Or, Japan has taken away my favorite new toy… and now I don’t know what to post about.
Uhhh, or I’m just lazy ’cause it’s too freaking hot out and I spent the day at a comics convention.
- Went to library for copy of Interview with the Vampire because mine is missing. Theirs is too. Already read The Vampire Lestat over the summer. Deferred to Queen of the Damned. Anne Rice hit a wall on that one. Void still yawning wide.
- Refreshed 4chan threads on Shiki, mainly on /cm. Slow to update; too much Tatsumi; waaaaay too much TatsumixOzaki.
- Checked out Poppy Z. Brite’s Lost Souls. 60% of the vampires totally repulsive as characters. 25% of characters in homoerotic-toned friendship. Still aching for Shiki, but not a total loss.
- Listened to band Vampire Weekend. Promptly returned to Depeche Mode, Magnet, Placebo… and Lia.
- Looked at cover of Twilight. Smacked self and remembered that it isn’t supposed to be creepy and probably doesn’t have any suicidal Buddhist priests.
- Re-watched every scene with Muroi and Sunako. At least twice.
- Resorted to fanfiction.net. Cringed a lot.
And yet I have managed to resist the urge to seek out the scanlations of the manga.
In other news, I have now come up with a new way to turn people down when at a bar, “Sorry, I don’t take people home – you never know when they might be a vampire.”
In actuality, I am not one of those folks who is big on vampires. I love Anne Rice’s earlier stuff (Queen of the Damned was beyond excruciating to read and I’m leery of trying any of the ones in the Vampire Chronicles after that experience), although that includes both Cry to Heaven and The Feast of All Saints, both of which have nothing to do with vampires. But I’m just generally into horror – I absolutely love Shirley Jackson’s work, and I think Edith Wharton’s ghost stories are some of her best writing. However, Shiki has kind of got me on a wee bit of a kick, although I don’t really see that lasting past the final episode of the show.
*breathes slowly* Ok, just two more weeks, two more weeks… I can make it…
GAR GAR Stegosaurus 
A. Lia’s terrific. I’ve been listening to “My Soul, Your Beats” almost constantly since early summer.
B. Edith Wharton is also terrific, as I remember (it’s been years since I read her). Favorite short story?
C. Can I suggest writing a fanfic…that way you might not cringe. 🙂
I’ve gotten kind of addicted to the enigmatic LIA CD’s – y’know, the ones with all the remixes? Every fiber of my being says that a techno remix of Toki wo Kizamu Uta should be absolutely horrible, but its strangely awesome.
Favorite short story of Wharton’s? Hard. I can say that Ethan Frome is probably one of my favorite books of all time, though.
If I weren’t so lazy maybe I’d write a fanfic. Or maybe I’m just worried I’d go a little too heavy on the suicidal priest and it’d all come up as BL roses from hell.
You could try watching Karin.
Oh, serious suggestion: Vampire Princess Miyu!
Oh lord, Karin’s adaptation left me wanting to cry. I would like to check out the manga at some point though.
As for Vampire Princess Miyu – now there’s a show I’ve been meaning to re-watch for literally years. I have no idea where I put my DVD’s of it, and this has been a stumbling block for a while… I’m probably going to end up caving and buying it used somewhere.
Tried the classics? Like Bram Stroker’s stuff?
Funny story – just the other day someone commented to me, “Well, I tried reading Dracula, and you know, I had no idea it was pornographic!” It was all I could do to not smash my face against the nearest flat surface.
Have you ever read Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons? The vampires aren’t bloodsuckers, but they do prey on humans. As for the Anne Rice stuff, I liked the Mayfair Witch series better, but that got weird too after the third book if I’m remembering right.
Haha, I’m the reverse – I really didn’t like what I read of the Mayfair Witches. The vampires and witches do end up crossing over with each other further down the line, and the results are pretty heinous. Lestat starry-eyed over one of the witches was just a bit too much for me… it seems like they all end up getting warped out of character in the crossover novels in order to make any of it work.
I’ll check out the other book you mentioned.
Haha, I’m going through withdrawal too. I felt kind of sad not posting about the show on Friday.
I remember giving Lost Souls a try a couple of years back and just not liking the book whatsoever. Forget what it was about it specifically that turned me off, though …
I feel fairly conflicted about it. On the one hand, it was well-written. On the other hand, the treatment of the women in it was atrocious. I also found the vampires for the most part to be pretty repellent. I’m also a bit uncomfortable with the whole way rape was handled in it, as its kind of done in a flippant manner – not totally flippant, but it really didn’t do a great job of handling it as a piece of the plot. I also, quite frankly, felt that some of the more teen angsty parts were something I would’ve been fine with at age sixteen but just sort of roll my eyes at at age twenty-one. It reads as excessive as opposed to a realistic depiction of a lonely fifteen year old; kind of like its your average fanfic at points.
I know that sounds like a lot of negatives, but I think I enjoyed it overall, although the misgivings I had about it were fairly massive.