Nuzum: Because it's taboo. The ability to toy with something that can kill you isn't new: it's like playing Russian roulette in a much more safe way. And this is perfect because it's a very powerful taboo, but people can get involved in it without really doing anything.
reason: The lifestyle vampires don't seem to be drawing inspiration from the original Dracula. What's inspiring them? Are they Anne Rice fans?
Nuzum: My guess is that Lazarus people probably don't know about Stoker. Actually, I was shocked at how little all of these people knew about Stoker. The people who went on the Romania trip all sat and nodded their heads as our tour guide spouted off crazy talk. Like: Stoker was gay and wrote this gay book about Dracula's brother Radu, who was a gay character, but Radu wasn't a scary name so he never finished it. Total bullshit. But nobody on that trip questioned it at all. Several people knew things they were hearing weren't true, but people didn't care.
reason: Why not?
Nuzum: They were on vacation.
reason: Were they illustrative of vampire fans in general? How much do today's fans care about Bram Stoker's version of the monster?
Nuzum: Bram Stoker would never recognize Count Dracula the way we portray him, not even in the clichéd Bela Lugosi version, because it's so dramatically different. That suave, sophisticated count wasn't in Stoker's novel. His social skills weren't very good. All the sorts of little inventions, like vamps being sensitive to light, that started when other people took their own spins on this. The light thing started in Nosferatu. In some of the early novels vampires got their power from moon but could still walk around during the day. Biting on neck was a new invention, because the traditional vampires drink from the arm or the chest.
reason: So people—authors, adults who call themselves vampires—don't have a fealty to the original vampire stories?
Nuzum: Very few creators of vampire stories, including Bram Stoker, realize the power of what they're creating, especially in their time. Stoker was clueless about many things in his life, and the power of that book was one of them. It was only after he died that it became a commodity. I think that if you look at for examples, go to one of the worst vampire movies I saw, Club Vampire, about a strip club of vampires who continue to do their strip tease for anyone who sticks around after the club closes. And then, you know, they drink their blood and kill them. There was a price to be paid for this kind of sexual freedom. For that movie to come out in the early 90s when AIDS was an hourly conversation tells you how deeply this stuff is ingrained. This was a terrible movie and the filmmakers had no idea what they were doing. They figured out the metaphor completely unintentionally.
reason: Would you say vampires are sort of a monomyth, that people understand them and their metaphorical importance from culture to culture without being told?
Nuzum: They're just like folk tales. Folk tales don't come about when a guy says "I'm gonna capture the zeitgeist of this moment in little story about a rabbit and little girl." The stories with the most resonance survive. Someone didn't say "we don't understand the effects of disease so let's create a monster that sucks blood." It just kind of happened, and it stayed because it works for people.
reason: The first European vampire myths started as a way of keeping people in line and obeying their church, an opium-of-the-masses sort of thing. People would defy dogma and die and come back to suck the blood of the living.
Nuzum: Yeah: "Your uncle Phil, he's the one who's making you sick because he was excommunicated."
reason: Is it strange that completely secular people in an increasingly secular culture cling to a myth that was spread that way?
Nuzum: Some people use religion to teach morals
and control people, and some use it to make sense of the world. In
that sense a story about vampires or a story about talking pumpkins
has the same effect.
reason: I have to say, you seem awfully cold and equivocal
about Vlad the Impaler's career. You say "our view of looking at
the world is just too different to pass clear judgment."
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lunchstealer|10.29.07 @ 4:13PM|#
OK, so Zombies replaced the passe' ninjas, who had replaced the appallingly stone-aged pirates. So does this mean that vampires are the new zombie? Is that what the tragically hip are dressing as this year?
|10.29.07 @ 4:18PM|#
I can't get over the fact that someone ran for office on the "impale evildoers" platform. Really, that is weird and worthy of ridicule.
That said, at least vampires have much flashier wardrobes than zombies.
Beware the Mahdi|10.29.07 @ 4:18PM|#
"While it's easy to dismiss that-hey, the guy thinks impalement is a good way to curb crime!-it's not much of a step from saying "that guy believes in vampires" to saying "that guy believes in Allah! That's weird." If you create a culture that just mocks those ideas or mocks the people who believe them then you're in dangerous territory."
