My Own Private NecronomiCon, Part 5 (Another NecronomiCon Review and Travelogue)
KAYVEN
We awoke Monday with the intention of visiting Salem, Marblehead and Boston.
Steven Kaye's train ticket required him to be at the Providence station by, at
least, 9:00 pm. So the idea was to eventually end up in Boston where Steven
Kaye could take a train from that location to arrive in Providence in time. It
didn't work out that way at all.
After a not-so-hardy breakfast at the Day's Inn motel, we drove straight to
Salem. We drove to the parking garage next to the Peabody Essex Museum and
parked the car on 2B (I recall this because when we returned to the car, there
was a debate as to whether it was 2B or not 2B). The garage itself had the
peculiar construction of having the ceiling appear to be going down at the same
time that the car you are driving is going up. There was a general
anticipation in the car that at some point the ceiling and floor were going to
meet and the car would find itself clamped between them. It gave the notion of
Salem being a tourist trap a whole new meaning.
Salem is a strange place. It seems to resent the fact that it can never escape
its link to the Witch Trials, yet it embraces this link in every way it can.
The police and fire departments have a witch on a broomstick on their emblems.
Yet the tone of the whole town is a general feeling of tiredness that they have
to give in to the cheesy witch motif. I also could not prevent myself from
occasionally thinking about the irony that here was a city that had occult and
witchcraft related books and merchandise on every street corner (and
self-proclaimed witches walking around too) but that its fame rested on an
attempt to prevent such things from occurring. It is equivalent, from the
viewpoint of the original settlers of Salem, to having Nazi-themed amusement
parks in Germany.
Our first stop was the Visitor's Center in order to pick up a few maps and to
get our day planned. Then it was off to the Old Burying Point Cemetery to look
at more grave markers and to visit the memorial to those condemned for
witchcraft. It is an interesting side note to history that no one has ever
found any evidence for where the condemned themselves were buried.
Next to the burying grounds rests an old styled house that some believe
inspired Lovecraft's "The Unnamable." Today the house is the seat for the
archeology department and, during our visit, uninabited. We walked from there
to a little bookstore called The Tangled Web Mysteries and Oddities. A
promising name for what turned out to be a big disappointment and a
manufactured mom & pop look.
We then decided to get involved in the local activities and we took part in a
mock witch trial. It started near the Visitor's Center where various
individuals in costume began asking people if they knew where Bridget Bishop, a
local woman accused of witchcraft, was. Naturally, no one did. And it soon
became evident that the actors themselves were beginning to wonder. In order
to keep everyone occupied during this delay, they decided to form a search
party and they asked for volunteers. Only Daniel Harms from our group was
willing to suffer the humilliation of eagerly signing up.
In the summer of 1999, a search party including Daniel Harms went in search of
the suspected witch, Bridget Bishop. None of them returned. A few weeks
later, a film of their ordeal was found.
Actually, as the search party was formed, Bridget Bishop appeared in the
distance being lead by two other men in costume. And as she came closer, I
found myself falling in love. She stood there with a haughty look of defiance
on her face. Blond, blue eyed and full of life, I found myself determined to
save this noble young lady from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
that history had forced her in the path of. We traveled to the old Town Hall
and, after paying a few dollars of our hard earned money, we found our seats.
The trial began with testimony being given by a few witnesses. We learned that
Bridget had been examined and found to have marks on her body that had no
feeling and were suspected of being where the devil had touched her. I was
outraged that the lady in question had been subjected to such an examination.
Was there no decency among the good people of Salem?
Soon it came time for the members of the jury (everyone who had paid to enter
the Town Hall), to ask questions. Aside from a few doubts expressed about the
testimony of the witnesses, there was little coming from the jury. It was then
that Daniel Harms stood up and asked for more information regarding the
location of the marks upon Goody Bishop's body. I was horrified that once more
this good woman's self-respect would have to be sacrificed for the morbid
curiosity of a few individuals. The answer given was so extremely detailed, I
felt I had spent an hour between the sheets with Goody Bishop and I reminded
myself to thank Mr. Harms afterwards for the titillating experience his
question had afforded me.
I decided at that moment to ask a question myself. It would be designed to
give Mrs. Bishop the opportunity to lay the blame on someone else and escape
these accusations. I stood up and gave my speech.
"I have heard rumors and tales of the blackest magic being told in neighboring
villages. Stories of pigs vomiting pins and needles, sheep dying without any
noticeable cause and cakes being kicked by invisible entities!* I'd like to
know if Goody Bishop knows anything about such things and if she has heard
these rumors too."
