Cosmic Horror, Jim Crow, And “The Thing In The White House” Just Won’t Go: Victor LaValle’s “The Ballad Of Black Tom.”

I know what the world has done to my brother and how narrowly he has survived it. And I know, which is much worse, and this is the crime of which I accuse my country and my countrymen, and for which neither I nor time nor history will ever forgive them, that they have destroyed … Continue reading Cosmic Horror, Jim Crow, And “The Thing In The White House” Just Won’t Go: Victor LaValle’s “The Ballad Of Black Tom.”

It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Lovecraft’s America: Victor LaValle’s “The Ballad Of Black Tom” And “The Thing In The White House” Is A Shoggoth. Episode 1.

With HBO’s Lovecraft Country based on Matt Ruff’s novel of the same name offering a new episode each week, and Black Americans and protestors being shot and villainized as speakers at the Republican National Convention and pundits at Fox News call for more “law and order” (i.e. targeting Black Americans and the #BlackLivesMatter movement), it’s … Continue reading It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Lovecraft’s America: Victor LaValle’s “The Ballad Of Black Tom” And “The Thing In The White House” Is A Shoggoth. Episode 1.

“White Castles” As My Son And I Watch “Rick And Morty,” While Space And Time Bubbles And Wobbles Away

Always there waiting when I arrive, though not always visited, not always directly acknowledged and approached like an itinerant believer noticing the grail, but in the end deferring.  Talked of often, gestured toward, but sometimes the car continues, the night passes.  But not tonight.  No, as I raise a glass of Michigan whiskey raised with … Continue reading “White Castles” As My Son And I Watch “Rick And Morty,” While Space And Time Bubbles And Wobbles Away

Prolegomena To Any Future Gumbo.

West Africa parades Benin, Burkina Faso, the island nation of Cape Verde, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, the island of Saint Helena, Senegal, Sierra Leone, São Tomé and Príncipe and Togo.  West Africa remembers the empires of Ghana, Mali, Oyo, and Benin.  West Africa cooks Yassa, Maafe, and Fufu. In The … Continue reading Prolegomena To Any Future Gumbo.

H.P. Lovecraft Arrives With Sea Creatures On Labor Day . . . Never Seen Again.

Again I say, I do not know what happened to H.P. Lovecraft; though, I hope he has found some peaceful oblivion far from octopi, crabs and black drums, the infernal recipe he found in the Necronomicon.  A dark cloud hangs over most of the night, but I do remember, as I’ve said, a knock on … Continue reading H.P. Lovecraft Arrives With Sea Creatures On Labor Day . . . Never Seen Again.

Cooking Fish With H.P. Lovecraft

People around the country and in the nearby towns muttered a great deal among themselves, but said very little to the outer world.  They had talked about dying and half-deserted Innsmouth for nearly a century, and nothing new could be wilder or more hideous than what they had whispered and hinted years before.  Many things … Continue reading Cooking Fish With H.P. Lovecraft