Thursday, August 13, 2026
THREE-THIRTY A.M. came very early, but Ms. B. and I had a plane to
catch. It's the weekend of
NecronomiCon Providence, and our flight departed from Greensboro at 6:30 a.m. We had a connection in
Charlotte (yes, we had to fly south before we could fly north), but things
went off without a hitch, which was kind of surprising, given our
semi-frequent flying woes. We landed at Rhode Island T.F. Green International Airport right on time at 10:30 a.m. and picked up our rental car lickety-split. It
does indeed seem rare anymore when air travel goes so swimmingly — and on
American Airlines at that, which for some years I'd refused to fly after a
series of serious flight snafus.
Once in Providence proper, our first order of business was locating food,
since we'd each had only half a hard-boiled egg at home before we left. We
ended up polishing off some fine vittles at
Murphy's Providence, a nice Irish tavern we've visited in the past — satisfying burgers and
libations for the both of us. We then headed over to the
Graduate Hotel
(formerly the Biltmore) and checked into the con. We've got a room for
one night at the Omni Providence, where much of the con is being held, but we
couldn't check in until 4:00 p.m. Still, we wandered con area for a while, ran
into
Lovecraft eZine
compadres Mike Davis, Alan Hughes, Kevin Joiner, Mike & Bridgette
Brenmark, and Chaz Mena, and shot some shit for a bit. Then we stumbled over
to a random bar called
Rogue Island, where we encountered a lovely Irish bartender named Kevin, with whom we
struck up a nice conversation. He suggested we check out
Weird Providence, a marvelous little bookshop filled with Lovecraftian and cosmic literary
treasures. The proprietors were keen on adding some of my books to their
shelves, and I had just enough copies on hand to provide them with a few.
At last, it was time for us to check in at the Omni. For the rest of our time here, we'll be staying at a nice VRBO on nearby Federal Hill, but it had been erroneously double-booked for tonight. The owner kindly refunded two nights of our stay there for the one night we'd have to miss, which worked out nicely, given our schedule. Once settled in, we showered and rested for a while, thinking we'd go to the con's opening ceremonies at 5:00 p.m. Alas, we were still pretty exhausted and didn't quite have it in us to deal with southern-style heat out there again.
There had been some clamors among the eZine group about going to The Red Door, where there was music and Necronomicon-sponsored goodies, and so Ms. B. and
I made our way there, but alas, it was so packed, we couldn't get inside. On a
lark, we poked our heads in next door at Needle & Thread, a speakeasy-style restaurant/bar that appeared very appealing. Indeed, the
atmosphere was great, but there was only one fellow on duty to look after
patrons, and he was stretched pretty thin (not to mention his basic
organizational skills needed some work). The food however, was fantastic;
Kimberly had chicken empanadas, and I had fried calamari.
Out in the street, we ran into a bunch of friends and familiar folks —
Jeremiah Dylan Cook, Patrick Barb, Carol Gyzander, Kevin Joiner, John Langan,
Paul Tremblay, Pete Rawlik, and others. We shot some serious shit for a while,
then Ms. B. and I set out in search of liquid refreshment. Very nearby, we
found a cool-looking bar called
Moonshine Alley and sampled a few of their wares. Then we moved to
The Oberlin, where they were running Clueless on an outdoor screen — kind
of a "walk-in drive-in" feature. We sat in their very pleasant bar for a
time, then set out for our lodgings. On the way, we ran into Mike Davis, Alan
Hughes, and Chaz Mena yakking on a street corner, so we spent some quality
time with them for a bit before hoofing it back to the Omni and crashing.
One hell of a long but satisfying day in what what has become one of my
favorite cities anywhere.
