My Own Private NecronomiCon, Part 4 (Another NecronomiCon Review and Travelogue)
KAYVEN
It was Sunday and the main event of the Con that day was the Prayer Breakfast.
The night before, we decided to spend the next few nights at a different hotel
so we packed our stuff quickly and proceeded to check out. We drove over to
the Marriott, parked the car and got ready for the breakfast. It was at that
exact moment that I suddenly realized that I had lost my little blue card
entitling me for entry into the celebrations. The worst part was that only a
few days before I had opened my registration packet, noticed the card and
thought to myself, "Gee, I better make sure I don't loose that since its just
the right size to be dropped unaware, fall into a thin but deep crevasse or be
blown into oblivion by a southwesterly wind." In any case, the little voice
inside my head kept muttering, "Told you so!" and I searched fruitlessly for my
pass to the delights of milk and honey so tantalizingly close. After a good
twenty minutes of this, I decided to take my confirmation letter (which I had
thankfully brought on the trip for just such an emergency) and get into the
prayer breakfast come hell or high-water.
We walked into the lobby to see Steven Kaye wandering about clutching a copy of
New Mythos Legends next to his chest. A person might foolishly assume Mr.
Kaye's habit of clutching this book close to his body was a sign that he looked
quite forward to reading it. But I knew differently. Mr. Kaye holds books
close to his chest to protect him from gunshots. It was the same reason that
he had Chaosium's Beyond the Mountains of Madness strapped under his shirt.
Since Steven Kaye was going to journey into the unknown wastes of Lovecraft
Country with us over the next couple of days, we decided that he should check
out then and put his suitcase into the car. A job that only involved a few
scratches and dents in the plastic bumper of our Ford Taurus. It was a decision
that we would regret after the Prayer Breakfast.
The Cthulhu Prayer Breakfast
10:00 am
The program said 10, but the truth is that it pretty well got underway at
9:30. I went to the desk that was collecting those little blue cards and
explained that I had lost mine. But, I offered, I had my registration
confirmation that listed myself as having paid for the breakfast. I showed it
to the girl who then told me with a straight face that she couldn't see a thing
without her glasses. Glasses she had apparently forgotten to bring with her.
Fortunately, Marc Michaud walked by with his glasses on and was able to confirm
that I was indeed "part of the brotherhood." Our group was lucky enough to
find a table close to the front, close to the buffet, and close to the doors in
case of an unplanned fire. Our table consisted of Daniel Harms, his lovely
assistant Monika, Steven Kaye, Dan Clore, my wife, Ken Hill, his wife, myself,
and the bibliographic genius Chris Jarocha-Ernst.
The topics went wild. At one moment we were discussing the success of Chris'
bibliography while the next we were enthralled upon a debate on the merits of
Mi-Go technology as defined by various writers in the Mythos genre and then a
quick laugh at those foolish individuals that were at the Joshi panel that was
taking place at the same time. Topic upon fascinating topic sprang up and were
quickly devoured as intellectual candy. The rapidity of the discussion was
only stopped for that moment when the breakfast buffet was opened. It was
wonderful. More eggs than you could shake a stick at. Bacon, sausage, fried
potatoes, fruit, juice and even breakfast cereal was represented in their
parade of delights. There were even servants, ahem, I mean waitresses that
would come around and fill your glass or take your plates if you wanted to go
get a second helping. With all the talking of Lovecraftian and Mythosian
topics, its surprising that no one choked.
As the meal spiraled to a close, The Guests of Honor were presented with
awards. Ganley accepted his with humble dignity. Chappell accepted his award
by offering a little story about Lovecraft and ending it with a pun on the
Lurking Fear. Robert Capelletto won the Film Competition and expressed
astonishment that his masterpiece was worth the attention it was getting. A
comment that invoked some musing that perhaps a good filmmaker doesn't need to
know what makes good art.
