_Giles.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpZXGH2fLbNf7OTYQXaxhOU2Bxah3hH-5Wci_yvc5OtgZ4u64-WZRE4UlzshKYIZp25VkAO3Z6XVRlJnR9xiqnaftHmNYqrDRzgh1aq7IrUUHGE5SiPu8eU3Qk6wUeABBJ17BN8XxIsBAe/s400/Rupert_Giles.jpg" /></a></div><br />
"No, no, really, I, uh, I don't think it went in too deep. The... advantages of layers of tweed. Better than kevlar." – <a href="http://www.buffyworld.com/buffy/transcripts/023_tran.html">Rupert Giles</a><br />
Lord Bassington-Bassingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02879057924117948109noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6921236871306185015.post-77906747545781962512015-03-02T14:49:00.001+01:002015-03-02T14:49:37.463+01:00Jännerwein liveLord Bassington-Bassington would like to share this video of a very nice performance by Jännerwein.<br />
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Because there is something that's just so satisfying about following a project from its humble <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2009/02/stirring-in-alps.html">inception,</a> seeing it <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2011/12/austrian-longings.html">mature</a> and burst into <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2013/08/rite-at-end-ov-summer.html">full bloom</a>.<br />
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Because this is one of those rare live events where the audience actually shuts up.<br />
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But mostly because Lord Bassington-Bassington, being the somewhat stupid and senile canine he is, keeps losing the link to this video. So by posting it here His Lordship would have no excuse to misplace it.<br />
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<iframe width="420" height="236" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6j7d6QTXF0w?list=PLnUcppIbONl2viBnbr8rEYJQi9rfzio65&showinfo=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Lord Bassington-Bassingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02879057924117948109noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6921236871306185015.post-31306856964658514572015-02-14T17:53:00.002+01:002015-02-14T17:56:33.998+01:00Chappist magick?Lord Bassington-Bassington has recently become reacquainted with one of the heroes of his youth, namely intrepid young reporter Tintin. This has had several important effects on His Lordship's daily life (such as wearing breeks much more frequently) but also in delving into the lovely character of Professor Calculus, the ever perambulating, always pendulating eccentric.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj42Fvd6_QaXuxmw02ndBKnK19Kur26ls4BCO60DfMprvF4pPu3KurpNHVqurD8uVi_2AckIbLWRYmBbEWUTslfupZS3TMpPfRar5u1ZII5yJUoaodpm-39FVyimjiWBdtBqECWbRVE2Y3D/s1600/professor_calculus-resized-600.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj42Fvd6_QaXuxmw02ndBKnK19Kur26ls4BCO60DfMprvF4pPu3KurpNHVqurD8uVi_2AckIbLWRYmBbEWUTslfupZS3TMpPfRar5u1ZII5yJUoaodpm-39FVyimjiWBdtBqECWbRVE2Y3D/s320/professor_calculus-resized-600.png" /></a></div><br />
Of course, it was Professor Calculus who introduced the young Lord Bassington-Bassington to pendulation. And lo and behold, His Lordship found this book in one of the book stashes from the <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2009/11/meetings-with-remarkable-libraries.html">Sufi Master's</a> old library.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7UvSZvik_ngUghw4wL74w_oItPHkI5qZBJoIz7uehaXGlGblIHPtMSwd5spLJevnsF5yf9piT77ss7VIVfSTI9oH_jp6p9ZDDT3BZaMaMQLzqKuwPJh4nbjV0c2T7hTKK0NShMyiRCxGf/s1600/IMG_0093.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7UvSZvik_ngUghw4wL74w_oItPHkI5qZBJoIz7uehaXGlGblIHPtMSwd5spLJevnsF5yf9piT77ss7VIVfSTI9oH_jp6p9ZDDT3BZaMaMQLzqKuwPJh4nbjV0c2T7hTKK0NShMyiRCxGf/s320/IMG_0093.jpg" /></a></div><br />
Time to try one's paw at it! But what to pendular with?<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZvIdfgGselsQoFxFRLvxS14M1uworPZd1OBXMyFTNLBgNitCtxIUQfBwkAzuKDQWAsYFRvhjpFkylQxKcmTZgGlxrc7X7BG_mP1qph0gWEqnP0PtIYPNF3D1ctG1yx6P7tbPQl_gFKuTO/s1600/IMG_0094.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZvIdfgGselsQoFxFRLvxS14M1uworPZd1OBXMyFTNLBgNitCtxIUQfBwkAzuKDQWAsYFRvhjpFkylQxKcmTZgGlxrc7X7BG_mP1qph0gWEqnP0PtIYPNF3D1ctG1yx6P7tbPQl_gFKuTO/s320/IMG_0094.jpg" /></a></div><br />
