Volume 1, Number 1 March 18, 2001 T H E C T H U L H U P R AY E R S O C I E T Y N E W S L E T T E R

In au gu ral Meet ing of The Will these trees move Prov i dence H.P. Lovecraft of their own ac cord? Will their root-claws crave blood Friends’ Group and the iron-rich earth MARCH 18, 2001 — More than a dozen of a crumbling grave? writ ers, art ists, com pos ers and oth ers who Will the branches sway are fans of the writ ing and mythos of H.P. on wind less nights? Lovecraft, Amer ica’s great est hor ror writer, Will fox-fires and will o’ wisps gath ered at the Un ion Sta tion Brew ery in paint im possi ble colors downtown Provi dence on March 18th. The on bud-ends and blossoms? man ag ers of this mi cro brew ery, famed for Will beech nuts burst its ex cel lent cuisine, assured us that the to pale blue eyes sawdust and vomit would be cleared from in som niac as tron o mers the pre vi ous night’s St. Pat rick’s cel e bra - with per fect vi sion, tion. Our own “Cthulhu Table” would be set counting the Pleiades, and ready, and the dawn of the Elder Gods The Tree At Lovecraft’s numbe ring the galax ie s. would com mence for the new mil len nium. Ex pected at ten dees for the first Cthulhu Grave And will they speak Prayer Brunch in cluded founder Brett the pa tient sonnets Rutherford, Provi dence’s Gothic poet and by Brett Rutherford of their greater lifespans, small press publish er; Carl Johnson, Provi - the long-arced lines dence-born actor noted for his Lovecraft This solemn spread ing beech their wav ing branches beat? re-en act ments; Egyptologist and clas si cal was once a perfect hemisphere scholar Jacob Rabinowitz; artists Pieter of waxy red-green fo liage. And some where within them, Vanderbeck, Pierre Ford, Jennifer Booth Now it is crippled and sere, does he smile there, and Richard Sardinha. A complete roster of scarred by the prun ing transmuted poet and dreamer atten dee s will be pub lished in each suc ces - of dis eased limbs, subsumed into the eons? sive news let ter. trunk bared, a twisted bole The Cthulhu Prayer Brunches are in- in the form of a petri fied heart. Are those his thoughts tended to be both social and in tellec tual , Its gnarled roots rake earth that make them trem ble bring ing to gether both fel low cre ative art - with a death-row des pera tion. at ev ery sunset, ists and Lovecraft fans of all ages. Most Within an other hol lowed bole, his elder gods they fear brunches will be followed by field trips to (eye-socket for a Cyclops) might swallow the sun Lovecraftian sites, film view ing, po etry/fic - ma lig nant mush rooms pro lif er ate, as it tosses in darkness? tion readings or discus sions. Art ists en- caps and stalks angled sunward. gaged in Lovecraft-re lated work are The school boy gashes Is he lord of their night mares, encouraged to bring their work to show and where fans have carved ini tials giv ing them Dread, share. Artists and writers may also sub mit (their own and HPL’s) the obverse of the coin of Joy, work excerpts , poems, graphics files, widen and blacken, Fear, the compan ion of Wonder? shame less promo tion s of their work, and the once-proud limbs per sonal ads for trans-dimen sional rela - tat tooed with NECRONOMICON, I re gard the ail ing tree, tion ships. HOWARD P. LOVECRAFT ’99, the mod est grave stone. The first Prayer Brunch (blessed be thy even a whole senten ce The tree will die. The rain Name, Cth—l—!) was also the week end about the pri macy of fear, will wipe the let ters clean. com mem o rat ing the death of Lovecraft runes ruin ous to a living monu ment. Only the whis pered words, (March 15, 1937). The brunch par tic ipant s, the lines the fin gers trace af ter fin ish ing off the dregs and ten ta cles of Still, the furry beech-nuts fall like hail from one yellowed book their re past, dashed off to Swan Point Cem - to the de light of squir rels. to an other e tery to read po ems, in can ta tions and Still, the hard brown kerne ls is sue forth, en dure — Lovecraftian ex cerpts. Other Lovecraft fans each a perfect blue print who sponta ne ously arrive at the grave site of a per fect tree — I hold the burst nuts in one hand, were expec ted to join in. a book of Lovecraft’s tales in the other. The full text of this news letter, along with or have the roots, tast ing the cal cium I study the cloudless, blue, de cep tive sky, other ma te rial, will be added to the Grim of author ’s bones, the humus rot the lie that conceals an infin ity Reaper website at www.thepetspress.org of eye and brain and memory of scream ing — late in March. mu tated the germ and flower anew so that these seeds transcend Oh, these roots have read him, to sen tience? they have read him.

