MANTICHORE deadline at the beginning

December! I managed to get the

of

2, No 1 (Dec 2006 e. v.) issue half-ready with another piece

on an M John Harrison story and a
(Whole No. 5) short story by me. I’ll add mailing
comments and see what else I can
A Contribution by throw together.
Leigh Blackmore On a personal note, I have
for finished my first year at University of
Sword & Sorcery & Wollongong with one credit, five
Weird Fiction distinctions (mainly for creative
Terminus writing) and one high distinction (for
amateur press association. sociology). I have also sat my pre-
entrance examination for the
Bachelor of Journalism, as I intend to
Leigh Blackmore, 78 Rowland Ave, undertake a double degree next
Wollongong, NSW 2500. Australia. year. If I pass the Journalism exam I
Email: lvxnox@gmail.com will be doing Journalism as well as
(Please note new email address) Creative Writing.
Official Website: The Right now I’m on summer
Blackmausoleum – break and though I have made
http://members.optusnet.com.au/lvx sporadic attempts to look for a job,
nox/ there is little around, and I am
occupying myself with original
writing, selling on Ebay, and helping
run the household. My son-in-law
IN THIS ISSUE Rohan graduated from high school
“Mantic and turned 18, so we had two
Notes”…………………………….1 celebrations for him. MoonSkin, the
Article: Notes on M. John occult group I co-facilitate, is moving
Harrison’s “The Luck in the towards a core of members after an
Head”.. initial founding year of working
………………………………………3 rituals from different traditions
Story: “Water Runs Uphill” (Wiccan, Reclaiming, Thelemic, &
……………..7 others); in 2007 we will be moving to
Parodies: “The Lord of Lewd: a model which sees the group
Clark Ashton Smith & the Fiction members taking on more
of Fornication” & “Of Caves, responsibility for running rituals,
Dark Holes & Vaginas: The which will free me and Margi up
Pornographic Prose of the somewhat.
Providence Poet” by Bryce J. I had a few small appearances
Stevens…10 in print during the year, with a poem
Mantichorus: Mailing Notes …….. in the university mag Tertangala
…….11 being one, but I am most proud of
Books the podcast of my ghost story
Wanted…………………………….13 “Cemetery Rose”, which appeared as
Bio Notes on Leigh part of the seven days of Hallowe’en
Blackmore…………14 at www.writingshow.com. Check it
out! The direct link is at:
http://writingshow.com/?p=194. You
can also access it via other podcast
players including Odeo
MANTIC NOTES (http://odeo.com/channel/7166/view),
Aha! I’m starting early this time! I’m Collectik
commencing this issue in late (http://collectik.net/collectik/feed/155
September, which means I should 40, Podcast Pickle
have a decent amount of time to get (http://www.podcastpickle.com/casts/
it to a presentable level before 1791/), Yahoo Podcasts
deadline….Later: well, here I am past (http://podcasts.yahoo.com/series?
s=e258f4f05cb1e0b59e20e34ff673d
8ca), Get a Podcast
(http://www.getapodcast.com/podcas
t496.aspx?hi=matthew), Blogdigger
(http://groups.blogdigger.com/groups
.jsp?id=961&f=299226), Podfeed
(http://www.podfeed.net/podcast/The
+Writing+Show/1860) Mefeedia
(http://mefeedia.com/feeds/10216/
), Idiotvox
(http://www.idiotvox.com/Books/PodC
ast_Review_The_Writing_Show__1230
7.html.), DirPodcast.com
(http://www.dirpodcast.com/podcasts
/index.php?iid=2277), & Vicasting
(http://www.vicasting.com/contents.a
spx/pid/1014/). Phew! Anyway, enjoy!
There’s an interview with me there,
as well as me reading the story. It
was an enjoyable experience to
record this, and they did a good job
with the production generally,
despite a couple of unfortunate
sound effects. I recorded via phone
to Paula Berinstein, Writing
Show.com’s US
editor, and all the other podcast
feeds simply link to the main
website, giving all this exposure on
the net! A great way to go for any
budding writers out there – contact
Paul at www.writingshow.com and
see if she’ll be interested to feature
your work!
An old interview I did in 1993
with writer/philosopher Colin Wilson
should soon be up at
www.colinwilsonworld.com. I sent
editor Geoff Ward a copy, with
photos taken at the time, and he will
be adding it to the site.
I also started editing on
Wikipedia, and the first long article I
started was (of course) on Terry
Dowling – since I began it
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Do
wling, others have expanded it, as is
par for the course on Wikipedia. I had
a few teething problems with
Wikipedia’s rather extensive rules
that one has to abide by, but getting
the basic info up there is important.
I discovered LibraryThing,
(http://www.librarything.com/ ), an
online site where one can catalogue
all one’s books. Up to about 100
books it’s free, but then you have to
subscribe. It’s a fun site. I quickly
used my quotient of 100 but haven’t
been able to afford to subscribe. One
day I will.
There’s no space here to
cover books I’ve read or music
obtained recently, but while I’m
writing this, I’m listening to The New
Cars. I am a musical child of the 70’s
and 80’s – probably mentioned
before that I used to play in Sydney
New Wave band Worm Technology.
(It was a Christian new wave band –
pretty rad for the time! – and well
before my later movement towards
Gnostic and Thelemic worldviews).
The Cars were a favourite. One of my
other music gods is Todd Rundgren,
and when I found out Todd had
joined ex-members of the Cars in the
New Cars for a US tour, I HAD to buy
this album. It’s cool! They even do a
coupla Todd songs…
My friend, Melbourne writer
Rick Kennett, recently sent me a
copy of Weird Tales magazine for
June 2006, featuring his story
“Chinese Whispers”. Wow! I don’t
know if Rick’s the first Aussie writer
to break into the pages of this iconic
horror/fantasy magazine, but he is
certainly the first of my direct
acquaintances. I know he tried them
with several stories over the years
with mixed success. I am envious of
his finally landing one! The couple
I’ve sent haven’t gotten through, but
I hope to one day also be
represented in “The Unique
Magazine”.
