http://talesofmytery.blogspot.com.es/2014/07/clark-ashton-smith-black-abbot-of.html#.VBBSFaMVet8
Michael Vorsino: The Dragon, the Raven and the Ring
Journal of Dracula Studies 5 (2003)
[A
TSD member, Michael Vorsino is completing his Masters degree in History (with
thesis on Vlad Dracula) at the University of Texas at Arlington. A single
father, he has two daughters – Samantha and Priscilla.]
Southeastern
Europe has long been one of the world’s hotbeds of instability and strife.
Owing in part to the rise of the Ottoman Empire in the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries with the simultaneous decline of the Byzantine Empire, this region
was used as a marching ground for numerous armies. In Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula
(1897), the Count refers to this instability when he tells Jonathan Harker: “In
the region through which you came last night, there can be but little doubt;
for it was the ground fought over for centuries by the Wallachian, the Saxon,
and the Turk. Why, there is hardly a foot of soil in all this region that has
not been enriched by the blood of men, patriots, or invaders” (27).
In the
early to mid-fifteenth century, as the Ottoman tide reached its apex, freedom
from the suzerainty of Ottoman dominion was a dream shared by many regional
leaders. Relationships and partnerships were forged between these leaders, most
of which were not entirely successful, but few are more dynamic than the
triangle that was formed between Vlad Dracul, his son Vlad Dracula (better
known by Romanian historians as Vlad Ţepeş) and John Hunyadi.
Since the
fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, the countries in this part of Europe have
been sandwiched between the dichotomous forces of the Christian west and the
Muslim east. The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were particularly difficult,
as the expansion of the Ottoman tide swept across the continent. Striving to
preserve the independence of their states, this region has not surprisingly
produced some of the most incredible men of the time.
John Hunyadi was a celebrated war hero, made legendary by his
confrontations with the Ottoman Turks.
He was a man of immense power and wealth, often financing campaigns
largely out of his personal funds. His ultimate desire was to see the Ottomans
expelled from Europe forever. His political and military machinations reached
into surrounding countries, including Wallachia, where he set up and deposed
some of its leaders (based on their perceived loyalty to the Christian cause),
including Vlad Dracul, and his son Vlad Ţepeş (henceforth in this essay
referred to as Dracula). Dracula was driven by a passionate hatred of all that
would disrupt Wallachian independence, especially the Turks. This enmity was
fueled in part by a period of Turkish captivity during which he had endured
tortures of several kinds, including frequent use of the lash by his Turkish
tutors. When Vlad Dracula became voivode of Wallachia, he became widely known
for his liberal use of impalement as a form of punishment, hence his nickname
“the Impaler.” This torturous method of execution was used with great
effectiveness as a means of psychological warfare in his brutal battles with
the forces of Mehmed “the Conqueror,”
who was one of the most powerful sultans of the Ottoman Empire. Because of his
opposition to the Ottomans, Vlad Dracula is seen by many as the father of
Romanian sovereignty.
Boleslaw Biegas: The vampire in the form of allied
Dead West (AKA Cowboys and Vampires) (director: Douglas Myers)
Starring:
Jasen Wade
Angélica Celaya
Shannon Whirry
A western movie actor is trying to make it
big in a western film studio and theme park, when a 'new management
team' takes over the park and turns the film studio into a fright-fest
for the month of Halloween.
Jeremy Stewart: Hidden city
Neighbours had under their house an ossuary
blamed it for evil emanating for a block
inverted saints manifested
supernatural reek
they told me it was there when they moved in
right
I planned to buy the bones to remove them
but when I went inside they got to me
now barking dogs are invited to my party
they’re the only ones
neighbours took their loud bass
& fell into a ravine
let them be added
to the number of the numberless
remains to be seen
what will be left when they’re gone
large enclosures armed with woofers speak
to me, it’s a numbers racket
I can’t read you anymore because
there isn’t any more now go to sleep
dust & sand in my mouth & muffled
sounds above, so be low
the disaster already
happened, & it made
a lousy movie. A pack of wolves against the orange horizon
watch the lousy movie. Daylight’s yolk
about to crack. Smoking
year-end best-of lists
of lists of lists burn in muted
television light watching
the fireplace show, the log, every
so often a hand
or day of infinite justice the chamber
of commerce should welcome erasure
searching out blind spots
I created Nosferatu’s mirror
saw a tangle of black dogs & hair run after
unspooling tape
& I felt like nothing so much
as
wounded absence of a line
while the house falls in
violet repeat offender
song of the violent repeat offender
can’t get nothing right
don’t you motherfuckers ever fuck with me
don’t fuck with my family
can’t get nothing right
watching TV puppet shows as a kid
gravel parking lot skid
I was a poet with no M.O.
