The day began like any other that you might spend in a hotel, with the overly complicated alarm clock failing to go off. If not for the forethought that failure of electronics is a side effect of the thinning of the veil between the spheres I could have kissed going to another day of panels on whether Lovecraft was a racist or not goodbye. This not being the case, I dressed and was promptly birthed from the hotel into the downtown, or DT.
There are currently fewer people living in Providence now than in Lovecraft’s time a hundred years ago. If judging from who I saw around me, most of them appeared to be the sort of folks that you would find at a bus terminal, which is to be expected considering that their bus terminal is located directly downtown. They’re also the sort of people that Lovecraft would have been terrified of, if you know what I mean, but that's unsurprising considering he was also afraid of seafood. Fun fact of the day; Lovecraft really loved ice cream. He also had nice things to say about Hitler, although to be fair that was before he was aware of what was going on over there in Germany. But how about those nachos.
Pork, Mole, Cotija Cheese, Cilantro, Crema
Today’s dish was at Viva Mexico Cantina Grill, a lovely establishment serving authentic Mexican food, and, if you go Friday evening, a live mariachi band. Service was slow, enough so that I mention it here because usually I let that slide, but not today. Also they don’t technically have nachos, instead they have “Chips Rancheros” which for something they don’t call nachos are a lot closer to nachos than the ones yesterday down the street at Ri Ra. The chips were fine, nice and homemade. They were covered with Cotija Cheese, which is that powdery Mexican cheese that looks like Parmesan or Feta but isn’t, so if you’re not a fan of that watch out. The Pork was fine, nothing super about it one way or another.
Where the trouble began was the mole. Mole has the interesting property of when it’s overheated it turns into a kind of bean cement that’s not particularly appetising, and that was the case here. The bottom of the dish was a mass of chips glued together in a crunchy beany conflagration that was not so pleasant on either the eye or the tongue. This was the same for several other parts of the dish where what would have been correctly sized delicious bites had overheated in several places and turned into large ungainly chunks. Overall, again not impressed with the state of Providence’s nachos.
The remainder of the day was made up of more panels and more scholarly debate on whether he was a racist/homophobe/xenophobe/misogynist/anti semite, or just no more of any of those than anyone else during his time. No consensus was reached, but when one of the panels talked specifically about racism in Lovecraft and not only were none of the speakers people of color but 99.99% of the audience were also honkeys, not sure how good a sign that is. H.P. also loved cats! Does that make up for something?
Guess the stars weren’t quite yet right for the end of days/nachos. Perhaps tomorrow will be...
It only took five and a half hours, but we managed to save Arkham from the foul Shub-Niggurath. Good thing the ton of nachos I had for lunch were enough to power me through.