I was privileged recently to
have a visit from poet and
bibliographer Phillip A. Ellis, and poet
Danny Lovecraft, who came to see
me in Wollongong on the same day!
The three of us spent a glorious four
hours together discussing the poetry
of Christopher Brennan, devouring
cake and biscuits, talking of weird
fiction, art and music. (I must thank
my partner Margi for her contribution
in helping prepare the repast!). We
also saw some of Danny’s photos
from the Providence leg of his US trip
last year – watched them on the TV
screen from a CD disk – something I
didn’t know one could do until now. I
would have liked to print some
photos from the visit here but they’re
not back from the printshop yet –
maybe I’ll print them next time. In
lieu, here are a few photos from the
Conflux convention in Canberra
earlier this year, where Margi and I
were on several panels, some about
horror/fantasy and some about real
magic.
Leigh with writer Rick Kennett
Leigh with
writer/editor
Jack Dann
I have run together. Though with a
small roll-up, we had an intimate and
valuable day of exploring the
different aspects of divinity, with
various meditations and ritual
presentations including the Golden
Dawn’s Middle Pillar ritual, and a
fabulous PowerPoint presentation
that we had prepared with hundreds
of images of divinity from different
cultures.
Well, I’d better get to it! Any
more personal news and there’ll be
no room in the issue for articles.
I take perverse) pleasure in
running this issue a piece from my
old Terror Australis magazine
colleague Bryce Stevens, a sexy
sendup of two major weird fiction
figures and their work. I hope it
causes at least some offense (and a
few chuckles!)
“Water Runs Uphill” is a story
I wrote recently for my creative
writing course. It has a slight
supernatural element but is mainly
inspired by my current environment
here in the city of Wollongong in the
Illawarra, NSW.

NOTES ON M. JOHN
HARRISON’S “THE LUCK IN
THE HEAD”.
Margi with writers Russell & Here we
Jenny Blackford & Kate Forsyth continue to
examine (in
brief) the stories
of M. John
Harrison’s
Viriconium
sequence. I am
not here
attempting a
critical analysis
but more of a
Leigh & Margi with Canberra story summary,
bookseller & fellow pagan Lilitu for a project ultimately intended to
Babalon be a full-length manuscript on the
work of MJH.
In other personal news, Margi
In “The Luck in the Head”,
and I ran a workshop at Lotus
one of the most haunting of the
bookshop recently on “Gods and
entire sequence, we are introduced
Goddesses in Us All”. This was
to Ardwick Crome, poet, the author of
historic for a coupla reasons – the
the long poem Bream Into Man.
first all-day workshop I’ve been
Crome lives in a tenement on the
involved with, and the first Margi and
outskirts of Montrouge, near the
arena, where “they were burning or
quartering somebody every night for
political or religious crimes”.
Viriconium, whose name changes
through the ages, is here called
“Uroconium”. Crome was born in the
ploughlands but has come to
Uroconium to pursue his craft. He
wears green plush country waistcoat
and yellow pointed shoes. Here in the
Artists’ Quarter, in this tenement
once occupied by Kristodulos Fleece
the painter, Crome remembers his
childhood near the Yser Canal, and
his mother singing the carols of the
Oei’l Voirrey. (We don’t, of course,
know what this means, but it sounds
like authentic detail.) Crome writes
by strapping himself to his bed: “the
sense of unfair confinement or
punishment induced by this, he
found, helped him to think”.
Barzelletta Angst, the critic, writes of
Crome’s work that he tries to
“represent his work as a series of
narrativeless images, glued together
only by his artistic persona”. This
sounds very much like a criticism
that could be leveled against
Harrison’s imagistic style, and may
be Harrison’s own sly or ironic
comment to forestall such criticism;
he is certainly self-aware enough to
be aware of what he is doing in his
work, and of its possible limitations in
terms of style and technique. Crome
is having disturbing dreams which
revolve around a ritual he has
witnessed in his childhood – the
ceremony of ‘The Luck in the Head’
in which a pie is made from the head
of a lamb which is sacrificed three
days after the Eve of Assumption.
Luck is considered to come to the
person that eats the pie made from
the head. Now, Harrison is not a
conventionally religious writer, but
the introduction of such religious
imagery as a sacrificial lamb and a
three day period cannot help but add
a resonance of the Christian story to
this tale. However, the imagery
relates more to the role Crome will
play out in the story’s narrative. As in
other Viriconium stories, we get
mentions of places in the countryside
– Dunham Massey, Lymm, Iron Chine,
and Lowick (with its slate roofs).
Crome goes looking for the
woman in his dream who has brought
the sacrificial lamb to him. More
colourful names from within the city
crop up – the Via Varese (which is
near the Bistro Californium),
Mecklenburgh Square, and Proton
Alley, where the beggars and
pavement artists draw the Lamia (a
reference to yet another Harrison
story). Again (as in “The Dancer from
the Dance”) we have the Unter-Main-
Kai, which seems to be a main street
of Viriconium or at least of the
artist’s quarter, and the Luitpold
Café. At the Luitpold, Crome meets
such characters as Ansel Verdigris,
with his coxcomb of reddish-yellow
hair and his white triangular face –
Verdigris lives with his mother,
Madame L, in Delphine Square. Both
are ill and dissipated. Other
characters hang out at the Luitpold –
Gunter
Verlac,
and the
Baron de
V - .
There are
stories of
proctors
pursuing
these
characters for debts along the cinder
paths past the isolation hospital.
Verdigris gives Crome a sheet of
thick green paper, folded three
times, with a cryptic message which
implies if Crome wants his dreams to
cease he should come to the
Aqualate Pond.
