Ask HP Lovecraft

The Clam tries to stay neutral about some things. For instance, should the current Fuller School structure be destroyed from space-borne antimatter weaponry or would it better be sealed off and turned into ‘grey goo’ by self-replicating nanobots? There are good arguments for both, and we’re going to stay out of it.

But there is one thing we know with a steadfast certainty and we will shatter the nearest 2/3 bottle of absinthe and use its jagged edge to defend:

Gloucester, NOT Ipswich was the site of Innsmouth in the classic Lovecraftian horror tale Celephias. Please consider the following description:

It was a town of wide extent and dense construction, yet one with a portentous dearth of visible life. From the tangle of chimney-pots scarcely a wisp of smoke came, and the three tall steeples loomed stark and unpainted against the seaward horizon. One of them was crumbling down at the top, and in that and another there were only black gaping holes where clock-dials should have been. The vast huddle of sagging gambrel roofs and peaked gables conveyed with offensive clearness the idea of wormy decay, and as we approached along the now descending road I could see that many roofs had wholly caved in. There were some large square Georgian houses, too, with hipped roofs, cupolas, and railed “widow’s walks”. These were mostly well back from the water, and one or two seemed to be in moderately sound condition….

The decay was worst close to the waterfront, though in its very midst I could spy the white belfry of a fairly well-preserved brick structure which looked like a small factory. The harbour, long clogged with sand, was enclosed by an ancient stone breakwater….

Right? Stone breakwater? White belfry of fairly well preserved brick structure of a small factory? There are other reasons as well, but trust us, Innsmouth is Gloucester, make no mistake.

The Clam will never deter from this steadfast belief. And rabid Clamista Len Pal furthermore proves through our  ‘Ask a Gloucester Historical Figure’ feature that  Lovecraft’s connection to Gloucester goes deeper than maybe even we first imagined.
download (7)
by Len Pal, quotes from Lovecraft’s works
Dear HP  Lovecraft, I’m a 4th generation fisherman. What was once a lucrative trade has become filled with uncertainty and heartache, but I’m too old to change professions. Is there any hope?
It was called “The Esoteric Order of Dagon”, and was undoubtedly a debased, quasi-pagan thing imported from the East a century before, at a time when the fisheries seemed to be going barren. Its persistence among a simple people was quite natural in view of the sudden and permanent return of abundantly fine fishing, and it soon came to be the greatest influence in the town.
Dear HP: My husband has piles upon piles of old books in our attic. He doesn’t read them or loan them out, but neither will he donate them or let me sell them in a yard sale. How can I get him to part with these books?
He must sign the book of Azathoth in his own blood and take a new secret name now that his independent delvings had gone so far. He had seen the name “Azathoth” in the Necronomicon, and knew it stood for a primal evil too horrible for description.
Dear HP: I’ve been spending a lot of time with a girl I like for about a year now, but I think I’m stuck in the “friend zone”. How can I get her to see me as boyfriend-material without being creepy about it?
Yield up enough sacrafices an’ savage knick-knacks and hourbourage in the taown… All in the band of the faithful — Order o’ Dagon — Ia! Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn! Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah-nagl fhtagn!
CRAAAAAP

CRAAAAAP

 

 

 

 

Gloucester – The New Hotbed for Hip Hop?

By Guest Contributor Michael Caesar, Special Hip Hop Correspondent

Gloucester Massachusetts is set and primed to be the next great hip-hop hot bed.

Yep, I said it; my expertise on the subject is derived from the 17+ years I spent living on the island and a profound appreciation for DJ Premier beats and gold chains.

#BLOGGIN

#BLOGGIN

Now I know what you’re thinking…How does this suburban fishing community qualify for the birthplace of the next big hip hop revolution? Simple. It has all the characteristics of the direction post-2006 hip-hop has taken. Think about it…

It Has a Blue Collar Attitude, While Sporting White Collar Attributes

Gloucester rappers are professionals at talking rapidly in profane sentences that don’t make sense, making repeated references to #TheStruggle and their realness all while residing within a stones throw (more often than not, literally) from the ocean. Waterfront property, vacation homes and B&B’s create the perfect backdrop for new-aged hip-hop’s attempts to boast street-cred without any of the dangers that come with, y’know, the actual streets.

