Episode 35 / 36 - Under the Pyramids (a.k.a. "Imprisoned With the Pharaohs")

[Chris Lackey]

These are the posting from the old site...

Danial79 said:

Joined: Oct 17, 2009
Posts: 157
March 18, 2010 11:32 PM
If HPL was paid $100 to write this story, I think he did pretty well for himself. I just used an online inflation calculator and found that $100 in 1924 is the equivalent of about $1200 today. I don't know what writers' rates normally are, but $1200 for a short story sounds pretty good to me! :-)
____________________

For the present they would rest; but some day, if they remembered,
they would rise again for the tribute Great Cthulhu craved.
It would be a city greater than Innsmouth next time...


Obed Marsh said:

Joined: Mar 13, 2010
Posts: 8
March 19, 2010 11:11 AM
Re: Knocking Houdini down a peg or two.

It made me think of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4H_gn8yl_J0&NR=1#t=02m36s


empathy44 said:

Joined: Nov 21, 2009
Posts: 15
March 20, 2010 10:20 AM
Sounds like HH and HP were of like minds--deep disbelief combined with an appreciation of the entertainment value of the fake supernatural. Don't know if their unwritten book would have been fantastic or pedantic.


JulieH said:

Joined: Nov 1, 2009
Posts: 101
March 21, 2010 1:45 PM
I'm still stuck on the "come watch us fight on top of the pyramid" thing. I can see it as an interesting scene, actually, with them saying "ah, no no you don't want to see this. Really. Hint hint." and him offering more and more dinars "come on, guys! I won't tell anyone!"...

The first rule of pyramid club - you don't talk about pyramid club!
--Julie H
www.19nocturneboulevard.com


Catamount said:

Joined: Dec 7, 2009
Posts: 43
March 24, 2010 6:35 PM
"The first rule of pyramid club - you don't talk about pyramid club!"

Those sinewy barbarians fight 'til they're burger!
http://stygiandarknessacrossthepotomac.blogspot.com/


namelessone said:

Joined: Mar 25, 2010
Posts: 3
March 25, 2010 3:06 AM
I went to Egypt in the winter of 1987-1988 and I remember walking amongst the ruins of the pyramid complex. I was there as part of my degree in Egyptology!
I recall that I found and went down a steep tombshaft into an unlit and cavernous hall..it wasn't as deep as in the story but it had quite a creepy atmosphere..although I had a torch and the wide slope back up was rather easy to negotiate..I felt how shall I put it...fascinated and on edge. This story brings back odd memories...the hall might have been part of one of the temple complexes there, at the time off limits to the general public
abhor the mundane


namelessone said:

Joined: Mar 25, 2010
Posts: 3
March 25, 2010 3:13 AM
The next day my friend decided to enter the Great Pyramid...I declined to accompany him....study of the ancient rites contained in the Coffin Texts and the Book of the Dead does that to a man...nothing could have compelled me to enter and I was happier to admire from afar as it were
abhor the mundane


TransconaSlim said:

Joined: Feb 5, 2010
Posts: 15
March 25, 2010 12:05 PM
So wait... The sphinxs paw had faces on it? I don't get what HH saw?


JulieH said:

Joined: Nov 1, 2009
Posts: 101
March 25, 2010 5:58 PM
nail decals?

[Just run with it - if there can be a sphinx, it can have faces on its "fingers"]
--Julie H
www.19nocturneboulevard.com


chrislackey said:

Joined: Jun 28, 2009
Posts: 254
March 25, 2010 6:32 PM
"It was something quite ponderous, even as seen from my height; something yellowish and hairy, and endowed with a sort of nervous motion. It was as large, perhaps, as a good-sized hippopotamus, but very curiously shaped. It seemed to have no neck, but five separate shaggy heads springing in a row from a roughly cylindrical trunk; the first very small, the second good-sized, the third and fourth equal and largest of all, and the fifth rather small, though not so small as the first. Out of these heads darted curious rigid tentacles which seized ravenously on the excessively great quantities of unmentionable food placed before the aperture. "

No faces on the heads. Just claws... or 'curious rigid tentacles.' I think this is cool because though it seems obvious to us, Houdini's mind just couldn't get around what he saw.


Old Man Parker said:

Joined: Feb 25, 2010
Posts: 9
March 26, 2010 12:47 PM
Wonderful... Houdini and Lovecraft - amazing team up.
But I agree, I think a little more pulp action would have helped.

Hey, the end theme music is Great! Thank you Reber Clark!

Sad to think Lovecraft wrote about 60 tales, this means we are through half already!
www.tikishark.com


Old Man Parker said:

Joined: Feb 25, 2010
Posts: 9
March 26, 2010 2:23 PM
I like that Andrew Leman sounds like Mark Hamil.
Right?
He sounds just like Mark Hamil, or is that just me?
www.tikishark.com


empathy44 said:

Joined: Nov 21, 2009
Posts: 15
March 26, 2010 3:55 PM
The thing about Lovecraft that fascinates me--and that this story sort of epitomizes--is that even when I can see his strings he still grabs me on some primal level. While my conscious mind might be busy examining his style or logic--my reptilian mind believes it's about to be et.

[Old-One]

This is easily my favourite Podcast/s (not story) so far. Matt Foyer Does a fantastic job as Narrator, 100 times better than the version on Audible.co.uk, I WISH i could read like that. I find Rebers music compelling and im very tempted to get myself a copy. The two host's plus Andrew Leeman are on top form and i find the whole podcast hilarious and interesting in equal amounts.

