Question Time with S.T. Joshi

Necronomicon Australis presents An Evening Discussion with S.T. Joshi

Friday 28^th of June, 5.30pm-9.00pm, 1^st floor Conference Room, the Castlereagh Boutique Hotel, Castlereagh Street, Sydney NSW.

What can I say about this? Where to start? To begin with, I only heard about this event because one of the organisers read my author bio somewhere and then contacted my publisher to ask her to pass the details on. I was intrigued, but that weekend was building up to be a big one with many events – including a family reunion – being scheduled then. In the end, I felt constrained to go for three reasons: one, there probably wouldn’t be another opportunity to do something like this; two, good Lovecraftian events are few and far between out here; and, three, I felt guilty about turning it down after they’d sought me out. Turns out, none of these reasons were valid, and I may as well have stayed at home.

‘Sounds harsh? Let me explain.

The organisers had envisioned an evening of music written by Larry Sitsky, an Australian composer you’ve never heard of, whose oeuvre was largely inspired by esoteric philosophies and occult written works; at some point in the 90s he wrote a series of linked short pieces for piano and clarinet entitled “Necronomicon: 18 aphorisms for clarinet and piano”. One of the organisers works with Sitsky at the Canberra School of Music and decided that the stars were right for a performance of this piece. So far, so good.

The issue was that the composition is quite short, and so dragging people out for an evening of music that would last less than half an hour seemed problematic – something else was called for. They decided that someone needed to do an introduction to the life of HPL to kick things off and, in a giddy moment, one of them contacted S.T. Joshi, on a whim or a dare, and he agreed to come Down Under and do it. I hope you’re all following…

Now they had one evening’s entertainment prepared, but that seemed like a lot of effort for just one night. So they decided to go on the road and turn it into a touring event. They penciled in Hobart, Melbourne and Sydney, along with the Canberra date, but there was just one issue: the musical performers who could play the piece had other commitments and couldn’t be contracted for any more performances than the one night. This meant that all the other dates would have to be carried by Joshi flying solo. You can probably see where we’re headed…

Fast forward to Sydney and the last evening of the tour. We had Joshi coming on after the interval, fine, but for starters we were addressed by two other figures from the local Lovecraftian scene, willing to talk about the impact of HPL’s work in the Antipodes. Well, I say two, but one of them bailed, and had to be replaced by a ring-in an hour beforehand. The first of these speakers – Leigh Blackmore – talked us through his collection of Lovecraftian articles, books and fanzines, published locally and elsewhere since the 1930s, while the second speaker – Charles Danny Lovecraft (I shit you not) – just gushed about how cool he thought HPL was, in his opinion. After this, Joshi came on and told us all about his accomplishments and the “complete accident” of how he came to be the world’s foremost Lovecraft scholar, followed by some awkwardly-handled YouTube clips of a Lovecraft poem set to music, both performed by choral groups, one including Joshi himself, who also composed the music. After this came questions.

Let me say, this was a train-wreck. Despite being “planned” ahead of time, the event was cobbled together at the last minute and nothing of any value or interest was presented (and frankly, if I want to watch YouTube clips, I can sit at home in my underwear and do that). Anyone with a passing interest in this stuff, knows who S.T. Joshi is and knows what he has done – we don’t need to hear him blow his own trumpet and certainly not after ponying-up 30-odd dollars and a trip into the City for the privilege. Additionally, if I want to hear an HPL fanboy sing his praises while wetting himself in excitement, I’ll go to a fan event where everyone cosplays (no, on second thought, I won’t!). The only thing of interest – to me, anyway – was the listing of bibliographic details of locally-published Lovecraftiana, and the delivery of this material was dry and mirthless, scuppered by the ineptitude of the person running the projector and the laptop to which it was connected. Every time someone mentioned Fritz Leiber, they pronounced it “LEE-ber”, which always gets my teeth clenching.

Somethings were outside the organisers’ control: tea and coffee facilities had been provided by the Hotel, but had been set up at one end of the very small conference room, with the result that each time the urn went through its heating routine, the sound of it drowned out whoever was talking. Add to this that management had seen its way clear to turn off the air-conditioning, we were all sweating profusely by the half-time break, during which someone thankfully located the switch. On top of this, the audience – comprised chiefly of socially-inept nerds – was about as rude as it was possible to be, talking loudly at the back of the room while presenters were presenting, or playing games on their ‘phones during the talks. I mean, really – would it kill them to unplug for a couple of hours? Even the organisers themselves were culpable in these transgressions, lending the event an air of them having gratefully reached the finish line and getting ready to party. And all the while I was thinking: “I paid for this?”

Question time at the end was the moment that I thought things would get interesting but even here it was dull. Someone asked if anyone else in the world of literature has had such an ongoing impact on their audience and there was some mumbled discussion between the speakers which resulted in a “no, not that we can think of” response. Someone asked if Lovecraft was inspired by his home-town surroundings to write his work, to which Joshi answered, “yes, yes I think so”. Some people asked if there was any particular movie adaptation the panel felt really delivered. I stuck my oar in, in desperation, and asked about my last sentence of “The Haunter of the Dark” issue, asking why that particular construction had been chosen as ‘correct’ and got a dismissive “because I know better than you” answer. I mean really? How naff could all this be? It was all empty, obvious inquiry and ego, and it made us run overtime at which point the organisers abruptly called it quits.

In summation, this was an event that was pitched at novices, people with no clue about who HPL or S.T. Joshi were, but attended by an audience of people who knew all there was to know about them. I mean, imagine going up to – oh, I don’t know – your Mum, and going “hey! There’s this really cool event happening with S.T. Joshi – wanna come?” What would you expect? Frankly if you had bought a ticket to this event, you know what to expect, you’ve got all your bases covered and you’d be anticipating something more. Something above Novice Level, anyway. There was no depth to the knowledge on display and certainly Joshi’s talk could have been read directly from his Wikipedia entry, except for the odd personal revelation that made little difference – overall - to the material. The technical aspects of the show were handled by a ham-fisted Luddite who should have known better: I mean, I showed up early and was told to wait in the bar before going up to the room; the whole time I was there, the Luddite was there too – shouldn’t he really have been upstairs getting things good to go? Like learning how to use a computer? The whole event was poorly thought out and even more poorly executed. I came away feeling like I’d been fleeced.

As a means of recouping something from the evening, I asked Joshi to sign a copy of one of his books which I’d brought with me. He did so as dismissively as he’d addressed my question earlier and his signature is an illegible scrawl. If ever I decide to put it up on E-bay, everyone is going to just ask me to prove it’s actually his signature!

To top it all off, my train broke down on the way home and I didn’t get back until almost two o’clock in the morning. Thank-you Gladys; thank-you State Rail. A crappy way to finish off a crappy evening.