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Post by emerald on May 28, 2017 13:47:35 GMT -5
One thing I have a problem with, is the blogger's implication that CAS used hashish. I've never seen any evidence of this and have, in fact, seen statements from Clark to the contrary. CAS was a well-known and self-admitted bohemian and bon vivant. I just don't see him denying using hashish to his dying day if he had actually partaken of it. Perhaps to Lovecraft, but not to more "hip" fans like Donald Sidney-Fryer. It wouldn't affect my opinion of Smith one way or the other if he had, but I just don't see why we should contradict his testimony and that of his friends with no evidence. I have little patience for posthumous "makeovers" of any persuasion. Well said and insightful, Deuce. The blogger's insinuation swings uncomfortably close to the painfully dated critical saw "that author had such weird ideas he must have been on drugs." I haven't bumped into that since I was in middle school, when a teacher(!) assured me that Ray Bradbury had to be stoned to make up such imaginative stories. Even then I couldn't accept such a narrow minded viewpoint. |
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Post by thedarkman on May 28, 2017 14:11:33 GMT -5
Writers like CAS don't need drugs to see the things they write about...they are on a different level than most mere mortals.
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Post by deuce on May 30, 2017 12:32:44 GMT -5
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Post by deuce on May 30, 2017 14:59:47 GMT -5
Commoriom, from a French comic by Pascal Vitte adapting The Testament of Athammaus:  |
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Post by deuce on Jun 6, 2017 17:28:05 GMT -5
Tsathoggua by James Daly...  |
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Post by deuce on Jun 12, 2017 19:02:20 GMT -5
Here is the latest from the Centipede Press newsletter on CLARK ASHTON SMITH ART BOOK: IN THE REALMS OF MYSTERY AND WONDER:
"The final touches are being put on this book, will go to the printer right after Father’s Day. This is a large book 7x10 inches, printed on coated paper, 600 pages, and will come in a slipcase. The edition is 600 copies, with the first 300 signed by Scott Connors with a facsimile signature by Clark Ashton Smith.
The price on this item will be around $175 to $195, either signed or unsigned. There has been a lot of demand for this book, which is long overdue for us."
Contents of IN THE REALMS OF MYSTERY AND WONDER: introduction by Scott Connors discussing Smith's career as a painter and sculptor; beaucoup color plates of Smith's paintings and carvings, including artwork for "The Hashish-Eater" and "The Sphinx" as well as all of his original illustrations for Weird Tales; all of Smith's poems in prose; Donald Sidney-Fryer, "Clark Ashton Smith, Poet in Prose;" Samuel J. Sackett, "Recollections of Clark Ashton Smith;" Fritz Leiber, "Clark Ashton Smith: An Appreciation;" William Whittingham Lyman, "Clark Ashton Smith;" Emil Petaja, "The Man in the Mist;" George Haas, "As I Remember Klarkash-Ton" and "Memories of Klarkash-Ton;" Eric Barker, "In Memory of a Great Friendship;" RAH Hoffman, "A Letter;" and Ethel Heiple, "Reminiscences."
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Post by deuce on Jun 24, 2017 12:00:54 GMT -5
Here is the latest from the Centipede Press newsletter on CLARK ASHTON SMITH ART BOOK: IN THE REALMS OF MYSTERY AND WONDER: "The final touches are being put on this book, will go to the printer right after Father’s Day. This is a large book 7x10 inches, printed on coated paper, 600 pages, and will come in a slipcase. The edition is 600 copies, with the first 300 signed by Scott Connors with a facsimile signature by Clark Ashton Smith. The price on this item will be around $175 to $195, either signed or unsigned. There has been a lot of demand for this book, which is long overdue for us." Contents of IN THE REALMS OF MYSTERY AND WONDER: introduction by Scott Connors discussing Smith's career as a painter and sculptor; beaucoup color plates of Smith's paintings and carvings, including artwork for "The Hashish-Eater" and "The Sphinx" as well as all of his original illustrations for Weird Tales; all of Smith's poems in prose; Donald Sidney-Fryer, "Clark Ashton Smith, Poet in Prose;" Samuel J. Sackett, "Recollections of Clark Ashton Smith;" Fritz Leiber, "Clark Ashton Smith: An Appreciation;" William Whittingham Lyman, "Clark Ashton Smith;" Emil Petaja, "The Man in the Mist;" George Haas, "As I Remember Klarkash-Ton" and "Memories of Klarkash-Ton;" Eric Barker, "In Memory of a Great Friendship;" RAH Hoffman, "A Letter;" and Ethel Heiple, "Reminiscences." More news from this week's Centipede Press newsletter: "Whoops. Looks like I was a little over-zealous with my page counting abilities in the last newsletter. The Clark Ashton Smith art book, In the Realms of Mystery and Wonder, is 440 pages. An informative 50 page introduction, approximately 54 pages of sculpture, over 120 pages of color and black & white artwork, nearly 30 photographs of Clark Ashton Smith, all the prose poems, and 10 memoirs about Clark Ashton Smith by other writers.