Gather these nuts, then, and harvest them. Op. 700 First they must hi bernate August 20, 2000 (Lovecraft’s birthda y) for the beech remem bers gla ciers. Then they will germi nate, Pub lished ev ery lit tle while by The Poet’s Press, 66 pale ten tacles in search Hope Street #2, Prov i dence RI 02906. Tel. of anchor age, 401-861-3272. Subscr ipti ons free to cont ribu t ors and un til the red-green engine mem bers of the Cthulhu Prayer So ci ety; oth ers $10 for of stalk and leaf 12 issues. Website: www.thepoetspress.org is ready to cata pult E-mail:[email protected]. Contents Copyright into the sun-chase. 2001 by The Poet’s Press. March 18, 2001 Volume 1, Number 1

Lovecraft’s Yuggoth, like im age. The dis covery was con firmed with subse que nt obser va tions and an - Tombaugh’s Planet , nounced to the world on March 13, 1930. Wiped from So lar Sys tem Tombaugh contin ued searching the skies at Lowell Ob ser va tory over the next 13 , with time out for a college ed u - As tron omy fans were tled re cently ca tion. No more plan ets showed up, but when the Museum of Nat ural Histor y in he dis cov ered six star clus ters, two com - New York re moved the planet Pluto from its ets, hun dreds of as ter oids, sev eral dozen displays of the solar system. Around the clus ters of gal axies and one super-clus - world, as tron o mers and mu se ums are giv- ter. Dur ing those same years, he en tered ing in to a ma jor wave of re vision ism in de - the Uni ver sity of Kansas on a scholar ship fining plan ets. Pluto and its twin Charon, it (1932), mar ried Pa tri cia Edson of Kan sas is argued, are just part of a vast ring of as- City (1934), earned his bach e lor's de gree teroids and mini-, not “real” planets in as tron omy (1936) and went on to get like Jupi ter, Neptune and Uranus. his mas ter's (1939). As a boy as tron o mer, H.P. Lovecraft was Af ter teaching at Ari zona State Col lege in tensely inter ested in the search for (now Northern Ari zona Univer sity) and “Planet X,” which astron o mer Percival the Uni ver sity of Cali for nia at Los An - Lowell spec ulat ed upon. Because of pertur - geles, Tombaugh moved to New Mexico in 1946 to be come chief of the Op ti cal Mea - bation s in the orbit of Nep tune, Lowell be - with his home-made tele scope. sure ments Branch in the Bal lis tics Re - lieved that an other, pre viously un known search Lab ora tory at White Sands Mis sile planet was out there somewh ere. Range, where Ger man V-2 rockets were the next Tombaugh Scholar appoint ment Lovecraft, who publish ed astr onomy col - be ing tested. He came to New Mex ico when he re ceived a phone call Fri day no - umns in local Rhode Is land newspa pers, State Uni ver sity in 1955 and started the ti fy ing him of Tombaugh's death. Plan e tary Group, an astron omy re search had the follow ing letter publish ed in Sci en- “This is a great loss for the de partment program. tific Amer i can when he was six teen years and for science ,” Walterbos said. “It was a He was instru men tal in design ing and old: plea sure to know him person ally — he ob tain ing funding for the uni ver sity's had a great sense of hu mor.” Tortugas Moun tain Ob ser va tory, a In these days of large tele scopes and Tombaugh is survived by his wife, 24-inch tele scope that cap tured its first modern astro nom i cal methods, it seems Patsy; son, Alden Tombaugh, of Las im ages in 1967 and is still in ser vice tak - strange that no vig orous ef forts are be ing Cruces; daugh ter, Annette Tombaugh, ing data for the Na tional Aero nau tics and made to dis cover plan ets be yond the or bit also of Las Cruces; five grandchil dren Space Admin is tra tion. of Nep tune, which is now con sid ered the and eight great-grandchil dren. Tombaugh was largely re spon si ble for out er most limit of the so lar system. It has Born on Feb. 4, 1906, on a farm near the as tron omy pro gram be com ing a sep a- been noticed that seven com ets have their Streator, Ill., Tombaugh moved with his rate