Bingo! With His Lordship's passion for <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2013/02/the-watchman.html">pocket watches</a>, pendulation shouldn't be a problem. We're sure that lots of fascinating <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2012/08/fortean-tidings.html">Fortean</a> <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2010/11/cryptozoology-begins-at-home.html">finds</a> will be unearthed in the near future.Lord Bassington-Bassingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02879057924117948109noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6921236871306185015.post-42650699571703685742015-02-04T10:56:00.003+01:002015-02-04T10:59:22.083+01:00Words of wisdom<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA6Iamqrn1DfDOplMy_QY3s1beOOI3ukwtD5ifa6iHUixyltgMG_Oj01sZ_hcagBrTujt4sZuuIaJbHMLn968FPIkK3qvHo_rPw2sx7GDRypVBKwC4cHIsl0o6h5mT7HDoeO8ocgRm57_M/s1600/10389002_10153047164264706_8928711763156788172_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA6Iamqrn1DfDOplMy_QY3s1beOOI3ukwtD5ifa6iHUixyltgMG_Oj01sZ_hcagBrTujt4sZuuIaJbHMLn968FPIkK3qvHo_rPw2sx7GDRypVBKwC4cHIsl0o6h5mT7HDoeO8ocgRm57_M/s1600/10389002_10153047164264706_8928711763156788172_n.jpg" height="400" width="260" /></a></div><br />
(The dictator in question is, of course, none other than <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2010/01/neofolk-politics-and-metapolitics.html">Roderick Spode</a>. Thanks to Mrs. Boyle for the image.)Lord Bassington-Bassingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02879057924117948109noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6921236871306185015.post-65822798800396299652015-02-04T08:01:00.002+01:002015-02-04T08:03:26.695+01:00Luciferian Women's DaySince Lord Bassington-Bassington's friends the <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2011/07/summery-rupert.html">Somersetians</a> asked us to translate this promotional text for the Heretical Cellar, so they could share it at their <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2012/12/cash-from-zoas.html">ZOAS Press</a> website, so why not post it here as well.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdiPD5F3jzAcvmkHehNFwW6jrnW7ZXLZCCtdvsZEWiYJQXzLg1hYuJqt7NbsDmF8rFMNydC_rgXpj2dlZa1xLPxPIUyR-xSDLcMN6QVytpBxT9dfBY5vy64pKayDTBI9uoym5PShBgyYz7/s1600/544937_10155179808305187_5979198588905670569_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdiPD5F3jzAcvmkHehNFwW6jrnW7ZXLZCCtdvsZEWiYJQXzLg1hYuJqt7NbsDmF8rFMNydC_rgXpj2dlZa1xLPxPIUyR-xSDLcMN6QVytpBxT9dfBY5vy64pKayDTBI9uoym5PShBgyYz7/s400/544937_10155179808305187_5979198588905670569_n.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
Saturday, March 7th<br />
The Heretical Cellar presents<br />
<b>Those damned women: Lucifer as feminist icon<br />
</b><br />
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For many Norwegians, occultism is associated with über-macho black metal. That makes it easy to forget that several of the trailblazing occultists also were pioneering feminsts. The mother of Western occultism, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, founded her own religious movement at a time when a woman's place was by the kitchen counter, and the rebel angel Lucifer inspired women to demand their rights.<br />
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The Heretical Cellar invites you to an early start to the International Women's day. Join us for a trip through esoterical and decadent environments to meet prophets in skirts, lesbian Luciferians, Dagny Juel and the actress Sarah Bernhardt.<br />
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As a guide we've invited Per Faxneld, associate professor at the University of Stockholm, where he has defended a doctorate thesis entitled "Satanic Feminism: Lucifer as the Liberator of Woman in Nineteenth Century Culture".<br />
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Faxneld is as good a public speaker as he is a rock-solid academic, so this is something we're really looking forward to.<br />
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Faxneld's thesis is also published in book form (Molin & Sorgenfrei forlag) and will be available for sale this evening.<br />