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| The view from our lodgings at the Omni Providence |
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| Crowd watching Clueless on the screen at the Oberlin bar |
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| Clueless at the Oberlin bar |
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| Jolly old dude & Mike Davis |
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| Ruffians on a street corner |
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| Would you hang out with these people? Yes? How brave! Old Dude and Chaz Mena |
Friday, August 14, 2026
We bounded (read: straggled) out of bed fairly early this morning, since it
promised to be a somewhat chaotic day. We snagged copious amount of caffeine
from the little coffee shop at the Omni, checked out of our room, and then
checked our bags with the concierge, since we couldn't move to our new digs
for several hours yet. Then we hung out for a spell at the Lovecraft eZine table in the dealer's room.
At 11:00 a.m., I made my way onto the dais for the Appalachian Gothic panel, which attracted a bigger than standing-room-only
crowd. It was a lively and fun discussion with moderator Mike Allen and
panelists Tonya Monteforte, Shanna Germain, and Luke Dodd.
Ms. B. and I then joined a passel of reprobates for Japanese treats at
Yamato Japanese Restaurant. Lemme see if I can remember the crew... we had Mike Brenmark, Alan
Hughes & his daughter, Kevin Joiner & his wife & 2 kids, Chaz
Mena, and Pete Rawlik, It was a damned fine time, and I tore up a superb
plate of not-very-dead fish, though I wonder if our servers ever want to see
us again, for there was merriment (and even silliness) on occasion here.
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| Appalachian Gothic panel: Old Dude, Mike Allen (moderator), Tonya Monteforte, Shanna Germain, Luke Dodd |
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| Standing room only at the Applachian Gothic panel |
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| "I've got a lot of problems with you people, and now you're going to hear about it." |
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| Lovecraft eZiners: Alan Hughes, Matt Carpenter, Mike & Bridgette Brenmark |
I needed to fit in a little geocaching, because it just hadn't happened (yet) on this trip. And Ms. B. was thirsty. So, we went after a cache that I ended up unable to find (pretty sure it's missing), though I did complete a handful of Adventure Lab cache stages. We found a sweet little spot called Congress Tavern, had a drink, and then returned to the Omni to collect our rental car and shift our temporary domicile to our VRBO on Federal Hill — an insanely short distance from the site of long-demolished St. John's Church, which served as the inspiration for a crucial setting in H. P. Lovecraft's pivotal story, "The Haunter of the Dark." Our place is an old three-flat house that likely dates back to the turn of the 20th century. It's been reasonably modernized, but it has a lot of character and is comfortable.
Once settled, we walked over to a nearby wine shop to check out their wares.
Since Federal Hill is basically Providence's Italian quarter, it was no
surprise to find that they specialized in Italian wines, and we found a
couple of bottles to bring back that proved quite good. For dinner, we
visited
Pane e Vino, which had an extensive and appealing menu of Italian vittles. Both Ms. B.
and I decided to go for smaller portions this evening, so it was
Polpette (meatballs with cheese in marinara sauce) for her, and beef
carpaccio for me (it's one of my favorites, though a very rare treat). She
rated hers decent but unremarkable; mine was fantastic. Today was pretty
much Mark Uncooked: raw fish for lunch and raw dead cow for dinner. Hey, I
loved it, though I can just hear Melinda Dillon in
A Christmas Story hollering, "You'll get worms!"
For the rest of the evening, we made it mellow. She worked on art, and I
worked on the blog. Tomorrow, we've gotta be up and at it pretty early.
Till then.
Saturday, August 15, 2026
L: F. Paul Wilson & Old Dude; R: Old Dude reading "Night Crier" to a marginally terrified audience
I had a panel to moderate — "Drifting Down the River of Night's Dreaming: Karl Edward Wagner" — at 9:30 a.m., so we got up and going post-haste to make sure we
could get back to the Omni and find parking, which can be difficult in
the area. We opted for the parking garage at
Providence Place, just across the river, which we'd done on a previous trip — but the
place is so big and so damned... non-Euclidean... that once we'd secured
a parking place, we had the devil of a time getting out and across the
river. Eventually, we managed this, though with no little confusion.
