Happy New Year, Sort Of

The year of the rabbit has finally hopped along. Of course, as the consummate procrastinator, I have not chosen to mark this occasion till about the 19th of January. This is due in part to the fact that I'm still in slight disbelief that it is, in truth, 2011. It also has to do with the realization that I am just about coming up to my two year anniversary in Japan. So it was with a smirk of doubt and a bit befuddlement that I greeted 2011.

Japan, of course, is celebrating with strawberries. I wish I could tell you definitively why. I always connect strawberries with summer, but then again, we don't grow them in hothouses in the States. But Japan has been whipped into January strawberry fervor, and the ichigo has been popping up everywhere. In desserts and baked items, or as the flavoring for snacks of candies. Even all by their lonesome in the produce aisle in nice, compact 800 yen packages.

I have chosen not to celebrate the new year with overpriced fragaria, but by working six days a week.

The inactivity of this blog the past few months was due to work of a furious nature on graduate school applications. I did this all while working full time, and just when I was about to pull my hair out in frustration, the applications were due and I headed off for a much needed week long winter vacation in Hokkaido.

But applications and trips through the wintry wonderland that is Northern Japan are expensive. So I will be making up the difference by picking up some extremely lucrative overtime work.

This means I will only have one day off for a bit of time. But it also means that I am no longer writing essays and writing samples and will, finally, have time to write for myself. I also will not be frantic and stressed and waking in the middle of the night remembering one more thing I have to do And when the next few weeks are over, debts will be payed and I will even have a nice bit of extra cash in my pockets.

I have always been a generally positive person, and so it is with this attitude that I go into this new year. And though this week was long and exhausting, I still found time to find joy in a few simple things. Here is what I loved this week:

1. Cheap Mikan More commonly known as satsuma in the west, and unlike the strawberries, were super cheap this week. I saw three separate sales at three separate grocery stores for mikan, and I took full advantage each time. My fridge is now packed with the orange fruit, and just like the strawberries, I have no idea why the drastic change in price occurred. But unlike the strawberries, I have no desire to question why. Cheap fruit is so rare here, I worry any investigation will cause it to disappear like a beautiful fever dream.

2. Udo Kier's interview with The A.V. Club Who, you ask, is Udo Kier? Up until this week, I had no idea. Well, I did, but I only knew him as "that German guy in every movie." Take a moment to think of him. Picture his face? That's Udo Kier.

Well he gave an interview this week to the A.V. Club about his long and interesting career, and it is about as delightfully insane as I would expect it to be. I actually laughed out loud when reading through his answers. I nearly lost it completely when he compared auditioning to cleaning furniture in a department store, an analogy I still don't understand. It is just so amazingly bizarre it transcends the print. I would pay good money to have heard the audio. Just read it for yourself.

3. Angela Carter Specifically, The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories. I reread the collection of short stories this week, and ugh, my heart. I will cop immediately to loving fairy tales. I loved the sanitized versions as a tyke, and as a teenager, I discovered the originals in very large tomes hidden in random shelves at my local library. The ones with all the murder, incest, pecked out eyes and lopped off toes; every last dark psychological undertone and subconscious archetype left intact.

To call Carter's writing "adult fairy tales" diminishes what they truly are. It as if she stripped the stories to the core, extracted what makes them both scary and unfailingly relatable, and reworked them.

And on top of that, her prose is just achingly beautiful in places. It is the kind of writing that makes me both insanely jealous and weak in the knees. My favorite in the collection was probably The Company of Wolves, her retelling of Little Red Riding Hood (for if there was ever a tale ripe for Jungian analysis and feminist critique, it's the story of Red.) When Carter describes the Red Riding Hood character:

She stands and moves within the invisible pentacle of her own virginity. She is an unbroken egg; she is a sealed vessel; she has inside her a magic space the entrance to which is shut tight with a plug of membrane; she is a closed system; she does not know how to shiver. She has her knife and she is afraid of nothing.

