FANGS (review)

 Spoilers ahoy!

No one who knows me will feel surprise that I jumped at the chance to see a play about vampires.

Fangs from the Downtown Repertory Theatre makes for an almost startlingly good night of immersive theatre.  "Good" mostly because it treats the subject matter seriously.  "Immersive" because it really is that.  Each attendee will experience a slightly different set of scenes as they are led to varying locations, watching the story unfold from individual perspectives.

The town is Strigoia, some time in the last century most likely, in some Eastern European country (the name suggests Romania or nearby).  The first character we meet is Florin (Sarah Lee Harter) awakened in the middle of the night by a possibly prophetic dream.  Her father Vasile (Taylor Flowers), one of the local fishermen, tries to soothe her but she remains terrified.  Soon the town will vote on which girl will become the Harvest Queen, and Florin does not what to win.  Why is not immediately clear, although we see most folks seem to regard this as a honor.

From Vasile's brother, Presbyter Calin (Kevin Cook) as well as the Alderman Andreu (Christopher Karbo) plus his wife Ruxana (Erika Godwin) we get some idea of how things work here.  A century ago, the town was under attack by some kind of threat, some horror devouring people.  Until the Baron Luca (Aidan Collett) saved them, and continues to protect them on the condition every year one Harvest Queen would be chosen "for" him.  

Along the way, the town--they insist--is prospering, while Vasile knows people are getting poorer and poorer.  Watching all this is Vadoma (Georgan George), a Traveler woman who cleans things and pretty much is tolerated so everyone can always have a target below them.

Finally, we find out Florin feels deeply for Narcissa (Caroline Quigley), the Alderman's daughter who used to be her friend but is now a bully, partially from the pressure from her family to be Harvest Queen.  The third candidate, Viorica (Danielle Fraser) has a hard-working boyfriend Bogdan (Markus Jorgensen) with grand plans for a happy life.  Watching over them is the teacher Alina (Rachel Levy) from outside the town, and a very mysterious young woman named Mjircalla (Chanel Castañeda) who secretly befriends Florin.

Yes, the Baron is a vampire.  Obviously.  Almost as obviously, so is Mjircalla.  Everything is about to change.

Now that description of the setup hopefully might whet your appetite but what I really want to focus upon is the quality of the show overall.  Devon Armstrong who directed and co-wrote (with John Armstrong)  the piece chose a truly excellent cast, and fashioned a story with an exciting narrative which genuinely plumbed the characters' lives in a compelling vision.  Here is love and tragedy, sorrow and terror, raw evil and real virtue all walking and talking on stage.  Supernatural horror meets human terror, frailty, and heroism amidst more than one love story which very much touches the heart.

Starting September 29, Fangs will being a new series of performances at the Mountain View Mausoleum, 2300 North Marengo Avenue Altadena, CA 91001 Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays at 7:50pm from September 29 through November 7, 2023.

 

Vampire Nightclub 1983 (Fringe 2023)

Spoilers ahoy 

Seems like every single Fringe has at least one vampire play.  I never get to see all of them alas!  But this year I did get to see Vampire Nightclub 1983, a solo piece using the undead as a powerful metaphor.

Audrey Valcourt wrote and performed this relatively short (under 30 minute) piece, explaining from the year 1983 how she came to be a vampire in New York City.  It makes for some interesting lore and brings the metaphor front and center.  She was not made, but born a vampire.  Although she felt so very out of sync with her life, she had no idea of the sheer scale of it, until a little after puberty when she began to change.  Or, become her true self.  Her best friend didn't believe her, until seeing the fangs she ran away.

Our narrator spirals after that, running away, certain she is destined to be alone forever.  After many unsuccessful attempts at suicide (including driving a stake into her own heart) she ends up doing nothing, just existing.

Until...she meets others of her kind.  She falls in love.  She makes friends.  Every night she dances and listens to music, mingling with vampires and humans, finding many among the latter perfectly willing to be donors for one reason or another.