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As usual there's food, drink, music and darkness at Katedralen in Parkveien 13 (it's a bit into a side street). The party will cost you 70 kroner, and you must be 18 years to enter. We open our doors at 19:00 hours and continue into the Women's day itself.<br />
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Welcome to an evening dedicated to feminism and Lucifer!<br />
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The event on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/896369423728801/?fref=ts">Facebook</a>.<br />
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And we couldn't resist linking to this <a href="http://library.hrmtc.com/2014/06/05/satanic-feminism/">write-up</a> of Dr. Faxneld's book.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW3ku8fqOJdB_NvxCfRbWbRKuPu1aE3pQqPjrF7buMuAZ1nWJqRlWNZS-AOdiAi5hYoEQImj4duudEQZj0HRe407nyfij2M0vM3ubwMkLcdOhdD24iTTCLJx3SGk_8eJjVmWaAFTnrhCQC/s1600/faxneld-satanic-feminism.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW3ku8fqOJdB_NvxCfRbWbRKuPu1aE3pQqPjrF7buMuAZ1nWJqRlWNZS-AOdiAi5hYoEQImj4duudEQZj0HRe407nyfij2M0vM3ubwMkLcdOhdD24iTTCLJx3SGk_8eJjVmWaAFTnrhCQC/s400/faxneld-satanic-feminism.jpg" height="320" width="210" /></a></div>
Lord Bassington-Bassingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02879057924117948109noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6921236871306185015.post-24605222201625486612015-01-10T13:36:00.000+01:002015-01-10T13:36:13.285+01:00Art Nouveau Cthulhiana<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRu7FKqGzax4y-yujc2mRBbo40IKAbKYhWVsZu2ZdnICzC_xJY6f_O-bZ1PJFeX8NaexGdrJUowTR53KIpOcfjIqhqlRf1nLzqu3_TXp3mkfKQ3tAs9eJDLQlMUrBNbdlRR3RcwecI9RBd/s1600/skann0006.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRu7FKqGzax4y-yujc2mRBbo40IKAbKYhWVsZu2ZdnICzC_xJY6f_O-bZ1PJFeX8NaexGdrJUowTR53KIpOcfjIqhqlRf1nLzqu3_TXp3mkfKQ3tAs9eJDLQlMUrBNbdlRR3RcwecI9RBd/s400/skann0006.jpg" /></a></div><br />
This marvellous artwork was an early Yuletide present from Lady Mju, Lord Bassington-Bassington's better three-quarters, Lady Mju, and was commissioned, of course, from artist <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2012/01/mellow-mullah.html">Kim Holm</a>, known for his deep delvings into the <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2012/08/to-pickman-fight.html">Lovecraftian</a>. Isn't it grand? With a proper frame, it will grace the walls here at Bassington Manor.<br />
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It won't exactly be out of place, either, because there's already enough <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2011/01/cthulhu-has-risen.html">Lovecraft</a>-inspired <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2010/02/lovecraftian-discoveries.html">artwork</a>, <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2014/09/non-lovecraftian-lovecraftiana-few.html">literature</a> and <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2009/11/lovecraftian-cinematographic-festival.html">films</a> here to make the place feel a bit like a Mythos theme park already.<br />
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But taking a cue from Lady Mju, the latest addition to the Lovecraftian collection needs a name. The winning suggestion will get a prize. For real. Totally. Suggestions in the comments field, please.<br />
Lord Bassington-Bassingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02879057924117948109noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6921236871306185015.post-79725212514018584642014-10-11T18:22:00.003+02:002014-10-11T18:22:29.725+02:00Dog mit unsThis is possibly the best art since Julian Quaye's <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2013/09/dandified-canines.html">dandified canines,</a> but with an even better racial match than even that captivatingly Prussian canines we have seen since <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2010/10/in-bunker.html">Der Kaiser.</a><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSY0IsY1J6BvU173Kj9qVDkplYfduVXe2Yidnv544I-p-35Ya8lUcRqoMATP3104U8H4ppcH5S8I5a5p1edC-iXn1ABlnpP5NqTkdy1z1aQZ2EMEB_8RckRGSeAPZ-CP_UjxyLy9e6zgdy/s1600/basset_hound_by_zarnala-d6qqgvm.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSY0IsY1J6BvU173Kj9qVDkplYfduVXe2Yidnv544I-p-35Ya8lUcRqoMATP3104U8H4ppcH5S8I5a5p1edC-iXn1ABlnpP5NqTkdy1z1aQZ2EMEB_8RckRGSeAPZ-CP_UjxyLy9e6zgdy/s400/basset_hound_by_zarnala-d6qqgvm.png" /></a></div><br />