Kimberly headed straight to the coffee shop, and I made it to the panel
with scant minutes to spare. She kindly brought me a large coffee just
before the panel kicked off. What would I do without you, Ms. B.?
Have I mentioned that I detest moderating panels? Point of fact: I
detest moderating panels. However, this proved to be an excellent bunch
of folks to panel with — Jordan Douglas Smith, Doug Winter, Brett Cox,
and John Langan — so it went swimmingly. Once it was over, Kimberly and
I wandered down to the dealer's room and hung out with the eZine crowd
for a while. About 11:30, she and I snagged eZiner Matt Carpenter and
meandered over to Murphy's for a spot of lunch — chicken wings for Matt and me, and a
breakfast plate for Ms. B. All were quite decent. We quite enjoyed
conversing with Matt; that was probably the most face-to-face time in
person we've ever had. When we'd checked in at the Omni, Brugger and I
had received vouchers for a free drink at Fleur, the hotel restaurant, so we availed ourselves of this thing upon our
return.
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| Old Dude, Brett Cox at the Karl Edward Wagner Panel |
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| John Langan, Old Dude |
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| Douglass Winter, Jordan Douglas Smith |
To my surprise, while we were in the bar, I ran into F. Paul Wilson, who
is one of my favorite living writers and a long-time acquaintance from
many cons in the days of yore. He's had some serious health issues these
past few years, so I was happy to see him up and about. We chatted for a
while, and then Brugger and I returned to the dealer's room to mind the
store for a while. I'd brought a handful of my books for the eZine
table, and I'm happy to say I sold out of them. I wish I'd been able to
bring more, since I obviously could have sold them as well.
At 3:30, I had a reading over at the Graduate, along with writers Julie
C. Day, Adam Golaski, and Jacy Morris. It was very well received, and I
quite enjoyed reading the tale. Unlike moderating panels, readings make
me smile. And once that was done, Brugger and I headed downstairs to
Reiner's, the restaurant/bar at the Graduate. Soon, Mike Davis and Chaz Mena
joined us, and we enjoyed excellent drinks and conversation with them
until Ms. B. and I had to leave to meet friend/fellow writer, Jeffrey
Thomas and his daughter, Jade; writer Tim Burrall and his wife; and a
couple of Tim's friends at
Mokban Korean Bistro. What a fabulous dinner! I had fiery chicken udon, which
really was fiery. And fantastic.
By now, Brugger and I were fairly exhausted (we're getting very old).
Somehow, we managed to retrieve our rental car without issue and
returned to Federal Hill, where we fell down and went boom. After
a long, hot shower, I settled down to write the blog, and Ms. did a
bunch of artsying. We're thinking that we're going to forego Newport
tomorrow and hang around Providence. After going non-stop for such long
periods, a somewhat slower pace — and not having to drive a goodly
distance — felt like more the ticket.
We've still got a visit to Salem, MA, ahead of us on Monday. Ciao.
L: F. Paul Wilson & Old Dude; R: Old Dude reading "Night Crier" to a marginally terrified audience
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| Fiery chicken at Mokban |
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| A fiery mob at Mokban |
I woke up a bit before Ms. B., so I coffeed and breakfasted (a single egg) and
worked on the blog. Once she straggled out of bed, we debated whether to head
back to the con for a short while; but as most of the regular crowd was
preparing to return to respective domiciles and such — and since parking can a
huge hassle — we opted to roam around Federal Hill for a while and get in some
geocaching (at least for me). I found four fun ones, and we discovered a
handful of very scenic spots. I found myself smitten with the architecture of
the Church of the Holy Ghost (shown below). It was not the church Lovecraft
used as the setting of his story, "The Haunter of the Dark" (that was
St. John's Church, which is long gone, though the site is very near here, as I
mentioned above), but it might as well have been. It's impressively large and
and moody, with the perfect atmosphere for the church in the story.