She is happy, until one of her friends gets sick.  Which rocks her to the core.  Vampires don't get sick.  What is this?

AIDS.  That is what 'this' is, and the devastation, the terror, the melancholy clutching at love even as one's lover fades--yeah the metaphor (or if you prefer analogy) seems pretty clear, especially during Pride Month.

Honestly, this solo piece works well overall, and I ended up caring about the character and her friends.  I do wish she had greater skill at moving and talking like different characters.  In fact, I find myself wanting to see the piece expanded into a full length work, with a larger cast and frankly even larger scale.  

The last show (for now) of Vampire Nightclub 1983 will be at the Broadwater Studio, 1078 Lillian Way, Los Angeles, CA 90038 on Saturday June 24 2023, 6:00 PM.

My Audio Play!

 

As some of you may know, I am also both a director and a playwright.  Donning both hats, I have directed and produced my audio adaptation of a gothic classic which will premiere March 1, 2022 at 7pm.

Carmilla (the radio play) is not simply an edit of an earlier adaptation of this work.  Rather it is and remains totally new, re-shaped into what I hope is a layered and compelling story.

Today, Saturday, February 19 at 5pm PST myself and the play's leads, Stepy Kamei and Brittney De Leon, will be interviewed by Anthropomantic Fiend.  Link is below.  Hope you listen.  Hope you tune in for the actual show about teh first lesbian vampire in English literature.

https://youtu.be/gCY4oMBxRCw

Notes on Future Project

Tentatively titled Winterisle, I'm assembling notes for a vampire novel set in 1836.  It has to be 1836 because that year Walpurgis fell on a full moon.  Will be awhile.  For one thing I have another novel to complete first!  But meanwhile some research is afoot!

You see, readers of the novel will find bread crumbs of other literary works scattered through the chapters.  Two ships visit the island of the title, for example.  One is the Grace of God, which plays a crucial part in the Wilkie Collins novel Amadale.  Second will be HMS Wessex, named for the semi-fictional county where Thomas Hardy set so many of his stories.  Likewise one character will mention a desire to go to Milton, Elizabeth Gaskell's version of Manchester in her work North and South.  Two of the main characters are children of Henry Tilney and Catherine Morland from Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen.  Others include relatives of persons mentioned in short stories by H.P.Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe, a reference to a school from Jane Eyre, the son of a two minor characters from another Austen novel, a name mentioned by Arthur Conan Doyle in one of Sherlock Holmes' unchronicled adventures...and so on.

Not quite sure what to call this kind of story, although some antecedents come to mind.  One of these is Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.  Another is Kim Newman's Anno Dracula.  Yet another is Evil at Pemberly House by Philip Jose Farmer and Win Scott Eckert (Doc Savage's daughter inherits the estate where Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet lived--with relatives of Tarzan present).

Mind you, I'm also delving into some material that is not in the public domain, hence given the form of hints and/or tributes.  One such is the title.  Another is one of the three major characters, whose name and appearance give evidence of a link to an extremely popular series of contemporary novels that have been (and are now being) made into hugely successful films.  Plus a nod to some favorite television programs.

Fair amount of research yet to do, which so far has proven both fun as well as helpful.  Details lead to other details.  Specifics offer new ideas.  Just like cooking--one ingredient suggests another, all of which need to simmer in my imagination.

(And yes, I've included references to Dickens.)

Vampire Guest Blogging

I've been guest blogging quite a bit over at vampires.com and thought to share some of what I've written there:

• Who Should Play Carmilla? is like many of my titles over there pretty self-explanatory.  Quite simply, a digression over who might play one of the first (and most interesting) literary undead.
• Lets Scare Jessica to Death is a short review of a mini-classic, a 1971 film that deserves even more of a reputation than it enjoys.
• Varney the Vampyre describes the (in)famous 'penny dreadful' that nevertheless kinda/sorta created the trope of the Reluctant Vampire.
• Carmilla in Chicago refers to a brand-spanking-new adaptation of Le Fanu's last work, which just opened on stage.
• Lemora is about another small cinematic classic, the uber-cheap but powerful and disturbing movie set in Prohibition.
• The Worst Vampire Movie of All Time.  You have been warned.
• Gumshoes of the Night all about vampire detectives.
• Vampire Wish List for 2011 (pretty self-explanatory seems to me)
• Isle of the Dead, a review of the best vampire movie without a vampire.  Ever.
• Science Fiction Undead, all about how sometimes folks blend vampires with science fiction.