de partment at NMSU in 1970. Today aphelia at a point that would cor re spond fam ily to a farm near Burdett, Kan sas, the de partment is a member of the Astro - to the or bit of a planet re volv ing around dur ing his high school years. He shared physi cal Rese arch Consor tium, which the sun at a dis tance of about 100 as tro- his fa ther's keen am ateur in ter est in as - owns and op er ates the Apache Point Ob - nom i cal units (9,300,000,000 miles). tron omy, and when he wanted a tele scope serva tory in New Mexico's Sacra mento Now sev eral have sug gested that such a more pow er ful than his 2 1/4-inch Sears planet exists, and has captured com ets by Moun tains. NMSU manages the obser va - attrac tion. This is proba ble, as Jupi ter tory. and oth ers also mark the aphelia of many Tombaugh remained ac tive long past ce les tial wander ers. The writer has no - re tire ment and never lost his pas sion for ticed that a great many comets clus ter stargaz ing. When the Smithso nian Insti - around a point 50 units out, where a large tute asked if it could have for its mu seum body might re volve. If the great mathe ma - the tele scope he made in 1928, "I told ti cians of the day should try to com pute them I was still us ing it," he said in an in - or bits from these aphelia, it is doubt ful if ter view. The 9-inch tele scope, with which they could suc ceed; but if all the ob ser va - he made the draw ings that impresse d the tories that possess cele stial cameras Lowell Ob ser vatory staff, was built with should band togethe r and minutely pho - parts of discarded farm ma chinery and a to graph the eclip tic, as is done in as ter oid shaft from his father's 1910 Bu ick. Pluto and its mys te ri ous twin, Charon, pho to graphed by Tombaugh ground the mir rors him self. hunt ing, the bod ies might be re vealed on the Hub ble Space Tele scope. their plates. Even if no dis cov er ies were Un til frail health pre vented it, made, the ac curate star pho tographs Tombaugh contin ued observ ing the heav - would al most be worth the time and trou - Roe buck model, he be gan grind ing mir - ens through that 9-inch tele scope and a ble. rors and mak ing his own. larger one he made himself, from his back H.P. LOVECRAFT Using a hand-made 9-inch tele scope, yard in the Mesilla Park commu nity of Las Prov i dence, R.I., July 16, 1906 he made me tic u lous sketches of Jupi ter Cruces. and Mars and sent some of them to the While he was in his 80s, Tombaugh Lowell Ob ser vatory. He thought he might toured the United States and Can ada with The actual story of the discov ery of Pluto his wife, Patsy, giv ing 75 lec tures dur ing a in volved an other am a teur as tron o mer who get some ad vice from the profes sion als. In stead he was offere d a job. It happene d three- pe riod to raise money to bring was, like Lovecraft, en tirely self-taught at that the ob ser va tory was look ing for a as tron o mers to NMSU for post-doc toral the time of his remark able ac com plish- good am a teur as trono mer who could op - re search. The Tombaugh Scholars Fund ment. The fol low ing text, the obit u ary of as - er ate a new photo graphic tele scope. now is a per manent endow ment. trono mer Clyde Tombaugh as provided by Tombaugh was hired in 1929 as a ju - Tombaugh, the for mer farm boy with a New Mex ico Univer sity, is a good re cap of nior as tron o mer to join in the search for a fond ness for corny jokes and puns, de - one of the most ex cit ing discov er ies of the “Planet X” be yond Nep tune, a search be - 1930s. gun in 1905 by Percival Lowell. Working MISKATONIC UNIVERSITY through the nights in a cold, un heated Clyde W. Tombaugh, discov erer of the dome, he made pairs of expo sures of por - DRINKING SONG planet Pluto and fa ther of the astron omy tions of the sky with time in ter vals of two to six days. These were scru tinized un der cre ated for re search pro gram at New Mex ico State THE FIRST CTHULHU PRAYER Uni ver sity, died Fri day, Jan. 17, 1997 at