http://nightshadebooks.com/cart.php?m=product_detail&p=201
Contemporary Network Society (2011) Versus
H.P. Lovecraft's Commonplace Book (1934)
COMMONPLACE BOOK
This book (((This blog))) consists of ideas, images, & quotations hastily jotted down for possible future use in weird fiction. Very few are actually developed plots—for the most part they are merely suggestions or random impressions designed to set the memory or imagination working.
Their sources are various—dreams, things read, casual incidents, idle conceptions, & so on. —H. P. Lovecraft
Presented to R. H. Barlow, Esq., on May 7, 1934—in exchange for an admirably neat typed copy (((pirate OCR textfile))) from his skilled hand.
1 Demophon shivered when the sun shone upon him. (Lover of darkness = ignorance.) (((Victim of "digital divide;" just needs a mobile.)))
2 Inhabitants of Zinge, over whom the star Canopus rises every night, are always gay and without sorrow. (((Gay Zingeans afflicted by YouTube coverage of other people's disasters.)))
3 The shores of Attica respond in song to the waves of the Aegean. (((Click to book berth in Greek tourist ship.)))
4 Horror Story Man dreams of falling—found on floor mangled as tho’ from falling from a vast height. (((backup security video, determine actual cause of death)))
5 Narrator walks along unfamiliar country road,—comes to strange region of the unreal. (((Use GoogleMap on handheld, return to previous route.)))
6 In Ld Dunsany’s “Idle Days on the Yann” The inhabitants of the antient Astahan, on the Yann, do all things according to antient ceremony. Nothing new is found. “Here we have fetter’d and manacled Time, who wou’d otherwise slay the Gods.” (((Inflict Yann disruption strategy, destroy antiquated Yann business model.)))
7 Horror Story The sculptured hand—or other artificial hand—which strangles its creator. (((Settle out of court, rewrite buggy software for next release of Artificial Hand (R) (TM))))
8 Hor. Sto. Man makes appt. with old enemy. Dies—body keeps appt. (((21C still really liking the zombie thing. You go, Howard, zombies all the way.)))
9 Dr. Eben Spencer plot. (((Google "Dr Eben Spencer," find out it refers to some obscure dream Lovecraft once had.)))
10 Dream of flying over city. [Celephaïs] (((Predator drone.)))
11 Odd nocturnal ritual. Beasts dance and march to musick. (((Typical Euro-Disney entertainment.)))
12 Happenings in interval between preliminary sound and striking of clock—ending— “it was the tones of the clock striking three”. (((Use digital clock.)))
13 House and garden—old—associations. Scene takes on strange aspect. (((Augmented Reality historical overlay.)))
14 Hideous sound in the dark. (((Record sound, upload it to deejay clip-sample site.)))
15 Bridge and slimy black waters. [Fungi—The Canal] (((Pollution far too common to be eldritch)))
16 The walking dead—seemingly alive, but—. (((RE: persistent fondness for zombies)))
17 Doors found mysteriously open and shut etc.—excite terror. (((Install webcam, record video of door 24-7-365)))
18 Calamander-wood—a very valuable cabinet wood of Ceylon and S. India, resembling rosewood. (((Is is sustainable / renewable?)))
19 Revise 1907 tale—painting of ultimate horror. ((("Painting"?)))
20 Man journeys into the past—or imaginative realm—leaving bodily shell behind. (((Say no to drugs.)))
21 A very ancient colossus in a very ancient desert. Face gone—no man hath seen it. (((Satellite scan, image API, FlickR set, yphoto)))
22 Mermaid Legend—Encyc. Britt. XVI—40. ((("Mermaids" entry, Wikipedia.)))
23 The man who would not sleep—dares not sleep—takes drugs to keep himself awake. Finally falls asleep—and something happens. Motto from Baudelaire p. 214. [Hypnos] (((Sleep disorder therapy, try melatonin.)))
24 Dunsany—Go-By Street Man stumbles on dream world—returns to earth—seeks to go back—succeeds, but finds dream world ancient and decayed as though by thousands of years. (((Visit record store or bookstore chain)))
1919
25 Man visits museum of antiquities—asks that it accept a bas-relief he has just made—old and learned curator laughs and says he cannot accept anything so modern. Man says that ‘dreams are older than brooding Egypt or the contemplative Sphinx or garden-girdled Babylonia’ and that he had fashioned the sculpture in his dreams. Curator bids him shew his product, and when he does so curator shews horror. Asks who the man may be. He tells modern name. “No—before that” says curator. Man does not remember except in dreams. Then curator offers high price, but man fears he means to destroy sculpture. Asks fabulous price—curator will consult directors. Add good development and describe nature of bas-relief. [Cthulhu] (((Refer jittery steampunk artist to "hauntology" or "appropriative object-trouve mashups.")))
26 Dream of ancient castle stairs—sleeping guards—narrow window—battle on plain between men of England and men of yellow tabards with red dragons. Leader of English challenges leader of foe to single combat. They fight. Foe unhelmeted, but there is no head revealed. Whole army of foe fades into mist, and watcher finds himself to be the English knight on the plain, mounted. Looks at castle, and sees a peculiar concentration of fantastic clouds over the highest battlements. (((World of Warcraft, pick any quest.)))
