1895 The Vampire by Paul De Kock review

This heart is a piece of wall art at the Victoria and Albert House

, 

Portland, OR

 Introducing The Vampire: A Story of Love and Passion,

 by Paul De Kock (1895)

A year ago I had the privilege of spending time in the British Library where they have one of the most fantastic collections of material in the world (in my opinion, mind you). While there I was allowed to read a variety of vampire themed material which is not yet readily available online, including those I've already posted about, and: The Vampire: A Story of Love and Passion, by Paul De Kock. Since one of my interests is in the use of the term vampire as a metaphor for people who suck the metaphoric life from others, reading this was ... cool.

It is indeed the story of "love and passion" as the author states, but in this case the passion of the lovers are closer to obsession, which allows for truly co-dependent, vampiric relationships.

The story begins with an illicit relationship between a male composer and his mistress. Now the mistress part was just fine back in those times, no one looked askance at the man having a mistress, in fact he stayed with her quite happily for many years. It was a relationship which didn't impede his musical output or his career. He had quiet evenings at home with her and all of his friends were quite fond of her as well. Then, enter the vampire.

The vampire took his time and attention away from his musical career which was a very bad thing as far as his friends were concerned. Eventually, the scorned long-term mistress came to his friends and asked for their aid in rescuing her lover from the evil clutches of the vampire. 

After much roundaboutation, the mistress decided that she was bored with the composer -- and he was running short of funds to keep her in style anyway. She moved on to another man and the composer went back to his mistress a broken man.

Was she a real vampire?

Making the Grade: Writing Papers that Earn an "A" (the D Paper)

Making the Grade: Writing Vampire Papers

Grades. We all work for them, and all want to believe that without any effort on our own part, we will earn high grades in every field we endeavor to enter. Unfortunately, for most of us, it takes practice, practice, practice, AND … work

So what is the hidden code that makes one student paper an “A” paper while the next student paper – for a student who has written from the exact same prompt – garners only the dreaded “C,” and the student learns their work is really only av…er…a ge?

The answer really isn’t effort since a “C” student often works longer and harder than the “A” student. They just haven’t learned, yet, how to write to the instructor’s unwritten expectations. And often, sadly, refuse to actually read the damn texts which would teach them the specific skills they need, and inform them of the specific expectations. Not even if the material was written by the instructor of the course they are in, and can be expected to have relevant samples.

That said (rant ended), what exactly makes one response an A response and another a D response?

Let’s take a look at one of my assignments, worth four points towards a total of 190.

Write a short, think around 200 words – one paragraph -- convincing me you have indeed watched 30 Days of Night.  Be detailed, AND remember to mention director and film title.

Inasmuch as I tell my students exactly what garners an F: they get a list of issues, let’s work upwards from a D response. (Each student response is followed by where it has failed. I have fixed some of the typical grammar issues, and left other common ones.)

 ****

D Student: I watched the movie and I really didn’t like it. it was too dark for me to see what was happening half the time, and my boyfriend kept interrupting me and telling me it was too dark. I dont know why the people in the town didnt just leave, after all, there are roads, arne’t there? And why didn’t they fight back. If a vamire attatcked my house i would fight back. Alaska is cold. I disliked the movie because it was set there. And I really like vampires who are nicer to people and who dont go around trying to kill them. “30 days of night’ is a really terrible film because the vampires are mean. The point where the mean vampire tells the girl that there is no god, made me mad. It made me afraid to slep in the dark. To repeat myself, I really din’t like the movie.

Why is this bad? Can you come up with a list of mistakes? Note that it is a combination of badness that garners a “D” grade.

• It focuses solely on the reader and not at all on the film under discussion.
• The word “I” appears seven times in one-hundred thirty-five words. The word “I” in a college-level response is always problematical. “Why?” you ask. Because we want the focus to be on the item under discussion (and are uninterested in discussing you).  This is one reason why students should not use first person pronouns – in any form – in their formal responses. The viewer, the reader, people, a person, John Doe are all good alternatives which not only tell your instructor you are focusing outside your own reactions, but it forces you to format your response formally. And anything turned into an instructor for a grade: Formal. Dress it for Prom.
• Capitalization is broken in major ways. “I” is always capital – something taught way back when in elementary school. To lower-case it in a formal paper turned in to an instructor goes beyond rude. It is student grade suicide. First lines always begin with a capital letter – again, student grade suicide.
• There is little internal evidence at all that the movie was actually watched.
• dont?  Really? Can’t even see the red-underline and right click to get the correct apostrophe?
• It isn’t long enough – for which this reader would be very, very grateful. Would you want this to go on any longer?
• All too often, a D paper has all sorts of off-topic information. And runs looong.
• The basic sentence structures and punctuations are wonky.