WEST PARISH REPREZENT!

WEST PARISH REPREZENT!

 

A Steady Drug Culture

What’s more hip-hop than talking about selling drugs? Gloucester’s ripe with people who have supplemented their income with tax-exempt import-export businesses, whether that’s Oxycontin or Tuna. If black market hustling is at the core of your lyrical content, Gloucester is the place for you. ‘

 

Sweet, these will last me ten whole minutes!

Sweet, these will last me ten whole minutes!

Beaches You Can Film Music Videos On

Are you just getting your start in hip-hop but want to film lavish music videos on beaches filled with bikini-clad women? Cut down on travel expenses to exotic locations by basing your operation in a place that is literally surrounded by beaches!

Sure the sand isn’t exactly white, the bikini-clad women aren’t exactly super-model hot, and if you want to film on Pavilion Beach there’s a 50/50 chance you step on a hypodermic needle. When you consider the money you’re saving on airfare, however, you’re one step closer to renting that Bentley to put in said video.

 

Or this. Close enough.

Or this. Close enough.

It’s Chalk Full Of White People Who Can’t Dance

Two things are very popular in hip-hop these days:

-dance crazes invented to make people who can’t dance feel confident on a dance-floor (See: Gas Pedal, Dougie et al.)

-white people (Macklemore is apparently a “rapper” according to the Grammys). You can obviously see where this is trending, can’t you?

Yeah.

Yeah.

 

Did We Mention the Talent?

The Long and short of it is simple, Gloucester MA is about to take off, and if you don’t know you better ask somebody. As they say in hip-hop, Real recognize real, and nobody’s recognized the potential of Gloucester’s hip-hop community.  If you wanna be the realest in the game right now, you better get on this first.

 

KT does No-Snark Sunday, God Help Us All

Greetings. Since usual Sunday contributor Jim Dowd is incredibly busy with his daughter’s Bat Mitzvah this weekend (GO REBECCA YOU ARE AWESOME) I’ll be doing the Snark Free Sunday post. Forgive me, for I am not sure how to write without dripping sarcasm. It’s awkward and weird and I don’t like it one bit.

CLEAN UP SOME STUFF, WILL YA?

Our first item of the day is giving a thumbs-up to Ward 2 Councillor Melissa Cox for letting us know about the One Hour at a Time Gang clean-up that goes on most Saturday mornings. Melissa says, “We pick a place in the city to clean from 8 a.m. To 9 a.m. almost every Saturday. Sometimes suggestions of a dirty place is sent to us or if there’s an event downtown or in the neighborhood we clean it up prior to the event.” Sweet deal!

lookit all this trash!

lookit all this trash!

The above was from the bowling alley on Gloucester Ave up to Maplewood. 8+ bags of litter! This is why we can’t have nice things, Gloucester, because we throw trash on the ground like jerks. Crap, I just broke the rules of no-snark Sunday.

You can email Melissa for more details at mcoxward2@gmail.com.

 OUR SCHOOLS ARE AWESOME AND HERE’S PROOF

Maritime Gloucester is an amazing resource for this city. City 3rd graders recently took a trip on the Ardelle and learned about sounding tools.

 

3rd Grade at Maritime Gloucester-202 (1)

“Trowing the lead was ONE of the tools. Seeing what came up from the bottom is critical, mostly because if you see Sand and Broken Shell means you’re probably close to shore even if you have good depth. Rich mud would mean there was a river mouth nearby. Clay beds, pebble, all of it would be useful because the Brits logged it all inn hydrological studies- this is what the HMS Beagle did and was the point of her voyage.

