1000-th post

Yep. We finally got to post # 1,000. I usually type a long essay on each century milestone, but I think I'll start with a simple THANK YOU to all of you who read.

This little hobby of mine has expanded to include a wide readership. There are two readership forums now attatched - at Google Groups and at Zoetrope. The one at Zoetrope has special material not posted here. The blog is near-encyclopedic. I've tried to lately include a lot of rare antiquarian items and ephemera that comes up for sale and quickly disappears into collector's private hands - maybe for decades. Who knows. I'm including more auction prices for your comparison to your items.

Now where do we go?

Well, I plan on taking 2008 and writing long essays, but based on comments and consultations with my colleagues, they seem to think I should polish them and publish in peer-reviewed zines over the next few years. OK, I'll try that.

I've also collected a number of rare ephemera and rare items that I'll use from time to time here and elsewhere.

I have to tell you it's a pleasure to hear from many of you who write. I delete all the spybot spam from my email, so please be patient with me as I answer you back. the Problem with having a publich email is the silly spam, and once in a rare while I miss one of your emails, so write me again if I do. I'm certainly no Mr. Joshi or Rev. Price, but I do enjoy discussing Lovecraft and antuquarian issues as I study more about the history of weird fiction and Mr. Lovecraft. I hang out, more and more, at the Horror Mall so stop by at www.horror-mall.com/forum.

Where do we go from here? Well, I don't know. Over 2000 of you are reading each month (about 4x what it was last year) and that's growing by leaps and bounds. We'll pass our 20,000 th download of my blog soon. You guys are referencing me more and more on your web sites and blogs. THANK YOU. I've just about covered most every year from 1890 to 2008, and a huge portion of Providence sitz im leben for Lovecraft's life from contemporary postcards, images, and photos. Most of his friends and colleagues, and his small press associations with UAPA and NAPA amateur journalism has been covered. The whole blog is indexed now and you have the cool blogger search feature, too.

You've borne my terrible typos and idiosyncratic theories about Houdini and Lovecraft, Alpheus Packard, Jr's influences, Lovecraft's girlfriends, his Scientific-Adventurism paradigm, and so forth.

I'll continue to add ephemera and random posts as they come to me, but I do have to slow down a bit. I need to focus on developing more of my fiction and essays to publish in 2008, and I've taken on more responsibilities at +The Horror Library+ and elsewhere.

Again, you readers are the BEST and THANK YOU for hanging out and using this blog as a research tool. :)

-Chrispy