All-together, wouldn’t you be happy this ended? The only reason this garnered a “D” with points instead of an “F” is the one line which does contain one small bit of evidence from inside the film, and unmentioned in most reviews – the “no God” comment.

So that is what the teacher sees when reading the D paper. While most D papers might not be quite so dreadful, a fair amount of what crosses my desk looks like it.

1820 "The Vampire: A Tragedy in 5 Acts"

The British Library holds treasure for individuals lucky enough to tread its halls. One of the treasures is the short five act play by John Dorset, "The Vampire: A Tragedy in 5 Acts." In short, in a true piece of Victorian scatter-shot, it blames everyone for their own lack of morals. 

The preface, from the Examiner, states:

"There are vampires who waste the heart and happiness of those they are connected with, vampires of avarice, vampires of spleen, vampires of debauchery, vampires in all the shapes of selfishness and domestic tyranny. What is the seducer and abandon-er of a trusting young girl but a vampire not sufficiently alive to his own cruelty? What is a husband who marries for money, and then tramples on his wife but a Vampire? What is the "poisonous bosom snake of Milton but a female vampire, wearing a man's heart out by holding him without loving him?"

The author has set the play in the "obscurity" of the Egyptian annals" during the 10th C.  And in many, many ways it is a Romeo and Juliette retelling, with the faithless Abdella (Romeo character)  playing the part of the immoral vampire because he loves (seduces) a young innocent gal (Astarte) and abandons her for the power and authority of the Alexandrian queen (Nouroyan). Unlike Romeo and Juliet, Nouroyan is quite attracted to the invading Persian, Abdella, and when she agrees to the betrothal, she has no idea whatsoever that he is already affianced to Astarte.

In a very classic tragedy ending, all the main characters are dead at the end, either killed by conspirators seeking the throne for themselves, or killed by a sea-god upset with the unethical behavior of the protagonists. 

Note that I am pretty sure the London audience would have loved this play due to its bow to morality even while it allowed partially dressed actors to parade across the state. And again, the embracing metaphor of the vampire as anyone who places their own needs above those of society writ-large allows for a wide brush to paint pretty much anyone.

Alcoholism as a Vampire: "The Vampyre by the Wife of a Medical Man" 1858

The Traitor's Gate, London.

When I was in London summer of 2013, I was able to spend a fair amount of time reading in the British Library (one of the most magical places on Earth). Given my interest in early usages of the term "Vampire" for a human who metaphorically sucks the life from its victim, the 1858 anonymous booklet, The Vampyre by the Wife of a Medical Man,was a wonderful read.

In short, the author uses the metaphor of the vampire to describe the drunken life -- it is about temperance and the abstainer's pledge and the lure of drink which proves more alluring than keeping ones word. (At this time, temperance referred to abstinence from drinking.)

"She" (the anonymous author states) "Listen to me, whilst I describe to you some of the horrors of a drunkard's home, and some of the privations of the drunkard's wife and children"(2). 

She then goes on to tell the story of a young man, the son of a drunkard father who cannot stand the fact that his son, "Herbert" will not join him in his sodden ways. In spite of his father's beatings and declaration that he will cut his son out of his inheritance, Herbert takes the "Abstainer's Pledge." Not a drop of liquor is to pass his lips. He makes a fair attempt to keep his pledge and to be as good as his word, but his choice of bad companions undercuts his willpower.

At first Herbert is able to disguise the fact that he has broken his pledge from his poor, long-suffering mother, and his  increasingly pushy father, but not for long. Soon his personality changes and he becomes as abusive to his mother and the house-staff as his father has been to himself.

The young man enjoys accompanying his companions to "Mrs. Grasp-the-Air's shop, The Vampyre Inn, where Tommy, the husband serves an increasing amount of liquor to the weak-willed Herbert. Tommy and Mrs. Grasp-the-Air quite enjoy their roles in this story as devil's advocate since it brings their business increased income.

Eventually, Herbert kills one of the "friends" who attempts to talk him into changing his ways, and he is taken to the gallows while his poor mother weeps.

Like any good morality tale, the story ends, "Drink, Strong Drink! had it not, like a vampyre sucked the blood out of his father and grandfather! and finally, expinguish[ed] life itself?"

I will leave it to my reader to question if indeed the giving in to one of the many temptations of life and allowing it to have control over ones thought and deeds is indeed allowing a vampire to entirely suck life out of one.

