Goodbye Turducken

November 27, 2014 10:31 AM

The Nameless Turkey from a dimension beyond that which mortals can comprehend, which brings madness to all who gaze upon its unholy visage.
posted by Tell Me No Lies (31 comments total)

*gibbers*




Oops. I meant:

*giblets*
posted by Atom Eyes at 10:34 AM on November 27, 2014 [10 favorites]

I thought about posting this, but then I decided it was too foul for mortal eyes to gaze upon. "Liveliest awfulness" indeed.
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:40 AM on November 27, 2014 [1 favorite]

IA! Pass the gravy and the drawn butter and the spicy cocktail sauce! IA!
posted by vrakatar at 10:45 AM on November 27, 2014 [2 favorites]

Cthulhu fhyum.
posted by Etrigan at 11:11 AM on November 27, 2014 [1 favorite]

I was like awww that's so cute and clever... Right up until the Nazi plates.
posted by surazal at 11:48 AM on November 27, 2014 [5 favorites]

Oh man, now that just ain't right.
posted by happyroach at 11:49 AM on November 27, 2014

Cthulhu, get in my belly! Body horror never looked so delicious.
posted by Theta States at 11:58 AM on November 27, 2014

Rusty Eulberg, a database administrator from Lubbock, Texas, tells us he brought forth what he called the Cthurkey...

There's a Charlie Stross short story somewhere in there.
posted by Dr Dracator at 12:08 PM on November 27, 2014 [4 favorites]

OK- I'll carve. Who wants squamous and who wants rugose?
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 12:11 PM on November 27, 2014 [19 favorites]

Save me a wing!

We could extend the concept with a savory shoggoth jello salad.
posted by wotsac at 1:13 PM on November 27, 2014 [3 favorites]

Here we go - Indistinct forms in aspic
posted by wotsac at 1:17 PM on November 27, 2014 [6 favorites]

The three friends went their separate ways
posted by a lungful of dragon at 1:28 PM on November 27, 2014 [2 favorites]

Thise are not mashed potatoes and gravy.
posted by BlueHorse at 1:31 PM on November 27, 2014

For dessert...
posted by kurumi at 1:46 PM on November 27, 2014 [4 favorites]

I was into this until they went all LOLNAZI. Because six million Jews, AMIRITE?

What does the Third Reich have to do with Lovecraft, anyway? I read he was a homophobe, but was he an anti-Semite as well? Or is this just people being insensitive and dull?
posted by ostranenie at 10:06 PM on November 27, 2014

What does the Third Reich have to do with Lovecraft?

The original stories don't have any references for obvious reasons, but the Nazis play a large part in the expanded universe created after his death.

Nazis getting involved with dark gods is not a unique trope, but the Nazi-Cthulu connection in particular has been around since at least the 1980's. They were a constant presence in our Call of Cthulu games.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 10:39 PM on November 27, 2014

(Although because I was curious I went and read his bio and in fact he was a Nazi supporter and had many anti-Semitic things to say -- even after he married his Jewish wife, which made things awkward at home from time to time.)
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 11:27 PM on November 27, 2014

What does the Third Reich have to do with Lovecraft, anyway? I read he was a homophobe, but was he an anti-Semite as well? Or is this just people being insensitive and dull?

He was. But Lovecraft died before World War II started, likely never knew it would go to war, and certainly didn't know about the Holocaust, which shocked the world when it was discovered. My own take, which people are free to argue against, is that he was the kind of racist who knows he'll never have real power and assumes the role of impotent ranter. Lovecraft was pretty rational in other ways, and we have no reason to believe he hurt so much as a fly in life, or wanted to. A couple of his stories are pretty disgusting, though: "The Horror at Red Hook" is not pleasant.

The original stories don't have any references for obvious reasons, but the Nazis play a large part in the expanded universe created after his death.

Well, it's rather an easy go-to, to use Nazi villains in a Mythos story. They did seek out occult power. The point of the Cthulhu Mythos is that the great entities don't care what race you are, but all humans are insignificant to them.