Then the audience grew quiet as the serving staff was quickly ushered out. It
was time for Robert M. Price to put on his show. He entered amid applause
wearing a Deep One mask and an elaborate Cthulhu-themed miter with robes to
match. Price quickly went into a tirade against the unfocused nihilism and
decadence of our age. "Don't misunderstand me, my brothers and sisters," Price
said, "I'm not against any of this. I'm just calling for a more directed
approach to the madness!" I tried a couple of times to raise the level of
complacent audience member up to frenzied crowd, but nobody was willing to go
there.
It was then that Price called upon us to perform the Litany of Nug and Yeb as
written in the Book of Eibon and translated by Joe Pulver. While we joined in
chants and unholy prayers, we could hear in the ballroom next to us the singing
of gospel tunes as a religious convention carried on in blissful ignorance of
our own demon summoning.
As an unforgettable climax, Price promptly set fire to the ballroom as a surge
of people ran screaming towards the exits.
Well, ok, that isn't how it ended. It actually ended with a round of applause
and an informal mixer with people from the different tables getting together.
It was then that C.J. Henderson and a few of us got together to look at his 13
year old daughter's Mythos related artwork. They were truly impressive and
bound to give some child psychologist out there enough material to fill out a
thesis.
After the breakfast, the next stop was the Dealer's Room once again to pick up
any last moment purchases. I made a point of picking up New Mythos Legends,
The Fantastic Worlds of H.P. Lovecraft (even though much of the geographical
articles by Will Murray have been recently found faulty), and I picked up an
old manuscript written in German by a professor during the mid-1800s detailing
a variety of cults and secret societies. Our group's decision was to head out
of the hotel by 1:00, but as usual, when you place bibliophiles in a room full
of books, time takes a backseat to the needs of the moment. While we hunted
through the rows of books, we ran once again into E.P. Berglund and involved
ourselves into a discussion of the Internet and the affect of the new
technology on Mythos fandom. (The term 'Tragedy of the Commons' came up if I
recall.)
We finally decided to head for the car and begin our journey when the call
came out that Brian McNaughton was in the building and heading towards the
Dealer's Room. The one thing that we had come to learn about McNaughton that
weekend was that if you didn't catch him and tie him down, he'd be somewhere
else a few minutes later. So when Steven Kaye realized that he'd left his copy
of _Throne of Bones_ in the car and was hoping for Brian to sign it, the gang
immediately went into action. I grabbed Steven Kaye and told him to run for it
as we headed for the car. Daniel Harms, Monika and my wife were sent to head
off the illustrious McNaughton from the Dealer's Room and to entertain him long
enough for Steven Kaye and myself to make it back. Our speed was tremendous as
it only took us 30 seconds to run to the car, open the door, scavenge for
_Throne of Bones_ and then run like mad back towards the Dealer's Room. We
arrived to thankfully see Brian being distracted by his favorite topic: the
decline of the free drink in modern America's bars.
"I go to the supermarket and I get offered everything from samples of shrimp
to free trial sizes of detergent. But where is the free drink in our
neighborhood bars and liquor establishments?" he asked. It was our good
fortune that no one mentioned that Captain Morgan rum was being given out in
small sample bottles in the Courtyard or we would have lost him for sure. He
already looked like he was going to bolt at the first opportunity. Mr. Kaye
got his book signed. I introduced myself and was soundly slapped across the
face. We mourned that Eric Kesler had not been able to attend. And somewhere
in all the conversation, Mr. McNaughton had slipped by us and into the Dealer's
Room.
Somehow it seemed appropriate that the Ghoulmaster himself should be the one to
send us off on our trek. For our next destination was Boston and our goal was
to track down the last known residence of Richard Upton Pickman.
Boston
August 22, 1999 2:30pm
Boston was Monika's city. She'd once lived there and continued to think of it
as one of the best places on Earth. So it was a good thing she had come along
else the rest of us would have become lost, confused and generally frightened
by the large city. With only a few short hours to sightsee, we needed and
appreciated having a semi-native along to guide us.