It was a marvelous plan. She would realize that I had given her a way out of
her predicament. All she had to do was to admit that she herself had heard of
these stories and had once seen Goody Fowler boast about letting the devil use
her shape to commit violence on her neighbors. Then I would comment that Goody
Fowler looked extremely similar to Goody Bishop when wearing an old blond wig
she kept hidden in her cellar. Then the jury and the judge would suddenly
realize that the specter of Bridget Bishop they were all seeing causing
mischief was none other than a disguised Goody Fowler! The case would be
dismissed, Bridget Bishop would run towards me and embrace the man responsible
for her release. I'd lift her up in my arms and, accompanied by the music from
An Officer and a Gentleman, I'd take her out of the Town Hall and live happily
ever after.
She didn't take the opportunity. In fact, her response to my query was hostile
and cruel. "How stupid! You are an idiot if you listen to such stories!"
WHAT? An IDIOT?!!? How dare she! The trollop would find herself formally
accused of witchcraft if it was the last thing I did. When it came time for a
vote, I gladly sided with the verdict of witchcraft. (Though she didn't help
herself by saying the Lord's Prayer incorrectly.) And I demanded that the
formal trial should commence immediately and that if I didn't see an execution
before mid-afternoon, I would write a hasty letter to the authorities in Boston
about Salem's obvious disinclination to root out the devil's disciples among
their own kind. I clamored for the head of Bridget the witch to be brought to
me on a silver platter. It was only after I was sat down and told that the
trial wasn't real but instead a reenactment that I furtively made my way from
the Town Hall in shame and embarrassment.
Our next stop was to travel along Derby Street (and for those curious there is
indeed a Pickman Street in Salem too) and make a short stop at the House of
Seven Gables. We walked past the Derby house and the West India Goods Store
where a curiously jewled tiara rested in the shop's window. We arrived at the
House of Seven Gables and stealthily walked to where the house was visible from
over a wooden fence near the Hawthorne Cove Marina. We rested a bit as I
recovered from my grief at having lost Bridget Bishop (or at least the actress
protraying her) by carving a poem for her into a nearby tree.
We made a quick stop at ye Olde Pepper Candy Co. Ltd. which had once made Salem
the candy capital of the world and the first place where hard candy was ever
sold. In fact, I was told that they still have some of that original hard
candy there under glass.
We then walked over to Pickering Wharf and wondered if we should eat at Derby
Fish and Lobster given the implications of "The Thing on the Doorstep." I had
wanted to go to the Museum of Myths and Monsters located at the Wharf, but the
small size of it implied that it would ultimately be a waste of time. (That
and the fact that it was closed on Mondays.) We went to the Nu Aeon bookshop
located there and were disturbed to see the owner conning a young girl and her
foreign mother into buying expensive occult books. This was after he gave the
woman a "psychic reading" based on what her favorite foods are. The young
girl, who must have been 14, was so taken by the smarmy charm of the owner that
when her mother asked her daughter if there was any books she wanted, the
daughter replied, "Let's see what he picks for me." For shame, Mr. Owner of
Nu Aeon Occult Bookstore!! Be glad I don't live in Salem, sir, or I'd be a
pain in your backside for quite a while.
Contrast this experience with a little poorly named (in my opinion) shop called
Merlin's Castle where the proprietor was anything but pushy and anything but a
poser. He knew what he was talking about but didn't force his knowledge or
opinion unless asked. In fact, he expressed a mild skepticism as to the value
of some of the more popular books on magic and wicca being sold there advising
us to not bother with them. Regardless of one's beliefs regarding the efficacy
of this realm of human creativity and, perhaps, gullibility, I have to give
high marks for Merlin's Castle for being professional.
We then stopped in at a coffee shop called Milk From The Witch's Teat
(actually, this isn't the name, but I don't recall what it was and its the name
I'm going to pick when I retire and move to Salem to open up a small little
coffee shop, so I'm advertising early), where we bought some sandwiches and
drank some Italian sodas. While we were there, we discovered a note had been
placed in the bathroom that read almost like a handout from Chaosium's Call of
Cthulhu game. It was a long rambling typed note from a local artist that had
discovered, while randomly experimenting with geometric shapes, that human body
parts seemingly appeared within the shapes. He was fascinated by the discovery
and was looking for occultists and mathematicians to help him formulate a
theory as to the significance of this discovery which suggested a mathematical
proof of the Strong Anthropic Cosmological Principle.
(Of course, in the Mythos story based on this note, the mathematical proof
discovers that the origin of all life stems from a protoplasmic blob called
Ubbo-Sathla. "Dear God, Professor Barton! We've got it all wrong. This isn't
about how the mathematical laws of nature sculpt and mold the human form out of
necessity. Its about where we came from. Where we all came from. An
unbegotten source.")
We then decided that our time was growing short and we needed to start heading
for Marblehead, the inspiration of Lovecraft's Kingsport.
