Squicky Vampires, cont
In the first place, thank you all for the tweets and comments on both the blog forum and Facebook from people who know Con is not handsome. Let me say . . . whew.
On Twitter, @TessaGratton said: Con being creepy and spider-like and alien is one of the reasons many of us love that book.
Oh good. That’s the right reaction (especially the ‘love that book’ part). If you want Con to be gorgeous and sexy and so on, SUNSHINE is really not your book. But by all means don’t find this out until after you’ve bought a copy.
. . . Also the pastries.
I tweeted back here that I laughed till I nearly broke a rib when I found out that the human heroine of my vampire . . . erm . . . at that point it was still a short story . . . tale, was a baker. A professional baker. This was probably the first thing I found out about her—the first thing that made her her and not someone else, not some other vampire slayer [sic]. It’s pretty impossible to separate Sunshine from her bakery—or her obsession with food and with feeding people. The scene at the end, after everything is more or less over with and Con and Sunshine are at Sunshine’s flat and Sunshine is trying to figure out if she can bear to live with what she’s done . . . and she’s just fried herself some eggs: ‘I stood there holding a skillet with three beautifully fried eggs in it and said miserably, “I can’t even feed you”’—all irony to the fore. But this was one of the guidepost moments for me (after I found out it was a frelling novel), one of the tiny but crucial places where the story grounds itself, where I-the-insecure-chronicler know what’s going on. ‘“I feed people for a living. If I don’t do it I’m a failure. I identify as a feeder of . . .”’ Sunshine has to feed people, and she’s (involuntarily) allied herself with someone she can’t feed. Except by dying. I’m not sure how visible this is going to be to anyone but me, but this is very similar in terms of character tension as part of the structure of a story with the pegasi wanting human hands and the humans wanting pegasi wings. I’m drawn to unbridgeable gaps, and to what extent you can negotiate with or around or over them, and how you go about living with them when you can’t negotiate.
And of course I personally love Sunshine’s kind of food. Including that Charlie’s is a coffeehouse but it also sells champagne by the glass. You can see why the Story Council immediately thought of me when this story thumped through their mail slot. Or possibly they let me have the champagne by the glass detail to make me work harder.
Black Bear tweeted: My thoughts when I read Sunshine: “At last, a writer who knows vampires should be f***ing CREEPY!”
Well, we used to, you know? I’m not sure what happened. Stoker’s Dracula is creepy, and for all the hysterical Victorian silliness it’s still the ultimate vampire novel for me. Maybe Hollywood’s responsible. I totally got off on the Louis Jourdan Dracula* http://baharna.com/store/CountDraculaJourdan/CountDraculaJourdan.htm although I thought he was as icky as he was attractive—the revelation to me was that he was attractive despite knowing that this is an undead monster who’s going to ruin your life. Shanaqui on Twitter was the first person to suggest that Con is compelling—yes. The attraction of a vampire is a bit like a sort of fast, compressed version of heroin addiction: you’re gonna die, but you can’t help it. Prospero37 suggested that it’s also the attraction of the bad boy (or girl)—yes, but it’s that attraction to the wild side taken to its pathological extreme. You’re going to die of wanting to take a few risks, of wanting to feel the adrenaline surge of danger.**
@annathepiper: Swoonability doesn’t necessarily mean basic handsomeness; can also be intense charisma. E.g., Tom Baker as the Doctor.
This is a line that I would like to tapdance over and back and around a bit, but not tonight. I don’t actually like—or respond to—handsome guys. George Clooney. Meh. I agree about the old Tom Baker Dr Who. But while vampires may very well have charisma, we’re not talking romance—under which category the subheading swoonability usually appears—here. We’re talking death. This is why swoony vampires get on my nerves. Sex and death, yes. Romance and death, no. Old Bette Davis movies to the contrary notwithstanding.
@spacklegeek I may picture Con like NG’s Sandman,*** but that doesn’t mean I want to meet either of them in real life. shudders
Yes. Exactly.
