Archive for Vampire Trivia
Vampires and Musicals?
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Did you know that there have been plays done about vampires? Of course you did, you may have even been to a few of them. I know that a few years back they did one based on Anne Rice’s characters called Lestate that played on Broadway in New York. You can check out the website for more details here.
But did you know that there have been musicals about vampires? I was kinda blown away at the time that I heard of this on vampire rave, which is a very cool site about all things vampire. Yup- there are actually several musicals that came out that they know of, that were musical plays about vampires. There was even a Vampire Nutcracker! Man, I know that plenty of folks love vampires, but that is one heck of an interpretation of a classic Christmas tale.
Actually, the one that looked really cool was a chamber musical based on the original Bram Stoker books. It was done in a small theatre in Massachusetts and looks to have been a classy affair. You can see a bit more about it here.
So I guess you could say that the concept of vampires are not so much a hidden corner of American Lore as that the vampire has come to be seen as a real part of the mythology that makes up the story of American Culture. It will be interesting how historians will look back on this resurgence of the interest in vampires when they study us hundreds of years from now.
And in the meantime, if you are curious about where those vampires came from, the history of how we came to tell these tales, here is a great book about that. It looks at the old folktales, the origins of the idea of vampires in ancient days, right up to now. Sometimes this kind of reading can be just as interesting as the old and new stories we read today. Check out Vampire Forensics by Marc Collins Jenkins to get the true story of vampires.
Vampires: a Comment on Our Culture?
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There has been a lot of talk lately about what our fascination with vampires really means. The recent popularity of the film “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn” along with the on-going popularity of shows such as True Blood have many questioning if this sudden interest in vampires is a reflection of our culture. Could we be in love with the undead because of a sudden need to deal with the fast paced nature of the world around us? While much has been said of the inherent sexual nature of vampires, and the “bad boy” aspect that even Anne Rice admits is a part and parcel of her vampires appeal, does it go beyond that?
Vampires and Buddhist Thought
A recent interview on the Huffington Post with poet and feminist writer Rebecca Housel brings an interesting concept up – that we are attracted to the undead because our own lives are so changing and transient. Everything around us changes at such a rapid pace, and we begin to look for ways to deal with how impermanent it all is. She points out how in Buddhism we are taught to accept that impermanence as part of our practice. But if today’s pop culture makes that harder than ever, the other answer is to reject this acceptance and romanticize it with a figure like an immortal being such as a vampire.
So – does this mean that a vampire is in essence the basic Buddhist concept of ultimate enlightenment? Obviously you would have to put aside the violence that is part of the vampire culture. This then begins to feel as if vampires could be the basis for a new religion. Or are they already?
Okay – well I hope I haven’t offended anyone but the thought was so mind-shaking I had to share it with you. What do you think is the possibility that some people use this fascination with vampires to replace the lost mysticism of religion? Is it a bedrock of undead with which to anchor our human ship? Or am I waaaay off base here? It is an intriguing thought, that the whole fascination with vampires could be because we live in an unstable constantly changing world and we need a larger than life rock solid being that we feel emotionally will be there even if we are gone. An undead being to relate to in a different way.
Thoughts anyone? Have I gone too far this time? Hey – it wasn’t me it was this poet who came up with the idea, I just got fascinated by it and took it the next step.
Top Ten Vampires of All Time
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So I was thinking the other day about all the drama regarding Twilight versus True Blood fans and the feud between Stephanie and Anne. I mean, when you really come down to it, all of this is really only about one thing. Who has the hottest vampires? Really, leaving aside who twinkles and who is more serious, what all of this anguish and finger-pointing is really about is – who is the hottest vamp of all?
Well once I thought of that one I of course had to come up with my own list of who I thought were the hottest vampires ever. But then, this is such a personal viewpoint, I knew that whoever I thought was hot, the top vampire ever, so to speak, would just be my personal taste.
So I asked myself – self, what do the readers think? And I knew I had hit the coffin nail right on the head. Because we really need a vote from all of you to know who truly is the hottest vampire out there.
So here is the challenge – I am going to list who I think might be the ten hottest vampires of all, but I want you guys to vote. And if you want to cheat to get your top guy up to the top of the list by getting your friends to stop in and vote, I won’t know. Heck, even if I did know I would never tell on you!
So here is my very personal list of the top ten hottest vampires of all time:
- Lestat (you know I would make him my #1)
- Angel- from Buffy
- Jean-Claude from Anita Blake’s Vampire Hunter Series
- Eric- True Blood
- David- from The Lost Boys
- Dracula – as done by Klaus Kinski
- Dracula- as done by Gary Oldman
- Blade – Wesley Snipes is too cool here!!
- Akasha – Queen of the Damned (movie and book!)