I'd say the opposite is true. Moral equivalency is far more dangerous! All beliefs are not created equal. Allah is not the God of Judaism or Christianity. There is nothing wrong with saying that someone is crazy for believing something or that they are wrong. Why should that form of disagreement be "dangerous territory"?
JasonL|10.29.07 @ 4:18PM|#
Did the tragically hip ever actually dress as zombies?
|10.29.07 @ 4:20PM|#
I hate vampires. Especially this one!
I love vampires. Especially this one!
|10.29.07 @ 4:29PM|#
Beware the Mahdi,
Yeah? Well my Level 37 Vampire Paladin would kick any god's ass!
Eric Hanneken|10.29.07 @ 4:31PM|#
For a brief history of vampire mythology, I recommend Vampires: Restless Creatures of the Night, by Jean Mariony. It covers thousands of years, going back to ancient figures like Lilitu .
Beware the Mahdi|10.29.07 @ 4:33PM|#
Well, your level 37 vampire paladin dresses like a girl. And you're stupid.
See everyone? I disagreed with AND insulted Taktix and the world did not end!
|10.29.07 @ 4:48PM|#
See everyone? I disagreed with AND insulted Taktix and the world did not end!
Jeez! Give me a minute. Armageddon take time, man...
Brian Sorgatz|10.29.07 @ 8:14PM|#
I don't know about vampires, but zombies are crucial for certain philosophical thought experiments about how a material universe can form sentient (as opposed to merely intelligent and emotive) beings at all.
Those with a stake (no pun intended) in the debate over God's existence should pay especially close attention here.
BakedPenguin|10.30.07 @ 2:22AM|#
Yes, but the real question is, do Vampires have any songs named after them as cool as this?
Mad Zombie Max|10.30.07 @ 3:53AM|#
Am I the only one who didn't know this tidbit from the zombie article:
"George Romero, a Pittsburgh-based director of TV commercials and occasional segments for Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood . . ."
It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood
A beautiful day for a zombie
I want you alive
I want you alive
I'll devour your flesh, because it tastes good
Then I'll slurp your insides like spaghetti
And you'll die slowly
And you'll die slowly
I always wanted to make a meal out . . . of . . . you
I always wanted to come to your neighborhood
And eat you
So . . . let's have some fun on this beautiful day
As I'm devouring you I will hear you say
Won't you please
Won't you please
Please, Zombie Rogers
Kill me quicker.
|10.30.07 @ 4:25AM|#
"If you create a culture that just mocks those ideas or mocks the people who believe them then you're in dangerous territory."
He was speaking of an entire culture here - I think he is talking more pervasive than the largely impotent or repressed "mockers" in America today. Of course having some of us be xenophobic is kind of a fact of life; in this way, we are balanced, having some uncomfortable things like Guantanamo, but knowing these are the exception to the rule. Yet soon we approach having a majority of the populace treating people with mockery, which quickly escalates into physical form à la Spanish Inquisition or, you might argue, the War on Drugs.
dbust1|10.30.07 @ 9:29AM|#
I think drawing a parallel between the Spanish Inquisition and the war on drugs is a bit much, but more power to you if you can make it stick. I'd like to hear your take on it.
What concerns me is this idea where it's all of a sudden dangerous to mock a person or group for their beliefs. There isn't anything wrong with thinking someone is crazy for believing something. When those thoughts are put into action in order to silence, oppress or harm someone then that's dangerous. But to assume that thoughts inevitably lead to action is ignorant. At least twice on my drive to and from work I want to kill someone who cuts me off or almost causes an accident. But even if I had a gun in my vehicle I wouldn't pull it out and try to kill them. Thoughts are not dangerous, speech is not dangerous. Actions can be, but are not inherently so.
|10.31.07 @ 11:42AM|#
There are plenty of politicians who would run on an "impale evildoers" platform if they thought it would bring in the votes. As it is, they cloak the same sentiment in being tough on crime, cleaning up the streets and protecting the country.