Stolen from the obviously very talented artist <a href="http://zarnala.deviantart.com/art/Basset-Hound-407702002">Zarnala.</a><br />
Lord Bassington-Bassingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02879057924117948109noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6921236871306185015.post-70699620409066418922014-09-24T21:20:00.002+02:002014-09-24T21:21:26.427+02:00Non-Lovecraftian Lovecraftiana: A Few Favourites<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHNX-WUfSZ41U6ekIo4bRnDGnt13UZpl1yvVBQ09MPT3aV42m969lAyhpq4Ta2zl7LejjPmeZsxxZ2BlazgpUZP6DvpiPcOKBpPVcclt97c74G66LwsKYhyphenhyphenvNn3uYDHAp3MHwSSP-ikS2D/s1600/IMAG1723.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHNX-WUfSZ41U6ekIo4bRnDGnt13UZpl1yvVBQ09MPT3aV42m969lAyhpq4Ta2zl7LejjPmeZsxxZ2BlazgpUZP6DvpiPcOKBpPVcclt97c74G66LwsKYhyphenhyphenvNn3uYDHAp3MHwSSP-ikS2D/s400/IMAG1723.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<i>Great <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2011/01/cthulhu-has-risen.html">Cthulhu</a> watching over the research material.<br />
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H.P. Lovecraft hasn’t only become a cornerstone of horror fiction, he also more or less created his own, instantly recognizable subgenre: one full of scholars hovering on the edge of sanity and hidden cults worshipping ancient beings in far-away places.<br />
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So it shouldn’t be surprising that it seems to have become a rite of passage for horror writers to try their hand at penning a story or ten in his style or set in his universe. This has been going on since Lovecraft’s own time, but has escalated in recent years because the lapse of copyright (70 years after Lovecraft’s death in 1937) means that anyone can use the Gentleman of Providence’s material and themes with impunity.<br />
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The resulting deluge of Lovecraftiana gives Lord Bassington-Bassington mixed feelings. For as anyone with even the most superficial acquaintance with genre literature will have figured out already, much of it is little value: Uninspired re-tellings of Lovecraft stories done by people who couldn’t write to save their sanity. His Lordship tries to resist buying and reading it all, fearful that all the crap imitations will kill his taste for the real thing, in the same way that watching one too many Elvis impersonators might turn you off The King for good. But as his <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2013/04/on-collecting-lovecraftiana.html">bookshelves attest</a> he hasn’t really succeeded in conquering his compulsion to buy and read pretty much everything Lovecraft-related.<br />
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So is it worth it? Yes. Not only because derivative trash can be fun to read too, but also because sometimes his Lordship comes across material that is superb, reminding one of why he found this stuff appealing in the first place.<br />
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A long while ago, Lord Bassington-Bassington was issued a literary challenge by his better three-quarters, Lady Mju: To produce a list of the ten most readable Lovecraftian stories not written by Lovecraft. The challenge was accepted, but like most things here at the Chronicles it took a looooong time. <br />
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His Lordship would like to defend himself by pointing to the sheer amount of reading necessary to complete this task, but that’s really dogwash. The real reason for the slowness is that Basset hounds are best at sleeping on the sofa.<br />
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But anyway, here it is: Lord Bassington-Bassington’s ten favourite Lovecraftian stories written by someone other than ol’ Grandpa Theobald himself. This is not to be taken as some sort of attempt at some sort of Lovecraftian canon, they are merely some of His Lordship’s personal favourites. The stories are also not presented in any particular order.<br />