BREAK FAST his home in Las Cruces. He was 90. “He was truly one of the great men of sci ence,” said Jack Burns, asso ci ate dean Yog-Sothoth! Yog Sothoth! of arts and science s and former as tron - Bless our broth! omy de partment head at NMSU. Tekelili, Tekelili! Tombaugh was 24 years old when he Bend the knee, made world news in 1930 by dis cover ing Drink the tea! the elusive ninth planet using a photo - Nyarlathotep! Nyarlathotep! graphic tele scope at Lowell Obser va tory The orig i nal film on which Clyde Tombaugh found the Noth ing rhymes with Thee! in Ari zona. He came to New Mex ico State so lar sys tems’ ninth planet, Pluto. Azathoth! Azathoth! Uni ver sity in 1955 and be gan the uni ver - sity's re search pro gram in as tron omy, Not more broth? which to day is re garded as one of the na - a de vice called a Blink-Com para tor in Her bert West? Be my guest! tion's best. hopes of de tect ing a small shift in posi tion Dex ter Ward — but not possessed! He re mained ac tive long af ter re tir ing as of one of the hundreds of thou sands of Ech Pi El! Ech Pi El! a profes sor emeri tus in 1973, lectur ing on points of light — the sign of a planet Taste the ale! an occa sional basis and going to his office among a field of stars. On the nights of Jan. 23 and 29, 1930, Cthulhu! Cthulhu! reg ularly. In the 1980s, he went on an ex - Un ion Brew! Un ion Brew! ten sive lecture tour to raise money for an Tombaugh made two such photo graphs astron omy endow me nt at NMSU. of the re gion of the star Delta Geminorum. Rene Walterbos, head of the NMSU as - On the af ter noon of Feb. 18, com par ing tron omy de partment, said he was in the the plates with the Blink-Com parator, he pro cess of se lect ing the top can didates for de tected the tell tale shift of a faint, star - Volume 1, Number 1 March 18, 2001

lighted in re count ing the tale of his dis- cov ery of Pluto, which he compared to INCA RUINS AT RISK… find ing a nee dle in a hay stack. It was te - dious work but better than pitching hay Machu Picchu, the an cient Inca cit adel perched 8,366 feet up in the Pe ruvian An- on his fa ther's farm, he liked to say: “I'd des, could collapse at any time, accord ing to New Scien tist mag azine. had my hay day.” The earth be neath the hal lowed city, listed as a World Her i tage Site by UNESCO By the time he re tired, he and his NMSU and one of Latin Amer ica’s best known tour ist at trac tions, is shift ing and at risk of a as tron omy staff had confirmed the rota - ma jor land slide. tion pe riod of Mer cury on its axis, de ter - Japa nese ge ol o gists who have been mon itor ing the move ment said the back slope is mined the vortex na ture of Ju pi ter's Great Red Spot, and de vel oped a new moving downwar d at about a half-inch per month. photo graphic tech nique for the small “This is quite fast, and it’s a precur sor stage of a rockfall or rock slide,” said Kyoji Earth sat el lites search he was su per vis - Sassa of Kyoto Univer sity ’s Disas ter Preven tion Research Insti tute. ing. “It’s not pos sible to say ex actly when the land slide might occur, but that will be the Of the de cades of dis cov ery since he fo cus of the next stage of our re search.” made the history books, and the thou - Sassa and his team be lieve the land slide could de stroy all of Machu Picchu. sands of hours spent at his tele scopes, Rockfalls have already dam aged some structures. Tombaugh often said: “I've re ally had a “There is a dis tor tion line run ning north-south inside the cit a del and build ings tour of the heavens.” along the line show signs of dam age,” the maga zine re ported. The Jap anese re searchers are trying to find a way to pre serve Machu Picchu, which is visited by more than 1,000 tour ists a day. Machu Picchu was abandoned at the time of the 16th cen tury Spanish conquest. In 1911, U.S. ar che ol o gist Hiram Bingham re dis cov ered the ru ins, which his to ri ans re - gard as an im portant re li gious cen ter for the Inca em pire.