Works Cited
"The Vampyre by the Wife of a Medical Man." London: A W Bennett, 1858. Print.

Vampire Hunter pt. 1

I crept into the cemetery after dark through a narrow opening between the fence and the bushes. It was creepy, but my rent was due and my landlord was not too fond of people of my persuasion; vampire photographers.

I stumbled over the rough ground past tombstones which glowed pale under the strobe of the moonlight filtering though the threatening clouds. It was a bad night to be entering such a place, but I'd heard rumors through the Twitterverse that vampires frequented this particular mausoleum. And if they were there, I needed to immortalize them in digital to pay my rent. The tabloids paid well for "authentic" vampire pictures, even if the vampire was not the hunky sort.

The skull partially buried in mulch but still managing to grin at me gave me pause; and I wondered if this was the right profession for me. But in my biz, it was produce or perish, right? So I crept on as stealthily as possible between the decaying gravestones while trying to find my location on the little map of the cemetery the kind lady at the desk had given me that morning. I kicked myself now for not having taken the time to figure out the right spot in daylight, but the map had made it look deceptively easy.

I almost died when I heard the eerie moaning sound of squeaking metal. I froze in place unwilling to alert any listeners to my presence, even while knowing that if it were the vampire I sought, my heart-beat would be a loud pounding bass drum in the otherwise deserted area.

Tune in again for the next segment.later this week.. (copyright Leslie Ormandy)

Dine and Dash

Ken is sporting a whole new look these days, a full length vampire cape and his signature shorts while he waits for Barbie to wake up for their late night bite at the local drive in. The menu features lots of fresh food and the main feature is Silence of the Lambs.

Vampire Metaphor: A Rose by Any Other Name

Does a rose by any name smell as sweet? Does saying someone is a vampire mean he is a bloodsucking parasite, or that he sparkles romantically? Arguably this is the problem with any metaphor; it is a shoddy method to communicate meaning since the reader has no idea which is meant by the context in which the metaphor is placed.It is amorphous.

Darkness falls and the banker strolls from the office where he has labored since sunrise. His car lies deep in the underground garage along with the cars of all his office-mates. He is elated from his busy day of trading futures, having made lots of money. His predatory urges have been wakened, and instead of going home, he turns his car towards the clubs where he can find a desperate woman for who will fall for his line of patter. He can get off and walk off.

The apartment complex was, shall we say euphemistically, a fixer-upper complex with some terrace fences clearly needing replacing, and a roof with odd patches of darkness where the moss seemed to have taken over and grown unhealthy under overhanging tree branches. Walking into the unit the woman could smell odd aromas underlying the fresh paint smell and the smell of the newly laid, inappropriately tannish, carpet. Even with all the lights turned on, and there were damned few of them, the place was dim; as though the apartment was attempting to hid its issues from the casual viewer. The woman knew that if she was no longer a casual viewer the issues would become all to clear, and she would have to live with them. But her credit wasn't stellar and the rent, though high, was about standard for the area, and this owner didn't require the expensive background checks or high deposit so many others did.

She was a knock-out. She was an eleven on the scale of one-to-ten. Her little black dress lived up to its name as it clung to her curves, displaying them quite clearly even while saying, "understated." And she, quite clearly, was out of place in this run-down, workingman's pub.
     The men sitting at the bar looked, hell, they gaped and slavered, but they gave her a wide space. The men and women sitting at the tables in their jean and flannels, 'nice' outfits and chinos, whispered among themselves as they kept glancing at her, asking each other, in quite tones, "What is THAT doing HERE?" or some variant thereof. But again, for all their looking and whispering, they just looked and whispered.
     The bartender who had mixed her gin fizz made casual conversation with the men at the bar, watching attentively for her beaconing gesture while giving an appearance of drying the already dry glasses with his bar rag. "She paid with a fifty, and gave me a twenty tip!" he whispered importantly, understand that, for a change, he was the most important person in the bar; he was the only person in the bar she'd spoken to.
      There was a collective intake of breath when the woman swung her bar-stool so that she could look at her audience -- for they had become her audience in all the ways that matter. Many had only seen her figure since her face was turned toward the bar, and she was two stools over from where the bar's back-mirror would have given her reflection. They moved her up to twelve status. Every man, and a few of the women, wondered even more if she were blond all over, since blue eyes indicated her blond hair was natural.  
     She sipped her drink and then smiled. Her very white teeth reflected in the dim light.

The waif stood in the shadows looking very waif-like; small gamine face with a few smudges and huge eyes, jeans and oversize open button-down shirt. Yet her huge eyes had a hint of the predator within them if one looked very closely; she was used to fending for herself. Some kind man or woman would soon come along and want to 'save' her.

