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This report was written for English class in my junior year.  It marks a turning point in my life, in that I really stopped caring what kind of grade I got.  It takes an amazing teacher to inspire a student so...yessir.

H.P. LOVECRAFT (AKA: HOWARD PHILLIP L)

 Lovecraft was formerly a living man. Now he is a dead man. This is very ironic, since many of his stories dealt with death and the macrabe. There is a great deal of CONTROVERSY about whether or not Lovecraft made up The Necronomicon all by himself, or if somebody else did. I donÕt really care. In fact, no one cares, I made up the part about controversy. But controversy or not, I am going to make a THESIS STATEMENT. Or maybe itÕs a THESIS QUESTION. Whatever. ItÕs all the same, way down the line (-The Offspring). Oops, hahaha, I almost forgot my THREE SUPPORTING THESIS SUPPORTERS. HOW silly of myself. He made up the Necronomicon. No he didnÕt. Maybe he did. God! I'm so confused!

DID LOVECRAFT MAKE UP THE NECRONOMICON?! DID HE?! HUH?? HUH???

 This is really an important question that everyone with nothing better to do should worry about. I know IÕM certainly worried about it. I took upwards of TEN NOTECARDS in preparations for this wonderful and fact filled report. Strangely (which is IRONIC, since Lovecraft often wrote about STRANGE things), I still have few actual FACTS. And certainly no useful ones. But this is a mere small hurdle in the writing of a REPORT.

 One of the main arguments for the opinion that Lovecraft wrote The Necronomicon HIMSELF is that the mad Arab Adualahazar is in fact a person that Lovecraft MADE UP. This is a real fact! Not just something I made up! It has been confirmed that while Lovecraft was still a brat, he made up his mad Arab character after reading the Arabian Nights. Uh-huh.

 However, it is also true that you can go out and BUY A COPY OF The Necronomicon at your local Evil book-store. And if The Necronomicon is just something that Lovecraft MADE-UP then you couldn't just go out and BUY IT, could you?! FUKÕN PEANUTS!!!!!!

 I had a third interesting fact for this space all ready to go, but I seem to have misplaced it, so we will have to just pretend it was here. I donÕt know if the fact was FOR or AGAINST Lovecraft making up The Necronomicon, so you will have to guess.

 Final conclusion: IÕm hungry. And I forgot what IÕm supposed to be writing about.

 Oh Yeah!

 Boyhood of Lovecraft: Since Lovecraft lived to be over THIRTY YEARS OLD, we can assume that he had a boyhood. I should be a detective, not writing silly English reports. He was a CHILD PRODIGY type kid. The annoying kind too. He was sickly and stuff all the time, and couldnÕt go out and get a normal education. So he spent all his time reading. There are facts below, at the request of the annoying voices in my head (and a few outside my head).  (Ash-I was taking a shot at my English teacher there.)

Lovecraft was first interested in the Arabian Nights, then in Greek Mythology, which he gleamed through children's versions of The Illiad and The Odyssey. Lovecraft's earliest surviving literary work was The Poem of Ulysses', which was an 88 line paraphrase of The Odyssey. Lovecraft adopted the pseudonym Abdul Alhazred at the age of 5. Lovecraft's parents were named Winfield Scott and Sarah Lovecraft. He took his mothers name. Lovecraft was contributing a monthy article on astronomy to the Providence Tribune at the age of 15. Lovecraft preferred the company of adults to children as a child. Lovecraft learned his alphabet at the age of 2 and could read at the age of 4. Lovecraft was very interested in the sciences as a boy. MOM! THEY WON'T STOP LAUGHING!

Writing career of Lovecraft: Even though he was a great plumber*, Lovecraft will always be remembered for his writing. He wrote a few novels (they were The Case of Charles Dexter and At the Mountains of Madness, in reverse alphabetical order) and mostly did a whole bunch (over 60) of LITTLE TINY short stories that he put in Òpulp magazinesÓ all over the place. I havenÕt eaten a peanut in months. He did not get famous until he died big time. He worked in his home with the shades drawn, even during the day, using an electric light. I wonder what his problem was. He must have written something good, because Stephen King said, in the form of a quote: ÒNow that time has given us some perspective on his work, it is certain that H.P. Lovecraft if the 20Õth centuries greatest propriater of the classic horror story.Ó Another quote, this one from Lovecraft himself, ÒTo write a good horror story you must give it a realistic background.Ó (Ash-Part of the assignment, a part I loathed, was that we had to use three quotes in our reports. I made up that last one from memory.)LovecraftÕs models (people whos writing he liked, not herion chicks) were POE, DUNSANY and MACHEN. He also admired BLACKWOOD and M.R. JAMES. Some people think monkeys are cute, but I donÕt. OH JESUS CHRIST, SHE GAVE ME CRABS!

Lovecraft in Providence: Lovecraft was a big time mammas boy. He lived with his MOTHER in an old Victorian house. Whoop-de-shit. EEE! I JUST REALIZED MY LIFE IS A LIE! IÕVE SPENT THE LAST 16 YEARS WRITING STUPID FUCKING ENGLISH REPORTS AND OTHER SUCH IDIOTIC SCHOOL BASED TASKS, INSTEAD OF ANYTHING USEFULL OR MEANINGFUL. AND SINCE HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF, I WILL ALMOST SURELY SPEND THE NEXT 16 YEARS OF MY LIFE DOING THE SAME THING. AND IF HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF AGAIN, AND I SEE NO REASON WHY IT WOULDNÕT, THEN I'LL BE 64 AND HAVE DONE NOTHING WITH MY LIFE, AND WHEN YOUíRE 64, WHATíS THE POINT OF LIVING ANYWAY?????? (Hint: There is none. None at all.) AAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!!!!!!!!!!!

(Ash- And here we have a good arguement against listening to punk rock during the impressionable teen years.)

Lovecraft out of Providence: He got married and moved out of Providence to live with his wife. They got DIVORCED, and he moved back to Providence. THIS MAN'S LIFE WAS SHEER INTENSITY! I'M SURE IT MUST HAVE BEEN! THE FACT THAT I'M FALLING ASLEEP JUST THINKING ABOUT HIS LIFE MEANS NOTHING! NOTHING I TELL YOU! *sigh*

Oh wait, here in my notebook , I have found some notecards. What follows is the excrement of the note cardy goodness: In 1924 Lovecraft married Mrs. Sonia Green, a writer from New York. They lived in Brooklyn and were divorced a year later. He moved back to Providence. Though reclusive (THE BOOKÕS WORDS! NOT MINE! NOT MINE DAMMIT!) he travelled alot along the Atlantic Seaboard and did some Eastern Travel.

The Lovecraft mythos: Not many people can say they have their very own MYTHOS. I sure canÕt. Instead of making my own mythos, I spend most of my time working on English reports. Not that IÕm bitter. His (Lovecraftís, not MINE certainly) funky FUNKY mythos involved weird creatures from YOGGOTH and other such far-off places, and they were like everywhere, and superior to Humans, and they have lived longer then humans because humans are not very important in the grand scheme of happenings. HEY! Just like me! Anyway. That is the Lovecraft mythos, man. It all started with "The Call of Cthulu", which is a nifty little story.

I AM DONE HERE! IT IS ALL FINISHED! THE END, BABY! THERE IS NO MORE, IÕVE GOT NO MORE FUCKING BLOOD IN ME! YOUÕVE TAKEN IT ALL!

* - I kid.

My grade for the report was a D, as was my grade for the semester.  Woo-hoo!  Let's hear it for being a slacker!  (oh well, at least I ripped off Jhonen Vasquez alot...)