Summary: <br> H.P. Lovecraft’s Birthday:<br> Explicit.<br> <br> <br> <br> Message sent to P. Djéli Clark, 2019 August 14:<br> <br> <br> <br> The skinny:<br> <br> <br> <br> Hello. May I record this excellent blogpost for my podcast? A handful of listeners. Non-monetized. The phonorecord copyright would be designated to you and myself.<br> <br> <br> <br> <a href="https://pdjeliclark.wordpress.com/2013/05/03/hp-lovecrafts-madness/">pdjeliclark.wordpress.com/2013/05/03/hp-lovecrafts-madness/</a><br> <br> <br> <br> A bit more:<br> <br> <br> <br> I was looking for something to record to release in commemoration of Lovecraft’s birthday (as I have done in previous years because I enjoy some of his stories, particularly for the ideals of cosmic horror), but something that addresses directly his racism. Lovecraft is prominently associated with racism. Consumption, but particularly dissemination, of the work ought to address the racism.<br> <br> <br> <br> I recently revisited Yog-Sothoth.com and found that it is hidden behind a sign-up wall. Ten years ago, it was not. To wit: “IMPORTANT: Please write a FULLY FORMED & COMPLETE English sentence (6+ words) about your Cthulhu/HPL/Tabletop gaming interests. Don’t fail on this step. This is a critical spam filter.” The intense tone aroused my suspiciousness; is that really about spam? I fell to wondering what else it could be about. I wondered: did that British gaming website get trolled by folks (those they would consider outsiders: non-Lovecraft fans) calling them racists? I have no basis and no conclusions. But anyway, I typed “racism” into Yog-Sothoth.com’s search box and found a forum post that included a link to your blogpost.<br> <br> <br> <br> I apologize for not being familiar with other of your work. I really like this blogpost. The quotations land with impact. (Were these pulls from Lovecraft’s correspondence taken from the volumes that Joshi put together?) This made me laugh out loud: “Or there’s the, ‘well we have to separate his personal life from his works’ defense. Yes, because as writers we slip out of skin, wipe our brains blank and pluck ideas from some non-personal non-reality based ether.” The tone of the post is keen and its message is direct and I like it.<br> <br> <br> <br> As I was reading your post, my mind flicked to when I first encountered, in Hughes, reference to the paradox that some of the greatest writers in history on the subject of human liberty also owned other human beings, and then you referenced the paradox. “Conflicting. Vexing. Dubois. Double-consciousness. All that.” It’s important to discuss all this. Thank you for your writing.<br> <br> <br> <br> I appreciate the links at the end of the post to posts by other writers on the same subject; all worthy reading.<br> <br> <br> <br> Thank you for your consideration, VbV<br> <br> <br> <br> <a href="https://pdjeliclark.wordpress.com/2013/05/03/hp-lovecrafts-madness/">“HP Lovecraft’s Madness”</a><br> <br> <br> <br> from The Disgruntled Haradrim, 2013 May 3<br> <br> <br> <br> P. Djéli Clark<br> <br> <br> <br> Text © copyright 2013 by P. Djéli Clark.<br>