We get more place-names
interspersed in the “series of
narrativeless images” – Margery Fry
Court, the Ghibbeline Stair, the
Aqualate Pond. One of Harrison’s
most frequent techniques, the
narrating of overheard snatches of
conversation, gives us “Aachen by
the Haunted Gate”. These many
evocative names all add to our sense
of Uroconium as old, mysterious, and
rife with strange goings-on, as the
events begin to unfold amidst the
“cat-infested towers of the city”;
there is the “whine of violin and cor
anglais from the Artist’s Quarter” and
“the flares of the auto da fe at the
Arena”.
We learn that in the past,
Uronoconium was liberated from the
Analeptic Kings In fact, it is the
anniversary of this event as Crome
makes his way to the Aqualate Pond.
This is one of Harrison’s literary in-
jokes, analepsis being the technique
of flashback. We learn that the text
known as ‘the Earl of Rone’ tells how
the kings handed over power to
Mammy Vooley, the current ruler (or
‘Moderator’) of Uroconium. There are
mentions of the steep hills of Alves,
the Obervatory with its cracked
copper dome, and an ancient song
that the people sing: ‘Ou lou lou’. An
extraordinary procession is unveiled:
“in the middle of it all, the night and
the banners and the lights, swaying
precariously to and fro fifteen feet
above the procession like a doll
nailed on a gilded chair, came
Mammy Vooley herself”. Mammy
Vooley is a bizarre figure, made up
like a doll, wearing a russet-orange
dress, with only one good eye, and
on her head a wig made from a hank
of faded purple hair. Her lap is filled
with lumps of plaster and crusts of
wholemeal bread. She is “silent as a
log of wood”. The householders of
Alves all kneel to her, but Crome
doesn’t. But she blesses him
anyway.
The Great Brown Waste is
mentioned: the endless wastes which
surround Uroconium, with papery
winged flies hovering under a
poisonous brown sky. This image is
one used repeatedly by Harrison –
compare the chemical waste pits in
Signs of Life (1997). There is a
mention of Ingo Lympany the
dramatist. Crome finds his way to the
Aqualate Pond, where there is a
gibbet made of two great arched,
bleached bones – a rather
Lovecraftian touch that makes one
wonder from what creature of
enormous size those bones could
have come.
The local people have various
superstitions about the pond.
Henrietta St is near the pond.
Another ritual is annually performed
here, one very similar to that that of
the locust ritual in “The Dancer from
the Dance”.
A woman in a brown cloak
appears to him, coming closer in
three states of nearness – a very
filmic image. She wears over head a
complicated mask of wafery metal to
represent the head of one or another
wasteland insect. She tells Crome he
must kill the Mammy. She removes
from the corpse on the gibbet an
omen – it is the lamb of his dreams.
She promises to bring him a weapon.
The lamb begins to haunt him
in his waking life. More evocative
place-names : Cladich, Mynned,
Cheminor. Kristodulos Fleece had
been half-dead with opium and
syphilis when he vacated the
northlight studio. Audsley King is
mentioned in passing – a major
character from the novel In
Viriconium; Harrison often
interweaves his work in this, and
more complicated ways. Fleece has
left behind a painting titled ‘Children
Beloved of the Gods Have the Power
to Weep Roses’. It depicts girl
children doing a spiral dance, a very
pagan image. Harrison gives an
extensive description of the painting.
It includes the bedogne – the
stripped and varnished skull of a
horse, with brittle glass eyes and
crepe paper harness, put up on a
pole covered with an ordinary sheet.
But this one has a lamb’s skull. This
haunting image is another that will
crop up repeatedly in Harrison’s work
– even so recently as in the
description of the creature known as
the Shrander in Harrison’s sf novel
Light (2002).
The woman with the insect
mask arrives, finding Crome strapped
to the bed. Verdigris has come with
her, but waits outside. She reveals
the weapon, which she produces
from a brown paper parcel. It is two
feet long, has been a long time in the
ground, and leaks a greenish jelly-
like substance. It is like a dagger in a
sheath and leaks motes of light. This
ties to other such ancient weapons
which are little-understood (see other
Harrison novels such as The Pastel
City). The woman reveals Mammy
Vooley is trying to change the name
of the city; this is ironic, given the
names changes from age to age in
any case. There are atmospheric
mentions of wash-houses and women
gutting fish.
Crome tries to refuse the
weapon. Notice the theme of a dance
again, in the painting. The painting
changes before Crome’s eyes, the
lamb vomiting its bad luck onto the
children. The weapon shocks Crome
when he touches it. Mention of the
Tinmarket. Verdigris comes in to
check Crome has touched the
weapon. He dances about and sings
absurd and cryptic couplets. He gets
revenge for Crome having told him
earlier that neither of them had ever
been to Cheminor. The insect-headed
woman fucks Crome all night.
At the observatory, the
machines of the old cultures whisper
madly, as does the brooding Mammy.
She looks out over Antedaraus, the
hill behind observatory, where
Daraus Gorge divides Uroconium
“like a fissure in a wart”. We get a
glimpse of the Old City with its
ruinous towers. Decay and mourning
occupy the Mammy’s subjects. In a
scene reminiscent of Samuel
Beckett’s “How It Is”, a legless man
pulls a wicker basket of earth and
excrement.
A crowd gathers at the
observatory. They bring out gaunt
wooden images of the Analeptic
Kings. The people wear outlandish
costumes. Crome is there with the
weapon and the woman. Little boys
perform a traditional dance on the
steps. The choir sings. Mammy
Vooley is pulled out in front of the
crowd, her head lolling. She will
throw a yew wreath, but is barely
capable. It starts to rain. The wreath
“rolled about on the bottom step like
a coin set spinning on a table in the
Luitpold Café”. (A similar tightly-
focussed image of a coin spinning on
its edge will occur years later in a
key scene in Light). Crome, who has
brought the ancient weapon here to
assassinate the Mammy, vacillates.
Ansel Verdigris appears, accusing
Crome of being an assassin in front
of the whole crowd.
