We’re a bit behind in marking the fifth anniversary of the demise of the Old Man in the Mountain but our friends at roadsideamerica.com remembered.
They also share the story of a New Hampshire artist wanting to replace the stone head with a glass one.
Here’s an interesting literary post: "Unfortunate Children Who Find Weird Stuff in Their Walls." If you’re like us then you can probably figure out which book of John’s that the blog discusses.
Cathedral's 750th exhibition opens
The Wiltshire Times Reporter notes that the Salisbury 750 Anniversary Exhibition, “which re-tells in words and stunning images the fascinating history of Salisbury Cathedral throughout the centuries” opened recently. We mentioned earlier this year about the cathedral’s approaching anniversary and its somewhat important role in The Revenge of the Wizard’s Ghost. The exhibition is free of charge and is open until the end of September during normal cathedral opening times. For more information visit http://www.salisburycathedral.org.uk/.
Mentioning John
A few places where Mr. Bellairs’ name was recently invoked:
The tomb of Seti I, who ruled Egypt from 1313 to 1292 B.C. at the apex of its artistic accomplishments, is impressive not only for its size but also for the breadth of art on its walls, experts say. But its size could be expanded even farther by future expeditions.Watch out for Autarchs
Archaeologists also found clay vessels, fragments of the tomb's painted wall reliefs, and a quartzite ushabti figure—a funerary statue—during their search for artifacts and efforts to clear debris.
These objects could have washed into the tunnel during floods starting from the 21st dynasty, between 1090 and 945 B.C., according to archaeologist W. Raymond Johnson, director of the Epigraphic Survey of the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080417-seti-tomb.html
We noted some of the similarities between the introduction to The House with a Clock in its Walls and M.R. James’ Lost Hearts. Now you can see some screen shots from a 1970s-era adaptation of Lost Hearts (which looks creepier than the 1970s-era adaptation of The House with a Clock in its Walls, for that matter). A warning to the curious (...) is noted that spoilers do indeed follow.
Maybe it’s because we were immersed in trying to understand St. Fidgeta and Other Parodies a few years ago that we cracked a smile at the news that Pope Benedict XVI is making his first visit to the United States this week. This will be the ninth time a pope has visited the United States and Benedict XVI becomes only the third pope to do so, followed by John Paul II (seven visits) and Paul VI’s first, and historic, visit to New York City.
During Paul VI’s visit in October, 1965, he met with President Lyndon Johnson, served Mass at Yankee Stadium, and addressed the United Nations.
Bellairs composed a short piece for St. Fidgeta following Paul VI’s visit to America in which some “notes” were found in the desk “of a New York advertising executive" speculating on some ways to improve and promote subsequent papal visits. You know, how to make them more commercial and so on. Some of the “ideas” suggest that Jesuits lend their Aston-Martin to the pontiff or signs be installed in Times Square that read:
The Sign of the Sinister Sorceror is due out October 16, 2008 and now available for purchase from Amazon.
Property Features
Single Family Property
Year Built: 1873
6 total bedroom(s)
2 total bath(s)
2 total full bath(s)
Approximately 5358 sq. ft.
Master bedroom
Dining room
Family room
Den
Basement (dweeb! dweeb!)
3 or more fireplaces
2 car garage
Interior features: Eating Area in Kitchen, Full Basement, Walkout Basement, Approximately 5358 Total Finished sq. ft. all levels, Approximately 5358 Total sq. ft. above grade
Exterior features: 2 Car Garage, Detached Garage, Road Frontage is 204 Ft., Deck(s), Screen Porch
Exterior construction: Brick
Approximate lot is Irregular
Lot is 58370 sq. ft.
Approximately 1.34 acre(s)
Lot size is between 1 and 2 acres
Where are we going with this?
You can be the third owner of this magnificent historic home - the Cronin House, made famous by author John Bellairs in his book The House with a Clock in Its Walls - for only $1,250,000.
I wonder if there is a coal bin...?
We were going through the archives this weekend and we came across our Japanese file, which turned out to only be a few notes about the Japanese editions of the books that came out a few years ago.
A group called Artist House published the first eight books in the Lewis Barnavelt series (House through Beast) and Shueisha Publishing published three of the Johnny Dixon books.