From the forum:
Jabenami: I can see where the mistake came from, I mean, aren’t all vampires tall dark and broody? Don’t they all look like Angel? (season 1 of Buffy, not season 5 of Angel)
It’s kind of amazing, the little circles we keep going around. Sex and death, sex and death, sex and death . . . whimper. Want romance. So we get romance and . . . I adore Buffy and I totally bought the story line, but you’re a teenage girl and you finally go all the way with your boyfriend because you love him and you know he loves you and it’s okay and . . . he turns into bloodsucking monster demon from hell. What was I just saying about Victorian silliness? Whedon does a much slicker modern take on it, but Stoker would recognise this. And it still works.
. . . Sometimes I wonder how many people make the mistake of deciding that the character in question is attractive because they want them to be.
Yes. Although here we get into the definition of ‘attractive’ again. Attractive is not necessarily the same thing as handsome or beautiful—or good. And the scary end of attractive is compelling. Compelled doesn’t include that you get a choice.
SShadow: As soon as I read the bit about Con being handsome, I thought, are we still talking about the same book here? I’ve always loved the way Con is described; his appearance is vague, but the way Sunshine feels about it is anything but. And I love that he isn’t handsome. I’m glad the importance of this point is not just my imagination.
::Beams::
rhymeswithcarrot:
“He’s powerful and enigmatic all right, but the kind that makes you want to throw up.”
YES. . . . I loved Sunshine the first time through, of course, but after reading more of the modern vampire mythos I came back to Sunshine with a whole new appreciation for how creepy Con is. Vampires are not sexy! If your boyfriend wants to eat you, you probably do not want to be dating him.
I think I may need this on a t-shirt. If your boyfriend wants to eat you, you probably do not want to be dating him.
Jabenami: I admit, I was reading the review and blinked in surprise when I got to the moment where Con is called “handsome” and then started snickering to myself as I realized what the rest of the blog post would likely be about.
jmeadows: LOL! That is exactly what I did too.
aperry1027: Me too!
You all know me too well. . . .
[aperry1027 continues:] I love Sunshine . . . Con scares the living daylights out of me though.
Oh good. Very sensible of you.
Just cause he formed a friendly alliance with Sunshine does not mean he stopped eating (drinking) other humans…
WELL YES. THANK YOU FOR GETTING THIS. Cheez. Only the lion tamer goes in the cage with the lions and it’s not exactly safe for him/her either.
. . . And forgive me but, Rhett Butler was just not an appealing person
I’m not arguing. (And Clark Gable: I can’t take anyone with those ears seriously.) But this brings up another tangent: you can have a major life-destroying case of the hots for someone you know is a total jerk. Or a serial murderer: think of all those marriage proposals to guys on death row. There are a lot of vampire-versions where the vampires don’t necessarily kill humans—at least not every time—they have slaves who are addicted to being dinner. I have more sympathy with Captain America than a lot of Buffy fans, and I thought that particular story line worked very well.
anne_d: Con? Handsome? Wait, what??? To quote the Elder Daughter, “What is this I can’t even”.
An excellent phrase. And applicable to so many situations in modern life. Well, my modern life anyway.
Con is compelling. Con might even be described as charismatic, in the scary evil sense, but handsome, no. A world of no.
Yes. I referred to this scene last night. It’s from the first part, where they’re still chained up in the ballroom.
Con is speaking: “If you have the strength of will you can stop me or any vampire. . . . [Magical wards] will . . . prevent inhuman harm to a human. But they can only do that if the human who bears the warding holds against the will of the one who stands against. . . . Rarely can any hold out against our will . . . looking into a vampire’s eyes is any human’s doom.”
‘In horror I said: “Then they do ask you to kill them. They do beg you to . . .”
“Yes,” he said.
‘I whispered: “Then, is it . . . okay, at the very end? Do they . . . like it, at the end?”
‘There was a long pause. “No,” he said.’
OKAY. I AM SERIOUSLY CREEPED OUT. VAMPIRES ARE CHARISMATIC AND EVIL. At least in SUNSHINE’s world.
Black Bear: Mr. Rochester OR Colin Firth’s Darcy. Two examples of characters not supposed to be handsome who get forced into it on the big screen anyway.
Again, a potential topic for another evening. The blandification of attractiveness by making it merely handsome.
Though I never thought Orson Welles was all that attractive, personally. His eyes are kinda weird.
You mean the way he looks like he’s going to go mad with an axe any minute? Yes. He could have made a really good vampire.
greenmother: Con is not sexy or handsome, but he is compelling. That’s probably a useful trait for a predator, no?