- Edward – Twilight
Okay so let’s see those votes or I will just assume that you vamp fans are all fangs and no bite! I will post the results in a separate blog in about a month…
A Chat with True Blood’s Pam
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I recently came upon a truly hilarious little interview with the True Blood star Kristen Bauer. She plays the vampy and very fun Pam De Beaufort in the show and was having some good fun with the interviewer from the Florida newspaper The Sun Sentinel. They have a great little column called Citylink and they recently caught up with Kristen as she was getting ready for a local meet and greet.
How has your life changed since True Blood went on the air?
Well, I now have to shower and wear some makeup to go to Starbucks. I have to borrow a little from Pam — be a tad more vain, as I could never say, “no” to a fan wanting a photo because I’m not wearing mascara. And I get asked my thoughts on things and I have lots to say about rights and free will, especially regarding animals, as they are truly innocent and voiceless. It is also possible playing Pam has opened the door to my being seen as a “fierce bitch,” I think is the term and I’m all for that typecasting.
How do you prepare to play Pam and what do you enjoy most about the role? What’s the most challenging part?
I try to be my most dry and sarcastic self. Then, I get in those clothes, sit in hair and makeup for two to five hours, and walk on to those gorgeous sets with these amazing actors, and 80 percent of the work has been created around me. All of that teamwork cannot be underestimated in how important it is to be able to believe I am an immortally bored vampire.
Were you familiar with the True Blood books before taking the role?
I was not. This entire world has been a delightful surprise.
What has been your most-memorable scene on the show so far?
Every year, there are many “most-memorable scenes” in my mind. Even the ones that I feel may be less memorable for Pam, I find out later from fans, that the fabulous dialogue they wrote made an impact. I can tell you I was very curious to see how the face-rotting scenes looked, like the fight scene I had with Rutina [Wesley]. We worked two long nights on that, and I was really hoping I was very edgy. And I hear I was.
There is more and if you want to catch it you can read the whole thing here. They really did a fine job of catching her dry wit and it is always great to catch these kinds of interviews in the local papers. Enjoy!
‘V’ Review: S2E2 – Serpent’s Tooth
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This week’s episode was yet another riveting one from V! Earlier on in the show we saw Anna’s mother make her entry into the show and the shocker – Anna has been holding her mother (Diana) prisoner for the past fifteen years while the rest of the visitors thought she was dead! – And all that because she honestly believes that emotions will be the downfall of her species. Not surprising really, if she dint think twice about getting her own daughter pummeled, why not lock up the mother huh?
Much to Anna’s chagrin however, is that Diana has been right all along! She turns out to be surprisingly accurate about many things, including Lisa’s betrayal of her mother! Is this some kind of supernatural ability or are the writers just trying to rub it in that mothers are always right?!
We see Diana telling Anna that the key to absolute dominion lies in the human soul, and unfortunately for Anna that’s not just something she can find and destroy! And immediately the scene switches to Father Jack explaining the concept of souls to Ryan – nice touch! Jack tells Ryan that although he is not human he just might find his inner soul if he tried hard enough. Poor Ryan, all he can hear is Anna’s voice calling him back every time he tries to concentrate. Anna seems to believe that Joshua will be able to find the human soul and destroy it… that should be interesting to watch!
In other storylines, we see Erica getting real close to uncovering the mystery behind her pregnancy with Tyler. We found out earlier on in the show that Tyler’s dad is really not his dad (biologically.) Chances are he could be a hybrid too… no wonder Anna was so keen on recruiting him for her mission. Things take a turn for the worst when Agent Sarita realizes her double life. From the looks of what happened, Erica could be dead! (That really would be a shocker.)
Father Jack on the other hand, has taken his failure to see through the bomber’s real intentions pretty hard.
I cant wait to watch what happens next on the next episode! So many cliff hangers – is Erica really dead? Will Ryan give in to the tremendous pressure Anna has been laying on him? – After all she does have his first born and considering the fact that she did kill the love of his life, she just might lay the same fate (or worse) on the baby too!
‘V’ Review: S2E1 – Red Rain
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So finally the show is back on TV and it was as if they never took a break! The show picked up right where it left off, bringing more answers for a change!
The show begins with the red sky. People everywhere are nervous that the world is coming to an end and of course, they don’t know that Anna is causing the color in the sky. After a lot of fighting and rioting they end up dancing around for joy thinking Anna caused the rain that saved the earth from destruction. It surprises me that so many people would be so blind what’s actually going on – including the government! I mean, aren’t the FBI supposed to be smart?
Lisa on the other hand, seems to be walking on egg shells as she secretly defies her mom and her kind. And especially since Joshua has no recollection of ever being a traitor it’s possible now that she might attract more attention than before. She takes an awfully big risk whispering the doctor’s name to Erica, in the presence of her mother.
