I’m not going lie, I’ve been absent from my blog because my life has been absolutely insane lately, and I haven’t had the spoons to do fun stuff like travel. That being said, I still wanted to attend the NecronomiCon, billed as, “the international conference and festival of Weird Fiction, Art, and Academia!” I mean… who could resist with that tagline? Probably neurotypical people now that I think about it. Thank the Eldrich gods I’m not one of those.
This year we wanted to attend some of the short films and the live radio show but also wander and hit some things we hadn’t in previous adventures – like the art exhibit and a puppet show. We started at the vendors, obviously, to check out which artists and crafters had shown up with adorably crocheted abominable horrors and whatnot. The first artist was indeed exactly that and boy did she know her audience! Her creations were perfection for anyone who loves the cross section between horror and cute huggable things. I almost bought a tiny baby Cthulhu in a plant pot but decided maybe I should wait on that as the place had just opened after all. This woman mopped the floors, with her competitors though. She almost sold out by the end of the day! I was more than impressed, so much so I took a card saying that I could find her at crochetmecurios on facebook and beyond.
Beyond this there were artists with paintings, prints, wood etchings, T-shirts, books galore, and even the most inventive take I have ever seen for a bra, aptly titled, “The over-the-shoulder-beholder-boulder-holder,” which you can totally buy at Dogzillalives’ Etsy Shop for a very befitting $666. As much as I LOVE that I’m also not that loaded (or perky-breasted) so I ended up buying mostly postcards as well as a wood etching and a small print. My companions bought crochet things, T-shirts, DVDs of former film festival shorts, and a variety of other things. Clearly this room was dangerous so we meandered out and started walking to our next destination – the art exhibit. It was a bit of a walk in a little gallery next to Lovecraft Arts and Sciences which is a fun little bookstore if there ever was one. Since we got there early, a few minutes before it actually opened, we wandered into the bookstore and checked it out. This place is also dangerous for weirdoes with spare change. What it lacks in size it makes up in uniqueness. I ended up with a book titled Death in Early New England: Rites, Rituals, and Remembrance which is soooo niche and sooo my kind of rabbit hole! Every time I hit this bookstore it always has something cool.
The art exhibit was a little gallery just as cute as the bookstore and it was… conflicted? I mean most of the art was indeed horror themed but then there was just a cute pug painting in the middle of all of them…? I mean, don’t get me wrong, there are horrors beneath the fur of a dog that can barely breathe, can’t scratch its own ass, and dies whenever the heat goes above 70 but that seems a different vein of horror entirely. To add further whimsy there was some sort of audio station next to some paper mâché limbs and a little moving display of what I’d call acid art – things turning into other things and melting into pools of colors and geometric shapes – basically what I see just as I start to drift off to sleep. I also adored one piece so much that I bought a print of it back at the vendors!
From here we ambled back somewhere else for the film festival and watched the first block of shorts. They were all very tame, I must say, nothing too outlandish, mostly going back on old tropes about our cursed colonial settlers. Though one did imagine, in the most brutal way possible, what it might be like to be kept as a pet by an alien. It was less Fantastic Planet and more Dr Rat as they started as lab subjects before becoming less than loved pets. It was… creative.
From here we made it to a shadow puppet show because why not? When one comes across a shadow puppet show there is no other option but to see what it’s all about. That one was an experience. We got there early, once again, as a crowd gathered outside this tiny establishment. You might wonder who was in the crowd, waiting as an adult to see a puppet show, and you’d be surprised it was quite diverse in age, gender, and expression, though that one very particular guy was also there asking everyone if this was an American styled shadow puppet show or a Japanese styled puppet show. No one knew. Or cared. Well, except for him. He apparently really loved Japanese culture. Eventually we’d be herded into this tiny room with a stage, all 300 or so of us. It was immediately hotter than the sun from everyone’s body heat and I couldn’t really stop my intrusive thoughts from telling me cuddling up like sardines was how people die, god forbid a fire should break out. My intrusive thoughts are always super cheerful like that.