Nazis getting involved with dark gods is not a unique trope, but the Nazi-Cthulu connection in particular has been around since at least the 1980's. They were a constant presence in our Call of Cthulu games.

CoC can be played in many different eras. The "default" setting is the 1920s, and the second most popular is modern. Neither has a strong Nazi presence. World War II is an interesting setting for the game, one I hear is becoming popular.

Although because I was curious I went and read his bio and in fact he was a Nazi supporter and had many anti-Semitic things to say -- even after he married his Jewish wife, which made things awkward at home from time to time.

Lovecraft eventually left his wife in New York and went back home to Providence. The fact that he married a Jewish woman is one reason I think his racism was mostly him blathering. But that certainly isn't proof. And of course blathering itself is damaging.
posted by JHarris at 2:22 PM on November 28, 2014

CoC can be played in many different eras. The "default" setting is the 1920s, and the second most popular is modern.

Huh. The lead up to World War II was a staple for us. I always assumed it was an Indiana Jones thing. "[Hitler's] a nut on the subject..."

Of course we tended more towards actions campaigns which may explain the bias.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 3:23 PM on November 28, 2014

JHarris: Lovecraft died before World War II started, likely never knew it would go to war, and certainly didn't know about the Holocaust, which shocked the world when it was discovered. My own take, which people are free to argue against, is that he was the kind of racist who knows he'll never have real power and assumes the role of impotent ranter. Lovecraft was pretty rational in other ways, and we have no reason to believe he hurt so much as a fly in life, or wanted to. A couple of his stories are pretty disgusting, though: "The Horror at Red Hook" is not pleasant.

The Nuremberg Laws were passed in 1935. Anyone with a scrap of morality knew what the Nazis were long before WWII, and well before Lovecraft's death. And there are any number of hard-core racists and slaveowners that were perfect happy to have sex with black slaves; who you want to fuck doesn't say anything about how racist you are.
posted by tavella at 3:56 PM on November 28, 2014 [1 favorite]

Lovecraft eventually left his wife in New York and went back home to Providence. The fact that he married a Jewish woman is one reason I think his racism was mostly him blathering. But that certainly isn't proof. And of course blathering itself is damaging.

Technically, he returned to Providence after they tried a long distance marriage with him in NYC and her in... Cleveland? Anyway, the marriage seemed to have fallen apart reasonably amiably (except in as far as Lovecraft never signed the divorce papers, which meant that Sonia Greene found herself an unwitting bigamist upon Lovecraft's death.

I know less about Lovecraft's antisemitism than I do about his racism, but my impression is that it was less out of line from what you would expect from a man of Lovecraft's age and class (his racism was extreme, and commented on by his contemporaries). If I remember correctly, his close friend Samuel Loveman, who was Jewish, burned Lovecraft's correspondence after HPL's death out of anger at the revelation of depths of his racism rather than specifically his antisemitism. Which is maybe damning with faint praise.

Lovecraft wrote some rather bland comments in his letters praising Hitler for getting Germany back on its feet, which is hardly out of line with American opinion at the time, and I would be surprised if Lovecraft new anything more about German politics than the average American newspaper reader. Towards the end of his life, HPL styled himself a socialist (although of a rather tepid reformist stripe), but the anti-fascist aspects seem to have eluded him, as did political action beyond writing long letters hectoring his friends about politics. Despite this, I think he would have been horrified by the Nazis if he had bothered to learn anything about them beyond what he read in the Providence Journal.

None of which is meant to let him off the hook for being on the wrong side of racism and a sloppy and ill-disciplined political thinker who never got much beyond his snobby New England Elite childhood, but I think casting him as a Nazi sympathizer is excessive, no matter what some of his modern day fans might think was funny.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:41 PM on November 28, 2014 [2 favorites]

Oh, and, as I've said, I really don't know much about that aspect of his life and thought, and I would be really interested if a more knowledgeable mefite wanted to weigh in. Like I said, my current feeling is that he wasn't a crypto-nazi, but, given how much I have learned about his racism (and the eagerness of his fans to ignore it) over the last few decades, I would be bitterly unsurprised to find something nastier hiding in his correspondence.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:46 PM on November 28, 2014

I read a few books on the guy for my Master's paper, but didn't dive into the deep end of the pool (his massive coorespondance). From what I've read, I pretty much agree with GenjiandProust.
posted by JHarris at 5:02 PM on November 28, 2014

I think casting him as a Nazi sympathizer is excessive, no matter what some of his modern day fans might think was funny.