Crome hits Verdigris on the
head with the untrustworthy weapon
and it cuts through the front of
Verdigris’ skull, and sinks down to
hack off his shoulder. Veridgris
stumbles around and falls down
dead. The weapon goes out “like a
wet firework” before Crome can use
it on the Mammy, and he is arrested
her attendants. The hilt of the
weapon has become imbedded in his
arm. It seems he will be taken to the
arena to be burnt. The Mammy looks
at him and seems to forgive him,
though it is uncertain whether or not
she recognises him. He is led away to
the tune of the “ou lou lou”. All ends
in frustration and absurdity; the
whole plot, which Crome never took
on of his own accord, has failed. The
Mammy announces that the name of
the city will be changed to ‘Vira-Co” –
an irony since the name of the city is
always changing through the ages,
and the whole reason for the
attempted assassination, which was
to stop her changing it, was doomed
from the outset.
“The Luck in the Head” has a
graphic novel version, which was
published by Gollancz in 1991,
illustrated by the incomparable Ian
Miller. It has some interesting textual
variations from the published story
text, and also some amusing in-jokes
such as Ansel Verdigris being drawn
to resemble M John Harrison himself.
“The Luck in the Head” is a
remarkable story, in which, as Ingo
Lympany says “surface is only the
visible part of technique!”.
WATER RUNS UPHILL
By Leigh Blackmore
© 2006
It was one of those muggy
evenings that come late in
November. The sea was lapping
against the harbour wall under a
pumice-coloured sky like a cat licking
up water from its drinking bowl. An
area of low pressure had crept in
from the east. Perhaps I’d started to
doze, because the waitress tapped
on my table where the empty glass
stood.
“Anything else?”
“Lemon, lime and bitters,“ I
told her. Couldn’t she remember? It
was all I’d been drinking. The sky,
out over the Five Islands, was going
murky orange, the kind you generally
only see when there’s a distant
bushfire.
The waitress returned to the
bar to get my drink. Heat reflected
into my face off the metal-topped
tables. The chairs were those rickety
aluminium tubing jobs, so
uncomfortable to sit in that you feel
like an intruder patronising the café. I
fantasised about the owner watching
through a secret spy hole from
behind the bar. Maybe he would be
getting his jollies timing each patron
on how long it took us to get so
uncomfortable we would leave, so
that more paying patrons could come
in to replace us.
I wished I had some gum,
something to chew on, to take my
mind off things. A few young girls
were sitting around a nearby table.
The conversations I overheard
amused me. The girls were different
from me: the way they tossed their
hair, laughed loudly, talked over each
other.
Earlier that day I’d decided to
go up Mt Keira. The weather had
been dicey at first, and I feared rain,
but by the afternoon the sea breeze
had cleared the clouds. The
mountain made a shape against the
sky like a pushed-in hat. The piecrust
indentations of my old Volvo’s
steering wheel were hot and sticky
under my knuckles. Trees dotted the
streets, lush grey-olive foliage
interspersed at intervals with the
startlingly purple jacaranda trees in
full bloom. Along the edges of Mt
Keira Road and the winding route to
the lookout teahouse, I passed native
grasses, yellow tea-roses growing
wild, and acacia heavy with new
growth.
As the afternoon wore on, I’d
gone for a walk along the track that
led away from the lookout’s
teahouse. The profuse undergrowth
was full of yellow cassinias and
straggling mintbush, wild
honeysuckle and orange blossom.
Scrubby paperbarks and tall Norfolk
pines formed a shadowy canopy
overhead. A little brook trickled
slowly between the trees, heading
down the mountain side towards the
sea. Cockatoos shrieked and
squawked as they flocked across the
valley. But after a while I’d grown
restless and bored, and drove down
to spend time at the harbourfront
café.
Now I was taken by the urge
to go out to Toothbrush Island.
Simultaneously, I knew I never would.
The waitress returned with my drink.
As I sipped it, I wondered: had the
Aborigines ever made it out there in
their paperbark canoes?
My mind played back a scene
from the year before. I’d been at the
Chinese herbalist at Kiama, waiting
for my partner Val’s acupuncture
session to finish. The pungent herbal
smell, reminiscent of marijuana, filled
the small waiting room with its cane
chairs and glass-fronted cabinets full
of Pe Min Kan Wan, Xiang Sha Liu Jun
Wan. A model of a human body
marked with meridians sat atop one
of the cabinets; there was the
obligatory golden Lucky Cat atop
another. A kids’ toybox – a yellow
plastic crate – filled with plastic cars
and battered board books sat in one
corner.
“How was it?” I asked.
“More work needed on the
spleen.” Okay.
At the Out of the Blue Café,
we had date scones and coffee. Why
were there so many small troubles,
things we had to try and resolve? We
lacked energy, since our health was
poor. It turned out hers was far worse
than we thought.
I remembered the days
twenty years ago when, newly
married, we had belonged to the
fabulous in-crowd. Nothing could
touch us then. Now look at me, I
thought morosely. Belly straining at
overly-tight pants. Unsightly bags
under the eyes, chronic pains in
various parts of the body. Where
once I‘d woken up fresh as a daisy in
the morning and bounded out to
greet the day like a young gazelle,
now I awoke in a stupor, staggering
out to breakfast with a headache and
a stiff neck. It didn’t seem to matter
that I went to bed early or tried to
treat myself kindly. It was the
entropy – things running down, the
body groaning at its continued use
through the years.
These days, indulgence took
precedence over duty. Any notion I
had back then of being responsible
had died with my marriage. Now I
passed my days in a fug of smoke,
sometimes drugged, often drunk. I
kept strange hours, immured in my
own indolence.
Another, more interesting
woman sat at another table. She was
a slender blonde with sensous lips,
pale creamy skin, dark eyelashes,
long flowing hair. I fantasised about
her: young enough to be into bands
like the Kooks and the Arctic
Monkeys. Occasionally, I thought, she
listens to skate music – lo-fi, blunted
beats over deft guitar melodies and
solid bass foundation. Probably got a
boyfriend the same age.
