I AM PROVIDENCE

On 3-15-99, Don B.  wrote: "I've only lived in Providence for about a year
and a half,"

And I bet you haven't taken the official H.P. Lovecraft tour, have you? I
just moved from Providence to Cambridge in October, and I miss Providence.
It's such a sweet city, and it has an enduring, New England feel to it
where Boston only has attitude and fast speech. While Lovecraft is
sometimes spooky and sometimes unintentionally amusing and occasionally
just plain bad (why do people all like "The Colour out of Space," anyway?),
if you live in Providence, it is a MUST to read a little Lovecraft, if only
to get a feel for the city's history. It's amazing how some of his stories
that include reference to native Rhode Island populations in the Twenties
can make you feel at home - it's also more fun than just buying those
booklets from College Hill Bookstore - "The Armenians in Rhode Island,
1850-1940." Heh.

So anyway, there is this book called "Lovecraft's Providence," which
details the sites of Providence that Lovecraft used in his stories - old
houses, places he himself lived, a creepy church up on Federal Hill, and
the like - and I have found it gives you a weird feeling to read horror set
in your tiny town! I can recommend a few jewels if you want ... or I can
suggest a route from the book, which I currently have out of Harvard
College Library ... I used to live over to Swan Point (that prepositional
usage is made in honour of Providence), where HPL is buried ... Have you
been?

Anyway, although only the most liberal reading of Lovecraft would make him
a Conlanger, I still thought this was worth mentioning ...

BB

*********
I'm a kinky, queer, bisexual genderfucker. And they say, "write what you
know." -Cecilia Tan, 'Writing  Sex,' OutWrite 1999

You need to have a magpie mind. I think you need to like shiny things.
-Samuel R. Delaney on what it takes to be a scifi writer, OutWrite 1999

Only 295  shopping days left before the end of the world.