Robert Pattison and Kristen Stewart return to the big screen in Twilight: New Moon this Friday. The first installment shied away from vampire myths and offered a modern take on the subject. Last year, Christopher Beam pointed out that Twilight and other recent movies were quick to discredit old vampire legends. The original article is reprinted below.
There's a scene midway through Twilight, the new 'tween vampire flick, in which the heroine, Bella, arrives at the vampire Edward's house—a bright, spare, Modernist home that seems stocked with Calphalon pans and furniture from Design Within Reach. She looks around wonderingly. "What did you expect?" he says. "Coffins and dungeons and moats?" It's a familiar scene to anyone who knows vampire movies: the part where the vampire (or vampire expert) turns myth-buster and explains what vampires are really like.
A perfect example is this exchange from HBO's True Blood. "I thought you were supposed to be invisible in a mirror," marvels Anna Paquin's Sookie, reclining in a bathtub. Sorry, says her vampiric love interest, Bill. "What about Holy water?" she asks. "It's just water." "Crucifixes?" "Geometry." "Garlic?" "It's irritating, but that's pretty much it." Irritating, indeed.
Vampire myth-busters are a cocky lot. Take this scene from Blade, when vampire hunter Wesley Snipes explains "vampire anatomy 101" to his new protégée. "Crosses and holy water don't do dick, so forget what you've seen in the movies," he says. "You use a stake, silver, or sunlight. You know how to use one of these?" He shows her a gun. "Silver hollow point filled with garlic. Aim for head or the heart. Anything else is your ass." http://www.slate.com/id/2236182/pagenum/all/#p2Robert Pattison and Kristen Stewart return to the big screen in Twilight: New Moon... more
Bookworms are creatures of comfort who crave for little more than a peaceful corner and a good read. Here are some gifts ideas for them. Feel free to contribute your own suggestions (or argue with mine).
Author Jake Adelstein was on Jon Stewart last night talking about his new book, "Tokyo Vice," and the crazier-and-crazier story of how he got mixed up with Japanese crime lords which forced him to write the book in order to protect his own life.
It was the broccoli that stopped Judith Jones in her tracks at the White House farmers market, and then again at a Whole Foods Market a half-mile away. "Look! Look!" she exclaimed. "You can buy just one branch!"
Jones, the legendary cookbook editor (and, most famously, discoverer of Julia Child), cares about such things because she lives alone and therefore on many nights cooks and eats alone. And nothing burns her up more than the insensitive-to-single-people attitude of too many grocery stores.
Christopher Caldwell spoke to Stephen Colbert last night about his new book, "Reflections on the Revolution in Europe." Muslims make up a major part of the European population, he says, but despite Colbert's insistence, there is no vast Muslim conspiracy, he assures.
If you follow contemporary poetry but you haven't been following "Project Runway," the popular cable TV show now in its sixth season, you might be surprised to hear that the show holds lessons for poetry critics. To learn them, you first have to know how the TV show works: aspiring fashion designers compete for a chance to show their work in New York's Bryant Park alongside couture's big names, among other prizes. Each week contestants design clothes to meet a challenge: successful designers and guest judges rate the results. The lowest scoring contestant gets eliminated. The highest scorer usually gets immunity (he or she can't be knocked out next week) along with kudos from the viewers and from Tim Gunn, the dapper adviser. In one recent challenge, contestants made dresses, tops, jackets or skirts out of newspaper. The winner, Irina Shabayeva, came up with a coat whose thick cuffs looked like curly meringue; one runner-up, Christopher Straub of Shakopee, Minnesota, made an ankle-length skirt like the tail of a tropical bird.
Many poets, like many designers, love technical challenges; some poets have organized books (Robyn Schiff's baroque "Worth," Angie Estes's nimble "Chez Nous") around haute couture. No wonder, then, that "Project Runway" counts poets among its fans. Ron Silliman has examined the show at length more than once on his popular blog: "Project Runway," he says, "does a better job of showing creative people being creative than any television show ever." Another poetry blogger, Tim Jones of New Zealand, proposes a show, "Poetry Runway," involving made-to-order verse
Take an antique leather-bound book, open it up, and inhale deeply. There's just something about that old-book smell. And thanks to a new analytical chemistry technique, the volatile organic compounds that compose the aroma could help preservationists keep their collections safe from old-age damage.
What do you get when the directors of such acclaimed anime as Ghost In The Shell, Blood The Last Vampire, and more bring your their own personal visions of Hell?