Indeed. Exactly. It’s, uh, why we still have vampires. . . .
Cindy Marks on Facebook: And yes, I totally got that Con was icky. Still, when she slams into him… I sort of forgot the icky… perhaps thanks to current vamp images
Well, yes and no. Remember that barring Laurell Hamilton’s Anita Blake (and Buffy, of course) SUNSHINE was kind of in front of the wave. When SUNSHINE first came out vampires were still more standard-issue icky, I think, even when the sex was pretty overt. But the sexual aspect has always been there (they bite you in the neck!), so one of the things I think SUNSHINE is about—in hindsight; remember that I’m not consciously making any of this stuff up, and neither of the two NSFW scenes in SUNSHINE had any conscious input from me at all—is just how hard you have to push the two north ends of the magnets together before they’ll touch. Even if they jump away again the minute you let go.
Georgia Beaverson: I read Nancy’s review and the first thought in my head was “Con? Handsome? I think not.” . . . One of the reasons I have read Sunshine again and again is b/c Rae & Con’s attraction is, like Con, “Other.”
OTHER. Yes. My preoccupation with unbridgeable gaps again.
Melissa Marr: Sometimes I adore you, especially when you’re just a teeny bit surly.—
SURLY? MOI? You wrong me, madam, you wrong me . . . um . . .
On to the Con v Rochester chatter. . . Con isn’t handsome, but I guess I always feel like he’s attractive–& honestly, more so than I ever thought Rochester was. R is sullied by his actions in ways that make him seem far LESS attractive (I say as a lit-teacher-who-loves-JANE EYRE). Con is more open about who/what he is, & in the knowing is all the more appealing. “Beauty is truth, and truth beauty” yes?
And this is the point in the round-up where I say AAAAAAUGH I have to go to bed, and I definitely have to pursue the handsome/compelling/attractive-is-as-attractive-does in some other blog. Because yes, I agree, except that I do find Rochester attractive, not least because he is so fatally flawed. Thank the gods he’s not one of these perfect frelling heroes who watches you when you sleep GAAAAAH. . . .
* * *
* I’m afraid to watch it again now. I haven’t seen it since it first came out—and in those days was shiny and new and amazing—and meanwhile I’ve grown into a nasty cynical old cow.
** Prospero37 also says: Personally, rather have a cookie and read Sunshine.
*** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sandman_(Vertigo)
In which Tessa Gratton Saves My Day
I am still suffering Dreaded Lurgy Aftermath and it went and got all hot today. Sweating in October is unattractive and it makes me cranky not that this takes much, especially during Dreaded Lurgy Aftermath. Hellhounds trailed along during morning non-hurtle like polar bears in Equador . . . guys. Get real. And then Peter’s plumber turned up during that slot of time before my piano lesson when, if I’m actually planning on playing something, I’m frantically doing a last minute swot. He—the plumber—was here for an hour, and couldn’t find anything wrong. The plumbing at the mews generally is somewhat overpopulated by demons, and lately the kitchen sink has had a large fat demon squatting in the drain. Peter chases it away briefly with various conjurations, but it always comes back. Arguably GLUG GLUG GLUG GLUG GLUG provides an interesting bass line for the thrashing I’m giving Ring a Ring a Rosie* but it’s not so good for Mozart. Of course the drain, or possibly the demon, behaved IMPECCABLY while the plumber was here . . . and less than a quarter hour after he left . . . GLUG GLUG GLUG GLUG GLUG.
So, anyway, I went to Oisin with nothing to show for myself, not that he isn’t used to this, but after last weekend I had all these plans.** There, there, he said, and started playing his fabulous Notre-Dame-in-your-hip-pocket-or-possibly-Chartres organ, and while I usually stay well across the room not only for sound and resonance purposes but so I won’t be tempted to try and turn pages, I hadn’t moved fast enough in this case and . . . I found myself turning pages because HE HAS A REALLY STUPID MUSIC STAND for the organ and he was playing something that kept falling off. I hate turning pages. It’s the most frelling nerve-wracking thing in the universe. And about three page-turns in I found myself with two pages between my trembling feverish fingers and in the process of trying to RID myself of one of them without either knocking the frelling book off the frelling stand (counterproductive) or blocking his view (ALSO counterproductive) I ENTIRELY LOST TRACK OF WHERE HE WAS so when I finally successfully had only one page to turn . . . I should have turned it about thirty seconds ago.
