Vampires, Coffins, and Victims: and Me

Sweet Goth, aka Leslie, has been overwhelmed with running a vampire business (Grave Images llc) while teaching four assorted composition class, while editing  Scion Press books (Lena Cameron, Dreams and Omens) and working out the logistics of teaching webinars on composition subjects. All of this is teaching me that I have a "thing" about the supernatural in all its manifestations. And I am over-extended. And audience is KING!

Since October 1, 2011, my family and I have been running a vampire photography booth at a local "haunt," (Scream at the Beach's Jantzen Beach, OR location for those who know Portland).  We entered the Biz because I thought other folks interested in vampires, Goths, Emos, and all of us supernaturally inclined folks, would be interested in having their picture taken dressed as a vampire while emerging from a coffin. I know I would have paid someone else my hard earned cash for the opportunity to do so. 

Again, I am being reminded that audience is king. It seemed like a perfect fit -- both to us and the people producing the really scary haunt. We all thought we'd be pulling people out of the coffin, willy-nilly, to let the next into the coffin. Well, it hasn't quite worked out that way.

It turns out that the social dynamics of groups is tough to beat. And they don't steer our way. If one of the group finds it too "scary," the other isn't allowed to sit in the coffin. If it isn't free, it isn't worth it to sit in the coffin. If we won't fit nine fairly beefy adults into the coffin for one $8.00 group shot, it isn't worth it to sit in the coffin. 

Don't get me wrong, those very few who have "gotten it" have been great fun. But like in all things, know your audience, and repeat after me, "Location, location, location." Our biz would be a go in at least three place which aren't Portland, OR. If you live in New Orleans, New York, or London, contact me for a great business plan.

Bad Endings Bite

Spoiler Alert and Bad Ending Warning: Forever Knight's ending, well, bites!

Sweet Goth has just spent some serious time watching the 1990's three season series Forever Knight, a television series produced in Canada. It took awhile before I adjusted to the 1990's hair and clothing (and on a side note, the producers might have varied both the hairstyles and clothing of the female mainstays), and adjusting to the glowy green vampire eyes, but the story-lines mostly were good enough that those could be shuddered at, but ignored.

What I can't ignore, and really resent, is when writers and producers are so desperate to end the series that they have the characters break character. (Oh, and the constant injections of the past clips as filler is also resented, but really.) The viewers have watched though 69 episodes, they have invested in the characters as they have behaved throughout all those episodes. So Nick, is anguished at being a vampire -- 800 years of "oh, damn, I'm eternal?" -- but he is trying really hard to not drink human. His friend Natalie, a Medical Examiner, is helping him in his search to become human. Over the course of the series, we have found he's brought several people "across." But when the time comes to split with his best bud and creator LaCroix because LaCroix declares it is time, Nick promises his non-girlfriend girlfriend Natalie to bring her "over" because he doesn't want to leave her behind. And instead of bringing her "across," he kills her? Why? Was she somehow chained to the city of Toronto and unable to leave the border? Could she not have traveled with them as a human? And then LaCroix who has been established as being a totally amoral and selfishly vicious alpha, kills his son because Nick wants him to. Again, why? Nothing in the character has established him as willing to kill his son.

Yes, I'm upset. I sat through 70 repetitions of the theme blurb "... endless, forever night." (Endless IS forever -- chose ONE and stick with it!) I deserved a more coherent ending.

Kicking Ass! Kipling's "The Vampire"

While perusing really really old material today so that you, beloved readers, wouldn't need to do it, I ran into three responses to Kipling's "The Vampire." Then I ran into several more. Then I dug deeper yet and discovered there are more than 2200 extant and readable recountings and responses to Kipling's "The Vampire." And I searched only from 1897 to 1940.

The reactions run from story to play to poem and range from vampire as economic metaphor to vampire political statements to vampiric gendered roles to vampire at work. I've rarely seen such a widespread use of vampire.

The version I'll sharing this time is by William Rex, called -- you guessed it! -- "The Vampire!"
It is from a magazine called The painter and decorator, Volume 23 -- 1909

The Vampire (Laborer’s Version.)

(With Apologies to Kipling)

A fool there was and he toiled away

(Even as you and I).
For a cage and crumb, with nothing to say --
(Some call it worse than death grim and gray) —
But the fool he called it his full day's pay—

(Even as you and I).

Oh, the life we waste and the strife we taste—
And the work of our head and hand
Belong to this world, which does not know—

(And now we know that it never can know)
And does not understand.

A fool there was and he lived a slave—

(Even as you and I.)
To a master who drove him remorseless to grave—
(And the master did not heed the wounds he gave)—

But the fool never dreamt that his life he could save

(Even as you and I).

Oh, the miseries he lived for the crumbs he received –

And the kicks which a dog would abhor:

He took from the man who cared not to know why –

(And now we know he never cared why)

And did not understand.

The fool was stripped of his bloodsucked hide –

(Even as you and I).

Which he might have saved if he only had tried –

But a fool is a fool, though wise men he may chide)

So some of him lived, but the best of him dies

(Even as you and I).

And it isn’t the blow, or the red-blood flow,

That stings like a white-hot brand –

It’s coming to know that he never did try

To conquer his lord and make him know why –

And force him to understand.

