Sherry Chandler » All Hallows
All Hallows
It’s the first of November, Hallowmass on the Catholic calendar (though pop culture has tended to keep the Eve and forget the mass), and the beginning of the dark time of year. It’s not for nothing that Moby Dick begins with Ishmael’s description of “a damp,
drizzly November in my soul.”
Though, considering that we are still in a state of drought, a damp and drizzly November would not be entirely unwelcome around here.
Still officially fall but my bank calendar, whose page I just turned, shows a photo of a buck in a snowy pine woods. Not the most original concept, I’ll grant you. Nevertheless, I thought I’d mark the turning of the month with another of the winter poems Charlie Whitt sent me:
PINES
Wind rising in the pines
Carries the sounds of winter to the window
As I struggle to find warmth beneath the chilling image.Needle fingers stitch pale portraits upon the horizon
Pausing to fix them within cool fluid.I depend upon the pines to tell of changes
For they know cold better than me,And they know when to bend;
When to call out a warning.— Charles M. Whitt
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4 Comments
1. Tommy replies at 1st November 2007, 10:13 am :
Because it was Halloween, perhaps you’d care to spend some time with Hangman X-Treem?
Don’t let the time limit freak you out!
Love,
T
2. Tommy replies at 1st November 2007, 10:33 am :
Oh, and on topic on the OP:
I have found that a lot of our perceptions of Dracula-type vampires comes from Hammer Films rather than Bram Stoker.
When it’s Christopher Lee playing Dracula, you have to watch out for sunlight and running water and all these other hazards.
Harker generally has a lot more difficulty with Dracula than Peter-Cushing-as-Van-Helsing ever did.
Great. Now I want to see Bram Stoker’s Dracula, that Coppola movie. This is compounded by the fact that I caught a couple seconds of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein on some movie channel a couple days ago. There was a very small cloud in a bright blue sky, that nevertheless seemed to be generating its own lightning storm. Kenneth Branagh was delighted; his arm candy less so.
3. sherry replies at 1st November 2007, 11:27 am :
I hear tell the old Hammer Dracula has been released to DVD with some grotty scenes restored that were considered too traumatic for Western kiddies. Also the orignial Nosferatu, of which Mrs. Bram Stoker burned every copy she could find because she was angry that they’d stolen the idea. Nevertheless, it is considered the best of the lot, I think.
4. Tommy replies at 2nd November 2007, 10:12 am :
I certainly have heard great praise heaped upon the set designer for Nosferatu, whose name escapes me at the moment. I think that image of Nosferatu’s shadow coming up the stairs has been nightmare fuel for eighty years.
I think there’s also a fascination with imagining oneself a vampire or werewolf. How far would you go to survive? Would you eat other people? White Wolf has made a lot of money off of its Vampire games, largely due to that fascination, and largely due to “Dude, shut up and give me the freaky vampire superpowers already!”
The games also attract a lot of woe-is-me players, one of the reasons I’ve never enjoyed them very much.
Love,
T
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