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<b>1. “A study in emerald”<br />
</b>By Neil Gaiman<br />
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Neil Gaiman pays homage to Sherlock Holmes and the Great Old Ones at the same time by creating a Victorian world where the Cthulhu and his compatriots have successfully conquered the world. The result is fantastic, and a lot of fun. Does humour belong in Lovecraftiana? Neil Gaiman certainly seems to think so, and it’s hard to disagree with him.<br />
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<b>2. “Notebook Found in a Deserted House”<br />
</b>Robert Bloch<br />
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It’s hardly surprising that the best attempts at writing Lovecraftian tales come from people who knew how to write already, and Bloch (best know for the Hitchcock-adapted Psycho) sure knew his way around a typewriter.<br />
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Robert Bloch has actually written a lot of Lovecraftiana, and this is perhaps not even the one that contributes the most to Lovecraft’s Mythos. But it is a favourite of Lord Bassington-Bassington’s: A quite straightforward, sometimes a bit silly but nevertheless terribly effective, thriller. One of few stories His Lordship has read which actually made his pulse race even if he was lying down – and had read the story several times before.<br />
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<b>3. “The Strange Dark One”<br />
</b>Wilum H. Pugmire<br />
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No such list would be complete without “Captain Pugmarsh”, the world’s leading Lovecraftian gay <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2009/12/queen-of-eldritch-horror.html">punk Mormon</a>. Not content with penning the occasional Lovecraftian tale, Pugmire writes Lovecraftiana full-time. In the process he has created his own Lovecraftian setting, Sequa Valley in the Pacific Northwest. The results definitetely transcend the normal fan fiction, darkly decadent and dream-like.<br />
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This is His Lordship’s favourite Pugmire story, not least because it revolves around a bookshop. More stories should revolve around bookshops. Perhaps all of them.<br />
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<b>4. “The Faces at Pine Dunes”<br />
</b>Ramsey Campbell<br />
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Like W.H. Pugmire, Campbell has created his own locales, around the river Severn in eastern England, and produced a cycle of Lovecraftian stories set there. As Campbell himself readily admits most of those are pretty run-of-the-mill (some of them are juvenile works), but “The Faces at Pine Dunes” is something else.<br />
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Campbell’s clever use of British mythology creates a coming of age-story that manages to use classic Lovecraftian motifs while still having a totally fresh feeling.<br />
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<b>5. "There Are More Things"<br />
</b>Jorge Luis Borges<br />
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It seems astounding to think that a Nobel Prize laureate actually penned a story dedicated to H.P. Lovecraft, but then Borges was possibly the <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2010/11/cryptozoology-begins-at-home.html">coolest</a> writer who ever lived.<br />
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This is very minimalistic and clever re-working of some key Lovecraftian themes. And even if Borges himself seems to have been a bit ambivalent about the story, it is probably worth about a dozen of those anthologies of Lovecraftiana being churned out these days.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0KWAs9n0E5N1vR9O6y0S57NKZFvQdm8_4Goj91oR4FMXeY5Kb45jAwpHx2pizew13OYF3Ce6XXoALj5IbcuArAfipn6xtFPH-NHoBBnQ0dww9crSiWAy-FwF1N-ULBoKXGCXvN5H_amE/s1600-h/IMG_0366.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0KWAs9n0E5N1vR9O6y0S57NKZFvQdm8_4Goj91oR4FMXeY5Kb45jAwpHx2pizew13OYF3Ce6XXoALj5IbcuArAfipn6xtFPH-NHoBBnQ0dww9crSiWAy-FwF1N-ULBoKXGCXvN5H_amE/s400/IMG_0366.JPG" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5435968783035397122" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 300px;" /></a><br />
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<i>The <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2010/02/lovecraftian-discoveries.html">wall</a> here at Bassington Manor.<br />
</i><br />
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<b>6. “The Courtyard”<br />
</b>Alan Moore<br />
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Alan Moore is one of the most important people working in comics (or “graphic novels” as pretentious types would have you call them) but this is a normal black letters on white background-based short story. And a pretty superb one, dealing with punky cults and linguistic horrors.<br />
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True to Mr. Moore’s day job “The Courtyard” has been adapted as a comic, and forms the first part of Neonomicon. It’s not bad at all, but one should probably skip the second part, which descends into the usual trap of sex and monsters which often afflicts attempts to make Lovecraft more “contemporary” and “cutting edge”.<br />
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<b>7. “Furierna från Borås”<br />
</b>Anders Fager<br />
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Lord Bassington-Bassington doesn’t really like reading Anders Fager. Quite simply because Fager’s fiction makes him feel uncomfortable. But then, that’s part of the whole point of horror fiction, isn’t it? So let’s say it’s a compliment. Simply put, Fager transplants Lovecraftian themes to modern-day Sweden.<br />
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As for Lord Bassington-Bassington’s grumblings about disgusting human copulation in the entry above, there are no rules without exceptions. Fager’s use of sexual elements works like a charm. Or perhaps a curse. And speaking of curses, Fager’s international recognition is bound to be hampered by the fact that his stories are only available in Swedish. International publishers take note.<br />
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<b>8. “The Last Feast of Harlequin”<br />
</b>Thomas Ligotti<br />
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While Lord Bassington-Bassington dislikes Anders Fager, he finds Thomas Ligotti positively repulsive. But there is no way around him. As Edgar Allan Poe was the most important horror writer of the 19th century, and Lovecraft of the 20th, Ligotti is the most important horror writer working today.<br />
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While Ligotti is mostly (in)famous for his nihilistic “corporate horror” stories, his Lovecraftian works are among the best ever produced. “The Last Feast of Harlequin” might not even be the best of the bunch, but as it is essentially a deft re-telling of Lovecraft’s <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2012/04/lovecraftian-book-news.html">“The Festival”</a> (which again is a re-telling of <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2010/09/ex-occidente-deluxe.html">Arthur Machen’s</a> “The Happy Children”) it instantly found its place in His Lordship’s heart.<br />
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<b>9. “The Burrowers Beneath”<br />
</b>Brian Lumley<br />
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Lord Bassington-Bassington has an ambivalent relationship with Brian Lumley’s Lovecraftian stories, which tends to be depressingly derivative when he tries to stay true to Lovecraft. Lumley is more enjoyable when he writes about his supernatural investigator Titus Crow, a sort of occult Sherlock Holmes, and just does what he pleases to the Lovecraft mythos – sometimes making an awful mess of things.<br />
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This is a bit long for a short story, which is why the excerpt “Cement Surroundings” tends to appear in anthologies (also because its faux-Lovecraftian tone fits in better) but this is shameless, pulpy fun.<br />
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<b>10. “The Hounds of Tindalos”<br />
</b>Frank Belknap Long<br />