Marblehead is a hidden jewel along the eastern seaboard. Small narrow streets
that wind and twist their way around old sailor's houses built in the 1800s
gave the sleepy little town a charm unmatched by many places. We had come here
for two main reasons. The first was to help answer some questions for Donovan
Loucks who was writing an article about the Lovecraftian locales in Marblehead,
and the second was to visit the town ourselves. We stopped at the Abbott
Public Library to get ourselves a detailed map of the town and to see how many
questions we could answer for Donovan without doing much legwork. After this it
was a drive through the streets of Marblehead as we traveled along the route
that is thought to have inspired the route of the narrator of "The Festival" as
he walks through the streets of Kingsport. At one point, we found ourselves
driving down a narrow alley that continued to narrow to the point of a dead
end. We drove past the Church of St. Michael which is thought by some to have
been the inspiration of the church in "The Festival." We eventually parked the
car and walked along the seafront to look at the houses and to visit The
Pirate's Hideout. The house claimed to be the inspiration of the home of "The
Terrible Old Man." Again, much like the Shunned House in Providence, this home
was painted yellow. Almost as if the owners of both homes felt that yellow
paint would somehow allow their houses to escape their ill-rumored pasts. The
terrible old man didn't seem to be in, though we did knock at the door and peek
through the windows. The only resident seemed to be a rather large dog that
seemed happy to have visitors.
Our next stop was to Mrs. Bixby's boarding house where Lovecraft once stayed.
Its a private residence now with an elderly couple not very happy with
visitors.
Our last stop was Old Burial Hill, the inspiration for the burial ground
mentioned in "The Festival." (Also check out Selected Letters 1 204-205) We
parked on the street and looked up towards the dizzying hights of the graveyard
as it stood tall over Marblehead's Little Harbour. There seemed to be a mist
collecting across the hill during our visit to this graveyard. It was quite
exciting until we discovered that the misty fog was nothing more than the
excess smoke from a neighbor's cookout. Still, it did set the mood.
We climbed up old stone steps as we made our way to the top of the steep burial
grounds. In fact, during our entire stay at Old Burial Hill, the question
continued to plague us as to why the early citizens of Marblehead had selected
this area as a burial grounds. It was uneven ground with huge boulders poking
through the soil suggesting enormous underground formations of rocks and stone.
Atop the hill at its peak was a small narrow plateau with a white pavilion.
It was on this site that the first meeting house of the area had been built in
1638 and must have had a spectacular view of the harbor. The grounds
themselves were in a state of decay with the edges of the graveyard slowly
eroding down the hill. At the eastern edge, three grave markers were being
held up from falling down a steep cliff by the mere use of an old thick rope.
(The graves in question had been a man, his son, and his first wife. The
second wife, mentioned on the man's grave marker, apparently is buried in some
different burial ground somewhere.) We found where 18-19th century pottery was
making its way to the surface of the land amid a wooded area of Old Burial
Hill.
We also found, quite by accident, a large memorial to the Franklin Expedition,
an attempt to find the Northwest Passage that ended in disaster for its crew
and is the basis for the Pagan Publishing game scenario _Walker in the Wastes_.
Apparently it was at the memorial's location that the last sighting of the
ship was made as it sailed northwards towards death.
As we relaxed next to the Franklin Expedition Memorial, we could see a small
little lake to the west of us where ducks and a small white toy sailboat glided
across the miniature waves. It was then that we realized that we had lost
track of the time and that it was 6:30 pm. We had an hour and a half to get
Steven Kaye on a train or bus to Providence or he'd loose his chance to make it
home and to work the next day. We rushed to the car and headed out of
Marblehead. Taking a wrong turn, we found ourselves traveling along route 1A.
It was going the direction we wanted, but unlike route 1, 1A was filled with
traffic lights and winding roads. We rushed through tiny little towns with the
ocean to our left and quaint houses to our right. We weren't going to make it.
By the time we parked and traveled on foot to the train station at Boston, the
train would be gone or cutting so close to Steven Kaye's departure time that it
wouldn't be a safe bet. We stopped at a small little town called Swampscott
and found the small train station where, as we pulled up, a train arrived and
was letting out passengers. Our first thought was that we had missed the
train, but the truth was that even if we had been early, we wouldn't have been
able to get Steven Kaye on board. It was a drop off point, not a pick up
point. We ran to some lady that was waiting for a ride to come pick her up and
began to grill her on bus schedules and train schedules. She must have thought
we were insane. She suggested we call the Mass Transit Authority on the nearby
pay phones at which point like starving people being presented with food, we
flocked to the pay phones as a group. Calls were made but for some reason the
MTA wasn't offering the information we needed. Again as a mob we rushed back
over to the woman and begged for gems of wisdom to help us in our quest. She
pointed out a nearby convenience store and said that they usually had a train
schedule there. So our unruly mob then proceeded to invade the store and demand
the schedule. At which point the horror finally struck us. The train schedule
was useless. Here we were in Swampscott and we had no clue if going all the
way to Boston was going to be worth the trip. For all we knew, we would arrive
and there wouldn't be a train. A quick decision was made to go all the way
back to Providence. Which is what we did. We drove straight through Boston and
on to Providence. Our arrival was approximately 8 pm.
