THE CALL (FOR TAKEOUT) OF CTHULHU -- I've just come across the funniest thing (at least funny if you're weird like me). H.P. Lovecraft, the greatest horror author of the 20th century already, wrote a voluminous amount of letters in his lifetime and in them he revealed his favourite foods. This is just the cutest thing! In a letter to Robert E. Howard (Conan the Barbarian's daddy) on November 7, 1932, HPL wrote "I’m not, however, a heavy eater—take only 2 meals per day, since my digestion raises hell if I try to eat oftener than once in 7 hours. In winter, when it’s too cold for me to go out much, I subsist largely on canned stuff. I always get my own breakfasts, anyway—doughnuts and cheese. I have financial economy in eating worked out to a fine art, and know the self-service lunch rooms where I can get the best bargains. I never spend more than $3.00 per week on food, and often not even nearly that." But for someone who hardly ate (especially in his near-poverty New York years), HPL sure had a lot of opinions on food. In a letter to Mrs. Fritz Leiber (Dec. 20, 1936), HPL revealed his preference for spicy foods: "On the contrary, my tastes call for the most blisteringly high-seasoned materials conceivable, and for desserts as close to 100% C12H22O11 as possible. Indeed, of this latter commodity I never employ less than four teaspoons in an average cup of coffee. Favourite dinners—Italian spaghetti, chili con carne, Hungarian goulash (save when I can get white meat of turkey with highly-seasoned dressing)."
The old master was a definite carnivore. In a letter to Robert E. Howard Nov. 7, 1932 he wrote: "Of meats, I fancy I rather prefer beef for all-around consumption, but like most others pretty well. Fond of sausage—especially the old fashioned baked or fried sort. Like fowl—but white meat only. Can’t bear dark meat. My really favourite meal is the regular old New England turkey dinner, with highly seasoned dressing, cranberry sauce, onions, etc., and mince pie for dessert." In the same letter, HPL also writes: "Like Italian cooking very much—especially spaghetti with meat-and-tomato sauce, utterly engulfed in a snowbank of grated Parmesan cheese." Ole HPL even deftly turned a phrase in his correspondence as well as his stories. But he had no time for people (like Finkmaster Flash) who disliked cheese! In the same Oct. 30th letter to Vernon Shea, HPL lays down the law!: "How can anybody dislike cheese? And yet Little Belknap (fellow author Frank Belknap Long) hates it as badly as you do! I don’t suppose you would like spaghetti if you don’t like cheese, for the two rather go together." (to J. Vernon Shea, 30 October 1931).
In a letter to J. Vernon Shea (Dec. 9, 1931), HPL reveals his love of Hershey bars (!): "Hershey's sweet chocolate is one of my favourite nibbles." He seems to be a bit of a chocoholic as, in a letter to Robert E. Howard (Nov. 7, 1932) he states he loves chocolate "...in nearly any form -- cake, frosting, sweet milk chocolate, etc." Lovecraft munched on french fries, too: "I, too, am an enthusiastic potato-ite’—& guess I like the fried form best of all." (Oct. 30, 1931 letter). HPL's opinions on ice cream flavours? To Vernon Shea (Nov. 10, 1931) he wrote: "But I more often take ice cream, of which my favourite flavours are vanilla & coffee (the latter hard to get outside New England) & my least relished common flavour is strawberry." And it appears that H. P. Lovecraft was a sucker for Smuckers! "But as for jam or jelly—I am your utter opposite, for I like it so well that I pile on amounts thicker than the bread which sustains them!" (to J. Vernon Shea, 10 November 1931) "Pie is my favourite dessert," HPL wrote Robert E Howard on Nov. 7, 1932, "and blueberry (for summer) and mince (for winter) are my preferred kinds—with apple as a good all-year-round third. Like to take vanilla ice cream with apple and blueberry pie." I am, though, quite alarmed that we don't seem to have Lovecraft's opinion on puddin'. I'm sure he liked it, though. How could he not? Even Yog-Sothoth sucked down a puddin' or two. At least in my mind, he did. However, HPL had some definite opinions on veggies, in his Oct. 30, 1932 letter to Vernon Shea which stated, as only Lovecraft could: "Of other vegetables I like peas & onions, can tolerate cabbage & turnips, am neutral toward cauliflower, have no deep enmity toward carrots, prefer to dodge parsnips & asparagus, shun string beans & brussel sprouts & abominate spinach. I like rhubarb—& am also really fond of baked beans prepared in the ancient New England way..."
