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Nov. 25th, 2008 08:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickSo I made another entry into the world of curry this week, making two for the week. I'll have to post recipes and reviews here directly but lately my entire world has been taken up with things vampire (Look, don't even roll your eyes at me in that tone of voice. I know, okay? I know. Can't help myself. Must just be one of those things. This, too, shall pass.) and even the fact that I now know what happens when someone in the audience collapses into insensibility during an opera (I found out during the first act of Norma, last Sunday at the Lyric in Baltimore. The EMTs carry the personage out mostly quietly by hand b/c stretchers do not fit up into the cheap seats. House lights do NOT come up. Opera singing continues, interrupted occasionally by muted squawk from the walkie talkies. The show, it goes on. For real.) can't really distract me from the children of the night. Perhaps it would be easiest for us all if we thought of this as a phase.
I watched HBO's series True Blood which just had its season finale and thus was available in its entirety. The series is not entirely even -- some of the casting was OK and some of it was pretty good and some of it was wait, what?. The tone of the thing flops about like TC's fish but, like TC, I found the wiggling more... stimulating than perhaps I should have.
I also pulled the novels off the internets to meet the oysters from which HBO's stew was made. They're a lot like the series... uneven in tone and leaning heavily on Southern Gothic tropes for support. I'm okay with them. They amuse me even though they are novels in the same way that Crystal Light is a beverage.
At dinner prior to the opera, I was talking to mom about metaphor and extended metaphor and so forth. This was to see if she was up to speed on the Heather is a bad mother thing from facebook or if I was just hopelessly far afield there. Mom does not read facebook so I had to explain the Heather thing to her. As expected, Mom got the thing about the multitudinous seas incarnadine. Therefore, I threw pearls on Facebook. (Too bad about the audience. *sigh*) Anyway, after that, Mom allowed as how metaphor was difficult for most people, understanding 'em, generating 'em, yadda yadda yadda. (Mom is frequently a helpful source of information about the flesh people, or she would be if I cared more about how the flesh people worked.) I have never had a problem with metaphors or similies. That shit's like breathing, I just do it.
Anyway, in all of the vampire media I've been consuming lately, there's this recurring thing where the innocent girl falls for the lustful vamp, omg, will she? In my somewhat exhaustive survey of the available literature, I can now answer that question with confidence. Yes. She will. Always. (Provided the vamp is willing.)
Now, the question that I guess I have about all of this is as follows: Is there any OTHER textual reading of the entire vampire mythos besides that of y'know, goings on? I feel a little like I've been listening to Sean Paul (the which I have been doing as it's my current truck CD) -- all the songs are the same and they're all of them, every single one, about fucking. All the vamp stories are the same and they're all about fucking. (I am not complaining, here.)
In HBO's series, the guy who does Eric is growing on me. I was like *no* the first time around. I was in *hell, no* mode for several episodes. He's starting to grow on me, though. If they can position him as an Arrogant Bastard, we'll be in fine shape. I like Arrogant Bastards. They're my favorite.
I watched HBO's series True Blood which just had its season finale and thus was available in its entirety. The series is not entirely even -- some of the casting was OK and some of it was pretty good and some of it was wait, what?. The tone of the thing flops about like TC's fish but, like TC, I found the wiggling more... stimulating than perhaps I should have.
I also pulled the novels off the internets to meet the oysters from which HBO's stew was made. They're a lot like the series... uneven in tone and leaning heavily on Southern Gothic tropes for support. I'm okay with them. They amuse me even though they are novels in the same way that Crystal Light is a beverage.
At dinner prior to the opera, I was talking to mom about metaphor and extended metaphor and so forth. This was to see if she was up to speed on the Heather is a bad mother thing from facebook or if I was just hopelessly far afield there. Mom does not read facebook so I had to explain the Heather thing to her. As expected, Mom got the thing about the multitudinous seas incarnadine. Therefore, I threw pearls on Facebook. (Too bad about the audience. *sigh*) Anyway, after that, Mom allowed as how metaphor was difficult for most people, understanding 'em, generating 'em, yadda yadda yadda. (Mom is frequently a helpful source of information about the flesh people, or she would be if I cared more about how the flesh people worked.) I have never had a problem with metaphors or similies. That shit's like breathing, I just do it.
Anyway, in all of the vampire media I've been consuming lately, there's this recurring thing where the innocent girl falls for the lustful vamp, omg, will she? In my somewhat exhaustive survey of the available literature, I can now answer that question with confidence. Yes. She will. Always. (Provided the vamp is willing.)
Now, the question that I guess I have about all of this is as follows: Is there any OTHER textual reading of the entire vampire mythos besides that of y'know, goings on? I feel a little like I've been listening to Sean Paul (the which I have been doing as it's my current truck CD) -- all the songs are the same and they're all of them, every single one, about fucking. All the vamp stories are the same and they're all about fucking. (I am not complaining, here.)
In HBO's series, the guy who does Eric is growing on me. I was like *no* the first time around. I was in *hell, no* mode for several episodes. He's starting to grow on me, though. If they can position him as an Arrogant Bastard, we'll be in fine shape. I like Arrogant Bastards. They're my favorite.
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no subject
Date: 2008-11-26 01:58 am (UTC)Also, the movie trailer totally makes me think that they don't have the right truck.
But other than that, it's fairly enjoyable. It's not good, by any stretch of the imagination, but it's enjoyable.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-26 06:42 pm (UTC)Too bad I don't have time to watch True Blood either. I don't even have time to watch Max Headroom, The Best Show Ever Because I Saw It When I Was Sixteen, despite the fact that it is Not Available On DVD but *IS* (I only just found out) being broadcast online (AOL video - they must all be owned by Turner or something) and *THERE'S AN EPISODE I NEVER SAW* in there! (Cue mad squeeing, much as I hate the word)
no subject
Date: 2008-12-02 05:12 am (UTC)http://www.altvampyres.net/newsgroup/faq/archive/
Of interest on this FAQ, a listing of nonfiction books I compiled about the vampire mythos in about 1996. To this, I'd also add Jonathan Maberry's "Vampire Universe." And probably some more, if I took the time to go through my collection.
Quick answer: no, it's not always about sex. That's a more modern construct (post Bram Stoker, although you could argue that his Dracula is akin to a rapist). In ancient days, it was about deep-rooted fears, among them, the unknown (babies born with a cowl were believed to be potential vampires), taboos (suicides had to be buried at the crossroads to prevent them returning as a vampire), and illness/insanity.