She didn’t so much walk up to
me as undulate in my direction, until
before I knew it she was right there.
She had on a powder-blue dress,
light and summery, that left her
shoulders bare. Small pearl earrings.
Tight black stockings showed off her
shapely legs. Bright red shoes.
Around her neck was a string of dark
wooden beads and on her right
forefinger, a chunky amber ring. I
had, at best, a cloudy knowledge of
fashion, but I liked what I saw.
Slightly startled that she had
approached, I was aware of the faint
scent of cinnamon coming off her
skin, the round smoothness of her
shoulders.
“May I join you?”
“Of course.” I tried to kid
myself I knew all about her as soon
as I saw her. Her lips would taste like
luscious wine, her kisses would be
intense. Her pale skin gave me a
blissful amorous sense.
I was sick of my life, of
moping around. For some moments, I
honestly thought about getting this
girl into bed. But something in her
eyes set me on edge; her look was so
direct I could hardly face it. She lit up
a cigarette. I took this as my cue to
speak.
“Can I get you a drink?”
“What?”
“I’d like to buy you a drink.
What’ll you have?” I was direct as
she was, not wanting to say anything
contrived.
She gave me an appraising
glance, then; unclenched her hands,
which opened like twin blossoms
unfolding. “Daquiri”.
I gave her my most boyish
smile. I nodded to her unvoiced
question. “I’ll get myself a whiskey”. I
motioned to the waitress, who
brought us the drinks. She gave me
an odd look, which I took to mean
she wondered why I had switched my
drinks.
I noticed while we talked that
she gestured with her hands a lot,
using them like elegant wedges to
emphasise her point. She spread
them wide, or clenched her fist, and
talked wide-eyed, enthusiastically. I
imagined making love to her: the
way her arm might tighten around
my waist, the darkness of the tangle
between her legs. I played
deliberately with the notion of taking
her home, willing myself to feel alive
again. I managed to picture her
opulent hips poised in provocation. I
thought of her cool eyes, her liquid
fingers, her nudity glittering with
sweat as she seduced me.
“I feel like cutting loose and
getting mashed tonight” she said.
She smiled. I smiled back. It was all
possible.
We continued talking the
small talk that strangers often do
when meeting for the first time. But
something about her was injured. Oh,
there was electricity there, we both
sensed it, and we would play the
game for a while. But something
about her reminded me of old injuries
of my own. The time I’d cut my wrist
on a broken glass while pushing it
into the wastebin and had to go to
the hospital for stitches. The car
crash I’d once been in on Gladesville
Bridge – coming up over the bridge’s
crest, blithely laughing and talking
with friends, when – wham! – our car
collided with a vehicle that had
stalled just over the crest, and I
walked away with whiplash. This girl
was attractive, but I sensed she
could be bad news. Inside, I was
already drawing back. I noticed too,
that her eyes were almost colourless.
It wasn’t a good sign.
Suddenly, not wanting to
encourage her further, I began to talk
haltingly. Before long, I was letting
the silence develop. I couldn’t do
this. I had to rescind the illusion that
anything could be the same without
Val. Anyway, this girl must have
some surreptitious motivation. I was
no longer young and attractive.
The conversation faltered
badly. She walked away.
Chalk that one up to
experience, I told myself.
Back home, I sat listening to
the evening sounds. A possum
dropped on the roof with a thump.
Bushes scratched at the window.
There was the “fark, fark, fark” of
great glossy black ravens perching
on the high TV aerials. Cats loped
across the road in the gloom. Raised
voices carried from the housing
commission flats opposite - another
blazing argument was in progress. I
looked out the kitchen window.
Against the clouds’ underside
blossomed a red haze that might
have been sunset but was more
likely reflected flame from the
steelworks.
I set up my camcorder on its
tripod and replayed some of the old
home movies. There was Val, with
me and some of our friends,
gathered around the barbecue
equipment. Plates of sausages,
onions, and rolls, Val’s delicious
terrine; glasses of red wine. I could
almost savour the tantalising aroma
of the special rice concoction that my
friend Bruce always made at such
occasions. Good days, despite
Bruce’s insistence on wearing shirts
so loud I had to block my ears. Val:
red-haired, fierce, independent. How
could I do anything without her in my
life? Here she was packing the
station wagon: folding chairs, tables,
picnic blankets packed up safely for
the return trip.
Here was more footage: me
escorting Val at the opening of her
play. She was wearing a black
feather in her hair. A friend must
have taken that using our camera.
In another shot, we were
drinking beer outdoors at the pub at
the seaside town of Thirroul, Bruce’s
band pumping out r&b. The
escarpment rises above, grey and
green jutting against a cabbage-
coloured sky, water sluicing down
through the valleys and rifts, old
miners’ cottages staggered against
them. Where, I wondered, did
Lawrence get the internal reserves to
cope with Thirroul in the 1920’s? I’d
visited Wyewurk with Val, the
Californian-style bungalow D.H.
Lawrence and his partner Frieda had
lived in - a wintry shack where he
cooked up the plot to his Australian
novel Kangaroo. Frieda had been
independent, a free spirit, yet loyal to
Lawrence. I thought of Thirroul now,
a cluster of shops about to be
gentrified and commodified out of
existence. The film showed a few
shots here of Sunday lunch after
Sedition by the Sea lectures in the
old Railway Institute Hall: dusty
portraits of Labour Party once-greats
on the walls, where Val and I had
gone in our activist days.
I remembered Val’s voice: it
was hot lemon, honey and vanilla
when you’ve just come in from the
rain. On the film, still running, she
turned to the camera and smiled, her
teeth pearl white, a strand of her
auburn hair blowing across her face.
The last scene was a holiday we’d
taken, the spray from the waterfall
behind her flying up into the air in a
drift of coloured droplets that the sun
caught.
The film ran out. There was no
footage of the hospital, where Val
had lain for months as the cancer
took her inch by inch. No footage of
that, or of the funeral. No-one had
filmed me either, as I grieved
afterwards. I was glad our collection
showed only the good stuff.
