I wonder how many Ph.D. Dissertations start with a funny story. Any guesses? Well, I suppose that my real interest in Lovecraft began in undergrad. I had read some of his work, loved it, and had some interest in the silly fan stuff - shirts from Miskatonic University, buttons that say "Campus Crusade for Cthulhu," stuff like that. My room-mate Mike was also into Uncle Howie's work, and he had a bumper sticker that said: "Cthulhu Saves (He may get hungry later.)." Since he had no car, he put the sticker on a binder.
One day Mike came into the room looking terrified. Some wild-eyed little crazy guy had seen the Lovecraft reference on his binder and ran up to him, grabbed him / embraced him, shook him violently, and screamed "YOU AWAIT THE OLD ONES' RETURN AS WELL???!!!!!" Mike, who was huge, was unnerved not by the physical assault but by the strangeness of it all.
That was my first realization that Lovecraft has an affect on readers that probably no other writer has ever had. My obsession with figuring out where that insane level of devotion / mania came from really started things off. Over the weeks and months, I will try to record anything I can come up with that may be of interest to Lovecraft fans, but this seems like a good starting point. Maybe we can share our best "Crazy Cthulhu cultist" stories.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
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