Sanders the Unspeakable

[wombat1138]

(more cut'n'paste from some of my recentish perpetrations in ML comments)

“Oh, bother,” said Pooh, as the unclean emanations of the Old Ones manifested as squamous and rugose tentacles that were of no earthly color.

"Ia! Ia! Worraworraworraworraworra! Shub-Tiggurath, the striped cat of the woods with a thousand sproings!!!"

"Many are the mysteries of the insidious Dr. Pooh Manchu. There are some who whisper in dank alleys that his house's door is marked with the cryptic Yellow Sign of Sanders the Unspeakable, which drives men to madness as surely as the waxen fumes from his hidden hunny dens. And I myself have heard hoarse echoes in an asylum, of how he plays Poohsticks with orphaned children in the mists of the dark lake of Carcosa."

Comments

[qadgop.livejournal.com]

I assume you are familiar with this (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0940884615/ref=reg_hu-wl_item-added/103-9831430-9211011).

Does your third perpetration mean it's officially okay for me to track down and read Sax Rohmer? Up until now, I've avoided him on principle.

[wombat1138.livejournal.com]

Actually, the closest direct exposure I've had to Rohmer's creation is the anonymized antagonist of the first Extraordinary League of Gentlemen story arc. But I would imagine that the originals are probably still interesting to read with a firm mental grounding in their contemporary social context.

OTOH, I enjoy Kentucky Fried Movie.

Lovecraft himself was (perhaps unsurprisingly) violently senophobic, which comes out in all sorts of different ways in his writing-- not just the fecund nativist nightmare of "Shub Niggurath, the Black Goat with a Thousand Young", but casual dismissals of non-WASPs as degenerate lesser breeds with unhealthy vigor and the narrator of "The Rats in the Walls" lightheartedly naming his favorit black cat "Nigger-Man" (ouch).

[qadgop.livejournal.com]

Actually, the closest direct exposure I've had to Rohmer's creation is the anonymized antagonist of the first Extraordinary League of Gentlemen story arc.

Arguably, bad enough. I've also seen the Enter the Dragon segment from Kentucky Fried Movie (though not, I think, the rest of it); it seemed a fairly incisive loving takedown of the original film. "You'll get to kill fifty, maybe sixty people..."

Lovecraft was violently anti-everybody, and I think these days everybody who reads him pretty much just sorta deals, for better or worse. (Antisemite who married a Jew, after all; they divorced, but I believe I've read it was amicable.) As you say, everybody not a WASP is a "degenerated mongrel"--and come to think of it, his WASPs aren't too healthy either.

[wombat1138.livejournal.com]

I've never actually seen the original Enter the Dragon, though IMDB says that a remake is in the works.

Oh well, in the Lovecraftian idiom, pretty much everything boils down to noisome and eldritch cephalopodic things whose very description courts the edge of unholy madness and acid reflux. I was somewhat surprised, though, when re-reading "The Outsider" (http://windhaven.com/halloween/outsider.htm), to (re?)discover a certain ironic sense of belongingness wrt the narrator.

[qadgop.livejournal.com]

(Oh yeah: unless it's to be kept secretive, what mailing list? I've been growing bored with my current online haunts.)

Don't really see why one would remake Enter the Dragon, but then I feel that way about most things (and am somewhat pleased that the Prisoner remake has apparently been abandoned). EtD is, as one might expect, fun but ridiculous, and also very seventies. It's been much imitated, both as parody and not; Balls of Fury looks to be another example of the former.

Speaking of acid reflex, haven't been feeling all that well this evening. Continue to be annoyed that New York made all its toilet bowl too small by law a number of years ago. But enough TMI.

Is "The Outsider" the one where the guy realizes he's a monster at the end? (Will check before long.) Meanwhile, seem to have started yet another Moorcock, The Final Programme, and am surprised to find the writing style (from the same era as previously-mentioned stuff) significantly improved, even if the plot still basically boils down to quests & fightin', just more sardonic.

[qadgop.livejournal.com]

Ah, it was that story. So, what's this ironic sense of belongingness? Unless you mean at the end, after he's joined up with the ghouls by the Nile?

[wombat1138.livejournal.com]

I've been growing bored with my current online haunts.

...I dunno if you'd really want to go to this one; ML = Making Light.

"The Outsider" gives me a persistent, weird sort of gleeful comfort and a reflexive reaction of "Yes! My childhood felt *exactly* like that!" except in the sense of calling people like punkwalrus and eeedge shambling parodic zombies, but hey.