Photo: Keith Johnson New Lovecraft Incantation in Ancient Egyptian

by Ja cob Rabinowitz Er en redeyet er en Reb kerefet, en-ef , heret netcher. Djed-ef:

Weben-eney em sewehet yemeyet ta sheta, redeyew-en-ey er-ey medew-ey yem-ef em-bah netcherew djewat.

Nen kesef-tew-ey em djadjat net netcher a-a Weseyer neb er-setcha new netey m Carl Johnson To Host Yet tep keteyew. An other Graveside Cer e mony for Lovecraft Yey-en-ey , yer-en-ey meret yeb-ey em Yew-Neserser: akem-ey neser, per-ey On April 1, 2001 yem! As noted in a fea ture ar ti cle in the Prov i - Utter ance for grant ing the power of speech to dence’s East Side Monthly, Carl John son’s Lovecraft in the graveyard. He says: home-grown, gothic and oft mel an choly me - mo rials for the Old Gent will con tinue this year on Sunday, April 1. This se ries of com- When I have emerged from the cos mic egg in death’s un dis cov ered country, mem o ra tions, which the Rhode Is land-born con trol of my mouth was re turned to me that I might speak with it be fore the actor has been con ducting on and off since gods of Hell. 1987, con tin ues this year with a 3 pm gath- er ing at Lovecraft’s grave. The cer e mony No one will oppose me be fore the tribu nal of the great god Osiris, Lord of usu ally in cludes mu sic, a per for mance of the Open tomb, the one whose throne is the fresh grave mound. Brett Rutherford’s poem, At Lovecraft’s Grave, and small re-en actments of tidbits My wishes are granted: I have passed through the test ing flames of the Isle from Lovecraft’s life and works. We saw last of Fire: they be come cool para dise for me, I come through them, I am saved. year’s pro duction , which included a church bell, a coffin, and read ings of passages from ______Rutherford’s HPL bio-play, Night Gaunts. ED I TOR’S NOTE: Thanks to Dr. Ja cob R. for the splen did new in can ta tion, which we Par tic i pants usu ally re tire to New port chal lenge our mem bers to set to music or adapt. A version in true hiero gly phic script Cream ery on Wayland Square for an ice will be pub lished in our next issue. Readers should note that this is the first time cream and choc o late in fu sion af ter Carl’s Lovecraft’s name has been trans lit er ated into Egyp tian. Dr. R. tells us the clos est fine pro duc tion. Egyp tian equiv a lent, work ing pho net i cally, is Reb kerefet. Johnson’s cer e mony was first conceive d for the 50th an ni versary of Lovecraft’s If this spell works, a lot of you will be having Lovecraftian dreams, and the crows of death, and was crafted to pro vide a lo cal re - Swan Point will start utter ing some un usual calls. sponse to the imprompt u gather ing s of out-of-town Lovecraftians, who gen er ally arrive and leave unan nounced on the Lovecraft death and birth anni ver saries. For more infor mation about the HPL April 1 event, call 401-732-4870. March 18, 2001 Volume 1, Number 1 THREE NEW POEMS BY BRETT RUTHERFORD

THE GRIM REAPER How demote a planet under his arm, so lustr ous in histor y. scouti ng a mount aint op para phrase of an old Ger man Folksong It has its gods! It has its gods! for his next ob serva tory. Can they evict Es ist ein Schnitter, the Lord of the Dead Pluto, Hades, Yuggoth, Nine! heisst der Tod… with just a say-so? Change at your peril What of the million s of souls a thing once named! There is a Reaper and his name is Death, whose home was Hades? and though he kills, he kills for God, What of beau tiful Persephone AS IDOLS FALL and though his blade is sharpest of all who shut tles still IN THE AFGHAN HILLS he stands at the wheel and whets it, on a high-speed comet and when he is ready for her six-month res i dency we must be ready, too. as mis tress of the un derworld ? What to do? O fair lit tle flower, be ware! What of the heroes and phi loso phers, What to do? the shades of pa gan times No mat ter what is green to day, who teem those ba salt cit ies Mail a Mul lah the Reaper’s scythe will mow away. warm ing the Plu to ni an night a thousand por traits His blade never misses with odes and songs and sere nades? of Bo dhi satt vas. the no ble Nar cis sus, Are they to be homeless vag abonds, down to the ground slowed