I switched off the camcorder
and sat. The TV’s blank screen stared
back at me. My hands grew clammy.
I hugged myself against the sudden
chill in the room, drew my ratty black
bomber jacket closer around me. TWO PARODIES
I cooked. I watched a TV
programme about a woman who
by Bryce J. Stevens
taught people how to train their dogs
better. After that, there was the news THE LORD OF LEWD: CLARK
programme: the usual stuff about ASHTON SMITH AND THE
children being forced to work in the FICTION OF FORNICATION
copper mines in the Congo, about
twenty-six people having died today
Auburn-Haired Press presents
in suicide bombings in Iraq. I walked
the fiction of one of the masters
around the room, picking up things at
of 20th century erotica. Here are
random, putting them down again. A
the unexpurgated pennings of
clock chimed eerily in the silent
porn from the man who invented
darkness. Got to get grounded, I told
“The Ashton Position”.
myself. But I couldn’t help
remembering a time before the Net,
A masterful narrative of seediness
before Ebay, before Google, before
and chicanery, which some believe
Amazon. It was a primeval time of
germinated his mature period.
typewriters and liquid paper. A time
The Witchcraft of Ovule
when we had both been speechless
with passion, in bed and out of it.
CAS was at his peak here. He gave
Where was the pulse, the
freely of his time to other writers,
clamour, now? I closed my eyes and
passing on what he’d himself
thought of kissing Val, her lips bee-
received.
sweet. Faint rainy noises, muted by
The Passer of the Crabs
the walls, came from outside. The
room had gotten dark. I got up and
For the first time since its initial
switched the light on. I looked at the
publication in Very Weird Tales TM in
grease and dust on the surfaces of
1931, we give you a delicate tale of
things, the kitchen cupboards with
client’s friction, which opened the
their shabby paint, some swinging
gates for Smith’s entry into the
open because their latches were
‘Slicks’.
broken and I couldn’t be bothered
Vulvathoom
fixing them anymore.
I got into bed and pulled the
Uncensored, for the first time in print,
blankets over my head. I was awake
we give you the stream-of-conscious
most of the night.
autobiographical vignette of authorial
But I must have dreamed at
delusion:
some point. In the dream, I was out
The Colossus of Yours
in the street. I saw myself turn up my
coat collar and quickly walk away
With tongue in cheek and elsewhere,
from my house. I felt on the cusp of a
Smith celebrates his sexual
revelation. A cloud passed over the
permissiveness in a narrative of a
moon. There was an extraordinary
smorgasm of orgasm:
feeling that it prefigured something
The Cumming of the White Worm
important, but what?
Next day, I set the camcorder
For years not believed to be a Smith
replaying the film’s last scene,
story, this has since been accredited
looped to run endlessly backwards.
to him and has been acknowledged
On the screen, behind the face of the
as a minor masterpiece. A story of
woman I had loved, water ran uphill,
jealousy, obsession and spiked
flowing from below to above. Time
drinks:
ran in reverse.
The Passing of Aphrodisiac
But it couldn’t be like that for
me. I packed a suitcase, got in the
A rare tale of pain and humiliation,
Volvo, and headed out of town and
this is a story of interspecies sex and
away from the coast for good.
epidermal infatuation.
Master of the Hemorrhoid
 Lovecraft’s burgeoning interest in
“A fucking good read” – Hillary animals in:
Clinton The Bestiality in the Cave
“Bugger me! I loved this book” –
Martha Stewart For a good titillating read just pull
open the covers and slip between the
For information on our other sheets amid luscious prose.
titles, simply log on to
www.smithsonianporn@slipitin.c Get your copy now from our
om.us website at
www.howarhardonforlove.com.u
OF CAVES, DARK HOLES s Or wherever good porn is sold.
AND VAGINAS: THE
PRONOGRAPHIC PROSE OF
THE PROVIDENCE POET MANTICHORUS:
MAILING NOTES FOR SSFWT #23
Dagon/Gonad Press and Onya
Sonia Books are proud to present a
Scott: Dalriadic Chronicles 46: I
collection of saucy tales from the
enjoyed your thoughts on women
man who put the Love in
and fantasy fiction. I think my main
Lovecraft, the one and only HPL.
curiosity was why there are no
women in SSFWT. Maybe this is yet
Daring tales of sex and death
to be remedied. Wow! Your mailing
and cheap crackers by Howard
comments are extensive, even to the
Phillips ‘Screwdriver’ Lovecraft.
point of giving an index to them on p.
6! Puts me to shame. The stuff about
A tale of backwoods lust, nocturnal
Dunsany and chess was highly
emissions, farm animals and incest
interesting to me. I love chess and
in:
have some occult theories about it
The Dunwich Whorer
(64 is a highly significant occult
number and corresponds to the
She invaded his dreams, took him to
number of squares on the
a south-seas island and made him
chessboard; I’ll publish an article
worship her and indulge in water
some day on my whole take on this).
sports, in
Have recently read a book called Idle
The Call of Lulu
Passion: Chess and the Dance of
Death, with many psychological
A swelling tale of new dimensions in
theories about the game –
Lovecraft’s lusty tale of a
fascinating stuff! Congratulations on
mathematics teacher and a very
Brianne’s pregnancy!
familiar rival:
Wet Dreams in the Witch House
Mark: Opharion 1: Welcome to
SSFWT! I know of you by reputation,
A tale of carnality under the slyly
of course. I have only one issue of
winking moon in:
Wormwood and wish I could afford to
The Fling in the Moonlight
buy more. I would like to submit, too,
but the usual pressures of time and
A Kinky-knickers fetishist on a boat
too many projects has prevented me
cruise has his life turned into a major
from doing so thus far. I’m on the
fantasy in:
Machen e-list so you may see posts
The White Slip
from me there on occasion. The
article on Lewis Grassic Gibbon was
Then there’s the deservedly much-
fascinating; it’s always good to see
reprinted tale of the author’s love of
obscure authors written up well, and
woman’s anatomy:
a bibliography is useful too, so
The Unmentionable
thanks.