It turns out that Dr. Watt’s assistant is the guy that both the Visitors and the fifth columnists have been looking for. The average college geek turns out to be a genius who has all the information! With this new information, the columnists figure out that the red rain is actually a tool that the aliens will use to impregnate humans with alien babies! At this point Erica realizes that her own levels of phosphorus were extremely high when she was having Tyler. So does this mean that they are also part aliens?
The biggest cliff hanger of the season finale finally gets answered. Ryan ends up not turning his back on the human kind after all. He soon realizes what Anna has been doing and even suspects that she killed Val (which she did.) But to my surprise she just lets Ryan go back to earth with his baby! Is she really getting soft or does she have something sinister planned? In all it was a great kick off and I can’t wait for the next episode!
‘V’ Review: S1E12 – Red Sky
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The season’s finale turned out to be one of the best episodes of the show! It made room for a lot of new developments on the show and I just can’t wait to see what happens on season two.
Anna invites Erica to dinner on the ship in order to calm her fears about her son joining the ‘live-aboard’ program and Erica uses this opportunity to bomb Anna’s precious soldier eggs. The creators have done a fantastic job at creating tension as a lot many things go wrong in Erica’s plan. It sure was no easy task. She had to smuggle the explosive onboard, get away from Anna and find the eggs in order to bomb them. She however manages to complete the task enraging Anna beyond belief.
Another fantastic scene in the episode was when Erica is forced to kill Joshua in order to protect her cover. Joshua has recently been discovered to be a fifth column sympathizer and he asks Erica to kill him so the other wouldn’t suspect her. Her character now seems to have decided to go to any extent for her cause. The scene was a little weakened however when the aliens use their technology to bring him back to life.
The other shocker comes when Lisa finally decides to take a firm stand against her mother. She has been torn between her love for Tyler and her love for her mother for a long time now and this episode really brought out the angst her character experiences! She releases Joshua from the force field that’s holding him prisoner so he can help Erica and she also gives Erica an explosive when she loses access to the one she brought with her. But will she tell Tyler what’s going on or is he going to be in the dark a little longer?
Another cliff hanger we’re left with is whether Ryan will remain faithful to the humans. At the start of the episode a V soldier kidnaps Val just before she goes into labor and brings her onboard the ship. Ryan then openly gets on the ship looking for her. Anna tells him that she has been brought here for her own safety given the complications of her pregnancy. Quite predictably, Anna kills Val after she gives birth and tells Ryan she died of complications. Of course her plan is to get Ryan back on their side and study how he was able to resist her “bliss” and develop human emotions. By the end of the episode though, it looked like Anna’s plan worked like a charm!
‘V’ Review: S1E11 – Fruition
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This episode seems to have caught up with the initial pace on the show. A lot of things happened! Yes, not everything was interesting but hey the pace matters.
As planned the visitors beat up Lisa, break her legs and also carve a huge “V” on her face as a bonus! Their plan was to frame the fifth columnists for Lisa’s plight so they can manipulate the government into cooperating with them. And the plan works! Decker who has no idea what he’s really doing helps with it.
The Visitors threaten to leave the planet taking their technology with them and the government actually caves! That’s a little hard to believe don’t you think? – To have a president who gives in to every whim. According to Erica’s boss the orders go “all the way up to the president.” The government shares their intelligence on the fifth columnists with the aliens and even offers to turn in all fifth column suspects to them for questioning, just to keep them from leaving.
Hobbes is definitely up to something or in the very least knows more than he’s letting on. The visitors are keen on framing him and we still don’t know why he doesn’t shave. I’m sure there’s a connection there! And Parker is probably the key to that mystery. Hobbes reveals that he was recently hired to kill Parker but ends up not killing him figuring something wasn’t right.
Hobbes is later seen breaking into Parker’s apartment and stealing his hard drive without anyone’s knowledge and alert’s Erica about his whereabouts. When Erica catches up with Parker, he tells her that he is part of a team that accidentally developed a virus that will be detrimental to the aliens’ reptilian life. Now that his hard drive is gone (which he apparently doesn’t back up), he’s in for some serious trouble.
Towards the end of the episode we see Hobbes cutting a deal with the Visitors. He tells Anna’s assistant he’ll give them the hard drive in exchange for loads of money and a clean slate.
The FBI busts in on the scene before Erica could leave and she is left pretending to arrest Parker. Back at the headquarters Lisa is brought in to pick out her supposed attacker and obviously Anna has ordered her to pick Parker from the line up. Erica tries in vain to appeal to Lisa’s human sympathies asking her not to frame Parker. It turns out Lisa does pick Parker from the line up. So does she have some trick up her sleeve or is she really scared of what her mother can do to her?
So by the end of the episode Anna prepares her invasion and Ryan is left questioning his faith in his mission. We can be sure however that something big is about to happen. One, Val’s hybrid baby is about to be born and two, Anna’s numerous soldiers are about to invade. I guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens.