The Most Mysterious Dracula

A guest blog I wrote for Vampires.com is about Max Schrek, star of the first film version of Dracula.

My Guest Blogs!

I've been guest blogging lately at vampires.com and thought to share some of them...

Children of the Night is about child vampires and what their portrayal may tell us about ourselves.

What To Do With Dracula? examines the way we seem to have wrung everything we can out of the book and character--or have we?

The Fall (Review)

Spoilers Ahoy!

Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan have written/are writing a vampire trilogy that some have dubbed "The Anti-Twilight."  Titled The Fall it picks up pretty much where the previous (first) novel left off.  New York City has been infected by a kind of vampiric disease, a mutating virus spread by worms that rewrites the victims' DNA into a kind of gigantic insect.  They still look more-or-less human.  Kinda/sorta.  Unless you get a good look at the red eyes, the hairless and earless head.  Or their hands.  If they open their mouths, the illusion is gone.  A four-foot fleshy stinger awaits its chance to burrow into a victim and draw out blood like a mosquito.

Ick.

The Fall marks a deliberate attempt to tell a tale of horror.  For the record, the writers succeed.  The unnamed (at first) Master Vampire behind this plague threatening to destroy New York has much more in common with The Master from Buffy than the same-named villain from Doctor Who.  He is a demon, a towering giant of viciousness with the patience of long years and centuries to plan.  He is one of seven original Vampires, but the one gone most rogue.  Interestingly, he is also the one most capable of seeing humanity's potential, of using what (to him) are just wonderful human ideas.

Like concentration camps.

Much of the novel consists of racing against time by our lead characters, unraveling a few of the mysteries about vampires and what The Master seems to be aiming for.  As other cities begin to suffer the fate of New York, one looms most large--what is The Master's ultimate plan?  He clearly doesn't want to turn all  humanity into vampires.  That would be stupid, and suicidal.  So what is his goal?  The Van Helsing-like Abraham Setrakian believes he knows a way to find out.  More, to learn a key to snatching some kind of victory from the gore-drenched jaws of holocaust.  It all lies in an incredibly rare book based on an obscure Mesopotamian text, a tome said to contain the origins of the Ancients, the seven eldest vampires of all.

Eph Goodweather, former head of the CDC and now a fugitive from forces allied to The Master, struggles not only to find a way to help stop a plague but to protect his beloved son from his vampirized ex-wife.  Making up a third is Vasily Fet, one-time professional exterminator and now very effective vampire-hunter.  How the lives of all these characters tend to intertwine in fascinating ways is part of what makes the novel so much fun.  A few in-jokes are a little much (if you're familiar with Mexican wrestler Santo movies, you'll soon see what I mean--but it works).  The overall impact is a dizzying roller-coaster ride through an intricate chamber of horrors.

Yes, I know that is a mixed metaphor.  I don't care.

One thing that continues to bother me is the treatment of the characer Nora, Eph's co-worker as well as once-and-future lover.  In the first novel The Strain she was something of a cypher.  We get to know her a little bit better in this film, including some hint of a tendency to place herself in orbit around others.  But at heart she's a secondary character, nothing more.  I admit to a prejudice towards stories with stronger female roles.

Elsewhere I've complained a bit about how some authors pull their dramatic punch.  Not in this book!  One expects our heroes to somehow save the day.  They don't.  They survive, most of them.  They come together towards a greater goal.  They do accomplish things, vital things.  Indeed, one can almost see the seeds of ultimate victory against The Master might have been sewn in these pages.  But if this were the story of World War Two, the novel ends with the fall of France and the Nazi blitz of London beginning its reign of death onto London.  As Eph and Nora are joined by Fet and the former gang-member Gus, as they watch the dominoes set up by The Master's plan begin to fall one-by-one, we can only hope this is the darkest hour.

It probably is not.  Hogan and Del toro accomplish what relatively few authors manage to do--surprise me.  They have primed my anticipation and hopes that one year from now I'll be writing another review in equally glowing terms.

Dracula Mash Up!!!

Okay, this is silly but I'm in a silly mood!  Suppose we had all the film versions of Dracula from which to mix and match the best in each role--who would we chose?  Actually, since this is my blog, the question is who would I choose?  Something of a Rorshach test actually...

I'll admit that to my mind Peter Cushing remains my first and most vivid image of Van Helsing, perhaps most oddly in some ways because (unlike most portrayals) he seems to be presented as an Englishman, even though of course the character is Dutch!  On the other hand, he has a German accent in the novel so go figure.  To bb sure there have been other great Van Helsings, including Sir Anthony Hopkins but Cushing is the learned vampire hunter in my mind's eye.  Probably because he was the first, when I saw Hammer's Brides of Dracula way back when during an afternoon movie.  Likewise the best Mina I've ever seen was Lupita Tovar in the Spanish-language version of Dracula made at the same time as Lugosi's version (but at night). Long thought lost, the missing reel of this almost-forgotten classic was found  in the film archives of Cub

a and can now be purchased on DVD.  Okay, that character's name was "Eva" but she was obviously supposed to be Mina--she was best friends with Lucy, engaged to Juan...er...Jonathan Harker, was the vampire's second victim, etc.  Jonathan Harker is in many ways the least interesting role in the whole book, since he exists as little more than a good-looking leading man who is tempted by the Brides then dutifully does what he's told by others, holding his wife's hand half the time.  Or so it would seem.  When you look at Colin Redgrave's version of him in the 1968 BBC Dracula one sees a bit more potential--and all that stuff is indeed present in the novel.  He clearly feels very strongly about the Count and has some

mixed feelings about Mina, although he does love her, and is one of two sufferers of mental illness in the story.  True, in that version they were giving me the Renfield-role but Redgraves' remains the single most vivid Jonathan Harker to my sensibilities.  The same version gave us Susan George as Lucy Westenra (oddly re-named Western for some reason).  Frankly, one cannot help but wish after seeing her in this take that she hadn't been hired by Hammer to appear in some of their vampire classics.  She blended the innocence and flirtatiousness of Lucy the human girl with the dark glamour and sensual nature of the vampire in a way that grabbed

the attention and kept it.  Just as Francis Ford Coppola's ironically named Bram Stoker's Dracula gave us IMHO very nearly the epitome of both Dr. Jack Seward with Richard E. Grant in the role, and Bill Campbell as the American cowboy Quincey Morris.  Yet the Arthur Holmwood who remains most firmly fixed in my memory is from an interesting but not-quite-there version by the BBC in 2006--in the case the actor Dan Stevens as a syphlitic aristocrat (inherited from his father) horrified by all his hopes and dreams about to be yanked from him by an unspeakable (and unspoken-of) practical joke set up by Fate.  It was so interesting to see this figure portrayed not as an epitome of proper English values but a well-meaning yet weak victim of Victorian hypocrisy.  Likewise Seward, the eldest of the three suitors as an somewhat unscrupulous obsessive, coupled with a Quincey with little sophistication but a heart of gold proved both interesting and pleasing...

The Three Suitors of Lucy

Speaking (or writing) of threes, one can hardly think of that number and the story of Transylvania's most famous nobleman without summoning images of Dracula's Brides--an unholy, lusting trinity who have fueled many a young man's dreams (and more than a few young lady's as well, surely).  Again, I chose from Bram Stoker's Dracula one such, in this case one of the most beauteous creatures on this Earth--actress Monica Bellucci.  From the afore-mentioned Hammer studio production Brides of Dracula (which is technically not about Dracula per se) the image of Andree Melly continues to haunt my own musings about female vampires, and the one detail of quality in an otherwise wretched motion picture called Old Dracula is the almost cameo of Linda Hayden as a new recruit into the Count's harem.

The Brides of Dracula!

We are now left with two major roles yet to be cast from all those who've done them on screen before now.  Clearly the lesser of the two, Renfield remains a plum role.  What actor worth his salt doesn't find the idea of playing a bug-eating madman desperate for yet terrified of redemption at least tempting?  This one was close, because I really loved Tom Waits in the role, but when push comes to shove the performance of Jack Shepherd (no, not the

Lost character!) in BBC's 1977 Count Dracula the most effective and moving.  Of all the Renfields, he most touched my heart.  So naturally he is my choice.

Which brings us to our lead.  Looking back on the rest of the cast, methinks we can see a certain retro feel to the whole thing, yes?  And yet my own sensibilities (reflected herein) are modern.  So my final casting choice rests on a technicality.  He has not in fact played Count Dracula.  But he did play a real vampire recruited to pretend to be Count Dracula

for purposes of a motion picture.  Close enough for jazz, and the purposes of my blog.  So here is Willem Dafoe as an unnamed undead persuaded by F.W.Murnau to play the title character in the silent classic Nosferatu.  This film--Shadow of the Vampire.

Until some movie-making software leaps ahead by a quantum step or two, your imagination is the only place where you can see this movie.  Alas.  But on the other hand, that shouldn't be too hard, should it?  Take a stroll through this dream-version of Bram Stoker's novel why don't you?  Tell me what you think...  Or share your own ideas.

Enter freely of your own will...

Unused Vampire Tropes

Given the popularity of the undead in mainstream media these days (or nights, as the case might be) one hopes a bit more variety might show up in the various movies and t.v. shows of the genre.

Books of course have nearly every trope imaginable, but also (nearly always) have far smaller audiences.  So let us deal with film and television.

Here are some ideas/themes/story elements that I haven't seen yet.  Every single one seems quite viable, enjoyable, full of potential.  And for the record, by no stretch of the imagination are they my own invention.  Each can be found somewhere in undead literature already--but hardly at all elsewhere.  Producers, writers, directors--take note.

• Detective turned vampire.  Oh wait, you say.  What about Angel or Forever Knight or Blood Ties, etc.?  Haven't we seen enough of these?  Actually, no.  All of the above are vampires-turned-detective.  What about someone who is already a detective, perhaps an FBI agent or a regular cop or some such, who becomes a vampire yet continues in his (or her) job?  This has all kinds of possibilities, not least watching the newborn undead learn the truth of their existence (a fascinating process with Jessica on True Blood incidentally) and at the same time solving crimes.
• Vampire Origins.  With the possible exception of the Dracula 2000 trilogy  (which was fun, but made little sense since vampires predate the birth of Christ), this is a startling untapped vein (sorry, sorry) of intrigue, mystery and adventure.  Consider how much Spielberg got out of the Holy Grail and the Lost Ark of the Covenant!  Think also how vampires themselves might view the question.  Would they be any less divided on such than mortal men?
• Undead Secret Masters.  Paranoia is good wellspring of story-telling, if a sad facet of normal human existence.  That is why The X-Files' frankly ridiculous theory about the JFK assassination had "legs"
  
  
  and the so-called "Masonic Conspiracy" about Jack the Ripper has made a couple of thrilling movies (even if the theory itself is nonsense).  But what about a story that explored the notion that a cabal of powerful vampires really do control the world, much as the Illuminati or the Gnomes of Zurich or some such are said to?  It could be they aren't particularly vicious or evil, even.  Our heroes might even work for them, tracking down genuine threats to world order and tasting all the angst that might go along with such a job.
• Bloodlines.  Quite simply, there are different types of vampires--each has their own culture, powers, weaknesses, etc.  Kindred: The Embraced dabbled in this ever so slightly, as did Forever Knight but what about exploring the idea as a genuine story element with real consequences?   How would it be if some vampires burned in sunlight, while others could shapeshift and still others needed to sleep in their original graves, and so on?  Imagine how such bloodlines might interact!
• Mysticism.  Understandably enough, the vampires portrayed on shows like The Vampire Diaries and movies like Let Me In are grounded in the physical.  But what about a totally different direction?  Legends of the supernatural tell much stranger tales--of beings that can be in two places at once, that are in some sense not even matter as we know it, vampires as more akin to blood-drinking ghosts than paranormal predators of humans.  Remember the owls on Twin Peaks?  Or the spookiness of the Let's Scare Jessica to Death?

The Discrete Charm of the Nosferatu

Some names keep popping up. Edward Cullen. Bill Compton. Erik Northman. Mick St. John. Henry Fitzroy. Spike. Angel, formerly Angelus and formerly Liam. Nicholas Knight. Barnabas Collins. The brothers Salvatore. The vampire as love interest has become a cliche, so much so that Guillermo del Toro's The Strain as well as 30 Days of Night have been welcomed as a much-needed relief from an overabundance of saccharine.

Methinks there's something missing from all of this, though. I would posit that for a vampire love interest to succeed, a particular balance is almost always needed. Almost.

Allow me to point to two names in the above list. Henry Fitzroy and Mick St. John, the undead hunks of Blood Ties and Moonlight respectively. Both have their fans, to be sure, but neither lasted overlong. For my own tastes, the former was a damn shame (although in my review of the series I pointed out a few inherent flaws). Honestly, I tired to get into the latter but failed. But watching a few episodes did crystalize something in my own mind that led to this post. Quite simply, Mick St. John was a wimp. Not that he wasn't brave or gallant or generous or good-looking or all that. No, he was a wimp because he agonized all over the place about being a vampire. But look at his life. He doesn't need to kill for blood. His "victims" often seem to enjoy the experience. Sunlight is uncomfortable but hardly debilitating. No holy symbols seem to impact him one way or another. He feels intense guilt over crimes he's never committed, urges he seems to be able to control with no effort, inconveniences that are only that. At no time does he come across as religious. His secret is easily kept, and when his love interest discovers it that really doesn't seem to be much of a problem, not really. So what is with all the angst?

Angst can be fun. Angst is good from a story-telling perspective. But something needs to be at stake. Something real.

Probably the single biggest problem with Blood Ties is that the vampire in and of himself offered very little real threat to the heroine. Henry was a fascinatingly cool guy, and his very existence indicated a whole world of threat Vicky had never even considered. Yet he himself was no threat, even against his will.

Compare that to Angel of Buffy The Vampire Slayer fame. Here was a guy possessed by a demon, a demon forever longing to break free and commit unspeakable cruelties. The episode where someone slipped Angel a drug to make him "relax" demonstrated just why Angel is by his very nature a ticking time bomb. More, he was someone only too aware of how dangerous he was. Bill Compton on True Blood spent decades wallowing in darkness, before reaching a point of such despair he preferred death to remaining as he was. He has spent even more decades trying to regain his humanity and let us face facts--he has not been completely successful. Ask Sookie's Uncle. Likewise Barnabas Collins of Dark Shadows (scheduled to be remade by Tim Burton with Johnny Depp) ended up wiping out most of his family and the woman he loved due to his undead nature.

Do you see the correlation yet? You can boil it down to a rule of thumb: The more inherently romantic or attractive a vampire, then the more dangerous they should be for the sake of drama. Methinks this helps explain some of the popularity of Twilight. Edward really is in most ways too good to be true. He's dashing, gallant, just emotional enough to be interesting, supremely loyal, handsome as a god, generous beyond words, patient and devoted, courageous and poetic. He's virtually invulnerable (Buffy and Blade and Van Helsing combined would not stand a chance). Edward's bite not only kills but causes torturous agony (no swooning in rapture with his lips at your throat--more like begging for death at the top of your lungs). And he's fighting for self-control all the time (which makes him a rare duck in the vampires of his world--mostly they just devour whoever catches their fancy). Whatever else you may think of the series (both books and films) it captures this dynamic very well.

