January

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January, Where Daffodils Lie Sleeping (no date) by Samuel John Lamorna Birch.

One day left to post some more January paintings. These are mostly British scenes, and the snowier ones give a good sense of how it’s been here for the past few days.

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Morning in January (no date) by Gerald Gardiner.

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January (1960) by Denis Booth.

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A Mountain Walked

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Art by David Ho.

This may be a frustrating post for some since it concerns a limited edition anthology that sold out almost as soon as it was announced a year or so ago. Even though the book was published last year it’s taken a few months for my copies to arrive. A Mountain Walked is a collection of Cthulhu Mythos stories compiled by leading Lovecraft scholar ST Joshi, and published in the US by Centipede Press. Anyone familiar with Centipede’s more luxurious volumes will know that they don’t do things by halves, and this weighty tome is no exception: a large-format hardback (the signed edition is also cased), with heavy paper stock, colour printing, tinted sheets and a bulk that runs to almost 700 pages.

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Art by David Ho.

Many of the stories are reprints but there’s also new material from contributors including Thomas Ligotti, Neil Gaiman, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Laird Barron, the late Michael Shea (to whom the book is dedicated), Patrick McGrath, TED Klein, Gemma Files, Ramsey Campbell and many others. The artwork also ranges widely; I’d not seen anything by David Ho before but he’s very good, hence the samples shown here. But there’s also a variety of other work, even a Lovecraftian Peanuts comic strip by Julien Baznet. I was pleased that my Cthulhoid picture was placed with the introduction, it makes up for my never having responded to Mr Joshi when he wrote to me years ago asking if I’d be interested in contributing something to Necronomicon Press.

Since the book was so successful there’s been talk of doing a cheaper reprint. In the meantime, bloated Lovecraftian plutocrats (Yuggothcrats?) will find very expensive copies for sale on eBay. A few more page samples follow.

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Weekend links 240

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The Death of Chatterton (2014) by Kehinde Wiley.

• Mixes of the week (and the week before that): The Conjurer’s Hexmas: Second Rite by SeraphicManta; Secret Thirteen Mix 140 by Deaf Center; Best of 2014: A Highly Opinionated Mix by Robin The Fog.

• Never mind Music for Airports, how about Music for Neurosurgery? The Tegos Tapes Edits are extracts from “12 hours of unheard Vangelis music soundtracking films of various surgical operations”.

• “It was one of the first magazines that, with science-fiction and comics together, proposed comics for adults.” Aug Stone on 40 years of publisher Les Humanoïdes Associés and Métal Hurlant.

• Zinesters Do It on the Photocopier: Stephanie Schroeder on the Queer Zine Archive Project. Related: Holy Titclamps by Larry-bob Roberts.

A Year In The Country reached the end of its 365 posts. The archive is well worth a browse.

• “These people love to collect radioactive glass. Are they nuts?” asks Ben Marks.

• Think before you share: 86 viral images from 2014 that were totally fake.

• The Anti-Tolkien: Peter Bebergal on Michael Moorcock.

• Extracts from Alan Bennett‘s diary for 2014.

John Cage 4’33” Autotune

Alpha (1976) by Vangelis | Reve (1979) by Vangelis | L’Enfant (1979) by Vangelis

The weekend artists, 2014

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The Crystal Gazer (or The Magic Crystal, 1904) by Gertrude Käsebier.

Once again the annual review of artists/designers/photographers featured in the weekend posts arrives at the beginning of the new year rather than the end of the old. Scroll down to see what caught my attention over the past twelve months.

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We Are The Water – Snow Drawings Project, Colorado (2014) by Sonja Hinrichsen with 50 volunteers.

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Le Palais des Merveilles, 1907 – 1927 – 1960 by Clovis Trouille.

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The Three Witches (2014) by Lorena Carvalho.

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