With an hour to spare, we decided to get something to eat. Our plans had been
to have a nice sit down dinner to relax during our last night in New England.
But with only an hour to go, that didn't seem possible. So we did what any
intelligent person would do, we let the women decide. They suggested we stop
at the restaurant, order our food, have the waiter bring Steven Kaye's food
earliest, and then Daniel and I would drive Steven Kaye over to the train
station when it came time. And that's what we did. We ordered at 8:20. The
meals arrived at 8:35. We grabbed Steven Kaye and placed him in the car at
8:40. We drove to the train station and parked by 8:45. I popped open the
trunk and Steven Kaye suddenly found himself at a loss at finding his train
ticket. He had made the mistake of putting it inside a book which made, after
the NecronomiCon, a considerable amount of books to look through. Luckily he
found it after a few moments of abject terror tucked in his New Mythos Legends
book. It was then that I grabbed his meal and spilled a good amount of excess
water and spaghetti sauce all over the front of my shirt. (It was only
afterwards that I gratefully discovered that it was 98% water.) We rushed into
the train station with me carrying the enormous suitcase filled with extremely
heavy objects. Steven Kaye checked in and we then walked down a flight of
stairs with me STILL carrying that unnaturally heavy suitcase. We ended our
journey upon the train station platform. There was no one else about, and no
seats either. So Daniel and I did the best thing we could under the
circumstances.... We handed Steven Kaye his stuff and abandoned him. We drove
back to the restaurant, sat down to our meal and sighed with relief. The
crises was over.
And that was Monday and pretty much the end of our trip. Certainly things did
happen afterwards. Such as when Monika and my wife wanted to say something
nice about our waiter to the manager only to be dismissed as being unimportant.
The detailed discussion about the different aspects of anthropological studies
in today's academia during our trip back up to Danvers. Our 7-hour drive on
Tuesday where I yelled out "Suckers!" after each toll booth we went through.
Our experience eating at a restaurant Tuesday night where the roof almost fell
in upon us due to heavy rains. Our journey on Wednesday to Kinkos where we
discovered some idiot having left a photocopy of his credit cards, social
security card, student ID and other personal information. Also our trip that
same Wednesday to Lovecraft's correspondent William Lumley's grave where we
paid our respects to one of the old gent's favorite correspondents. And the
thrilling last moments with Daniel Harms and Monika where I received the
essential saltes of Seabury Quinn and a nifty metallic contraption for use in
alchemical experiments and tea brewing.
Yes, there were plenty of moments that I won't soon forget, but to detail
everything would take more time in total than the entire trip itself. I've
tried to keep to the things that I found important and tried to maintain a
certain privacy for those among my old and newly made friends. There was a lot
that happened at the NecronomiCon, much of it I wasn't involved in due to a
busy schedule and other interests. Ask anyone what they did at the convention
and you'll hear a different story from each one. Each of us had our own
private NecronomiCon. I can only hope you've enjoyed hearing about my mine.
END
---- Steven Marc Harris
The moment you've been waiting for:
Pictures of My Own Private NecronomiCon (Photographs Over Usenet) are now up at
Monika's site at:
http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~mbolino/pou.html
FOOTNOTE:
* "...and cakes being kicked by invisible entities!" Where in the world did
that originate from, you ask? It actually started back on Thursday of our trip
when we were planning our odyssey around New England. One of our sources was
the Salem visitor guide and, on the center page, there are some cartoon
drawings about the famous firsts of Salem. One of these pictures reads:
"President Washington danced and ate cake at the Cotting Smith Assembly House."
and the picture itself is of Washington's boot jiggling about with a piece of
cake apparently flying through the air. If one was illiterate, one would
assume that the picture is of someone kicking a cake. It was Daniel Harms that
first noticed this and when he was asked what he wanted to do in Salem, he
replied, "I want to go where Washington kicked a cake."
"What?!" we answered back. It was then that Daniel pointed out the picture
and within moments, 'kicking cake' became part of our vocabulary for the trip.
The phrase mutated into "shut your cake hole," "up your cake," "that's as good
as cake," "cake this!" and other misuses of the English language. It was
childish, no doubt, but it did provide us with a phrase to break tensions when
some of us were ready to kill each other and bury the bodies in one of the
numerous graveyards we seemed to always visit. So when I found myself ready to
stand up and speak before total strangers during a mock witch trial, I found
myself using the kicking of cake as an in-joke for our little group.
And that is that.
For those of a curious nature, a picture of Washington kicking cake is up at:
http://members.aol.com/kayven/cake.htm