Although Josh tried hard to vary his routine, travel to school by a different route every day, and make damn certain they were random; the last leg of the trip required walking down the main street to the only open door of the building, and every few days Trevor would waylay him.
    
Metaphor. Vampire. Predators. Prey.

Leslie Ormandy

Picture from Wikipedia "Barnabas Collins" Page

At a conference recently, the conversation turned to a discussion of vampire fans. I have been thinking about the idea since then; asking myself the question: Is is creepy if I, and older female, ogle the young "vampire" characters trotting across my small screen?

 I remember when Dark Shadows arrived on our small black and white television (the picture was delivered in black and white for those of you who have never experienced it). All of us very young girls were "in love" with Barnabas Collins. He was the topic of lunch conversation, and the bane of teachers who had to endure the continued whispers about him in class. We giggled over him as he suffered the angst of having been made a vampire through a curse cast upon him; he did not choose to become one. He did not choose eternal blood-sucking, undead life.

For many of us, if not most, it was our first real experience with a vampire (discounting the vamping of Bella Lugosi's Dracula which was the stuff of Halloween costumes, and the vampires of Abbot and Costello).

Did you note above that I said that we were in love with Barnabas Collin? We KNEW that he was a character, an actor pretending to be a vampire. We were hot (well, as hot as elementary girls could be) about the character -- I doubt many of us were attracted to the actor himself. I will grant that given the age difference between a post-pubescent child and the actor, our fandom had elements of creep even when not considering that our real attraction was to the character of a couple-of-hundred year old vampire. But our gaze, our fan-mentality, saw the power and attraction of the character.

I am not sure, and this is true speculation and my thoughts are ongoing, but I have to wonder if the issue is less the age of the person gazing at the character (remembering that the actor playing Barnabas was Johnathan Frith who was certainly waaaayyyy older than much of his fanbase), and more about fans who fail to understand that the actor is not the character -- and then behave towards the actor inappropriately? Does "reality TV" have anything to do with our cultural loss of the separation of actor and character? And why shouldn't an older person enjoy the attractive vampire, such as Eric Northman, trotting across the screen? I think all these issues and questions need answering since they, in part, concern the sort of society we live inside of.

Eternal Life Eternal Youth Eternal You

"Eternal life," he whispers into my ear, his breath a warm and honeyed moistness against the tender skin behind it. "You will never age," he continues softly as he presses his body into my back, rubbing his head against my own. "You will never die," he finishes as his lips dip to my neck and he nips it.

Such is the vampire promise. Eternal life. Eternal youth. What could be wrong with that? Honestly, in our youth obsessed culture, it sound pretty darn good.

The advertising is great. Usually it features a hot young thing offering eternal love and mind-blowing sex, at least in the paranormal romance field. It usually features companionship and willing blood-donors who are "special" in that they are allowed to know about vampires.

The package comes with super-powers also: super strength, enhanced senses, mesmerizing skills, ability to shape-shift and to heal from most wounds. It makes you more attractive since all the best predators are beautiful.

The problems do not appear in the disclaimer: You have to reinvent yourself constantly as fashions, social mores, and technology changes around you, and you don't physically change.

And you are yourself for all eternity. Can the dead change?

Think about it for awhile, and I will return to the conversation later. Meanwhile, a cup of blood.

Blood Brotherhood

Blood brotherhood, or blood sisterhood, or even blood acquaintance, is an idea that is older than I am, and definitely predates AIDs or other blood born disease worries. At rock-bottom, its promise is that of two person's blood-lines merging one to another brought about by physically mixing two person's blood. You become my true-born brother when your blood enters me, and I become your true-born brother when my blood enters you. As our bloods mix, our lives merge.

In olden-times blood brotherhood was a staple of pirates and boy scouts (and girl scouts I might add.)

So "what is the relationship of blood-bothers to vampires," you might ask; and rightly so.

It seems to SweetGoth that this idea of blood merging two lives together is metaphorically similar to the idea of a vampire drinking my blood, and my life energy entering him/her/it and allowing him/her/it to "live." The relationship becomes stronger if one considers the methods most vampires use to propagate their species -- a blood exchange through which the vampire takes the life energy of the "victim" and in exchange joins the "victim" to the vampire's undead family, an eternal joining.

With his long talon-like nails he gnashed his wrist vein and then pressed it to my own which he had opened and fed from. As his blood merged with my own, I felt heat running up my arm though the large vein. I felt light-headed, and then the world went away. When I woke three days later, he was there waiting for me; his brother.