At this point we broke*** for a cup of tea.
Bell practise did not go a great deal better.
And Peter is going away for the weekend. I am going to have to keep myself and hellhounds amused for three whole days.†
So I stumbled and snarled back to the mews for supper†† and . . . discovered this on Twitter:
@tessagratton Win an ARC of PEGASUS by @robinmckinley! All you have to do is pretend to love Shakespeare for 5 minutes. http://tinyurl.com/2wrrekn
Pardon me while I fall about. I love this. Shakespeare! Me! Shakespeare and me! Who—ahem—does not love Shakespeare! Who nonetheless realises that Shakespeare is a GOD and I am a bacterium in the dust under the great man’s feet, or wherever bacteria hang out!††† And, furthermore, Shakespeare performed! Sort of in my honour! Mind you, I haven’t been able to watch Tessa’s videos because all the demons that aren’t infesting the plumbing at the mews are infesting my laptop, but I’ll try to check ’em out‡ on the desktop when I get back to the cottage tonight.
Suddenly I feel all jolly and cheerful. Thank you, Tessa Gratton.‡‡ Hee hee hee hee hee.
* * *
* I was very pleased with myself this week when I suddenly figured out some, ahem, percussion accompaniment for my SATB setting. This was originally going to be for chorus and organ, but then Finale packed in and I couldn’t get my head around what I was trying to do without some digital assistance so I skulked off and started writing . . . the longest introduction to a Piano Thing I’ve ever frelling seen. Usually it’s a bar or two and we’re in business. I’m about to be forced onto a second page and it’s still noodling along trying to decide what it wants to do with its life. ARRRRGH. So now I can go back to Rosie for a while and give it a chance to pull itself together. Maybe I should give it a name. Maybe that would help. Oscar. Jethro. Frank.
^ Hammerstein. Tull. Bridge. Hmmm. No, this didn’t occur to me when I was choosing names. Obviously my subconscious was hard at work however.
** We did spend some time discussing Oisin’s rather-alarming-as-soon-as-I-allow-myself-to-think-about-it-so-I-am-not-going-to-think-about-it plans for future accompaniment/more-than-one-person-making-noise-at-a-time seminars. I have totally wrecked my life by saying that OF COURSE I’ll sign up. OF COURSE. Gaaaaah. It’s only because of the weather that I find myself sweating freely. Oisin keeps saying that kids should just grow up not only with performing music but with the idea that music is something you do with your friends—which I think is also Black Bear’s community orchestra conductor’s idea. The problem with this is that I agree. And the eye-opener about last weekend is that something can be done even at my level.^ Now all Oisin needs is a few more fools . . . uh . . . relaxed, open-minded students.^^ I am trying not to think, among all the things I’m trying not to think about these prospective seminars, of Robin among the fifth graders. All of whom play/sing better than she does.
^ Here I started defining my level, realised this might be construed as unflattering to the other attendees—the ones, in fact, willing to put their mouths and fingers where their money is and perform—and have shut up. Mmmph. But as Oisin put it, he would like to start at the level where a hopeful future accompanist just about knows which end of the piano to hold. Okay. I can do that.
Have I mentioned that I told the story of my creeping over to play the piano during the break last Saturday to a friend who put herself through college playing at a piano bar—which is to say they paid her—who just about killed herself laughing. She says that I have Crossed A Boundary From Which There Is No Return. Piffle, I say. The differences between, say, a jaguar and a coffee table are more important than the similarities (they both have four legs. And if enough people have put wet mugs on the table, they’re both spotty). There are no piano bars in my future. But fortunately I don’t need to put myself through college.+
+ I still need a new front door for Third House however. And new kitchen counters for the cottage.