It never really occurred to me to wonder what foods H.P. Lovecraft (or any other author) enjoyed but it was kinda fun to get a little window glimpse into what made the old boy tick. Besides Cthulhu who lies sleeping. After all, we ALL know what The Great Cthulhu liked to eat. It's that stuff they make soylent green outta!
The archaeologist Toby possessed by the "devil", covered in ancient demonic runes, is a startling image and the Lovecraftian slave-aliens (The Ood) are splendidly tentacly. Standout performance is by Claire Rushbrook as Ida Scott. Rating: ****
Did I cry? You bet I did! A very respectable way to end the season. Standout performance in Army of Ghosts is by Tracy-Ann Oberman as Torchwood director Yvonne Hartman Standout performances in Doomsday were provided by Rose, The Doctor, Jackie and Mickey: the bedrock upon which the season stood. Rating: ****
OK, I won't even MENTION that car drive home from Chez Fink today when everyone substituted the word "Puddin'" for other words in book/movie titles i.e. Lady Chatterly's Puddin' or How Stella Got Her Puddin' Back! Suffice it to say that Puddin' Mania is spreading like tapioca on an outhouse door! BUT, when I see my mother (who's favourite flavour of puddin' -- butterscotch -- is picture over there) and she spontaneously breaks out into some sort of beatnik puddin' poetry -- well, Puddin' has conquered the universe. Here's what she recited: 
No, I haven't gotten the puddin' thing out of my system just yet!!! Here's a real blast from my past. When I was a tiny little tot, my mother used to give me Gerber Baby Food's Blueberry Buckle. Now, it wasn't mashed up blueberries or anything like that; it was an actual blueberry puddin', if there is such a thing. Now, it was awesome, let me tell you. It was so good that both my mother and I were both still polishing off jars of it when I was older and in elementary school, in fact. The stuff was incredible! Sadly, sometime in the mid-70's Gerber stopped making the damn thing so we just had to jones. HOWEVER, this little thing called the internet appears to be telling me that Gerber is STILL MAKING Blueberry Buckle. The pessimist in me has a nagging feeling that, if I manage to taste a jar once again, it won't be anywhere near as good as it was when I was a kid. But, hey, as a card-carrying Puddie I have to at least TRY, don't I??? I gotta get me some of this stuff fast, gang! I wonder if the local supermarket has it because, if it doesn't, I'm gonna have to buy this stuff online or something. Puddies Unite!!! Brandish your spoons and stuff some puddin' in your faces!!!!
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable."
"People kill and are killed because they cling too tightly to their own beliefs and ideologies. When we believe that ours is the only faith that contains the truth, violence and suffering will surely be the result."
"Consider the history of America closely. Never has America lost a war. When engaged in warfare the United States has always applied the principle of overkill and mercilessly stamped its opposition into the dust . . . But name, if you can, the last peace the United States won. Victory yes, but this country has never made a successful peace because peace requires exchanging ideas, concepts, thoughts, and recognizing the fact that two distinct systems of life can exist together without conflict. Consider how quickly America seems to be facing its allies of one war as new enemies."
"We have forgotten the very principle of our origins, if we forget how to object, how to resist, how to agitate, how to pull down and build up, even to the extent of revolutionary practices if it be necessary."
"When I hear another express an opinion which is not mine, I say to myself, he has a right to his opinion, as I to mine. Why should I question it? His error does me no injury, and shall I become a Don Quixote, to bring all men by force of argument to one opinion?"
"Nobody gives anybody their freedom. People can only deny somebody their freedom. . . They don't give us anything! You've got to get that clear in your mind."
"If you think the United States has stood still, who built the largest shopping center in the world?"
"Our republics cannot long exist in prosperity. We require adversity and appear to possess most of the republican spirit when most depressed."
"Without Freedom of Thought, there can be no such thing as Wisdom; and no such thing as publick Liberty, without Freedom of Speech; which is the right of every man, as far as by it, he does not hurt or control the Right of another: And this is the only check it ought to suffer, and the only Bounds it ought to know. This sacred Priviledge is so essential to free Governments, that the Security of Property, and the Freedom of Speech always go together . . . Whoever would overthrow the Liberty of a Nation, must begin by subduing the Freeness of Speech..."