And when she writes of the wolves themselves:

That long-drawn, wavering howl has, for all its fearful resonance, some inherent sadness in it, as if the beasts would love to be less beastly if only they knew how and never cease to mourn their own condition. There is a vast melancholy in the canticles of the wolves, melancholy infinite as the forest, endless as these long nights of winter and yet that ghastly sadness, that mourning for their own, irremediable appetites, can never move the heart for not one phrase in it hints at the possibility of redemption; grace could not come to the wolf from its own despair, only through some external mediator, so that, sometimes, the beast will look as if he half welcomes the knife that despatches him.

Like I said, my heart. The collection is far from perfect, but truly fantastic. Highly recommended, of course.

And that is what is making me happy in the new year. Simple joys in January to ring 2011 in right. Here's to hoping everyone out there has a fantastic 2011 as well.

And Very Gladly Will I Drink Your Honour's Noble Health

I saw Alice in Wonderland this past weekend.

I generally avoid movies in Japan because they tend to be expensive and a bit of a hassle. The standard price is close to twenty dollars per ticket unless you want to see a showing after 8 PM. Which I don't particularly mind, and at times prefer, but the drawback is that there usually only one or two movies playing after 8. So if you don't catch it by 9, you won't be seeing a movie that night.

The land of midnight movies it is not.

And if you do manage to get a showing after 8, though the tickets are cheaper, you have to pick your seat as you buy your ticket. Because of this practice of assigned seats, they don't let people into the movie until 10 minutes before.

But where, you say, is the problem in that? Well, if you want a decent seat not in the very back or the very front, you have to come quite a bit early to reserve said seat. But since you can't go into the theater, that leaves you way too much time with nowhere to sit. Hence the problem.

And watching movies in English with Japanese subtitles is a very odd experience. It's true that things are lost in translation, and humor is probably one of the biggest causalities.

I went to see Sherlock Holmes a few months ago. Not the best of films, but enjoyable and funny in a pulpy sort of way. Yet it was unnerving at times to watch in a theater full of non-English speakers, for there were parts that had my friends and I laughing like maniacs as the rest of the theater remained silent. As in, did not even crack a smile.

It's weird to be the only one in the room who understands the humor. It makes you question if maybe your the one who misunderstood.

I remember going to the theater in Italy a few years ago and laughing at the inefficiencies of the the Italian theater. The Japanese system is nothing if not efficient. As well as annoying. And overpriced. And unnecessarily complicated.

So needless to say, with this lovely combination of factors, I reserve movie viewing for movies I deem worthy of both my time and effort. I believe I have seen exactly 4 movies since I arrived in Japan a year and three months ago. A pitiful number, to be honest.

But despite all this working against her, Alice made the cut. And how could it not? Despite a few poor films in the last few years (Planet of the Apes and Sweeny Todd, I'm looking at you), a still inextinguishable love for Tim Burton will take me out to see his films every time. He's like the weird kid who sat in the back of the class and wouldn't talk to anyone but drew cool cartoons on his desk and in every corner of his notebook that were dark and twisted but in a whimsical way. How can you not like that kid?

That, and my utter love for the source material, got me there. I've already dedicated a post to Lewis Carroll, and I have an unhealthy fascination with his nonsense poetry. Nonsense verse is beautiful, as we all know semantics is highly overrated. And the poems littered throughout the narrative are what make it truly special.

So did I fall in love with it? No, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I thought it was visually stunning, and true to the nature and tone of the the story. There were cute homages to the original work, things only someone as geeky as me might have picked up, which I appreciated. I would have liked a more gripping plot, but at the same time something about that seems dishonest to the nonsense and tepid philosophy which the original is all about.

And if you want to put Alice in armor and have her fight the Jabberwocky? Believe me, you will get no complaints from me.

If nothing else, it renewed my interest in how much the story has become such a part of our cultural identity. Few are not familiar with the characters, and many phrases, words, and even theories are drawn from the story. Not bad for a children's book.

For example, sticking solely to cinematic adaptions, Alice in Wonderland has been adapted directly to film 44 times, while about 50 other titles either refashion or draw inspiration from the tale. They span the entire history of film, with the first one being a silent film from 1903 directed by Cecil Hepworth and Percy Stow. It is 8 minutes and 19 seconds in length, and only one copy of the original still exists.

Alice in film has been around almost as long as film has.