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Frank Belknap Long’s little tale of time-travelling perfectly encapsulates H.P. Lovecraft’s concept of “cosmic horror”. All in all, this is a superb Lovecraftian story. All it needs to achieve perfection is a more accurate description of the Hounds. You know, something about the ears and jowls and such. Come on, that’s not too much to ask is it?<br />
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So there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. A small list. What next? A list of Lord Bassington-Bassington's favourite <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2009/11/lovecraftian-cinematographic-festival.html">Lovecraftian films</a>, perchance?Lord Bassington-Bassingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02879057924117948109noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6921236871306185015.post-51623457587569863132014-09-22T19:33:00.003+02:002014-09-22T19:33:35.285+02:00His Basset's Voice<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoqUSyfvgxrtsR8vvykmwsY_BuyTJaH1uiwUHKKms07FGHorcWxi9E6dbKKkXZbLovIdU42qDfuQjcEFPfzvnNE4RyTDA-R8dzeVeC9HomCJc5agwtktU9WSWLNg1VcStX3FceNikU8_VQ/s1600/420677_559141104108912_1679127167_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoqUSyfvgxrtsR8vvykmwsY_BuyTJaH1uiwUHKKms07FGHorcWxi9E6dbKKkXZbLovIdU42qDfuQjcEFPfzvnNE4RyTDA-R8dzeVeC9HomCJc5agwtktU9WSWLNg1VcStX3FceNikU8_VQ/s400/420677_559141104108912_1679127167_n.jpg" /></a></div>Lord Bassington-Bassingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02879057924117948109noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6921236871306185015.post-86860052280267519772014-09-10T14:51:00.000+02:002014-09-10T14:51:05.091+02:00An arresting tattooLord Bassington-Bassington's musings on <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2011/10/bassetattoo.html">tattoos</a> seem to have had consequences. On the body of one of Norway's finest, no less. For surely what we're seeing here is a reader of the Chronicles?<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhysFy7OShMeMH8Mq-Hp4srFHNnXxew6URAF6yYfA4x8budtlAOXt28A4K-m3O5UbILdBeRxQXozwOBxuYsiAvflgL5MUf-G_7IUp5zKZfvFQDKyM_DUIbvQaDQakfN36mMf6So7nOUK3jm/s1600/10703602_10152695013751323_3665284333626957529_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhysFy7OShMeMH8Mq-Hp4srFHNnXxew6URAF6yYfA4x8budtlAOXt28A4K-m3O5UbILdBeRxQXozwOBxuYsiAvflgL5MUf-G_7IUp5zKZfvFQDKyM_DUIbvQaDQakfN36mMf6So7nOUK3jm/s400/10703602_10152695013751323_3665284333626957529_n.jpg" /></a></div><br />
Here at Bassington Manor, though, the canine part of the household hasn't had much progress on the body art front. Despite having even gone so far as commissioning <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2013/03/basset-breed.html">designs</a> for a tattoo, it seems like His Lordship will stick to adornments on his <a href="http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.no/2014/02/tattoo-shoe.html">footwear</a> for the present.Lord Bassington-Bassingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02879057924117948109noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6921236871306185015.post-53964564115608968892014-09-03T07:15:00.000+02:002014-09-03T07:16:12.539+02:00Heretical season opened<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLMREd_SN13qdc7A5n72wBgcI7rT-pKGCpJ3aFQtX9NdXe2EKwHzL9GK5LoDpR4uH0tXekuDLTbP7pxbJqRlAgMMv0CXszSFXrdpwAvzYP6qd2yr0uUG32iCGjGB3TsmPsK-PVgiTNI8UC/s1600/KK.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLMREd_SN13qdc7A5n72wBgcI7rT-pKGCpJ3aFQtX9NdXe2EKwHzL9GK5LoDpR4uH0tXekuDLTbP7pxbJqRlAgMMv0CXszSFXrdpwAvzYP6qd2yr0uUG32iCGjGB3TsmPsK-PVgiTNI8UC/s400/KK.jpg" /></a></div><br />
More <a href="http://kjetterskkjeller.blogspot.no/2014/08/9-september-2014-katedralen-pub.html">heresy</a> coming soon to a cellar near you. If you live in Oslo, that is.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZHhVuOcO9gVa6PIR_2K-V1vDPeCM6jIOi33Rw1bon1UTfncQbCFVJu6il4nfEHsIJolz3IH5HjZflJZFiU3XnxB-diTh50e_nwNIQ2fx2CRj31zVqzCivyxt4USH5ERv4KPKrWyAwaZn4/s1600/kkhead.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZHhVuOcO9gVa6PIR_2K-V1vDPeCM6jIOi33Rw1bon1UTfncQbCFVJu6il4nfEHsIJolz3IH5HjZflJZFiU3XnxB-diTh50e_nwNIQ2fx2CRj31zVqzCivyxt4USH5ERv4KPKrWyAwaZn4/s320/kkhead.jpg" /></a></div>Lord Bassington-Bassingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02879057924117948109noreply@blogger.com0