What we found in the archives were links to some sort of online promotion at the Shueisha Publishing site. The first is for The Mummy, the Will, and the Crypt – which has a nice, colorful spread of the Staunton Harold estate by artist Hiroyuki Yamada; the second is for The Spell of the Sorcerer’s Skull; and the third is The Revenge of the Wizard’s Ghost.
As no one in the office can read the characters, we’re not really sure what the clickable portions of the site say, much less where they lead to. But we think we’ve found samples of the books as well as some games.
And with that, it’s back to the archives.
The father of role-playing games and the co-founder of Dungeons & Dragons, Gary Gygax, has died. Gygax, along with Dave Arneson, created the long-popular fantasy game in 1974 which is estimated to have been played by 20 Million people.
Bellairsia's Jon Shanks had the privilege to share a brief email with Gygax back in 2001, setting the record straight on how much of The Face in the Frost influenced the creation of D&D. “I too like Bellairs' writing, and enjoyed The Face in the Frost a lot,” Gygax wrote. “However, long before I read his work I was (and still am) a devotee of Jack Vance's stories. It was Jack Vance in his Dying Earth and Eyes of Overworld that inspired the D&D magic system.”
Gygax was 69 years old.
Review of The Face in the Frost.
Remembrances from Evil Voodoo Celt, Jon Caulkett.
There are blogs for everything out there – including bookcover artwork.
Here's an interesting commentary about the state of "photoshopped images on kids’ book covers." The author cites four examples, including Brad Strickland's Grimoire: Tracked by Terror, and asks:
"Will we see the end of illustrated book covers for children? How much cheaper is it, in the end, to use stock photography? And are these kinds of covers only effective with younger kids?"
This reminds me of a newsgroup posting from a few years ago, discussing the decline of artwork in children's books. The article cited John Bellairs' novels from the 1970s as examples.
On the Tip of Your Tongue?
Ah...this is nice...someone was putting together a presentation about “the guy who wrote The House with a Clock in its Walls.” That was Ron Bellairs, right?
The Cons of Film Adaptations
Speaking of “Ron Bellairs” and that aborted project, here’s a bit of commentary on making The House with a Clock in its Walls into a movie. They say don’t: “I just know that I can't be the only person who doesn't like it when my favorite books are turned into movies. I love reading, and I do have some favorite movies, but it just seems like it takes all of the imagination out of my favorite books to see them as movies.”
That's a Thing that I Keep In the Back of my Head
And here’s someone else who feels strongly in keeping one’s imagination fresh. In their view, the best way to do that is to read to your children. He was read to as a child himself and counts Bellairs (as well as other luminaries) as one of his “lifetime favorites.”
Inside you the times moves and he don't fade
This caught our eye: something haunted in Winona, Minnesota? John lived there for a few years back in the 1960s and taught at St. Teresa’s – not St. Mary’s University, where a postcard of Heffron Hall prompted an investigation into a decade’s old story.
Gloomy Gorey?
Why, that’s delightful – someone points out the similarities between the game of Gloom (not kin to another game by id software) and the artwork of Edward Gorey. The game does sound somewhat interesting, though.
Just Call me Angel of the Mourning
According to this post, The Doom of the Haunted Opera contains a “weeping angel.” At first we wondered if this was one of the type of statues Lewis sees in the cemetery - in The House with a Clock in its Walls, Lewis sees gravestones with “weeping women leaning on urns and cupids extinguishing flames [64]”. Well, we weren’t too far from the truth: apparently that snake-woman statue-thing that follows Lewis and Rose Rita around but can only move when they don’t look at it is similar to a “weeping angel” – at least in the Doctor Who universe.
Some new reviews:
The Letter, the Witch, and the Ring
The Face in the Frost
The Eyes of the Killer Robot
Be sure to stop in to our discussion group for a lively chat: our old friend Jon Caulkett notes that the John Bellairs Wikipedia article had been creatively rewritten to include the “fact” that Bellairs “is alive and has ghost-written the Harry Potter books due to a ‘similarity’ in the style of writing.” They say that the idea of a poverty-stricken single mother was thought to have been more appealing than an established author like Bellairs.
Nice.
Illustrations embedded in people’s memories and thought of driving alone at night.