I'm not so much a purist that I dislike anything that deviates, but there are times I want to see Carroll done truly right. So to fulfill that need, I didn't need to look any further than this clip from a 1998 BBC production. It was a weird and trippy version that I didn't completely love, but one of the highlights of the film is a weird sequence in which the poem Haddock's Eyes is related by the White Knight to Alice.

If not just a how-to guide from Ian Holm on how to do a dramatic reading correctly, it is presented with the melancholy dreaminess and touch of deeper meaning with which I think every Lewis Carroll poem should be enjoyed.

And Things that Go Bump in the Night

I’m pretty nostalgic for home this week, and its all because of Halloween.

Halloween is probably one of my absolute favorite holidays, and one that is, unfortunately, not widely celebrated in Japan. It seems like something they would absolutely love here, seeing as costumes are mandatory, but it is one western activity they have not appropriated. Yes, I have been wearing a costume to work all week, and teaching Japanese kids the joys of free candy, but its not quite the same aura of the macabre and atmosphere of celebration as home. And I find myself missing it.

So I’ve been trying to get into the holiday spirit, so to say, by planning a costume for Saturday night, listening to creepy The Decembrists’s songs, and skimming entertainment and pop culture blogs for news of the season.

But during my internet travels, I’ve run across an innumerable amount of articles about how vampires are the new “cool” thing. Seriously, every entertainment or news site has something written about it like it’s a brand new cultural phenomenon. Maybe its because it’s the close to beginning of the new TV season, maybe its because (apparently) the new twilight movie is coming out late fall, or maybe its because Halloween is literally right around the corner. Either way, the popularity of several franchises with a premise surrounding vampires have gotten all the media and entertainment blogs buzzing, trying to dissect the fascination, as if such a thing is new.

I almost want to ask where the hell they’ve been.

Now as someone who was a not so secret fan of the late 90s cult favorite, Buffy the Vampire the Slayer, I know that the vampire premise is fascinating, and the supernatural gave the writers license to explore real life issues in a fun and entertaining way. And while I found Twilight inanely stupid (I have to agree with my Aunt’s comments that the movie didn’t have enough blood or killing; I also found the lead more creepy stalker than romantic hero), the insane popularity just speaks to the interest that the genre holds.

But I repeat, this is not new.

Since Bram Stoker first put his pen to paper, Vampire stories have become its own genre in Western Literature. Bram shook up Victorian sensibilities by humanizing and, in fact, sexualizing the Vampire mythos, but that same interpretation has been a facet of fiction since then. And after Anne Rice, the mythology has evolved the vampire into, literally, a human with fangs. Someone who is inherently human, but uninhibited by the trappings of morality or self control.

So of course its appealing.

But who am I to really dissect why? I will never understand the appeal of the neutered, sparkly vampires of Twilight. But I do know that Buffy will always have a special place in my DVD collection. And that once I actually gave in to several instigators and watched it, True Blood has become one of my new favorite shows. (It truly is, as Alan Ball the creator, described it, “popcorn TV for smart people.”) So my attempt is not to explain, but merely balk at the media outlets surprise at the fact that vampires are cool.

I thought that was a well established fact?

So my musings turned into haphazard research, in which I discovered several interesting facts about vampires. So in honor of Halloween (and because I seriously love lists), I would like to share my findings, which I have comprised into a tiny list entitled:

Things You (Probably) Didn’t Know About Vampires

1. The original vampires of folklore were not the pale, gaunt, sinisterly attractive creatures of modern times. In traditional tales, vampires are described as bloated creatures with ruddy or purplish skin, with blood seeping from their mouth and nose. Very sexy.

2. Every language has its own word for it, but our word Vampire comes from the German Vampir, which in turn was adopted from the Serbian word вампир/vampir.