*** A significant choice of verb.
† I may even have to roast a fresh chicken for hellhounds. Peter had to write the instructions out because I forget. He usually does it. I look forward to roast chicken for hellhounds: us mere humans are allowed a few scraps.^
^ Speaking of hellhound supper. Surreal evenings chez McKinley-Dickinson: Hellhounds are required to sit for their food. I began this, naively, when they were tiny puppies, because this is one of the ways you slip a little training in without their noticing: dogs will do ANYTHING for food, right? So make it easy for yourself, get ’em when they’re motivated. ::Hollow laughter.:: By a year or two later I’d’ve been happy to lie down and beg if that would have made them eat. But hellhounds sitting for food, whether they then eat it or not, is still part of the way this ménage runs. I developed the in-normal-dog-households-what-would-be-a slovenly habit of putting the food down anywhere a hellhound actually sat for it, hoping hellhound was indicating interest rather than mere patterning . . . and I continue to do this.^ Tonight Chaos sat immediately behind Peter’s chair. I put his bowl down.
Chaos is right behind you, I said.
I’m very glad to hear that, said Peter.
^ Within reason. Which is to say within the kitchen.
†† Sustainably fished tinned tuna. Not chicken.
††† Give me a minute. I’ll try and infect him with something. Leprosy. Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.
‡ The videos. I know more about demons than I want to.
‡‡ And may all your commenters be politer and more appreciative of The Great Man than I am.
Really Big Zowie
Look what arrived in the post today.
Wow. Zowie. Gosh. Gee.
A long time ago now Blogmom said that some of the forum members were contemplating making individual squares toward putting together a quilt for me and was that all right? Sure, I said, my beady little eyes lighting up with anticipatory glee, not to say greed. (I love the whole quilt thing.)
And then I pretty much forgot about it. As I say, it’s been a while. And today when a Mysteriously Large and Lightweight Box arrived from Writers House I was entirely baffled.* Boxes from WH tend to be heavy.**
Even as I began lifting large heavy folds of fabric out of the box I had no clue. And then the letter from Bonnie Holmes (Holmes44 on the forum) fell out.
So. Anyway. Wow.
Bonnie put it together and backed it and as you can see it is really gorgeous. Skating Librarian wins the Overachiever’s Award: Bonnie says she painted the lovely flowery side panels, and she also made two amazing squares. This one is, well, very amazing: 
And then, not content with her achivements, she produced one of the hellhounds: 
Awwwwwwww.
(And, since I have to assume WordPress is going to cram all my text up at the top again rather than leaving it where I put it next to individual photos, I’m going to save this post and put the rest of the close ups in another one. Of course there are going to be close ups of all the individual squares.)
* * *
* It arrived about five minutes before my handbellers did, while I was trying to hoover the floor. I was looking bemusedly at the Mysterious Box when Colin was early so the box did not get opened nor did the floor get hoovered. But we rang a lot of handbells. Niall has actually discovered a New Approach to being a sneaky, conniving ratbag and has got me ringing stuff that isn’t plain bob minor. He may be a sneaky, conniving ratbag^ but I’m secretly grateful not to be ringing exclusively plain bob minor on handbells for the rest of my life.
^ Who is going ON HOLIDAY FOR TEN DAYS STARTING TOMORROW MORNING leaving me in charge of tower practise TWO FRIDAYS. Not just one, TWO Fridays. +
+ I told him the next time he wants a handbell ringer at the last minute for the cathedral the answer is no. Especially if there’s a rock band tuning up twenty feet away.
** The last box from WH was full of lovely golden SUNSHINEs.
Quilt, continued
I hope these are self-explanatory. You will notice that the runner-up Overachiever Awards go to Susan from Athens and blondviolinist, both of whom made two squares. (The name labels should be legible if you bigify the photos.) But with WordPress’ text-placement megrims in mind, I’m just going to run the rest of the individual-square photos reading from the quilt’s left to right, top to bottom. (If Wordpress starts to spit and creak, I’ll run onto a third post.) You can check against the first photo in the previous post to see how they all fit together again.
And I hope some of you are still in touch with the people–like Susan from Athens–whom we haven’t seen on the forum in a while. (Or maybe they’re all still posting to Talk, or Playing with Your Food.) But if anyone can find them, PLEASE TELL THEM TO COME LOOK AT THEMSELVES IN ALL THEIR SPLENDIFEROUS GLORY. And thank you all, very much!
Quilt, final
Okay, better safe than sorry. Especially since WordPress logged me out in the middle of loading one of the photos in the last post, and refused to recognise either me or my password. Anyone who heard strange phantom screams a few minutes ago . . .