And you entered bottom conditions into the log when you took a sextant reading, which would then get added to the charts when you returned so the next person who was in that general area and saw the same conditions would have a better sense of what was going on” – Marty DelVecchio.

 

Dude, our THIRD GRADERS are learning this stuff. Maritime Gloucester also has programs for younger kids – Pathways for Children, for example, has received grants to bring each classroom once a month. It’s an incredible learning experience. Gloucester freakin’ rules.

Okay that’s pretty much all I can muster up that isn’t sardonic for today without a stiff mimosa for brunch. Have a great rest of the weekend, Clamonauts!

Introducing Staff Photographer Stevens Brosnihan

It has been requested that the Gloucester Clam report on more of the day to day goings on in our fair city. That we move past our current beat of intoxicated shouting and wiener jokes. Time to get serious and do some real journalism. To facilitate this, we welcome aboard Staff Photographer Stevens Brosnihan. Stevens received his Post-baccalaureate certificate and Masters Degree in Fine Arts in painting and drawing from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. During his three-year tenure at SAIC he took full advantage of The School’s renown inter-disciplinary conceptual framework of competitive heuristic post-structural indifference. Which is a real thing, I guess.

Stevens’ first assignment was to cover Beeman Elementary School’s incoming Kindergarten Orientation on Wednesday. Fresh faced youngsters taking their first step on a long life of learning. The future, personified in lunch boxes, smiles and held hands. He assured us that with his art school background, he was the perfect man for the job.

This is what he gave us.

spring2014055

We are confused. Where are the kids? How hard was this? In a short text exchange Stevens chided us as boxed-in literalists, asking us to let the images speak for themselves. We argued that they looked like REM album covers from the late 80s we would see when we were a DJ in college and we don’t know what hell those bastards were talking about either. Since The Gloucester Clam is nothing but a media outlet with highest possible standards, we demanded a detailed explanation.

He sent us this:

The camera I chose (the 1930 Welta Gucki) is from photography’s youth. I felt it was perfect to reference the vitality and naive simplicity of children in an unfamiliar setting.

The camera is unfettered——no meter to gauge its surroundings, an uncoupled viewfinder like a child’s fresh, uncluttered take on life.

The 46mm film is hard to come by, so I rolled my own from a bulk package of 1983 Kodalith ortho, type 3 that I saved from a friend’s flooding basement. It was originally intended for newspaper halftone reproductions and can be coaxed into rendering continuous tones by using the wrong chemicals when developing it.

In life and in art alike, the child speaks and is unfazed by trivial parameters such as what is ‘correct.’  Choosing the developer was easy: a dilute ascorbic acid (vitamin C) based formula for 10 minutes at room temperature. I don’t use a thermometer and my darkroom was chilly today, so I let kept it in a few minutes longer. It felt right.

As I approached the school, the thought of photographing the actual children seemed irrelevant in the face of the power of nature. So instead I wandered into the woods and met a beautiful pile of compost.

spring2014051

The immensity of its potential seemed to poignantly and overwhelmingly speak of the future. It would become the future, from which gardens will take root. Much like the gardens of the mind these children have, ideas spreading forth like so many seedlings planted in the sweet April landscape.

spring2014054

The horizontal lines in the compositions are scratches likely caused by tiny specs of corrosion on the film path of the camera. Much like these children will have tiny specs of corrosion in their minds as years grow them wiser, more hardened, and less naive to the injustices of the world. 

There you go folks. Kindergarten Orientation Day at Beeman. Thank you, Stevens.

 

Wicked Tuna Recap – “Battle Royale”

IT’S THAT TIME AGAIN FOR ME TO FIGURE OUT HOW FISHING WORKS, FOLKS. My Hulu and/or DVR has some more Wicked Tuna episodes to recap, so I’m on it! Apparently the one I did last week was out of order or something, who even knows. Fishes were caught, yelling happened, let’s just get to this episode where more fishes will be caught and more yelling will happen.

