Tansy Undercrypt

I recently starred as Leslie in 19 Nocturne Boulevard’s “The Water Ghost”.  Delighted to be part of this little Edwardian gem.

“I wonder if I’m using the right font to convey my hunger for global domination …”  Welcome, 2012.

Mrs. Thornwit put her eyes forward and kept them forward; she could ill afford to let them fall upon little Bethany, whose moist and plump hand she clutched firmly in her own.  She kept a brisk pace – at times almost dragging the girl.  Beth giggled and chattered merrily away to an unseen companion and several small animals on the path.

“Mama, dress! Mama, dress dirty!” she squealed and pointed to the border of her walking skirt and to that of her mother’s.  They were near the swamp now, the mud and decaying mulch kicked up into rough smears on the light woolen panels.  ”Mama, DRESS!”

“It’s all right, Bethany; it’s all right,” Alice said, squeezing her eyes shut for but a second against her perspiration and her tears.  ”It will be all right.” “Mama … dress!” Bethany cooed in a gleeful half-whisper, as if they were co-conspirators in a summer picnic game.  They were near the edge of the water and dusk had turned to night.

They stopped and Beth followed her mother’s gaze out into the water, where a dark shape was rising from the murk.  Loosely the shape of a man but twice the size, it oozed across the stagnant surface towards them.  When it stopped, towering over them, Alice thought she could see two darker pits that might be its eyes.  She bowed her head quickly.

“S-say hello to the swamp man, Bethany,” she said tersely, before her voice caught in her throat.  Gazing up, shy but curious, Beth gave the thing a tiny smile and said sweetly “Hello, man.”

Alice Thornwit stumbled back to the main road alone, struggling to retain her composure.  She clutched a lock of brown hair in her right hand, holding it away from her filthy skirt to keep it clean and safe. She would burn the clothes immediately after she reported back to Willem.  And, if the harvest did not come in as he promised, she would kill him in his sleep.

(This piece was originally composed for another fiction blog and posted in the summer of 2009; I’m moving it to avoid losing it as that site comes down.)

Stefan Bucher’s monster-a-day site, complete with app so that you can draw your own.  He had me at: “Show me your monsters & I’ll show you mine.”

Screw the paper pirate hat, I’m in it to win it with paper Rococo hair, courtesy of artisans Nikki Salk and Amy Flurry!  (Sincere thanks to Keith Dvorak for the introduction to their work.)

Amazing stage and voice actor Joe Stofko (who has appeared in a number of Precarious episodes) came out of the writing closet recently and has launched his own theater-of-the-ear … Harvest Audio).  It’s good, clean fun and the start of something truly grand.

The gypsies come to town on Saturday, 10/22, and I shall be the ringmaster of their strange and sexy circus. “Xonxano Baro” at the Amsterdam Bar in Saint Paul; 7:30pm.

… against The Dark Arts.

I am not surprised that someone has done anatomical drawings of Godzilla to scale, I’m just … in awe, really.  My own powers of anal retention suddenly seem meager and a little tragic.

A child prodigy born into a suspect gene pool (his family was afflicted with serious mental illness on both sides), Howard Phillips Lovecraft was reading and writing poetry by the age of six.

A brilliant loner fascinated by chemistry and astronomy, his own mental anguishes prevented him from receiving his high school diploma.  Financial hardship, failed relationships, and the laundry list of growing fears and obsessions troubling Lovecraft made him a recluse and challenged his health.

Although changing the course of fiction writing through his sci-fi and horror contributions to “Weird Tales”, H.P. could not support himself with his literary endeavors and lived entirely on the estates of his family, which dwindled to almost nothing by the time he was 40.  He was diagnosed with colon cancer, Bright’s disease and malnutrition and died in 1937 at the age of 46.

Lovecraft had a very small readership while alive which, as we know now, would grow into a global cult following after his passing.  I am fascinated by how prolific he was while being extremely frail and destitute.  Here is a delicate agoraphobic who is writing about vast open spaces filled with unspeakable terror.  Completing his own works must have made him a nervous wreck, compounding his suffering.   As a horror fiction writer, I have to give legendary props to someone who writes what scares them.

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