About Me

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Adalbert is a forum for me, to post ephemera, photography, poetry, occasional travel notes, and various spontaneous motions. Cover photo: Parsonage where my great-grandfather spent his early years. Taken near Liegnitz, Silesia, ca. 1870. The "xothique" portion of the web address is a nod to Clark Ashton Smith's fictional continent of Zothique.

Saturday, May 16, 2020

The Thing Who Goes There


Cover art by Hannes Bok; edition from Shasta Publishers, 1948.

Digital Collage by JF 


 I recently perused John W. Campbell's 1938 novella Who Goes There?, which has germinated three films to date (all of which I also watched/ rewatched lately). Campbell wrote the tale not long before the start of WWII in Europe; but the writing feels fresh as the thing in the ice itself (an earlier version, Frozen Hell, predated Who Goes There?). It has a few parallels to Lovecraft's short novel At the Mountains of Madness. These include the location in the Antarctic, and the uncovering of prehistoric and alien discoveries in the polar wastes (at the same time, there are great differences in development and atmosphere). 

Who Goes There? has a surgically minimal, yet poetic style. Campbell's characters frequently have outsized qualities. "Moving from the smoke-blued background, McReady was a figure from some forgotten myth, a looming, bronze statue that held life, and walked." In contrast with the careful assemblage of background and details in At the Mountains of Madness, the following line almost symbolized Campbell's approach: "There is no need for details."  The novel also has vague echos of the Antarctic destination in  Edgar Allan Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym; and its portentous albatross, feels like a harbinger out of Coleridge. Campbell's terse novella, with its replicated physical forms, and terrifying transformations, is a powerful read. (And the other stories in the collection are also superb.)



Friday, May 1, 2020

Plague Stew



Lately I've made a stew for these days, which I never formulate precisely the same way, each time I cook it. The emphasis is on nutrient density; the ingredients might include beef liver (or substitute a vegan course, such as seitan), beets, potatoes, turmeric root, Brussels sprouts, beech mushrooms, carrots, onions, garlic, water and broth; or replace with edible ingredients, based on your own decisionsInfuse with, say, salt, pepper, tomato sauce, salsa. Bringing to a slight boil (or to a temperature hot enough for food preparation standards), then simmering for an hour or so, refrigerating, and repeating the next day, subdues and melds the strong flavors, in a sort of alchemical process. "Wouldn't help, wouldn't hoit."