We’re also proud to present here, an
early work, which first showed
Ben: Quill is Mightier 23:
Congratulations on your continued
success with studies and job
placement. Similar congrats for you
non-lit crit writing gigs. While Mariah
Carey is not my cup of tea, I’m sure
writing for All Mariah will be an
enjoyable exercise for you – as doing
interviews for Rhyme and Reason. I
always enjoy your film and comics
reviews. Gone are the days when I
had time to buy and read any current
comics/graphics novels, but it’s good
to know something about them. Well,
re The Da Vinci Code, I do differ with
you – I enjoyed the novel as a page
turning thriller (though with low
literary values) and think that its
main positive effect has been to
make people think more about the
idea of the Sacred Feminine. In our
patriarchal society we are sadly
lacking in perspective about this, and
if the Da Vinci Code has re-awoken
people (or turned them onto) this
concept, I for one applaud it.
Anyhow, I’m a sucker for books about
secret codes and ciphers. The article
on Bloch and Fitzgerald influences on
Ellis’s American Psycho deserves to
be (or should be) fleshed out to
further support your deductions;
interesting, but too brief, I feel. It was
excellent to see an essay on WH
Hodgson, one of the all-time classic
weird writers, and too-little studied.
You asked me if there’s a large
magical arts following in Sydney.
Well – too huge a question to answer
in short. Pagan presence in Australia
is steadily growing across the board.
I personally was initiated in the OTO
(Aleister Crowley’s magical
organisation) and worked with them
for years before moving to
Wollongong. There are many more
Wiccan and Druidic groups, though
there are ceremonial magic-focussed
orders and groups such as the OTO.
When I update my website there will
be plenty of information there. I
would still like to see member photos
made compulsory! Thanks for
suggesting sending my CAS essay to
Connors, I’ll have to get around to it.
John Howard : Change-Winds 13:
Thanks for pointing out the movie
version of Lovecraft’s “The Hound”
on those Lurker Films compilations. I
have not yet been able to afford
buying those, but they are on my
wants list, along with a doco on HPL
called THE ELDRITCH INFLUENCE.
Glad you like Solar Pons; I really must
write more about the Pons stuff,
including all Basil Copper’s updates
to the genre. I didn’t really know
about the variant versions of
geography etc in the stories as I read
all Derleth’s tales of Pons many years
ago, and haven’t yet caught up with
all the Copper ones. I enjoyed your
look at Michael McDowell’s work. I
read several of his books in the
eighties and enjoyed them.
Mike: Koshtra Belorn 11: Another
article – an extensive one - on
McDowell, in the same mailing with
John’s piece. An excellent overview
which I really enjoyed reading. On
Tolkien, I must confess my abysmal
ignorance. Both my partners are
devoted lovers of old JRR, but I
cannot fruitfully comment. I got
halfway through LOTR in high school
before giving up, and have never
finished the trilogy. I saw all the
movies and greatly appreciated
them; perhaps I’ll read the books one
day. The Lovecraft CD sounds good.
There is a plethora of Lovecraft audio
CD’s coming out. Back in the old
days one could only get things like
the Caedmon recordings of certain
stories, or the old Roddy McDowell
album. My friend Danny gave me a
burned copy of an HPL CD that
features many stories I have never
heard read before, including early
ones like “the Beast in the Cave” etc.
Glad to know you’re a Holmes
aficionado. Perhaps I’ll print my
“Return of the Hound” here some
time – it needs some serious work
before seeing print.
Martin: Hyperborean Exhalations
12: Your new book acquisitions are
astounding. I used to buy a lot of
books, and still do get rather a lot
although I am very poor. Surely you
don’t read all these as you acquire
them!!? Congratulations on the new
job, and the apartment. I was
delighted to hear of the imminent
release of the Lovecraft/Barlow
correspondence, as news of this had
not reached me from other sources. I
still try and buy every new book
about HPL, though I long gave up on
collecting Mythos fiction – there’s just
too damned much of it these days,
and most of it not very good. And
the Lovecraft/Derleth
correspondence due too – excellent!
(Rubs hands together in Mr Smithers
fashion). I wish I’d had time to do all
of your intriguing Lovecraft quiz, but
studies prevented me. I enjoyed “Abe
Sapien, Outsider”. I only know
Hellboy from the movie, but loved it.
(Which leads me to remark that I’m
looking forward to Guillermo del
Torro’s Pan’s Labyrinth for its Machen
and Alice in Wonderland overtones,
and also to his mooted At the
Mountains of Madness adaptation.
Now there’s a director that could film
one of HPL’s greatest works in a
moody, haunting and terrifying
fashion).
John Mayer : Nightmayericana 2:
John, a superb memoir of Karl Edward
Wagner. Karl’s year’s best horror
anthologies were hugely influential
on me, and he was one of the
dedicatees when I edited Terror
Australis: Best Australian Horror in
1993. A greatly talented writer. His
columns in Fantasy Newsletter were
memorable for their wit and wisdom
about writing craft and the genres of
horror and sword and sorcery. I miss
his point of view, as well as his
excellent horror tales.
NECRONOMICON PRESS BOOKS
WANTED – LEIGH BLACKMORE
If anyone has any of these for sale or
trade, please let me know!!