We found ourselves a convenient parking garage where Daniel Harms decided to
implement his theft deterrence system. The idea is that if you make the car
look messy enough (paper, books, old underwear thrown about) then a potential
thief will assume that the owner is a graduate student. A position in life
known for uncleanness and poverty. Thus, the reasoning goes, the thief will
skip the car. Whatever the merits of the theory, the fact is that the car was
left unmolested so perhaps it does work.
Within moments of exiting the car and making our way to the train station, I
was approached by a derelict and asked for a quarter in order to "pay the bus
fare." It was, I suppose, my welcoming into the big city. Given the state of
mind that the beggar was in, I suspected that my quarter wasn't going to find
its way into the coffers of the transit authority any time soon, so my initial
reaction was to feign a lack of change. But alas, I am a kind and gentle soul
and thought for a moment about what would Jesus do in this circumstance.
Realizing that I didn't have the power of healing or 12 guys willing to push
undesirables out of my way, I decided to compromise and told the person that I
didn't have any quarters, but I did have some shiny nickels I'd be willing to
give. I'm not sure if the buses don't accept nickels in Boston or if the
beggar in question had some personal problem with accepting coinage with the
visage of Thomas Jefferson but the look I received at my act of charity was a
look of disgust combined with an outstretched hand. (In case anyone is
wondering where the others of the group were at this time, Daniel Harms and
Monika had headed into a convenience store for camera film and Steven Kaye and
my wife were intelligently far far away from where I was.) The irony of this
situation was that as I reached into my pocket, I suddenly found that every
coin I touched was a quarter. I was going to be caught in my lie and by an
unsavory member of society that would find no problem making sure that everyone
in the surrounding area knew of my duplicity. I stammered, "Hmmmm, sure have a
lot of pennies in here." Finally, I grabbed a nickel and clutched on to it for
dear life. I lifted it out and handed it over. Without a thank you, the
beggar took it and walked over to the nearby bus stop to ask for quarters.
Later, as we were rejoined as a group, we walked past the bus stop only to be
approached by the same person asking us for quarters. So much for leaving an
impression on people.
We rode the subway to some area of town, the names have become blurred.
Central, I think. Where we walked out of the subterranean darkness into
daylight and a huge city hall before us. We walked from here into the Italian
sector of the city and the North End. Narrow streets with cobblestones gave
the sense of traveling back in time. We came upon a small park with a statue
of Christopher Columbus gazing out towards the ocean with an almost mystical
yearning to once more bridge the gap. I was excited to see that the Dante
Alighieri Society had been one of the principle sponsors of the statue since I
had discovered that the Society had been watched with a close eye during the
Hoover years at the FBI. Thoughts of a society bent on bringing the dual City
of God/City of Man into being with a temporal ruler and a religious one
according to Dante's ideas for a worldspanning empire fluttered through my
head.
After breathing in the sea air, we started walking towards the Old North
Church. We passed Paul Revere's well-preserved house along the way and came to
a courtyard where his statue upon a horse continues its ride into history. (It
was there that I learned from my wife the artistic rules governing the
placement of the horse's hooves in sculptures.) We found our way to the church
and entered. There wasn't a large crowd which was welcome given the small room
within the church. The most interesting moment, for me, was the existence of
an old un-refurbished window towards the right of the main altar area. It was
here that Robert Newman (the man who foolishly volunteered to stay behind with
the lanterns when Revere took off for his ride) escaped from British troops.
Apparently, for a couple of hundred years, people read Newman's account of how
he had escaped from the troops by breaking threw a window where apparently
there wasn't one! Historians, being the hunters of truth that they are, came
to the conclusion that Newman had been mistaken in his description of the
window. However, in the early 90s, a workman found the window behind a wall by
mistake and the account of Newman suddenly all clicked and made sense. For
some reason, the idea of knowing something that a historian who died in 1988
didn't know was thought provoking.
"Look here, did you know the whole North End once had a set of tunnels that
kept certain people in touch with each other's houses, and the burying-ground,
and the sea?"