Why, an animated movie for Dante’s Inferno, of course. You silly sinner, you!
“The Grey Dress in New York” is an intriguing, captivating short experimental art film by Pierre St-Jacques, which has been screened at art and film festivals around the world. The film is loosely based on Alain Robbe-Grillet’s novel “Project for a Revolution in New York.” Robbe-Grillet’s novel (as well as many of his films) exploits pornographic motifs and the imagery of potential sexual violence. “The Grey Dress in New York” focuses on short moments of longing for love and the need to desire. A woman in her apartment is getting ready to go out, she's ironing her grey dress. A man comes up the stairs, presumably to meet her, but this uncertain. The style echoes that found in Robbe-Grillet’s book, one of elipses and repeating patterns, and because of those structures one is never quite certain what the intentions of the characters are.
The central theme of “The Grey Dress in New York” is one of longings for desire. Desire for the other and also for the self; each character is very self possessed and in many ways very full of flourish. The film is ultimately a test of desire for the viewer, who sees the story evolve and builds certain expectations that are as much a part of the story as is the main narrative thread.
This piece presents a number of color photographs, the intriguing and engaging surreal film “The Grey Dress in New York” and the extended trailer for Alain Robbe-Grillet’s darkly dreamlike 1961 film, “Last Year at Marienbad.”
Please visit my website to view the photographs, as well as the very compelling short films:
These motivational books will encourage you to walk into any office, look the manager in the eye and remember that you deserve the opportunity to follow your dreams.
What's the point of limiting the number of "realities" your writers can play in if you're just going to ignore it every time it doesn't suit your needs?~y2009m11d11-Does-the-multiverse-matter
What's the point of limiting the number of... more
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies features the original text of Jane Austen’s beloved novel with all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie action. As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton-and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she’s soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. DarcyPride and Prejudice and Zombies features the original text of Jane Austen’s beloved... more
The new website PoetrySpeaks is aiming to serve as a social networking hub and online marketplace for poets. Visitors are greeted with a sleek, jukebox-style display of poet portraiture and an unpretentious atmosphere. And it's immediately clear that PoetrySpeaks casts a wide net: among the home page's collage of clickable poet heads, spoken word poet Kevin Coval appears next to William Butler Yeats.
Click on your poet of choice, be it a hipster or an Irishman, and you'll be taken to a web page that includes a list of audio (and maybe even video) recordings. And here's where things get interesting. As with iTunes, you can preview each recorded poem then decide if you want to spend 99 cents to download it ($1.99 for a video version). The site is, quite literally, banking on your interest in poetry.
Here are a couple of the poems for sale: "Annabel Lee" by Edgar Allan Poe and "Wild Nights, Wild Nights" by Emily Dickinson.
It's one of the biggest problems plaguing fiction — and it seems to hit genre fiction especially hard sometimes: the characters who all sound exactly alike. How do you keep your characters from all having the same voice?It's one of the biggest problems plaguing fiction — and it seems to hit genre... more
Literature, as with all forms of creative expression, is a highly subjective art. This list intends to blend highly recognized and celebrated works with those that may have gone overlooked by those outside the literary community and deserve more mainstream attention.
Of all the love letters in Michael Chabon's newest book Manhood For Amateurs, the tenderest might well be reserved for Doctor Who. The Time Lord's journey, like so many other geeky narratives, becomes a touchstone for Chabon's relationships and self-discovery.
Chabon talks about how his eldest son startled a British attendant at the Smithsonian with his Dalek T-shirt, and then his other children had to regale the man with tales of their Cybermen and Time Lord shirts, until he understands they're a geek family. And then Chabon talks about how the new Doctor Who series has brought his family together, and sings the show's praises:Of all the love letters in Michael Chabon's newest book Manhood For Amateurs, the... more
In addition to picking up the Terminator rights, The Halcyon Co. also bought the entire Philip K. Dick estate in 2007, meaning they can develop any adaptation of any of his work they want. Announced today at Cannes, co-founders and co-CEOs Victor Kubicek and Derek Anderson will next adapt PKD's 1974 novel "Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said." Set in a futuristic, dystopian America following a second civil war that left the country in a police state, "Tears" is the story of a celebrity who wakes up after an assassination attempt to find no one has ever heard of him. No word on who will write or direct this yet.In addition to picking up the Terminator rights, The Halcyon Co. also bought the... more
From literature to non-fiction to history to biographies to science and the social sciences, there are books in this list to help you keep learning for life.