Brian Stableford – THE INNSMOUTH
HERITAGE
Richard F. Searight – THE BRAIN IN
THE JAR: COLLECTED STORIES &
POEMS ONE
Ramsey Campbell – TWO OBSCURE
TALES
Barlow, Robert H & HP Lovecraft –
THE HOARD OF THE WIZARD-BEAST
AND ONE OTHER
Barlow – ON LOVECRAFT AND LIFE
HP LOVECRAFT LETTERS TO SAMUEL
LOVEMAN & VINCENT STARRETT
Leonard Cline – THE LADY OF
FROZEN DEATH & OTHER WEIRD
TALES
Joan C. Stanley – EX LIBRIS
MISKATONICI
Ramsey Campbell – TWILIGHT TALES
FROM MERSEYSIDE audiocassette
Jane Rice – THE SIXTH DOG
Don D’Ammassa – TWISTED IMAGES
Clark Ashton Smith – TALES OF
ZOTHIQUE
Frank Belknap Long – ESCAPE FROM
TOMORROW: THREE PREVIOUSLY
UNREPRINTED WEIRD TALES
Brian Stableford – FABLES &
FANTASIES
William R. Stotler – THE FINAL DIARY
ENTRY OF KEES HUIJGENS
Clark Ashton Smith – THE BOOK OF
HYPERBOREA
Donald R Burleson – SPIDERS AND
MILK audiocassette
Clark Ashton Smith – LIVE FROM
AUBURN: THE ELDER TAPES 11
poems read by the author Book +
cassette
HP LOVECRAFT LETTERS TO ROBERT
BLOCH
HP LOVECRAFT LETTTERS TO HENRY
KUTTNER
HP LOVECRAFT LETTERS RICHARD F
SEARIGHT
HP LOVECRAFT LETTERS TO ROBERT
BLOCH SUPPLEMENT
HP LOVECRAFT IN THE ARGOSY:
COLLECTED CORRESPONDENCE
FROM THE MUNSEY MAGAZINES
Fred Chappell – THE LODGER
David Langford – IRRATIONAL
NUMBERS
CRYPT OF CTHULHU – many issues
needed, particularly after 70
LOVECRAFT STUDIES – several issues
needed, esp after 41
NECROFILE – most issues needed
STUDIES IN WEIRD FICTION - need all
except 2, 9, 16, 21, 25.
Leigh BLACKMORE
 FuBar, Masque
Noir, Outpost, Severed Head,
Shadowplay, Shoggoth, Sirius, Tabula
Rasa and www.tabula-rasa.info,
Talents & Twilit Grotto.

His weird fiction has appeared in

is editor of Terror Agog! Fantastic Fiction, Agog!
Australis: Best Terrific Tales, Avatar, Bold Action,
Australian Horror Micro, Phantastique & Pulse of
(Sydney: Coronet, Darkness and online at
1993); co-author www.ligotti.net and
(with Dr Van Ikin) www.writingshow.com. His first book
The Eternal Yes: The of fiction is Uncharted & Other
Affirmations of Terry Strange Excursions; in 2004 its title
Dowling story was nominated for a Ditmar
(forthcoming); author Award for Best Novella & received an
Terry Dowling: Honourable Mention in The Year’s
Virtuoso of the Best Horror & Fantasy (17th annual,)
Fantastic (R’lyeh Texts, 2005); ed. Ellen Datlow et al. His weird verse
author Harlan Ellison/Terry has appeared in Arkham Sampler,
Dowling/Jack Dann: A Bibliographic Avallaunius, Beastly,
Checklist (Sydney: R’lyeh Texts, www.chaosmagic.com, EOD,
1996); co-author (with S.T. Joshi) Etchings & Odysseys, New Lovecraft
H.P. Lovecraft and Lovecraft Collector, Shoggoth, Telmar, &
Criticism: A Bibliographical www.eldritchdark.com, where he was
Supplement 1980-84 (West Warwick, Featured Poet of the Month Oct 2005.
RI: Necronomicon Press, 1985); General poetry has appeared in
author, Brian Lumley: A New Tertangala.
Bibliography (Sydney: Dark Press,
1984; San Bernadino CA: Borgo Leigh has reviewed horror & fantasy
Press, 1986). fiction for www.AsIf.com, EOD,
Galaxy Newsletter, Prohibited Matter,
Science Fiction, Shoggoth, Skinned
Alive & The Sydney Morning Herald.
He formerly co-edited (with Glayne
He has contributed to various Louise) Mythopoeia: The Newsletter
scholarly works on of Dymocks SF & Fantasy (1995-97)
speculative fiction & Terror Australis: The Australian
including Horror & Fantasy Magazine (with
Supernatural Chris G.C. Sequeira & B.J. Stevens)
Literature of the (1987-92). He regularly contributes
World An the zine Mantichore to the SSFWT
Encyclopedia amateur press association.
(Westport, CT:
Greenwood Press, He co-founded The Sydney Horror
2005.) He is a co-editor (with chief Writers & Artists Society (The
editor Benjamin J. Szumskyj) of the Gargoyle Club) & has been NSW
bi-annual journal Studies in Correspondent for Australian SF
Australian Weird Fiction. Other Writers News, local representative for
critical writings & interviews with Horror Writers of America, & a judge
leading writers in speculative fiction on the annual George Turner Awards
have appeared in Australian Horror for best first sf novel. He is an active
and Fantasy Magazine, Crypt of member of the Sydney Passengers
Cthulhu, Dagon, Dayspring, E.O.D., Sherlock Holmes Society.
His non-writing pursuits include
specto-situationism, mixed-media
collage & high magick. He is an
initiate of Ordo Templi Orientis. As
founder of Aurora Australis Thelemic
Temple, he regularly runs esoteric
workshops in the Illawarra and with
Margi Curtis co-facilitates MoonSkin
coven. His published esoteric work
includes Transpersonal Magick (with
Margi Curtis, forthcoming); & poetry
& reviews for Beastly, Crossroads,
Kwa, Shadowplay, Sirius, ThAT (which
he edited for seven issues) &
Waratah magazines. His regular
column “Arts of the Craft” (with
Margi Curtis) appears in each issue of
internationally distributed magazine
Spellcraft.

Leigh worked for over 25 years in the

book trade. Currently he is a
freelance manuscript assessor for
various agencies and is undertaking
a BA Creative Arts (specialising in
Creative Writing) at the University of
Wollongong. His website, The
Blackmausoleum, is at
http://members.optusnet.com.au/lvx
nox/