Ebenezer and Snooch meet Cthulhu

"Kreisleriana" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 24 Aug 2006 20:44:47 -0400, Kreisleriana
yodeled:

On 24 Aug 2006 20:55:31 GMT, yodeled:

"Magic Mood Jeep?" wrote:

In news Dan M purred:
I've been wondering this for years: how does one pronounce
Cthulhu??
Phonetic spelling, please. For some reason, my brain has switched
some letters, so I always hear it in my head as "clue-thu".

I've assumed it was "k-too-loo".

I believe (and DH is an HP Lovecraft fan) it's pronounced

Kuh thoo loo (Kuh rhymes with Duhm thoo and loo thymes with two)

Thanks, both of you!

Next question: Who/what *is* Cthulhu??

Joyce


Cthuhlu is, appropriately enough, an extremely nasty chthonic deity
(chthonic = of or relating to the underworld) invented by H. P.
Lovecraft (1890- ), a hugely popular fantasy/horror writer.



Whoops, I accidentally mouseclicked before I could fill in the death
date. Lovecraft's lifespan was 1890-1937.

H.P. Lovecraft wrote lots of really "B Grade Hammer Horror Style" horror
stories. The language he uses, IMHO, all rather campy and faux-gothic, which
is what gives it its appeal. All very 'overacted' and 'dark and mysterious'.
I love it.

He also had a phobia about penguins. DH & I figured he must have had a bad
experience at Catholic school with nuns :-)

My involvement and fandom of Cthulu came first through the role-playing
games based on the Cthulu mythos. It was a percentage-based roleplaying
system and was therefore easier to understand than the complicated (at the
time) AD&D or Rolemaster systems, and fitted nicely with general horror
themes, which the other roleplaying systems didn't generally tough (the
tended to be strongly either high fantasy or straight science fiction).

That I played Cthulu with a bunch of sick twisted people who, like me, enjoy
really campy Z-grade shclock horror meant that most of our Cthulu games were
horror-comedies (like Evil Dead) rather than straight horror, and as such,
we as a group very much appreciated when Cthulu himself was made into a
plushie toy. Now thats what irony is all about :-)

Speaking of which, I have an idea for a Convention roleplaying game (ie, 3
hours long, not a campaign) based in Cthulu-world. Wish I had time to write
it properly, let alone time to actually play it. Sigh. When did I become
oneof those boring grown ups????

Yowie

On 24 Aug 2006 20:55:31 GMT, wrote:

"Magic Mood Jeep?" wrote:

In news Dan M purred:
I've been wondering this for years: how does one pronounce Cthulhu??
Phonetic spelling, please. For some reason, my brain has switched
some letters, so I always hear it in my head as "clue-thu".

I've assumed it was "k-too-loo".

I believe (and DH is an HP Lovecraft fan) it's pronounced

Kuh thoo loo (Kuh rhymes with Duhm thoo and loo thymes with two)

Thanks, both of you!

Next question: Who/what *is* Cthulhu??

H. P. Lovecraft was an American horror/science fiction author active
in the early 20th century. A number of his stories share a common
setting, where the Earth was once ruled by a set of horrific deities
known as the Great Old Ones (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cthulhu_Mythos). They are now in a deep
sleep, but human followers are seeking to bring them back to full
activity, which would not be a good thing for humanity. Cthulhu is
one of these deities, described as having a face like a squid (think
of the Davie Jones character in the recent _Pirates of the Caribbean_
movie).

Various other writers have written stories in this same setting, and
expanded upon it (not always in ways compatible with each other).

Lovecraft's writing is a bit of an acquired taste, being rather on the
"purple prose" side (overly florid descriptions).

--
John F. Eldredge --
PGP key available from http://pgp.mit.edu
"Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better
than not to think at all." -- Hypatia of Alexandria

John F. Eldredge wrote:

Cthulhu is
one of these deities, described as having a face like a squid (think
of the Davie Jones character in the recent _Pirates of the Caribbean_
movie).

I haven't seen Pirates of the Caribbean, but I did see the Ebenezer
and Snooch cartoon, so I'll just picture him as a squid-like mop.

Thanks,
Joyce

Yowie wrote:

My involvement and fandom of Cthulu came first through the role-playing
games based on the Cthulu mythos.

A-ha! That explains it. I've been hearing about Cthulhu for years, and he
seems to be fairly well-known all over the place. But I don't think that
Lovecraft has that amount of mainstream appeal or familiarity, so when
someone else answered that Cthulhu was a Lovecraft creation, it puzzled me
that a character from one of his books could be so well-known, to the point
that I've seen CTHULHU graffiti on buildings.

But ah, I get it - it's also a *role-playing game*. Lots and lots more
people do that than read Lovecraft. So now it all makes sense.

we as a group very much appreciated when Cthulu himself was made into a
plushie toy.

LOL!! Yowie, perhaps you would also enjoy these:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/plush/6708/images/

Joyce - who neither reads Lovecraft, nor (after a couple of failed attempts)
plays RPGs, but figures that the latter is far more popular than the former

Kreisleriana wrote:


Whoops, I accidentally mouseclicked before I could fill in the death
date. Lovecraft's lifespan was 1890-1937.


Hehehe. And here was me thinking he was undead.


--
Marina, Miranda and Caliban. In loving memory of Frank and Nikki.
Stories and pics at http://koti.welho.com/mkurten/
Pics at http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/frankiennikki/
and http://community.webshots.com/user/frankiennikki

wrote in message
...
Yowie wrote:

My involvement and fandom of Cthulu came first through the role-playing
games based on the Cthulu mythos.

A-ha! That explains it. I've been hearing about Cthulhu for years, and he
seems to be fairly well-known all over the place. But I don't think that
Lovecraft has that amount of mainstream appeal or familiarity, so when
someone else answered that Cthulhu was a Lovecraft creation, it puzzled me
that a character from one of his books could be so well-known, to the
point
that I've seen CTHULHU graffiti on buildings.

But ah, I get it - it's also a *role-playing game*. Lots and lots more
people do that than read Lovecraft. So now it all makes sense.

we as a group very much appreciated when Cthulu himself was made into a
plushie toy.

LOL!! Yowie, perhaps you would also enjoy these:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/plush/6708/images/

Tease! If I had a million dollars, that site would get quite a bit richer!

Yowie
(I am *such* a geek grrl)

On 2006-08-24 18:34:12 -0700, "Yowie" said:

we as a group very much appreciated when Cthulu himself was made into a
plushie toy. Now thats what irony is all about :-)

My older son went to Romania with an archaeological team to dig a
Neolithic site and a Roman Empire site. He took a plush Cthulu with
him... when he was done with the dig, he bummed around Europe for a
couple of weeks. We got a series of travelogue pics of Plush Cthulu at
Heathrow, Plush Cthulu in Iasa, Plush Cthulu at the Eifel Tower...

Katrina
--
History: special people in special places at special times
Anthropology: everyone else the rest of the time
-KWorley, 1997

On Fri, 25 Aug 2006 06:23:45 +0300, Marina
yodeled:

Kreisleriana wrote:


Whoops, I accidentally mouseclicked before I could fill in the death
date. Lovecraft's lifespan was 1890-1937.


Hehehe. And here was me thinking he was undead.


Eeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwww! LOL

Theresa
Stinky Pictures: http://community.webshots.com/album/125591586JWEFwh

Make Levees, Not War

On Fri, 25 Aug 2006 06:01:54 GMT, Katrina yodeled:

On 2006-08-24 18:34:12 -0700, "Yowie" said:

we as a group very much appreciated when Cthulu himself was made into a
plushie toy. Now thats what irony is all about :-)

My older son went to Romania with an archaeological team to dig a
Neolithic site and a Roman Empire site. He took a plush Cthulu with
him... when he was done with the dig, he bummed around Europe for a
couple of weeks. We got a series of travelogue pics of Plush Cthulu at
Heathrow, Plush Cthulu in Iasa, Plush Cthulu at the Eifel Tower...

Katrina


Like a Traveling Gnome, except creepier. I think.

Theresa
Stinky Pictures: http://community.webshots.com/album/125591586JWEFwh

Make Levees, Not War

Cats are definitely on topic, but I was wondering why Cthulhu would
also be on topic. But then, I was also wondering who would win if
Cthulhu and the Flying Spaghetti Monster got into a fight.

Well, Cthulu is evil and the Flying Spaghetti Monster is good
(particularly if you are a pirate, since pirates are his chosen
people). The Flying Spaghetti Monster created this world and all in
it, whereas Cthulu is only one of the many Elder Gods and not even the
most senior of them. On the other hand, that means Cthulu has a posse
and the FSM doesn't (though the FSM has a lot of pirates, who could
certainly beat up the human Cthulu cultists).

I'm torn. Good is supposed to triumph over evil, but Lovecraft's Elder
Gods are so scary because they're less conventionally evil and more
just amorally powerful beyond all reason...they don't hate us, we just
look tasty, and our opinions on the matter are so infantismally minute
as to be unimportant.

(*looks aside at Nocturne. Nox-Sothoth, the Cat with a Thousand
Badnesses?*)

--Fil