Actually I'm not sure any of the fans of the Cthulu mythos care much about Lovecraft's leanings. The Nazi/Cthulu combo has nothing to do with his personal views, it's about a horrific earthly evil getting in way over its head with an even more horrific unearthly evil, and our sorta good guy protagonists trying to sort it out before the world ends.

With regards to Lovecraft it's also worth remembering that in that time and place "Nazi Sympathizer" had a very different meaning. Neville Chamberlain was over there trying to include them as a linchpin of a united Europe, for example. A lot of very smart people were very wrong in their assessment of where things were going.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 5:55 PM on November 28, 2014

Well, by his fans, I was talking about the subject of this post who thought it would be funny to serve his creation on a Nazi plate he just happened to have lying around.
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:15 PM on November 28, 2014 [1 favorite]

Lovecraft worked with Houdini (who was also Jewish) on several stories.

There's this crazy fictional account of Lovecraft, Nazi spies in America, and Houdini's secret agent brother trying to get Lovecraft to realize who the Nazi's really are, that, in addition to being a thrilling spy story, addresses Lovecraft's racist views. It is called Lovecraft's Book.
posted by eye of newt at 6:26 PM on November 28, 2014 [1 favorite]

Can we please get back on topic and discuss how we want to eat some damn octopus and crab legs and turkey? nommmmmsssss
posted by Theta States at 9:32 PM on November 28, 2014

Ol' H.P. on New York's Lower East Side, 1922 (a time when a large percentage of the area's population was Jewish immigrants):

"At times, though, we struck peculiarly deserted areas--these swine have instinctive swarming movements, no doubt, which no ordinary biologist can fathom. Gawd knows what they are -- ... -- a bastard mess of stewing mongrel flesh without intellect, repellent to the eye, nose, and imagination would to heaven a kindly gust of cyanogen could asphyxiate the whole gigantic abortion, end the misery, and clean out the place."

A kindly gust of cyanogen. And you think "he would have been horrified by the Nazis if he had bothered to learn anything about them beyond what he read in the Providence Journal."

I know it can be uncomfortable to realize that the power of Lovecraft's descriptions of annihilating horror comes from his real life racism, discovering that in feeling the frisson of revulsion at the crawling inhuman Other you have crawled inside the mind of a hardcore racist and seen through his eyes... but it doesn't make it any less true.
posted by tavella at 11:40 PM on November 28, 2014

tavella, you said he wrote that in 1922. He married Greene in 1924, and died in 1937, which is closer to the late period that GenjiandProust is referring to. Lovecraft partly grew out of it later in life. People are allowed to grow out of bad attitudes, especially when you're as sheltered and unthinkingly opinionated as Lovecraft was.

And also-- your claim that his cosmic horror was fueled by his racism is unfounded. It seems to me that trying to wrap up his racism with his cosmic horror, when you can appreciate it without buying into any racism, is a tactic to tar everyone who enjoys Lovecraft's stories, and uses the Cthulhu Mythos in his own work, with a similar flavor of racism. I'm sure, even if Lovecraft never wrote anything, someone would have picked up on the kind of horror that founded the Cthulhu Mythos eventually. It just happens that a racist was the first to make serious use of it. You can see some of the threads of his ideas in his inspirations, in Arthur Machen and Robert Chambers, and in the people he corresponded with. If it hadn't been Lovecraft, I think it would have been someone else.
posted by JHarris at 2:51 AM on November 29, 2014

Ol' H.P. on New York's Lower East Side, 1922 (a time when a large percentage of the area's population was Jewish immigrants):

That is a particularly vile (and, sadly, not uncharacteristic) example of Lovecraft's racism in full expression. The man's sympathy for other humans from West of about the Alsace-Lorraine (and more comfortably the English Channel (excepting the Irish, of course) was scant and his revulsion high. There is absolutely no doubt about that. However, I don't think you can claim that, therefore, his antisemitism was particularly notable for his age, and claiming this with a sort "well of course" parenthetical is not evidence. As for the poison gas reference, while a reader today is going to be unable to decouple that image from the Holocaust, a reader in 1922 would be thinking of the use of gas in the trenches of WWI.