--- 'Pickman's Model', H.P. Lovecraft
Its true, and the ancient entrances are still there as doorways into the
makeshift basements of those old houses. We walked through the streets
glancing at these doorways wondering with fevered imaginations what laid beyond
them. What queer things dwelled beyond those latched doors?
We made our way to the Copp's Hill Burying Ground and viewed the tomb of the
Mathers and walked among some of the oldest headstones in the United States.
Following the directions Lovecraft gives for Pickman's hidden studio, we walked
along the twisted alleys and dark corners of the North End. Up past Battery
Street and continuing past Constitution Wharf, we eventually came to the alley
and gazed at the empty parking lot that once held a building that is thought to
have existed at the time of the events of "Pickman's Model." Here, people
parked their cars upon what might be the location of one of America's most
famous and influential horror stories and no one was wise to the fact.
And one has to wonder what government agency felt the need to destroy the house
and cover the area with a thick layer of pavement.
As we walked away, the subject of ghouls was foremost on our minds as we once
more passed one of those mysterious doorways and I saw a sign posted upon it.
With curiosity I approached it and read an announcement that the laundry room
contained within was to be kept clean or the privilege would be taken away. It
was Daniel Harms that spotted upon the ground, in a cocoon of dirt and a
curious green ichor, a disused brassiere dropped from some woman's laundry
basket. "Look! Its a ghoul's bra!" So it was that we had finally found proof
for the existence of ghouls under Boston's streets. Either that, or the
existence of a braless woman in Boston's upperworld.
As we turned the corner from Pickman's favorite street, we suddenly found
ourselves in the midst of the Feast of St. Dominic where the community carries
a statue of St. Dominic around the North End accompanied by a band and a large
assortment of elderly women. (Which is strange since the feast day is supposed
to be on the 8th, but I guess they have a right to celebrate it any way they
wish.)
We then walked to that hideous church where HPL's parents were married, visited
Boston Common, the bar that inspired Cheers, drank Italian sodas in the
basement of a small little coffee house, watched a juggler throw things in the
air for money, went to a small tea shop, and went to a Tower records.
By 9:00 pm, we had done more in an afternoon and early evening than I do on
most days. After a dinner at an Italian restaurant (where I stowed away a good
portion of free buns), we decided to go back to the car and drive to Danvers
where our new hotel awaited us. Aside from watching The Substitute 3 on HBO
and mocking it, we planned for the next days events and went to bed.
----Steven Marc Harris
D.E. Kesler
I am unsure how to take your comments. Were you mourning my absence
because you thought you would like to meet me, or did you assume that I
would have a drink ready to slake Mr. McNaughton thirst? Perhaps, you
simply thought that Mr. McNaughton might prefer to slap me instead of
you.
It is very difficult to be sure what you mean. After all, the
phrase, "We mourned that Eric Kesler had not been able to attend," is
slipped right in the midst of a whole lot of other choatic stuff.
Seriously, I regret being unable to attend this year. I did wish to
meet all of you in person. In any event, you can count on me being
there in 2001. Thank you for thinking about me and noting my absence.
Regards and Best Wishes,
Donald Eric Kesler
KAYVEN wrote:
>
> Sunday, August 22, 1999
>
(snip)
We
> arrived to thankfully see Brian being distracted by his favorite topic: the
> decline of the free drink in modern America's bars.
>
> "I go to the supermarket and I get offered everything from samples of shrimp
> to free trial sizes of detergent. But where is the free drink in our
> neighborhood bars and liquor establishments?" he asked. It was our good
> fortune that no one mentioned that Captain Morgan rum was being given out in
> small sample bottles in the Courtyard or we would have lost him for sure. He
> already looked like he was going to bolt at the first opportunity. Mr. Kaye
> got his book signed. I introduced myself and was soundly slapped across the
> face. We mourned that Eric Kesler had not been able to attend. And somewhere
> in all the conversation, Mr. McNaughton had slipped by us and into the Dealer's
> Room.
(snip)
>
> ----Steven Marc Harris