never seen a poem before
bang this empty skull
about to fly away on the shop wing
no one’s gonna try to reach out to me
bang this empty skull
honest work for honest pay
oh, you say you already heard that one?
I was a victim until I rewrote the scene
now it’s cops try to victimize me
I will buy one smoke off you for fifty cents
six weeks of compulsory anger management counselling
all the places I won’t get to go
with my hand smashed in the car door
yeah, you think you can fuck with me?
steal my bike & step on my hand?
suffocating in the space between
two burning buildings
mirror the hip sounds
of Bloody Holly
I quit the band, too
but somehow survived
traded interior deserts
for coastal deserts before falling
asleep at the bottom of a lake
where I could hardly hear the phone.
You asked for a complete account
of myself & that’s it
anything further will be in my RCMP file
along with urine, hair, teeth
Lewis Call: "Sounds Like Kinky Business to Me": Subtextual and Textual Representations of Erotic Power in the Buffyverse
Slayage: The Online International Journal of Buffy Studies, 6(4)
[1] Buffy the
Vampire Slayer and Angel have done a great deal to promote tolerance
of alternative sexualities. The two programs are especially well known for
their positive depictions of gay and lesbian sexuality. However, Buffy
and Angel have also brought about another intriguing revolution in the
representation of unorthodox sexual practices. Throughout the twelve seasons
which comprise the Buffyverse narrative, Buffy and Angel have
consistently provided positive portrayals of sadomasochism (S/M) and erotic
power exchange. In the early seasons these representations were, of necessity,
largely subtextual. As the two shows progressed, however, they began to provide
bolder, more explicit depictions of S/M. Thus the Buffyverse's discourse of
erotic power gradually moved out of the subtextual and into the realm of the
textual. As representations of erotic power exchange became more open and explicit
at the textual level, these representations became increasingly available to
the Buffyverse's audience. In the later seasons of Buffy and Angel,
the two programs did not merely depict S/M, but actually presented it as an
ethical, egalitarian way in which participants might negotiate the power
relations which are an inevitable part of their lives. Buffy and Angel
brought S/M out of the closet and normalized it. The two programs thus offered
their audiences a positive and practical model of erotic power exchange. The
Buffyverse has already secured for itself a prominent place in the history of
narrative television. By endorsing the ethical exchange of erotic power, Buffy
and Angel may earn an important place in the history of sexuality as
well.
[2]
Few television shows are as fascinated with their own subtexts as Buffy and
Angel. Both shows feature a frequently flagrant disregard for their own
master narratives. "Storyteller" (B7016), for example, emphasizes the
perspective of a character who would be considered minor on most programs,
geeky reformed "super villain" Andrew. "The Girl in
Question" (A5020) sends Angel and Spike to Italy, ostensibly on a quest
for Buffy, but quite obviously for the real purpose of permitting the
homoerotic relationship between the two male vampires to eclipse their mutual
obsession with Buffy (who, like a proper fetish object, is much discussed but
does not appear in the episode). Both shows also have a deep and abiding
interest in saying those things which cannot be said with words. Thus in
"Hush" (B4010), the characters must find ways to express themselves
in the absence of spoken language, while in "Once More, with Feeling"
(B6007), they can express their deepest feelings—but only in song. Series
creator Joss Whedon seems determined to make use of every possible form of
non-linguistic communication including, remarkably, ballet (see "Waiting
in the Wings," A3013). Since spoken dialogue is the main form of
textuality in narrative television, the effect of these experiments is to
foreground such normally subtextual elements as gesture, facial expression,
color, editing cuts and (of course!) music and choreography. (But then, Giles
warned us way back in Season Two that the subtext is rapidly becoming the text,
“Ted,” B2011.)
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