Now, a couple of caveats. As I said above, Lovecraft was a racist and a particularly vocal and virulent one (and, contrary to some Lovercraft enthusiasts/scholars) I neither give him a pass for "being of his time" nor for the idea that his opinions softened as his grew older.* If your goal is to identify Lovecraft as a racist, well done. If the fact that he was a racist undercuts your enjoyment of his stories so much that you don't want to read him, I respect your choice.** If you want to inform other people on the internet that their cuddly Cthulhu dolls are descended in a twisty pop-cultural lineage from a man whose views on race are (and were) repellent, I heartily endorse your efforts. People should know about this, much the way that they should know about Polanski or Allen or Céline or Pound or all the writers and artists with ugly philosophies and actions.

However, if you want to root around in his writing and grapple with his ideas and how they reveal themselves in his stories, it's important to wade into the stew of his racial views not to excuse Lovecraft, but to understand how they affected his stories and how they affected the currents that make up modern horror, fantasy, weird fiction, etc. And, if you are going to do this, it's necessary to untwist racism and antisemitism, because, especially on close inspection, they have very different causes and expressions, and people who express one don't always express the other. So, as I said, I don't know enough to say how antisemitic Lovecraft was, but that passage, nasty as it is, reads to me as an expression of Lovecraft's loathing for foreigners, especially those from the Mediterranean and Eastern Europe and his terror of poverty, which is plenty enough textual rope to hang him without resorting to speculation and subtextual guessing.

While I disagree with JHarris that Lovecraft's racism softened as he aged, I do agree that it's wildly reductionist to see his cosmic horror as solely an expression of his racism. I'd argue that the two operate in opposition, since from a truly bleak cosmic viewpoint, the differences between "races" that humans cling to are utterly irrelevant. It's clear that his racism affected his writing, from the absurd nonsense of "Medusa's Coils" and "Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family" to the grotesque caricatures that populate "The Horror at Red Hook" and the central section of "The Call of Cthulhu" to the more troubling endings of "The Shadow over Innsmouth" and "At the Mountains of Madness," but the cosmic scope and modernist horror Lovecraft brought to the genre has had much more impact. Sadly, the surface elements of tentacles and slime have had even more impact than that, but that's for a different thread.

Lastly, assuming anyone read this far, I don't really understand how Lovecraft's racism and antisemitism are off topic in a thread about a Lovecraft enthusiast making a Thanksgiving dinner that he served on a Nazi plate for extra effect. I think it was just a stupid joke, but people who read Lovecraft uncritically can go down nasty paths indeed.

* My impression is that his views did not particularly soften toward the end of is life, although he may have become more circumspect in who he shared them with. Certainly, I know of no great epiphany on his part. The best I can say is that he appears to have been a "genteel racist" who wouldn't have been impolite to someone's face, if you count that a virtue.

** We may have trouble discussing modern horror in a scholarly way if you utterly refuse to read him, but, honestly, that's hardly a reason to force yourself to read something repugnant.
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:24 AM on November 29, 2014 [3 favorites]

Lastly, assuming anyone read this far, I don't really understand how Lovecraft's racism and antisemitism are off topic in a thread about a Lovecraft enthusiast making a Thanksgiving dinner that he served on a Nazi plate for extra effect.

It's tangential at best. The whole thing is a celebration of the mythos, not the author.

Of course we could also have a conversation about Orson Scott Card having naked pubescents wrestling in steamy showers and face a similar conflation of author and works, and during that conversation I would probably agree with you.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 1:45 PM on November 29, 2014