Barnabas Collins--virtually no control over his hunger at all, with his bite destroying the free will of his victims, turning them into his slaves. Nick Knight--ragged self-control striving against centuries of self-indulgence, with his bite nearly always killing. Eli in Let the Right One In--an eternal child who must kill to survive and who cannot always control herself, being very used to wielding deadly force. Jessica in True Blood--a repressed teenager suddenly given powers and bloodlust, at the same time robbed of almost every pleasure in life save maybe violence (really, how much more dangerous a combination could one ask for?).

Vampires need not be psychopaths to be dangerous. They just need some metaphorical fangs.

Boys, Girls and Twilight

Herein is my entry in the Absolute Write Blog Chain for books. Here are the participants:
DavidZahir - http://zahirblue.blogspot.com/
Lost Wanderer - http://www.lostwanderer5.blogspot.com
RavenCorinnCarluk - http://raven.youareannoying.us
Vein Glory - http://podpeep.blogspot.com/
Shethinkstoomuch - http://shethinkstoomuch.wordpress.com
Lady Cat - http://randomwriterlythoughts.blogspot.com

Twilight...
So many folks I know stare dazedly at the statistics. Four books by a Mormon housewife who's never written fiction before -- Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn -- shot to the top of best-seller lists. The first movie, panned by many, transformed the lead actors into stars and media sensations in their own right. Their appearance, especially by Robert Pattinson, sparked near-riots in some places. The second, panned as well, breaks box office records. Stephanie Meyer is hailed as the new J.K.Rowling (whatever that means) even as Stephen King opines she "...can’t write worth a darn." Many agree.

But millions of teenage girls do not. Some of those teenage girls aren't in teen-aged (or even necessarily female) bodies. Something about Twilight appeals to the teen girl in people -- including a couple of co-workers of mine well into their twenties. One also adores "torture porn" a la Saw or Hostel. So another stereotype goes crashing to the ground. Good riddance, say I.

Still, the whole saga of Meyer's books (as opposed to the saga in the books) drops jaws and stirs envy, especially by better writers with not a tiny percentage of her success (or--now--bank account).

Like me.

Here's the thing, though. Meyer actually accomplished quite a nice feat of characterization in her novels. Bella Swan should have been a Mary Sue yet is not. The interplay between the various and sundry people in the books makes sense and they all seem "alive." Some criticism of the books frankly seems trivial--I myself prefer my vampires with fangs and not sparkles, but this is her fictional world and her explanations make sense so give it a rest, already. Her writing style is readable, not at all beautiful or elegant or particularly polished. But it works. Her plots are obvious and become moreso as the series progresses. The world she's made is a fun urban fantasy, not up to the level of Harry Potter but perfectly okay in its own right.

But the characters stand out. And given the way fans divide up into teams based on their faves indicates that is what drives all the mania. Something about them struck a chord. Which in turn, at least so I believe, says something about boys and girls right now.

Starting with the Boys--it seems clear that (apart from the whole vampire fandom going on, which applies to True Blood and The Vampire Diaries as well as loads of others right now) what has got girls in a tizzy is the nature of this romance. Edward Cullen (our undead Mr. D'Arcy) is as passionate a teenager as one might imagine. He would kill for Bella. Without her he wants to die. At the same time, Edward is in the grip of near-overwhelming desires, especially for Bella. He openly says he wants to kill her, longs to suck ever drop of blood from her body. Yet he controls himself so totally he can kiss her. Indeed, he often overreacts in his efforts to protect and care for this girl (let us face it, Edward Cullen is a drama queen--but then, after nine decades as a 17-year-old virgin methinks this is forgivable). In other words (are you listening, my younger fellow males?) Edward Cullen is everything about a teenage boy thrown into sharp relief but then made positive. He is driven by urges he cannot control, but somehow does. He is attracted to the point of almost being a Stalker, but genuinely loves. He is awkward about how to show his feelings, but uses gallantry as a fallback. Edward is the ultimate fantasy for every teen girl (well, the straight ones, anyway) who wants a romantic leading man to treat her like a princess. And why is this such a strong fantasy? Well, I don't think too many males are even trying to be gallant these days.