ANYWAY, there was one woman putting on the whole production. She played a recording to narrate the story which was a voice actor and a theramin playing in the background. We’d hoped for a live theramin but I guess a recorded theramin is better than no theramin at all. I was just sad the aforementioned music was more high-pitched screeching noises than cool hovering woo-woo noises. We were warned this was a low budget production. It was entirely done via an Old School projector and what appeared to be colored cellophane scraps and bits of cardboard cut into silhouettes. I was a bit distracted by the fact much of the cellophane pieces had random bits of scribblings on them and as well as scratches and at times tattered edges but hey, one person’s trash is another person’s…. shadow puppet. All joking aside it was actually well done. I enjoyed the story and the silhouettes were apt. But it was time to be off once again.
We made our way back to the vendors where I then bought the things I’d eyed earlier but still had some time to kill so we decided to check out the gaming rooms. By this time I must have been showing my wear. I was getting very tired both physically and mentally. It’d already been a long day. So long in fact I forgot to mention we’d already found food at some psychedelically inspired cafe and did a mini walking tour where we glared at the shunned house of Lovecraftian fame which now had a cute little terrace and a sign that read in French, “Warning, weird dog.” Of course, the second my fatigued non-gaming butt walked through the door the woman at the table immediately told us all about the free coloring pages and crayons and showed us to some empty somewhat dark tables. BLESS NEURODIVERGENT CROWDS. That was the kinda break I could use! But first we noticed the vendor tables. I thought that’s why we were up here but my companion actually had no real inclination this would have it’s own separate vendors and was immediately smitten as a magpie at all the shiny things. I do love shiny things myself but I don’t know what they are or what they signify. Nonetheless I took a pamphlet from a pirate(?) boy and made it look like I knew what he was talking about when he discussed his new game described within it – as one does – I like to be encouraging. And then I handed it back to someone who very likely had more knowledge than myself and went back to playing with the giant die with the floaty eyeball in it. I don’t need to know shit to enjoy that! By this time we had 10 minutes to hurredly color before the doors closed so we did so. Man, it’s been a LONG time since I’ve used crayons. They’re like coloring something with cheap birthday candles. But it was stupid fun and we got to hang up our precious artwork next to the others who… clearly spent more than 10 minutes on theirs.
Onto the live radio show which was the H P Lovecraft Historical Society’s Dark Radio Theater’s presentation of The Shunned House. We had no idea this too was also filled to the brim with people and just like the puppet show we were left without a seat standing numbly in the back. I hadn’t worn my knee braces all day and I was one hurting puppy from all the walking. I decided I didn’t need to see anything (it was a radio show after all) and sat on the floor with a gaggle of others. That was no less painful as I had no back support and half my body was going numb. Those who had room just lay down. I was entertained by the show itself and the little story it told but because I was also blind to the stage I had the double entertainment of the audience bursting out in weird noises at random whenever the screen up front prompted them to help out. I was also delighted to see someone else taking a cellphone photo of the same patch of rug I’d taken a photo of a year before. It’s a pretty design! Actually, the people at these things always add to my joy of the whole event. Their choice in wardrobe is always wonderful. This year there was a Fantastic Planet T-shirt, a full-blown rat suit, the aforementioned pirate boy, and a chick wearing a tutu wound with lit Christmas lights. The last of which was likely on her way to the ball – which is extra I’m told. I said yeah, extra extra as you’d also need to find something bomb to wear. Someday.
All and all it was an exhausting but very much worth it day of hanging out with fellow freaks and geeks. Until next year – love y’all!
For the past few days I have been blaring obscenely happy music. Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, the Squirrel Nut Zippers, and random selections of old favorites like Ducks on the Wall by the Kinks. You know – obnoxiously off-the-wall deliriously joyful or just blatantly bizarre songs. Maybe I was doing this in an unconscious effort to prepare myself for tonight.