MonsterTalk is the most under-achieving podcast I listen to. And, this week’s episode, Cthulhu Risesis an example why I get more infuriated than satisfied.

The literary work of Howard Phillips Lovecraft is dark and macabre. It casts a long shadow in American Literature, influencing such writers as Rod Serling, Steven King, Bob Howard, Robert Bloch, and many others. In his stories he wove a tapestry of mad alien gods and unspeakable horrors and the insignificance of man. And of a mountainous evil that sleeps in the ocean, worshiped by mad cults and known only as … Cthulhu.

The interview with Robert M. Price was provocative, sometimes funny. Thankfully Karen Stollznow kept the good questions coming when Ben Radford geeked out into irrelevance, And, the interview with P.Z. Myers was fascinating, too. It’s just that an interview about H.P. Lovecraft and another about octopuses really don’t go together, even if Cthulhu had a cephalopod head. The Myers interview just seemed tacked on. The episodes don’t seem to come regularly, and the topics seem obscure. I really like the crypto-zoological angle, and i expected more non-conventional treatments of the ordinary suspects before the episodes delved into virgin territory.

Regardless, Lovecraft, a monster in his own right, deserves an episode, and more. I have some other thoughts I can’t unpack right now – maybe later – but a literary angle for the show is a good direction. All I can say is lesbian Kurtz, in a female society organized by psychoses and neuroses until discovered by a man looking for gems and gray aliens.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Filed under: Academia, Books, Podcasts, Science Tagged: ben radford, cephalopods, cthulu, hp lovecraft, monstertalk, pz myers, skeptic magazine