"400 People and 400,000 Trout" : Doc: Then And Now with a Montana Physician

The description of a book as "high-spirited" is typically a good reason for me to read something else. Nonetheless, I was pleasantly unsettled after reading a few pages of Dr. R.E. Losee's Doc: Then and Now with a Montana Physician (1994). I am still reading the book now, after having first learned of it many years ago. Rather than some heartwarming chicken soup for the soul, the doctor delivered hardboiled, dry, earthy, unflinching prose, such as:

  

My first ambulance case was that of a man who committed suicide in his garage. The man had killed himself by directing the muzzle of a twelve-gauge shotgun against his umbilicus and then pulling the trigger. The crumpled, warm corpse lay supine, with escaping intestinal gas forming bubbles of blood and stool that exuded from his blown-apart shirt front.

And besides that, the doctor set his memoir in Ennis, Montana, a place with many links to my maternal ancestral line. Dr. Losee depicted several of my relatives, including my great-uncle Oscar Clark. He referenced Oscar's saloon, as well.  The book is an excellent read.

Now ol' Doc Losee could smell death... Quien es?

 

H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival and CthulhuCon, 20th Anniversary

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Hollywood Theatre, Portland, Oregon

 

Scott Nicolay

 

Richard A. Lupoff

"Sexuality and Lovecraft" panel

Photos by JF

On 3 and 4 October, 2015, I haunted the 20th anniversary of the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival and CthulhuCon, in Portland, Oregon. The first time I attended the festival, then at the 5th Avenue Cinema in Portland, was for its inaugural run (at that time I was sure it would never last more than a few years). I have attended many of the festivals since.

During the weekend of the event, I wished that I had the ability to exist in separate locales. What I took myself to see was remarkable, though. I caught, among others, Scott Nicolay, Richard A. Lupoff (reading in his courtly manner a melancholy time-shifting story), David Barker, Adam Bolivar (wearing a vintage suit and hat), reading fiction and poetry in the small classroom in the Esoteric Order of Dagon hall (otherwise known as the Hollywood Senior Center). The compact space had the aura of a living room.

 On Sunday, I witnessed a panel with S.T Joshi, Scott Connors, and Richard A. Lupoff, on "H.P. Lovecraft's editors," a sturdy crash course in the author's relations with editors. Scott Connors also spoke earlier on Clark Ashton Smith's artwork. At the "Sexuality in Lovecraft" panel, I mentioned the Lovecraft revision work (with C.M. Eddy) The Loved Dead. S.T. Joshi responded with something about the story still being disturbing today, and:  It was banned in my home state of Indiana.

I marveled at Jeffrey Combs giving a dramatic reading of The Doom That Came to Sarnath. He also held forth on the making of, and impact of, Re-Animator, following a showing of the film. I also saw Cool Air, from 1999, followed by a Q&A from director Bryan Moore, and many other films and panel discussions.