from their dis tant heart beat Air drop a million the lovely hy a cinth, to the still ness of ab so lute zero? lit tle Buddhas harves ting all the Turk’s Cap lilies, on tiny para chutes the charms of the mead ows **** onto the streets now top pled and sère. At first, it was “Planet X,” of Kabul. O fair lit tle sist er, be ware! out there somewh ere be cause Nep tune wob bled, Mate gi ant Tokyo Will he take every thing nodded its rings Buddhas with Godzilla, in side long swing towar d Death’s do main. send their off spring of the blood-edged scythe? Then a Kansas farm boy to the Afghan Hills While tu lips are falling, ob sessed with the stars to sit se rene speed well flying , blue tops ground his own mirrors in lotus pose into a bluer sky, built his own telescope sil ver-fringed blue bells cry ing with car parts and farm equip ment. (then watch their fire-breath doomed phlox not gold enough Hail stones de stroyed the farm crops. melt Taliban tanks to ransom its beauty The tele scope survived. and send the soldiers against the swish, swish The boy sent draw ings of Mars shriek ing!) of the Har vester. and Jupi ter O fair lit tle brother, be ware! to Lowell Obser va t ory — Skywrite LORD BUDDHA Now I defy you, Death! Come work for us, they said. from border to bor der I stand amid the mown lawn, He hopped a train, had just enough in ev ery known lan guage. feet planted against your ho locaust . cash for a one-way fare. I defy you! Go somewh ere else! Or wait for Karma But if you turn, and your red eye And then, in monk-like her mit age to burn the burners, should light upon me sud denly, he toiled at Flag staff, shat ter the shatterers, I shall be whisked away com par ing sky pho to graphs, si lence the mouths to your gar den of beheaded flow ers, hundreds of thousands of stars, of the speakers of law? the place where in ter rupted thoughts neg a tive over neg a tive to light, (No time, no time me an der to their long-off po ems. search ing for ce les tial wan der ers, as the nitro ex plodes Be happy, my fair one! Live on! planetoi, as ter oids, com ets a Buddha head that moved when ev ery thing else from fif teen hun dred —The origi nal Ger man of this folksong was set stood still in the cosmos. years ago.) by Brahms in his Germ an Folksongs for Four-Part Choir. This paraphrase changes the orig inal’s Clyde Tombaugh, twenty-four, Let Allah, Buddha rather con ven tional “die and go to Heaven” end - surveyed a sky Christ and Brahma ing, and the poet has chosen to end each stanza where fiftee n million lights rage like comets , with a differ ent line rather than re taining the the brightne ss of Pluto twin kled moth flut ter ing orig i nal re frain, “Be ware, fair lit tle flower!” The but only one was Pluto. around the Man Sun. orig i nal song verse uses this re frain three times, He found it. and then “Be happy, fair little flower!” at the end. One van ity makes them, *** A greater van ity de stroys them. PLUTO DEMOTED Yet a child with hands in clay, They sought him out in the mud by the riv er side No longer a planet, they say! in his re tire ment, will make a new god Pluto, Hades, Yuggoth, Nine those fel lows with broad shoulders is now a nothing, from the Smithso nian, far-see ing eyes, a rock among rocks asked for his home-made instru ment a for giv ing vis age, de spite the tug of its compan ion, for their per ma nent col lec tion. a palm extended silent and airless Charon “Hell no,” he said, for the bene dic tion “I’m still us ing it.” of un bear able Beauty. Now you are a “mini-world,” an over size as ter oid *** This parched land tumblin g in dustbelt needs its mem ori es, so dark and distan t I would as soon its slender share our sun is but a blob forget Kansas as Pluto. of human fair ness, of wa ver ing star light. Tell Tombaugh’s ghost against the dark night his planet is not a planet! of goats and dyna mit e. World of death and darkness, metha ne, monox i de molting I can see the old man now, in ev ery or bit ing, just off the death-barge shunned by the sun that made you, he hopped from Charon, must you now be snubbed by man? greeting the Lords of Ach er on, that rusted tube of tele scope