We start this week off on the Tuna.com, where Captain Dave catches a fish straight off, to no one’s surprise. This guy must emit an enchanting musk which attracts 800 pound tuna, because there’s no other reason he gets all the fishes. Unfortunately, they get some thick rope stuck somewhere it shouldn’t be (STORY OF MY LIFE RIGHT BOYS) and they end up losing the fish to the ravages of the surly ocean.

The Haaaaahd Merchandise is on its way out to sea, and the show actually gets a pretty boss shot of the cut bridge.

we're always the first car in line trying to get off the island. always, forever.

we’re always the first car in line trying to get off the island with 1/8th a tank of gas when this happens. always.

Now over to the Lily, which isn’t like the rest of the boats that have lines and reels and whatnot. The Lily apparently uses a spotter plane and a guy just javelins the metric fuck out of any tuna close enough. This is a pretty hardcore way to fish, I’m pretty sure I saw Tom Hanks with a two-foot beard on that boat somewhere. Unfortunately, they didn’t spear their fish hard enough and it got away. “That was the best opportunity to dart a tuna in awhile”, explains one of the javelin dudes. I’m pretty sure I’ve heard frat bros say the exact same thing outside a dim bar at 3 AM.

Back to some other boat (the Bounty Hunter I guess), someone’s yelling STAHTTHEMOTAHWEREON. I’m not entirely sure what that means but I’m assuming it’s seamen-talk for “Please, shipmate, I believe we have made contact with the species of fish we desire, shall you move the boat to a more favorable position?” A man with the most ridiculous of hats yells “He’s not coming, he’s tight as hell!” And I laugh, because I have the sense of humor of a twelve year old boy.

Who let you out of the house wearing this hat? They should be ashamed of themselves.

Who let you out of the house wearing this hat? They should be ashamed of themselves.

A fifteen minute portion of this show is now dedicated to how this boat has its fish and line caught in some lobster pots and then another boat’s fishing gear. Literally this is the high drama of this show, some twisted up bits of string. There’s even an INFOGRAPHIC explaining basic physics to the subscribers of National Geographic. I mean the ocean is staggeringly vast, maybe don’t fish 50 feet away from other people and lobster pots? No? Just me? Ok.

I'D HAVE NEVER UNDERSTOOD THE DEFINITION OF "TANGLED" WITHOUT THIS THANK YOU EVER SO MUCH

I’D HAVE NEVER UNDERSTOOD THE DEFINITION OF “TANGLED” WITHOUT THIS THANK YOU EVER SO MUCH

As always, there’s a long boring explanation about HOW BAD WE NEED THIS FISH and THE SEASON ENDS SOON and I want to gouge my eyes out. Spoiler alert: they catch the fish and yell.

You know who isn’t in this episode yet? Stonerboat, who maybe overslept because mom’s basement doesn’t have windows and all. But we’ve got the Hot Tuna, and they’re close behind in the twentysomething deckhands with awful hair category.

I just assume in the offseason he works at Guitar Center.

I just assume in the offseason he works at Guitar Center.

The Tuna.com catches another fish and ends up trying to reel it in for NINE FREAKIN’ HOURS. Going into labor with my kids didn’t last that damn long but I was drugged up for that so who knows. They miss the thing with the harpoon five hundred times, and for the first time I actually kind of feel bad. Maybe this show is giving me saltwater Stockholm syndrome. Then I realize how much more money they make than I do, and I don’t feel bad anymore. Crisis averted.

This show is interminable. I feel like I’ve been watching it for hours. It’s no Fishing with John, I’ll tell you. Finally they get this stupid fish and the show is over so I can go to bed.

Stay tuned for next week’s episode, where if a seagull doesn’t steal somebody’s hard-earned sandwich to shake things up, I’m going to scream.

Disclaimer: Despite poking gentle fun at the captains and crew of this show, we actually admire them very much – not only for their hard work, but for helping Gloucester get on the map for something interesting. Please don’t slash our tires.