What are you reading?

[imatlas]

I can't tell if this contract was implemented, but:

New deal: San Fran symphony pay will start at $165,000 a year - Slippedisc

Janos Gereben has received details of the current...

slippedisc.com

 

[edinatlanta]

I can't tell if this contract was implemented, but:

New deal: San Fran symphony pay will start at $165,000 a year - Slippedisc

Janos Gereben has received details of the current...

slippedisc.com

And SF has one of the big symphonies!

 

[imatlas]

And SF has one of the big symphonies!

And apparently pays at least as well if not better than NYC or Boston.

 

[edinatlanta]

And apparently pays at least as well if not better than NYC or Boston.

From the ASO's website:

The ASO's total annual minimum compensation for the 2024/25 Season is $100,024.12

• Winter Season Salary: $2199.38 per week for 42 weeks (Sept. 8, 2024 – June 28, 2025)
• Summer Season Salary: $365 per week for 10 weeks (June 29, 2025 – September 6, 2025)
• Supplemental Compensation: $4000 (total for the 2024/25 contract year)

Atlanta is still (relatively) cheap. You get the minimum plus a few students you could be comfortable.

 

[SixOhNine]

Really puts into perspective how broke San Antonio is.

The father of one of my wife's friends was in the symphony for years, and she remembers he had like 4 side jobs- teaching, playing events, some sort of custom instrument making business, studio gig work, etc., and their family was still scrambling to keep a steady income.

 

[Kaplan]

HP Lovecraft: At the Mountains of Madness, 1936.

"Certain lingering influences in that unknown antarctic world of disordered time and alien natural law make it imperative that further exploration be discouraged."

As a novella of just 124 pages this was still noticeably more cumbersome than the other short stories of his that I've read (and it was initially rejected for publication when it was first written in 1931). Still, an interesting read, especially for its impact on later works like Who Goes There?/The Thing and Alien. In the public domain now and I got a newish decent enough copy from Hythloday Press with a nice cover painting by Ernst Kirchner - Mountains in Winter, from 1919.

Below is the awesome 1936 cover.

Spoiler: Astounding

 

[smittycl]

Really puts into perspective how broke San Antonio is.

The father of one of my wife's friends was in the symphony for years, and she remembers he had like 4 side jobs- teaching, playing events, some sort of custom instrument making business, studio gig work, etc., and their family was still scrambling to keep a steady income.

I was there in early fall. Lots of panhandlers and all the billboards downtown were for Personal Injury lawyers.

 

[barutanseijin]

HP Lovecraft: At the Mountains of Madness, 1936.

"Certain lingering influences in that unknown antarctic world of disordered time and alien natural law make it imperative that further exploration be discouraged."

As a novella of just 124 pages this was still noticeably more cumbersome than the other short stories of his that I've read (and it was initially rejected for publication when it was first written in 1931). Still, an interesting read, especially for its impact on later works like Who Goes There?/The Thing and Alien. In the public domain now and I got a newish decent enough copy from Hythloday Press with a nice cover painting by Ernst Kirchner - Mountains in Winter, from 1919.

Below is the awesome 1936 cover.

Spoiler: Astounding

There’s a satirical element to this one that had me chuckling. I’ll describe it no further for fear of divulging a ”spoiler”. (There aren’t really spoilers in Lovecraft, where things are just spooky, strange or otherworldly.) As usual Lovecraft flouts all conventions of good writing, something i find quite refreshing.

 

[imatlas]

Rare editions of Lovecraft are one of the core areas of my book collection.

I recently got in a beautiful edition of The Dunwich Horror from Heavenly Monkey Press in Seattle. Letterpress printed with 6 hand pulled etchings bound in.

Nobody’s done a fine press edition of Mountains of Madness yet, and it’s still under copyright for a few more years. Centipede Press announced plans years ago but it hasn’t materialized.

 

[double00]

View attachment 2308299

First edition my parents had. Started on Jan 1 and just finished.

Honestly when I watched the movie with my gf last year, I was less than impressed with it. Reading the book i realized thats because things just happen in the movie. The book weaves everything together far more elegantly. Cliche as hell but the book is so much better than the movie.

NOOO . the movie script is about subtext nothing ' just happens ' . what an artless read . watch it again .

 

[double00]

lovecraft is fun for the spooky mystery of the first act and then you spend the rest of the story realizing nothing makes sense and it's all pointless . plus the antisemitism and hatred of the lower classes

 

[Kaplan]

Rare editions of Lovecraft are one of the core areas of my book collection.

I recently got in a beautiful edition of The Dunwich Horror from Heavenly Monkey Press in Seattle. Letterpress printed with 6 hand pulled etchings bound in.

Nobody’s done a fine press edition of Mountains of Madness yet, and it’s still under copyright for a few more years. Centipede Press announced plans years ago but it hasn’t materialized.

My copy from 2014 specifically states that the content is in the public domain and Project Gutenberg claims so as well, having it free to read here.

I've linked to it before, but for a nice print copy of AtMoM there's this.

Spoiler: One more Thing

 

[smittycl]

lovecraft is fun for the spooky mystery of the first act and then you spend the rest of the story realizing nothing makes sense and it's all pointless . plus the antisemitism and hatred of the lower classes

Yeah, his stories all end the same. Good reads when I was younger but a bit of a slog for me now. I re-read Call of Cthulhu once in a blue moon, though.

 

[imatlas]

I’ve also got a small Clark Ashton Smith collection. His writing makes Lovecraft seem drab by comparison. Unfortunately I read some of CAS’s letters recently where he was spouting some truly bonkers anti-Semitic conspiracy stuff. That whole crew were pretty steeped in White Supremacy, it permeates Robert Howard, HPL, and CAS’s work.

I once came across a letter to the editor of one of Lovecraft’s “amateur journalism” magazines, complaining about how racist he was. The letter was written in 1918!

 

[Kaplan]

I’ve also got a small Clark Ashton Smith collection.

Anything in particular you would recommend from him, that's in print?

I have the following 3 on my list for things I might pick up in the February book sale:

- though I haven't checked yet if there's any overlap between these...