HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!

Here are some great photos my sister took of me in costume. We went down to the park near our house on Saturday before the parade.

That’s right… sewn from scratch and the ideas in my head! Inspired by Amy Brown’s art.

[ Disclaimer: This is vampire related... not solely about Twilight. All vampire-inclusive.]

History & Origins
(thank you Wikipedia!)

“Many theories for the origins of vampire beliefs have been offered as an explanation for the superstition, and sometimes mass hysteria, caused by vampires. Everything ranging from premature burial to the early ignorance of the body’s decomposition cycle after death has been cited as the cause for the belief in vampires.”

“Although vampiric entities have been recorded in most cultures, the term vampire was not popularised until the early 18th century, after an influx of vampire superstition into Western Europe from areas where vampire legends were frequent, such as the Balkans and Eastern Europe, although local variants were also known by different names, such as vrykolakas in Greece and strigoi in Romania. This increased level of vampire superstition in Europe led to what can only be called mass hysteria and in some cases resulted in corpses actually being staked and people being accused of vampirism.”

My First Exposure

My initial vampire exposure was with Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles . When I was about 16 years old my friends and I were pretty obsessed with Louis, Lestat, Claudia, and Armand. It was great, and I really liked the books as well as the movie. I’ve only read Interview with a Vampire and The Vampire Lestat but I liked them, and one day I intend to finish the series. The good thing about them is a number of the books can stand alone. I think The Vampire Chronicles have to be my favourite of all the vampire stuff I’ve read so far.

Other Mainstream/Modern Vampires

I never really got into “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”. Almost every time I sat down to watch it, I got a rerun of the musical episode where everyone is breaking out into song. However, I do have a bit of base knowledge and I have to vote for Spike over Angel. Spike is a bad boy with an accent, what more do you want?

Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer: Don’t get me started on Bella (and we’re not even going to discuss Breaking Dawn)… but Edward is a pretty cool vampire. I absolutely love his family — Esme and Carlisle (“mom” and “dad”) are great! Meyer certainly brought her own twist to vampire lore, which is refreshing. Instead of all vampires being bloodsucking, soulless monsters, the Cullens are “vegetarians”: instead of hunting humans and being nomadic, they pretend to be humans and hunt large mammals.

I’ve never seen HBO’s “True Blood” television series, but MTV.com has this to say about it: “True Blood,” based on the Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris, also has a very different metaphor to offer — vampire as outsider deserving equal rights — but the heroine is someone Twilighters can relate to. Like Bella, Sookie is an outcast in her small town, and she’s plunged headfirst into a supernatural world when a hot vamp walks into her life. Edward is intrigued by Bella because he can’t read her mind — Sookie is intrigued by Bill because she can’t read his.

The Count from Sesame Street is awesome. One…. Two…. Three…. Jim Henson. ‘Nuff said.

My Vampyric Goals

I intend to read Dracula by Bram Stoker. One day, somewhere down the road, I will read this classic!

Are you a spine breaker? Or a dog-earer? Do you expect to keep your books in pristine condition even after you have read them? Does watching other readers bend the cover all the way round make you flinch or squeal in pain? [Suggested by Mariel]

It makes me sad when people bend the covers, break the spines, and dog-ear pages. I mean, some general wear and tear is to be expected, but you don’t need to abuse the book. Everyone likes to read books that look pretty and are nice to hold, not feel like you’re holding something that lives on the street.

Am I being too bitchy about this? Pristine isn’t necessary, but neither is destroyed. I like to keep my books in a decent condition — I use bookmarks, only open them as far as is comfortable to read, and I try not to throw them about (although I toss them in my purse on occassion).

It started out with me trying to take some “artsy” photos of the autumn colours in my neighbourhood:

Well, then of course I accidently left the door open (Henry is an indoor cat) so he ventured out onto the porch (without his harness!) to inspect what I was doing:

Happy Whiskers on Wednesday everyone! Pop on by to check out the other “Halloweeny” submissions!!

TEASER TUESDAYS ask you to:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page.
• You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!
• Please avoid spoilers!!

“He’s on the main road, the one where the streetcars used to run. The south side of the street is piled high in places with barriers to shield cars and pedestrians from the hills to the south, thought there are still places for a sniper to sneak a bullet through. He’s heard foreigners call this street Sniper Alley, and this makes him laught, because it seems to him that every street in Sarajevo could have this name.”

The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway