Yesterday, I came across a passage in a book by Alan Watts that reignited an old passion for what I have referred to in the past as “the autumn longing.” In a kind of “deep cut” vein for this blog, longtime readers — by which I mean really longtime readers, those who have been with…
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Autumn Longing: Peter Shaffer and AMADEUS
First, my standard proviso: If you haven’t already read the first installment in this series of posts, then please do so before reading this one, since the first one lays the groundwork for what I’m going on about. But for now, to reiterate briefly: Since childhood I have been overcome from time to time by…
Autumn Longing: Edgar Allan Poe
First, my standard proviso: If you haven’t already read the first installment in this series of posts, then please do so before reading this one, since the first one lays the groundwork for what I’m going on about. I assume Poe needs no introduction to most readers, seeing as he — or at least a…
Autumn longing: H.P. Lovecraft
If you haven’t yet read my first post in this series of posts about a special mood of ethereal longing that occasionally overcomes me, then please read that one before this one, since it lays the groundwork to explain what I’m getting at here. H.P. Lovecraft was an early 20th century American horror author who…
Autumn longing: C.S. Lewis
The autumn season has always carried a special emotional potency for me. When the weather turns crisp and the colors of nature change first to vibrant reds, oranges, and golds, and then progress onward toward deep russet browns, tending toward the death-sleep of winter, I’m struck with feelings of poignancy and melancholy that burn more…
The Final Farewell
Well, here it is. The last post I will ever publish at The Teeming Brain. As previously announced, after 16 years I’m closing the doors to make way for a new project, which launched today. But before we leave, a trip down teeming memory lane: I started The Teeming Brain in June 2006. One month…
Huston Smith and H. P. Lovecraft on transcendent longing and humanity’s fundamental dis-ease
From Why Religion Matters: The Fate of the Human Spirit in an Age of Disbelief by Huston Smith: The traditional worldview is preferable to the one that now encloses us because it allows for the fulfillment of the basic longing that lies in the depth of the human heart. . . . There is within…
C. S. Lewis and H. P. Lovecraft on loathing and longing for alien worlds
Several years ago — almost seven, in fact (he said with a sense of temporal vertigo) — I published a series of posts here about what I then termed the “autumn longing,” that exquisite, fleeting, piercing experience of being tantalized by a vision of ultimate beauty and fulfillment that trembles just beyond the edge of…
It’s the Most Tentacled Time of the Year: Happy 120th Birthday, H.P. Lovecraft
Nobody would have been more surprised than Howard Phillips Lovecraft himself at his posthumous ascent to the twin positions of international entertainment culture icon and canonical American literary figure. Today is his 120th birthday. He was born on August 20, 1890 (only four days (plus 80 years) before my own birthday, I gleefully note). He…
Lovecraft’s Longing: Article for Art Throb
A few months ago I wrote a post about the launch of Art Throb, a Web-based arts initiative headed by my Salem-based sister that chronicles the creative life of the Massachusetts North Shore. Now I have become one of the writers for this venture. Dinah, my sister, invited me a couple of months ago to…