When my late fiancee came home from the hospital, I had set up christmas lights all over her apartment because she loved them and didn't like bright, direct light. The look on her face was something I still treasure. When I've related that story, women almost invariably look amazed and pleased. Men look puzzled and impressed. Therein lies a divide between the genders in our culture right now, or so I maintain. Somewhere along the line women have developed a genuine hunger for romance, for gallantry. And men have developed an aversion to same, lest they be seen as "girly" or "gay" or some variation of not-manly. This is a very foolish notion that has crept into men's thinking and habits.

Twilight offers a vicarious feeding to that hunger on the part of girls (or the girlish part of women) longing for that kind of love story--a central Myth (note the capital 'M') in our collective dreams.

But now, Girls--this all says something about you, too. Bella Swan epitomizes what I think most people think they really are--the outsider, the stranger who doesn't quite fit in, the lonely one even surrounded by more-or-less friends. Yet isn't it telling that in this, a wildly successful book (and now film) series about wish fulfillment in the romance department, Bella falls in love with two men whose beauty is literally superhuman? Edward looks like the marble statue of a greek god come to life, while Jacob is the incredibly hunky guy-next-door with muscles a-rippling and heat actually emitting from his six-foot-plus form in waves. Wow. Just a little superficial maybe? I don't want to deny anyone their eye-candy, but when the fantasy so resolutely includes physical perfection, methinks therein lies another reason for a thirst unquenched. Twilight fits only-too-easily into our common habit of judging by appearance, falling in love with the surface rather than the substance.

I should also point out parenthetically that a passionate love story between human and vampire offers plenty of adult, more sophisticated opportunities--many of which enjoy strong audience loyalty. Nick and Natalie. Henry and Vicky. Eli and Oscar. Bill and Sookie. Twilight is fun and all, containing some rather more sophisticated ideas than many give it credit for (Bella as an Influence without power comes to mind), but the love story itself needn't have been quite so simplistic. But then, if it weren't, neither would it show off quite so clearly this trend in our own gender relations now would it?

My New Blog

Well, here it is. Something I've been thinking about for awhile. My blog.

Do I have anything to say? Well, yes. Truthfully, mine is a head full of opinions and a mouth only too willing to give them voice. But to begin, how about explaining the name?

Night-Tinted Glasses. Some of my earliest memories are of watching Dark Shadows on television. Hammer Horror movies (starting with The Brides of Dracula, which even then seemed odd given Dracula clearly never made an appearance) for afternoon theater. Halloween as a beloved holiday. My first pet was feline, naturally. Or super-naturally. Was it any wonder that by age sixteen I could read tarot cards and by thirty I'd started a vampire film collection on videotape? Years and years later, watching the Broadway production of Phantom of the Opera certain lyrics made perfect sense to my soul...

"Turn your face away, from the garish light of day
Turn your thoughts away from cold, unfeeling light..."

Although I don't sleep that much, which means I wake up fairly early each morn, I remain someone more comfortable with shadows that spotlights. Were it up to me, that overhead light in my apartment would almost never get turned on. Autumn and winter, not summer, for yours truly.

Years ago, I and my late, lamented, and utterly wonderous fiancee took a cruise to Mexico. Amid the great food, the hot tubs, the shows and the rest, she and I later agreed what was the best part of the trip. Lying together in bed at night, feeling the ocean sway us to sleep.

That's where I'm coming from...