3. Indeed, as with the word, every culture all over the world for the last millennia has some form of vampire myth. Though our popular modern interpretation originates from the 18th century Southeastern European tradition, there are myths from every country throughout time. For example:

- The Persians were the first civilization to have tales of blood drinking demons, as depicted on ancient pottery shards.
- Ancient Babylonians believed in the Lilitu, a demon who lived on the blood of babies. (This is actually where Lilith of Hebrew folklore originates, but she was less picky about whose blood she subsisted on.)
- The Greeks and Romans believed in the empusae, a demonic bronze footed creature. She would transform into a young woman and seduce men, drinking their blood as they slept.
- In the Hindi tradition, India has the vetala, ghouls that inhabit corpses, drink blood, and constantly outwit their captors.
- In West Africa, the Ashani people believe in the asanbosom, vampiric creatures with iron teeth and claws that attack from above.
- In the Philippines, there are tales of the mandurugo, or “blood sucker.” It takes the form of an attractive girl by day, developing wings and a long, hollow threadlike tongue at night. Kind of like a really killer mosquito.
- In Chinese folklore, there is the Jiang Shi, reanimated corpses that hop around, killing people to absorb their life essences. They are created when an animal leaps over a corpse.

4. No matter the country, Vampires have OCD. In most folk beliefs, if they come across small grains, they have to impulsively count each and every one. In Europe, this meant poppy seeds or millet, in China and India it was sacks of rice.

5. According to legend, the most foolproof method for finding a vampire’s grave is leading a virgin boy through a graveyard on a virgin stallion. The horse would balk at the grave.

6. Vampire hunting societies still exist, though largely for social reasons. ( Of course, I am hard pressed to imagine what those reasons may be.)

7. The most recently recorded case of suspected vampirism in America was in 1892 in Exeter, Rhode Island. When 19-year-old Mercy Brown died, her father removed her from her tomb two months after death, cut out her heart, and burned it.

8. One of the most recent highly publicized cases of vampire activity was in 1970 in London, England. Two young men claimed a vampire lived in Highgate cemetery, and spurned a massive hunt by amateur “vampire hunters.” (Though perhaps they were all there for the social reasons.)

9. It is believed by some that belief in Vampires come from the attempts by pre-industrial societies to explain the natural, but them to seemingly unnatural, process of decomposition. Corpses swell with gas, and blood can ooze from the mouth. This makes them appear “plump” and “well-fed,” and as if they were in fact feasting upon blood. The skin and gums retract, making it appear as if their teeth, hair, and nails “grew.” And when a corpse was staked, the release of the previous mentioned gases could cause a groan-like sound, as if the “creature” was dying.

10. No folkloric tradition ever expressly states that vampires are either immortal or harmed by sunlight. Both suppositions are purely based on subsequent vampire literature.

11. The modern incarnation of the vampire as an aristocrat is believed to actually be a socio-political criticism of the Ancien Régime. A count alone in his castle, only emerging to feed on his peasantry, is symbolic of the parasitic nature of the old European ruling class. In 1979, filmmaker Werner Herzog took this political interpretation one step further, by having the young estate agent become the next vampire after Dracula. In other words, the capitalist bourgeois is the next parasitic class after the demise of the peerage system. (Now imagine him explaining all this in an esoteric rant with his self-possessed tone and surprisingly lilting accent. The thought makes me giggle.)

12. The charismatic and sophisticated aristocratic vampire did not actually begin with Bram Stoker. Though Dracula spawned the modern literary genre, the first vampire with these characteristics appeared in 1819 in a book called The Vampyre by John Polidori. Polidori was the personal physician of Lord Byron, and his vampire, Lord Ruthven, was based on his illustrious patient.

13. Varney the Vampire, a Victorian penny dreadful published in 1847 (so called because it was both inexpensive and grisly in content), solidified many tropes of vampire mythology we have today. He had fangs which left two puncture wounds, hypnotic powers, and superhuman strength. But most importantly, he was the first example of the archetype of the “sympathetic vampire.” In other words, a vampire who detests his condition; a victim of fate who is nonetheless a slave to it. It was the first instance of the tragic anti-hero that the vampire is today.

14. Dracula is a major character in more movies than any other character but Sherlock Holmes.

I lay full blame at the feet of Joseph Campbell for the compilation of the above list, as well as inspiring my interest in connecting worldwide folklore and tracing the mythos of an archetype through literature. But what can I say? Vampires are cool. Everyone is saying so nowadays. And researching them was a hell of a lot of fun. I just hope you enjoyed reading this even half as much as I enjoyed researching it.

Happy Halloween :)