Thanks to all involved !   

[Chris Lackey]

This is easily my favourite Podcast/s (not story) so far. Matt Foyer Does a fantastic job as Narrator, 100 times better than the version on Audible.co.uk, I WISH i could read like that. I find Rebers music compelling and im very tempted to get myself a copy. The two host's plus Andrew Leeman are on top form and i find the whole podcast hilarious and interesting in equal amounts.  

Gosh, you're makin' a brother blush! Enough!

Seriously, thank you. Look for Matt Foyer in 'The Whisperer in Darkness' Trailer!

http://www.cthulhulives.org/Whisperer/screening-med.html

[ahtzib]

Was Houdini Cthulhu's first victim?

http://www.ectomo.com/2011/03/24/cthulhu-cthursday-was-houdini-cthulhus-first-victim/

[Genus Unknown]

This is too cool: Harry Houdini and Abraham Lincoln discuss spirit photography.

[kulain]

what he's probably saying:

[MediaGhost]

This is easily my favourite Podcast/s (not story) so far. Matt Foyer Does a fantastic job as Narrator, 100 times better than the version on Audible.co.uk,

A full reading by Mr. Foyer would be awesome.  The only two full readings of the story I know of are Gareth David-Lloyd's and Gordon Gould's, and neither really do the story justice. 

[Genus Unknown]

I was re-listening to these episodes lately, and something occurs to me. Chad points out how Houdini is always complaining about money in this story, and asks if Lovecraft may have picked that up from him.

Have we considered the possibility that HPL is making a "cheap Jew" joke at Houdini's expense?

[Bob Lovecraft]

I think that is unlikely since by all reports the two had actually cultivated a bit of a friendship and HPL is notorious for heaping praise onto his friends in his writing.

Bob

[Jack]

I think that is unlikely since by all reports the two had actually cultivated a bit of a friendship and HPL is notorious for heaping praise onto his friends in his writing.

Bob

It's possible that he knew Houdini was Jewish and subconsciously assumed that he was cheap. Conversely, HPL wasn't exactly Mr. Moneybags and he could've seen thriftiness as a virtue.

[old book]

I seem to remember HPL got paid in advance for the story but there was still some dispute about the final payment or something. Maybe I made that up. It never dawned on me Houdini was Jewish. Besides the seances to raise him from the dead, there were rumors his house in the hills above Hollywood was haunted by his spirit. Also there are rumors there are tunnels connecting different houses in that neighborhood, including H.'s.

I wonder what photograph H. is showing Abe. Maybe he's trying to reconstruct the crime scene of Lincoln's assassination?

[Genus Unknown]

I just re-read this story last night, and was fairly blown away at how great some of the writing is... in places. There are flaws in the story to be sure, but I still think it's one of the best things he'd written by this point in his career. The quality of the good parts more than outweighs the suckitude of the bad parts.

Flaws:

- The fainting. Look, I know Lovecraft characters have trouble staying conscious in the face of Horrible Revelation. But the record-holder, the most egregious example, the only character to faint not one, not two, but three times in the same story... is Harry Houdini? The toughest guy in 1924? Really? I almost feel that the story may have worked better without its famous protagonist. Almost.

- The paw. I know it's big, and I love the Sphinx as a monster itself, but the attempt at a bait-and-switch with the "five-headed monster" is just really weak. I don't buy it. If, from a distance, you saw a giant lion's paw dart out of a doorway, I bet your first thought wouldn't be "wow, what an odd-looking creature," it would be "HOLY CRAP LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THAT LION PAW!"

- "Death rattle," "corpse gurgle." Pick one and use it sparingly.

But these are minor quibbles. Even the bit with the paw isn't that big a deal; it's just there to show that there's a huge feline horror lurking under the pyramids, and its clumsy handling can be overlooked. And I don't share Chris's complaint that there isn't enough "Houdini" stuff going on. Aside from the fainting, he writes adventurer-Houdini well; if he never actually throws any punches, he does escape from his binds, plans on kicking the shit out of Abdul Reis and his cronies when he gets out anyway, and sneaks through a swarm of soulless mummies to get to the exit. He shows courage and pulp-hero hardiness beyond that of your average Lovecraft character. If he faints (three times, no less), it's excusable given what Houdini goes through in the story. Mostly though, Lovecraft just needed Houdini to lapse into unconsciousness so he could write the dream-sequences and get all the exposition out of the way. He hangs a lampshade on it later in the story - "often I look back to that night and feel a touch of actual humor in those repeated lapses of consciousness; lapses whose succession reminded me at the time of nothing more than the crude cinema melodramas of that period." I love when he does that. He does it in "The Rats in the Walls," too, when he mentions the cat hissing at nothing, and says, in effect, "boy, sure sounds like a hackneyed ghost story, but hey, it happened, I can't leave it out."

So yeah, the flaws are noticeable, but it's such a good story, not even for the plot but for the writing itself. The sights, sounds, smells, and sensations of Houdini's descent into the underworld are handled very, very well. The real Lovecraftian goodness - the monsters, the ruins, the journeys through deep time and deep earth, the feeling of pity for the planet - is some of the yummiest in all of Lovecraft. And the last line may well be my all-time favorite ending to a Lovecraft story.

I love this one, and don't think it gets the recognition it deserves.