Monthly Archives: January 2018

Liber Cultes de Vulpes

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Well my idea about transferring my Facebook posts to my blog didn't work for the last couple of days. Too busy to transcribe. So, instead I thought I'd talk about something near and dear to my heart. Books.

Half Price Books is a chain of used book stores, quite a few in Texas and other scattered across the US. The flagship store is in Dallas, north of SMU. I like going there because they have a lot of book turnover. The downside is, occasionally my book expenditures are a little...crazy. Today was such a day, also, things got weird.

First part reminded me of the opening scene of a horror movie. I walked in, by a display of journals and notebooks, and the word 'Satan' caught my eye. Odd for a journal... so I looked. It's a 50's hardback about diabolism and assorted related stuff, mostly translated from a French medical journal about religious Psychology, if I'm reading right. Lots of S.J. (Jesuits) as article authors. It should have been in the rare/nostalgia section, but I guess someone was being silly. So yeah, I grabbed it. As I was wandering around the store, I kept thinking. "Jeez, I've seen this horror movie where the lead finds a random book on Satan in the first act, and then all hell breaks loose.' Which had me giggling. I may leave the book in a box of salt though...just in case.

I found a number of other odd books. A hardback collection from the 40's of weird fiction edited by August Derleth, 'The Night Side'. Not Arkham House, the publisher is Reinhart, which I haven't heard of before. Nice book, some authors I don't know, but it's got Lovecraft and Machen and Dunsany. Bloch and Wandrei and Kuttner as well. Also for a reasonable price, or so I told myself *wink* This was also in rare/nostalgia.

In the horror section I found a couple of S.T. Joshi edited criticism, a nice trade paperback of Chambers 'The King in Yellow', and two paperback story collections. One 'Cults of Horror' is a 90's DAW collection, with a reprint of Karl Wagner's 'The Sticks', and one of those classic covers. The other is 'Tales of the Occult' from the 70's, with more Machen, MR James, Blackwood and some other authors. Always good to find old friends in books. Last was 'The Green Man' by Kingsley Amis. The back blurb mixed words like 'horror' 'satire' 'post-Lovecraft' 'slapstick' and other weirdness. So I grabbed it, odd to find that mix of words anywhere. So yeah, a lot of good things in the horror section for me.

I also picked up a Eurohorror flick, 'Beyond the Darkness' which seemed weird and up my alley. It's playing now, pretty standard Italian horror bizarre...with the plus of a soundtrack by Goblin, same band that did the music for 'Suspiria'. I saw a couple of other movies I wanted, but not for the price they were asking. Then after some more wandering in the rare book area (No I don't need an 18th century book with a Latin title that sounds like it's out of Lovecraft's library...it was a medical text I think), I headed over to the religious/metaphysical/occult section...

The occult side of things seemed to be the usual Wicca and related stuff, with a fairly nice selection of 'the history of witchcraft', but nothing that leaped out at me. Same with the Druid side of things...but under the actual 'Occult' shelf, there was something that had me written all over it. A Princeton University press work on Greek and Roman Necromancy. Author is Daniel Ogden. Hits a number of my buttons, ancient history? Check. Scholary work? Check. Esoterica? Check, double check and mate. Plus I got a good deal on it, about half what it seems Amazon wants for it *grin* I think that just leaped to the head of the to read pile. They also had a big section on 'esoterica' (read Templars, Masons and Jesus conspiracies) and 'Gnosticism' (Dead Sea Scrolls, more Jesus conspiracies, and similar), but nothing else leaped at me, at least that I wasn't sure I already owned. Will have to do some organizing and list making before a return visit.

So yeah, my book hunt was fruitful as heck. Necromancy, random book on Satan waiting for me as I walked in, and lots of my favorite kind of fiction. Now if I suddenly go silent, make sure to not read aloud any of the books on my desk, and 'have ye words for laying ready at readie and stoppe not to be sure when there be any Doubte of Whom you have.' *grin*

Yog-Sothoth Neblod Zin
Vulpine

01/10/18 – daily stuff

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09:57
More bad dreams, was living back in NY, with Mom. Dad was dead, and in the middle of the night some 'Christian Psychics' were there to tell us what Dad wanted us to do. They knew odd facts about Dad, so Mom was believing them even though I pointed out that's not hard info to find. They did something, and suddenly I was shooting all three of them, repeatedly as if they were monsters in a horror movie. While Mom sat there shocked, I dragged the bodies down to the basement and dissolved them in acid (that we just happened to keep around). Then I woke up. W! T! F!!! Dear subconscious, stop with the dead relative dreams, please ?

10:12
Also woke up with aching joints, and a meh mood. Today I need to clean some stuff up, and start the Jan patching. Also need to go to get my weekly allergy shot. Wild times.

15;34
Starting the Jan patch schedule for Carcosa Corp. So of course, I'm listening to an audiobook of 'The King in Yellow'. Lets see if I can unmask these servers...

18:22
Does the previous comment make me a 'Repairer of Replications' ?

Five dollars in The Imperial Dynasty of America currency if you get the joke. ;)

19:46
And patching done, at least the development shoggoths. Tune in tomorrow, when I do it again.

Providence, here I come!

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Well, it's official. I'll be going to Providence for StokerCon this year. Actually decided to spend an entire week up there, (stoker runs from Thurs-Sunday) so I can have a few days to wander Grandpa Theobald's stomping grounds. Not staying at the 'con hotel, but I'm just a couple of blocks away at The Dean, which is where I planned to stay last time. Yay for vacation plans!

I'm also thinking I may consolidate, edit and post my more common Facebook ramblings into a daily post. Then hopefully I can turn my weekly post into something more interesting, if to no one else...me. It's easier for me to do daily rambles there. We'll see.

First Post of the Year

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Well it's the new year. First week of the new year has been kind of nuts. New Years Day was friend time and book hunting. Have had a lot of trouble getting up in the mornings to go to work. But each day was a little easier. Work itself has been a kind of mixed bag, spent most of Friday troubleshooting a Linux issue with one of the other groups at Carcosa Corp. Lots of 'why do you do $x, and $y and...huh that's odd'. Think I figured out the issue for the client, but waiting on their testing which isn't quick.

WEekend has pretty much just been movies, books and sleep. Got the chores done too, well most of them. Need to put together stuff for the work week, have to deal with my car's registration, and I should probably pack up the work laptop...because given how fuzzy I am on Monday mornings, I probably would show up sans laptop. Work week will be busy, first patches of the new year...and boy do I have some big things to deal with. (see computer news in the last week for details). No plans for next weekend as of yet, probably will need some more hermit time post patching/general work week. But I also want to see people, possibly people with cats. I miss cats.

Forgot I'd planned on work foo tonight. Got reminded a while ago when one of the tester's pinged me about it. The brain needs an upgrade, or I need a keeper. I'm going to go ahead and finish this post, since I've been working on it since Saturday.