For lunch, we checked out The Screaming Unicorn, a fun little establishment attached to
Buttonwoods Brewery, located in what one might take to be a sketchy, semi-abandoned industrial
area, but it's clearly being restored. And dang if we didn't find some mighty
good foodz and drinks here. I had a Screaming BLT — hot-honey bacon, greens,
'maters, pickled onion, and chipotle aioli — and it was good enough to rouse a
holler out of me. Kim killed a killer smashburger. From there, we ambled on
back to our lodgings, got clean, and mellowed for a time before it was time to
head out again to the
Brown University
area, a little southeast of here.
Once back at our place, we sat out on the nice front porch, which overlooks
Tell Street, and finished the night with a last glass of wine. A lovely day,
all in all, though I'm kinda sad that we didn't manage another chance to see
some of our good friends again on the con's final day.
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| On the geocaching trail near the Newport Ferry launch |
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| This table at Wickenden Pub has seen a lot of history |
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| A damn fine martini at Wickenden Pub |
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| A damn fine young woman at Wickenden Pub |
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| Wickenden Pub |
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| Late night on the porch |
Monday, August 17, 2026
Today's agenda was traveling to Marblehead and Salem, Massachusetts. Kimberly had been to both places way back when she was of sound mind and body, but I never have. We set out mid-morning, wended our way through a handful of traffic jams, and arrived in Marblehead just about lunchtime. The town is beautiful, and by New World standards, really quite old, dating back to the 1600s. We found lunch at a wonderful little market called Shubie's, where you can buy made-to-order food to eat in or take out. We got a couple of sandwiches, which we ate in their little dining area. They also had a pretty extensive wine department, so we picked up a bottle of Nero d'Avola to bring back with us for tonight.
Our next stop was Old Burial Hill Cemetery, founded in 1638, which we wandered
for a while. It contains many historic Puritan gravestones, some featuring
stone carving artwork (much of which has almost completely weathered away). H.
P Lovecraft mentioned the burial ground in his story, "The Festival." And
speaking of HPL, we then drove over to the much larger Marblehead Town
Cemetery, where a Lovecraft-themed geocache lurked ("H. P. Lovecraft: Kingsport" GC2WD74). It's a pretty old cache, and it bore the singular aspect of age, squalor, and dilapidation. Marblehead served as the inspiration for Lovecraft's town of Kingsport, so
how apt for us after a lovely weekend at NecronomiCon.
From there, we moved on to Salem and proceeded to explore the downtown/historical area. They really do play up its "witchy" history for the tourists, some of which is cool, though it mostly feels kind of tacky (notice Brugger hanging out with Elizabeth Montgomery here). Regardless, I enjoyed the character of the place. Lots of shops, restaurants, taverns, and a historical graveyard in the middle of it all. I went after a few caches, including a couple of virtuals, adventure lab stages, and traditionals.
Amid our wanderings, we stopped at
The Village Tavern, where I tried a very girly drink called the Lavender Empress, which was
actually pretty good. Fear not, though; at the subsequent tavern we found —
The Dire Wolf
— I had a much more traditional concoction called the Wild Hunt, with bourbon,
vermouth, ginger, and bitters. Finally, we went to dinner at the very nice
O'Neill's Irish Pub, where I killed an incredible beef stew and Kim mangled bangers & mash.
Then it was time to return to Providence, where we again sat out on the front
porch and watched the neighborhood go by. Very relaxing, and the perfect way
to end a fun but long and fairly exhausting day of roaming.
Tomorrow is Last Day, and we're heading out late morning for the airport.
NecronomiCon was a most wonderful con, among the most enjoyable such
gatherings I've ever attended. Selling out of those books didn't hurt either.
No doubt, I'll be returning — hopefully along with Ms. B. — for NecronomiCon
2028. And I think we'd both love to stay at this apartment on Federal Hill
again, if it's available at the time. It's been a most comfortable and
convenient base of operations.
So, until next time...
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| Salem's famous "Witch House" |
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| Rear view of the "haunted" Ropes Mansion |
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| Witch Museum |
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| Those people again |