27 Life and Death
Death—its desolation and horror—bleak spaces—sea-bottom—dead cities. But Life—the greater horror! Vast unheard-of reptiles and leviathans—hideous beasts of prehistoric jungle—rank slimy vegetation—evil instincts of primal man—Life is more horrible than death. (((Rank, slimy Anthropocene era bids fair to eclipse the primal soup for gooey Lovecraftian ickiness)))
28 The Cats of Ulthar
The cat is the soul of antique Ægyptus and bearer of tales from forgotten cities of Meroë and Ophir. He is the kin of the jungle’s lords, and heir to the secrets of hoary and sinister Africa. The Sphinx is his cousin, and he speaks her language; but he is more ancient than the Sphinx, and remembers that which she hath forgotten. (((Endless seething primal LOLcat hordes)))
29 Dream of Seekonk—ebbing tide—bolt from sky—exodus from Providence—fall of Congregational dome. (((Visit glamorous Detroit, bring "ruin porn" camera)))
30 Strange visit to a place at night—moonlight—castle of great magnificence etc. Daylight shews either abandonment or unrecognisable ruins—perhaps of vast antiquity. (((Real estate crisis)))
31 Prehistoric man preserved in Siberian ice. (See Winchell—Walks and Talks in the Geological field—p. 156 et seq.) (((Otzi)))
32 As dinosaurs were once surpassed by mammals, so will man-mammal be surpassed by insect or bird—fall of man before the new race. (((Common-or-garden Singularity riff)))
33 Determinism and prophecy. (((Neo-neo-neoMarxists.)))
34 Moving away from earth more swiftly than light—past gradually unfolded—horrible revelation. (((Last Space Shuttle flight reveals horrid collapse of vast fantasy)))
35 Special beings with special senses from remote universes. Advent of an external universe to view. (((Google Goggles, facial recognition)))
36 Disintegration of all matter to electrons and finally empty space assured, just as devolution of energy to radiant heat is known. Case of acceleration—man passes into space. (((Dominique Strauss-Kahn)))
37 Peculiar odour of a book of childhood induces repetition of childhood fancy. (((Get iPad, Kindle or Nook)))
38 Drowning sensations—undersea—cities—ships—souls of the dead. Drowning is a horrible death. (((Tsunami disaster porn)))
39 Sounds—possibly musical—heard in the night from other worlds or realms of being. (((Illegal Rave scene)))
40 Warning that certain ground is sacred or accursed; that a house or city must not be built upon it—or must be abandoned or destroyed if built, under penalty of catastrophe. (((Florida real estate)))
41 The Italians call Fear La figlia della Morte—the daughter of Death. (((Adorable Italian TWILIGHT vampires)))
42 Fear of mirrors—memory of dream in which scene is altered and climax is hideous surprise at seeing oneself in the water or a mirror. (Identity?) [Outsider?] (((FX-distorted PhotoBooth pic)))
43 Monsters born living—burrow underground and multiply, forming race of unsuspected daemons. (((Illegal immigration riff))
44 Castle by pool or river—reflection fixed thro’ centuries—castle destroyed, reflection lives to avenge destroyers weirdly. (((Disney buys ABC, Pixar)))
45 Race of immortal Pharaohs dwelling beneath pyramids in vast subterranean halls down black staircases. (((Tahrir Square)))
46 Hawthorne—unwritten plot
Visitor from tomb—stranger at some publick concourse followed at midnight to graveyard where he descends into the earth. (((Take footage with mobile, out creepy stranger on YouTube)))
47 From Arabia Encyc. Britan. II—255 Prehistoric fabulous tribes of Ad in the south, Thamood in the north, and Tasm and Jadis in the centre of the peninsula. “Very gorgeous are the descriptions given of Irem, the City of Pillars (as the Koran styles it) supposed to have been erected by Shedad, the latest despot of Ad, in the regions of Hadramaut, and which yet, after the annihilation of its tenants, remains entire, so Arabs say, invisible to ordinary eyes, but occasionally and at rare intervals, revealed to some heaven-favoured traveller.” // Rock excavations in N.W. Hejaz ascribed to Thamood tribe. (((Contemporary Baghdad)))
48 Cities wiped out by supernatural wrath. (((Shock and Awe)))
49 AZATHOTH—hideous name. (((Hideous band name.)))
50 Phleg′-e-thon— a river of liquid fire in Hades. (((yes, yes... parodist glances at laptop screen clock)))
51 Enchanted garden where moon casts shadow of object or ghost invisible to the human eye. (((Augment, floatie)))
52 Calling on the dead—voice or familiar sound in adjacent room. (((Wireless stereo system, bluetooth headset)))
53 Hand of dead man writes. (((Dead celebrity Twitter account)))
54 Transposition of identity. (((Identity theft)))
55 Man followed by invisible thing. (((Facebook data shadow)))
56 Book or MS. too horrible to read—warned against reading it...
