The Lairs of Cthulhu - lecture in London

[GBSteve]

A Lovecraftian lecture delivered by a gamer friend of mine at Treadwells.

15 October 2009 (Thursday)
The Lairs of Cthulhu
Archaeology, Myth and Mystery in the work of HP Lovecraft
James Holloway (Cambridge)
£5.00
7.15 for 7.30 start

For many, the name HP Lovecraft conjures images of strange pre-human ruins. In fact, Lovecraft was keenly interested in archaeology and ancient history, and used archaeological theory to create specific dramatic effects in his work. This talk explores Lovecraft's relationship to archaeology, its use in his fiction, the adoption of this imagery by the Lovecraftian fan community, and the ways in which Lovecraft's work anticipates modern debates in the field. This is a night for all who have been moved by the landscapes he conjured, the deeps he evoked: the lairs of Cthulhu.

James Holloway has a PhD in archaeology from Cambridge, focusing on funerary archaeology in the Anglo-Saxon period. He has a lifelong interest in Lovecraft, and originally began to look into this subject as part of a 2007 conference session on 'the archaeology of imaginary civilizations'

Book early to avoid disappointment.

[Nollvane]

Sounds very interesting. Will this be published anywhere or otherwise available for those of us outside the UK?

[GBSteve]

I'm hoping to record it. I'll certainly ask.

[William-Tobey]

I'm hoping to record it. I'll certainly ask.

Thanks for that GBSteve, I'm really keen to hear this. I'd be there in person if I didn't live on the other side of the planet.

[Nollvane]

Thanks, I'll keep an eyestalk out for it.

[PoC]

This is now available to listen to, thanks again to James, Treadwell's and GBSteve for making this recording available!

The Lairs of Cthulhu - Treadwell's Lecture by James Holloway



Paul

[Mograg]

...downloading it right now.

A bright spot in an otherwise dull Sunday evening!

Thanks Paul! And thanks also to James, Treadwells, and GBSteve.

- Brian C.
Chelmsford, Massachusetts

[MikeC]

10 out of 10.

MikeC, will listen to it a 2nd time today.

[GBSteve]

Is anyone having problems with the questions at the end? I've been told they're a little quiet and I'm happy to go back and boost levels if required.

[PoC]

I think it's tolerable, or at least audible. The end questions are quieter as the questioners are obviously further away from the mic (following an inverse square law). The easy way is just to turn up the volume on the MP3 player for that section, if you can.

One of the issues with the questions at the end is that while the questioners are quiet, James replies are not - so he would become louder, still. It may have been possible to use dynamic waveform compression to level out the lows and the highs but without a stretch of ambient background to profile against (or a very clean/silent audio background) that tends to raise the ambient background noise as well.

As for processing of the file, this is what I did to it before it went out: Amplified +6 dB across the range (with peak limiting), frequency cut off at 80 Hz and converted to 64 Kbps 44.1 KHz mono.

There's always going to be some variability in field recordings. Considering the conditions I think Steve did a great job of recording it!

Paul

[GBSteve]

My skills consists of plugging the Zoom into a wall socket, selecting stereo 128Kbps sampling mp3 and putting it on the nearest available surface, in this case, the floor.

Before I sent you the mp3, I resampled to a lower rate, amplified and did some noise reduction (not necessarily in that order).

I could go through at the end and individually amplify each of the sections where James isn't speaking. I don't suppose it would take very long.