Stay Away, Fools

May 7, 2019 9:15 AM

Cedric and I spent uncountable hours peering into the gloom, and just as I was about to lose all hope, at the side of the road, a faded sign shewed forth:

SHACK OF INDULGENCE
15 MILES

H.P. Loveshack

By John Peck at McSweeney's.
posted by Songdog (19 comments total)

This is exactly how Lovecraft would describe, nay experience, going to a party.
posted by ursus_comiter at 9:21 AM on May 7, 2019 [7 favorites]

Other B-52's songs feat. DJ HPL:

- (My Mamma Was A) Rock Lobster
- It Came From Planet Claire
- Private Asylum in Idaho
- Dance This Mess Around (Tekeli-li!)
- Girl From Ipanema Goes to Greenland And Never Returns
- Cosmic Think
posted by Quindar Beep at 9:31 AM on May 7, 2019 [13 favorites]

Cedric urged me to haste and demanded I bring along some of the inexplicable circular bits of the unknown metal, theorizing they might serve to activate the foul machine.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:32 AM on May 7, 2019 [9 favorites]

Appropriate soundtrack.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 9:38 AM on May 7, 2019 [3 favorites]

The next part of the series should be Andy Borowitz sneaking into the forbidden underground laboratory of McSweeney's headquarters on a quest to discover how they make all their content, only to shriek in horror at the rows upon rows of MacBook Airs, each one unceasingly typed upon by an immaculate but expressionless clone of himself.
posted by J.K. Seazer at 9:41 AM on May 7, 2019 [8 favorites]

McSweeney's stories are like apples: the first bite is so juicy and delicious, and then a few minutes later you're like huh I'm good not finishing this
posted by prize bull octorok at 9:47 AM on May 7, 2019 [16 favorites]

I know what you mean about a lot of internet humor pieces, prize bull octorok, but you are definitely buying the wrong apples.
posted by Songdog at 9:58 AM on May 7, 2019 [22 favorites]

In one of Paul Theroux's travel books he describes being on a train in New England and reading a biography of Lovecraft, with LOVECRAFT in large type on the cover.
After a while he noticed that people in the carriage were looking at him strangely and then he realised that they thought he was reading a sex manual.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 10:08 AM on May 7, 2019 [13 favorites]

It will be remembered that on that fantastic album so suggestive of the mystifying and surreal extent of the ineffable on our own "Wild Planet" that there is a phrase of unknown but terrible and prodigious significance connected with an inconceivable and unmentionable nightmare lurking ... "53 Miles West of Venus." The aeon-silent horrors that reside there in absolute blackness cannot be described in more detail.
posted by Wobbuffet at 10:14 AM on May 7, 2019 [2 favorites]

This is exactly how Lovecraft would describe, nay experience, going to a party.

Lovecraft was very good at making friends, but bad at hanging out with them. IIRC from his biography, he once expressed his disgust at two of his friends for bringing along an entire six-pack of beer to share.
posted by Countess Elena at 10:29 AM on May 7, 2019 [2 favorites]

Do not call up any song which thou canst not put down.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 10:34 AM on May 7, 2019 [8 favorites]

he realised that they thought he was reading a sex manual.

Something similar happened to me at a great used bookstore in Oak Bluffs. The young lady working there was from Serbia, I think, and when I asked if they had any Lovecraft she had no idea what I was talking about, and replied "...erotica?...."
posted by vrakatar at 10:43 AM on May 7, 2019 [4 favorites]

..how much more difficult it must have been for Cedric, who was a quarter-Iberian on his mother’s side..

I spent more time thinking about this line than perhaps is justified but I'm a bit fascinated by the dilemma a parodist faces when trying to evoke the inherent racism that suffuses almost all of Lovecraft's prose. The casual thrown-off line is well placed but the mock racism here seems too timid to serve.. But had the writer laid it on more thickly would it just be offensive? Is it harder to poke fun at an aspect of the writing that is so antithetical to "fun"?
posted by Nerd of the North at 10:44 AM on May 7, 2019 [8 favorites]

Eh, I’ll give it a C- as a Lovecraft parody. It doesn’t quite top his earliest style, and it misses the point in his use of “indescribable.” As for the quarter-Iberian, Lovecraft had at least one story with a villainous Portuguese character, and I think there were others, so maybe too close?
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:42 AM on May 7, 2019

I drew from my vest pocket several bags of glitter-powder I carried for such occasions.

This should be part of everyone's everyday carry.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 2:35 PM on May 7, 2019 [5 favorites]

Fhtagn, fhtagn, fhtagn on the door, baby.
posted by Pallas Athena at 6:52 PM on May 7, 2019 [12 favorites]

I’ve heard tell of such temples in ancient Mesopotamia, where six or eight thousand years ago, they laid down their infernal law. Before I talk, I should read a cursed tome.
posted by ejs at 7:34 PM on May 7, 2019 [1 favorite]

I asked if they had any Lovecraft she had no idea what I was talking about, and replied "...erotica?...."

What a missed opportunity to reply "Yes, ma'am, but not the kind you're thinking."
posted by axiom at 9:50 PM on May 7, 2019 [1 favorite]

Metafilter: The heat within was stifling, almost oven-like, as if the whole structure had been built over some ancient magmic vent. Our discomfort soon overcame our modesty, and we were compelled to remove the majority of our garments.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 4:34 AM on May 9, 2019 [1 favorite]