There! Now you know what is all in there!
The book is printed on a heavy, 80# coated white stock to allow for the artwork to be bright and vibrant with a lot of detail. The black & white pages are still printed with a faint yellow tint on each page which makes the page easy to read when it is text only (see our book on The Shining Studies in the Horror Film for an example). Because of the coated stock, it is a slim 440 pages, but very heavy, with a handsome dustjacket, and each book in a very nice slipcase." |
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Post by deuce on Jul 2, 2017 10:44:06 GMT -5
"I believe that you should congratulate yourself on being, as you say, "out of tune with your generation." Undoubtedly a serious condition of unbalance is prevalent at the present time, as indicated by exclusive or excessive preoccupation with drink, amorous orgies, etc. This seems to be part of the intense materialism, "realism," or whatever you want to call it, of the age. Modern science, philosophy and invention are at least partly responsible. Some day there will be a return toward mysticism, a recovery of spiritual values. The question is, will it come before - or after Armageddon? I am not making any predictions; but the query is more than pertinent."
-- CAS to Virgil Finlay, September 27th, 1937
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Post by deuce on Jul 11, 2017 16:52:47 GMT -5
Bruce Sterling was considered one of the great poets in the US when he penned the preface to CAS' poetry collection, Ebony and Crystal. alangullette.com/lit/smith/ebony.htm
"Let him who is worthy by reason of his clear eye and unjaded heart wander across these borders of beauty and mystery and be glad."
-- Bruce Sterling, San Francisco, Oct 28th, 1922. |
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Post by Ningauble on Jul 13, 2017 4:09:36 GMT -5
Bruce Sterling was considered one of the great poets in the US when he penned the preface to CAS' poetry collection, Ebony and Crystal. alangullette.com/lit/smith/ebony.htm
"Let him who is worthy by reason of his clear eye and unjaded heart wander across these borders of beauty and mystery and be glad."
-- Bruce Sterling, San Francisco, Oct 28th, 1922.George, not Bruce. A truly magnificent poet in his own right. His complete poetry has been published (and these days it is a darn lot cheaper than the $300 I paid for it, but at least I got the slipcase  ). |
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Post by deuce on Jul 14, 2017 11:09:00 GMT -5
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Post by deuce on Jul 21, 2017 12:11:26 GMT -5
Just one of many testaments to how HPL dearly loved using Klarkash-Ton's concepts... "Clark Ashton Smith & I frequently use each other's hellish books and devil-gods--giving Tsathoggua & Yog-Sothoth a change of environment, as it were! Some time I'll quote darkly from your Book of Iod--which I presume either antedates the human race like the Eltdown Shards and the Pnakotic Manuscripts, or repeats the most hellish secrets learnt by early man in the fashion of the Book of Eibon, De Vermis Mysteriis, the Comte d'Erlette's Cultes des Goules, von Junzt's Unaussprechlichen Kulten, or the dreaded & abhorred Al Azif or Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred."
-- H. P. Lovecraft to Henry Kuttner, 16 February 1936 |
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Post by Jason Aiken on Jul 22, 2017 18:40:37 GMT -5
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Post by deuce on Aug 4, 2017 16:40:08 GMT -5
Alan Brown's Knygathim Zhaum, from CAS' The Testament of Athammaus...  |
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Post by deuce on Aug 5, 2017 23:12:15 GMT -5
Beside the great imagery and vibe, the rhyme scheme of this gem is off the chain. A stone-cold classic from Klarkash-Ton. This is one of those poems that REH told CAS he would give his trigger-finger to write.Zothique
He who has trod the shadows of Zothique
And looked upon the coal-red sun oblique,
Henceforth returns to no anterior land,
But haunts a later coast
Where cities crumble in the black sea-sand
And dead gods drink the brine.
He who has known the gardens of Zothique
Where bleed the fruits torn by the simorgh's beak,
Savors no fruit of greener hemispheres:
In arbors uttermost,
In sunset cycles of the sombering years,
He sips an amaranth wine.
He who has loved the wild girls of Zothique
Shall not come back a gentler love to seek,
Nor know the vampire's from the lover's kiss:
For him the scarlet ghost
Of Lilith from time's last necropolis
Rears amorous and malign.
He who has sailed in galleys of Zothique
And seen the looming of strange spire and peak,
Must face again the sorcerer-sent typhoon,
And take the steerer's post
On far-poured oceans by the shifted moon
Or the re-shapen Sign.~ CAS ~
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