(Sweet Goth here. Doesn't a poem kick ass when it can be re-purposed so endlessly yet still have relevance in its new incarnation?)

Earth to Earth Dust to Dust

"Earth to Earth, Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust" the playbook disclaims, working quite nicely with the vampire universe since it blends both Christian beginning to vampires' Twentieth/Twenty-first century style.

So, in case you are not up the the Christian beginning of human from dust, I'd refer you to Genesis -- the section where God picks up a handful of "clay" or "dust," spits on it to moisten it and forms Adam, the first human. (Yes, man = dust and Holy spit.) One assumes that the Holy spit is what gives a human its immortal soul, but that is only speculation.

Then, Adam gets bit by a vampire -- and whether he looses his soul or not, his dietary tastes change. But his human family doesn't know about his new existence; he gets buried. If here were still fully human, his existence would end here and he'd return to the earth which he came from. But, Adam emerges from the earth not quite human this time, although he still wears a human shell no soul is home.

Enter the slayer such as Angel or Buffy (or Spike) in the Whedon-verse. If they are doing their job correctly, they will stick a stake through Adam's non-beating heart and what is left will now puff into dust. This is dual up-side. It nicely disposes of the corpse, and completes the Biblical circle. Earth to earth, dust to dust. The full measure of a man.

Eternal Life = Eternal Life

Eternal life is both a blessing and a curse for a vampire, especially if they must spend part of it coffin bound, but it does offer them the opportunity to do lots of studying or reading. They could study Computer Engineering or sociology, or perhaps learn a new language, but really, human or previously-human, the attraction of a Gothic novel remains.

In this case we see the vampire reading Risen From the Grave: Varney the Vampyre part 1: The Feast of Blood, a penny dreadful from the Victorian period. Of course, while the story is the original the edition is not. This is the nicely modernized version offering a younger vampire -- one not a century and a half old -- a look at the un-life and adventures of Varney.

I guess this is an old-fashioned vampire or the book would be an e-version and not nearly as much fun in the picture. (Taken at Washington County Fair by Grave Images llc)

Humans in a Vampire World

Lately I have been working with students in Tales of the Vampires, a compilation of stories in graphic novel form collected and organized by Joss Whedon. Each story is written by a different writer who worked with him on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series. Each world is totally different; each story focuses on a different vampire, often telling the story of his/her/its creation. And in most of the worlds, most humans walked around totally unsuspecting that there were vampires in their midst.

Why, one wonders, look at the "normal" humans? Because doing so lays stress on many things:

• Vampires look like us. This is important because it reminds us that the monster -- as Pogo long ago said, is us. We carry the seeds of monstrous-ness within us when we place our own survival needs over those of the other creatures around us. This comes into play when the banker who recently foreclosed on the unemployed soldier's home goes home, driving his Beemer to his Million dollar McMansion. Comes into play when the boss tells the worker that they need to take a pay loss due to economics, while giving themselves a 11%, $11,000 per year raise. Yet not only do we not recognize the monster; we want to be that monster.

• The humans, too often, are totally oblivious to the vampires among them. They simply don't want to accept that such "evil" can exist. And since vampires don't really exist and are figments of literary license, there is no need to even worry about them. Criminals from some cartel are taking revenge on some other cartel through beheading and burning them. And "why doesn't someone do something about those people?"

In this book it is usually the marginalized: poor, homeless, unwanted, who become the victims -- and it is so much easier to not notice the disappearance of people who have never been noticed to begin with. So the humans go about their day to day in blind obliviousness to the vampires among them. Lambs only if they, themselves, get an unlucky economical broken leg.

Picturing Myself as a Vampire

Ever since SweetGoth participated in a vampire conference in England, she has wanted to sport in a coffin as a vampire. Never one to do anything small -- and since finding a coffin to hang out in as a vampire is well nigh impossible, she and her family had to start a vampire photography business. Now she can sport in a toe-pincher, or a standard casket. Fun stuff.

Grave Images -- the vampire photography business -- is located in Oregon. It has a facebook page if you are really curious.

Bitten by Bad Sellers

If it seems too good to be true, cover your butt, you're about to be screwed.

SweetGoth and family are about to open vampire themed photobooths, and were seeking affordable, high-quality fangs to sell since what is a vampire without fangs? Wandering the internet, because where else does any left-clicking internet savvy modern Goth look for fangs, we discovered the fangs, image right, with a nice clean packaging, and an affordable cost though a China provider, globalmall, though DHGates.com.

With customary US trust, we didn't even cry foul when they informed us that the "shipping" had gone up, and we would need to pay additional monies to receive our order. We figured the costs, and paid. Note that we do run several websites, and we know it isn't hard to update info on webpages. It should have warned us that something was wrong.

We waited anxiously, like any young business with product to arrive, and tore into the package after its delivery. See below. Not what we ordered. And not saleable due to the jagged edges; what would a "vampire" sue us for if their "fang" tore their gums?

At present, it looks like we have 50 pairs of "vampire teethcaps" shoved up our "you know whats." We are screwed. Learn from our mistake, avoid purchases from either service. DHGates, like all internet service providers, sides where their income comes from, with the seller.