Edgewise

Concerning Vampires

From the promo for a play I’m going to see, “DRACULA,” Bram Stoker, “We think you’ll find it nothing less than epic…”

I can believe it. There certainly must be something fundamental about the Vampire. There’s not much that competes with it for perpetual fascination. There used to be the gunfighter; I remember watching 15-20 Westerns a week, and the gunfight never got old. No more.

The Martial Artist is a contender. I don’t think The Rock Star is, not as the subject of stories anyhow. Angels were coming on strong for several years, but faded. Certainly, The Babe. (In the fifties, they came up with the phrase “Sex Symbol.” Marilyn Monroe was a Sex Symbol. Where did they get that? Jung, I suppose. So, it is probably true, but they were also in denial about just plain Sex.) The Babe who is also The Martial Artist is newish, but I think she’s here to stay; she has it all.

The Zombies are always hanging around, but in a second tier. Spies need to be in really good movies now, to steer clear of farce. Then there’s the Slasher. Always a kind of farce, appreciated by the audience. I am just too old to get it, but they have the numbers.

The non-Slasher Serial-Killer has become an irresistible protagonist, but I suspect more to the screenwriters, as prefabs for loosely integrated and yearned-for multi-orgasmic plots. By now the story has to carry the appeal; I doubt it’s a bona-fide audience-driven archetype.

Superheroes, for sure! I don’t care what the superpower is; I want to see that movie. This place used to be filled by the Galahad Knight, or simply by The Hero. Hercules was mortal, but a demigod, based on his Heroics. He must have founded a thousand cities. He had an inexhaustible litany of locales and legends to his name. I don’t think Achilles had “legs” like that.

Anyway, I am always up for a vampire.

The Torah says many times, “Thou shall not eat the blood, for the blood is the life.” The Breath is mentioned at the Creation, but mainly it is the blood.

A non sequitur story I liked from the Buffy series spinoff, Angel. (He’s a Vampire with a soul. Drinks animal blood.) A Demon makes him go through memories of all the people he had killed (before the soul). He says he can no longer live with it. The Demon says he doesn’t have the courage to end his life. He says, “I don’t need courage. I just need the sun to rise.”

—David

Jump for Joy

I believe this song, “Jump for Joy,” is extremely obscure, and that’s amazing. I only happened to hear it, barely listening to an old a Sarah Vaughn record. I stopped short, “Did she just say that?”

It’s a blithe and satirical “protest song” Duke Ellington wrote in 1941 for an all-black musical review of the same name.

He said it “would take Uncle Tom out of the theater, and say things that would make the audience think.”

---

Jump for Joy

Fare thee well land of cotton.

Cotton lisle is out of style,

Honey chile

Jump for Joy

—

Don’t you grieve little Eve

All the hounds I do believe

Have been killed

Ain’t ‘cha thrilled?

Jump for Joy

—

Have you seen pastures groovy?

“Green Pastures” was just a Technicolor movie

When you stomp up to heaven and you meet old Saint Pete

Tell that boy

Jump for joy

Step right in

Give Pete some skin and

Jump for Joy

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(BTW, I don’t believe “Sir Duke” was literally anti-dog.)

The Straitjacket of Socialism

It would be mighty convenient if everybody put the “Printer Friendly” button in the same place on their Web pages. But that’s exactly what the communists would do!

Lawful Combatants, but not POWs

US changes status of 14 detainees, AP, 8/10/07

“…Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Commander Chito Peppler said the proceedings….do not distinguish between lawful and unlawful combatants.”

DKo: So, we took lawful combatants prisoner in the War in Afghanistan and they were not Prisoners of War.

—Probably a bunch of unpaid parking tickets.

Etiquette Tip: Belated Birthday or Holiday Cards

Sometimes you just don’t manage to get all your cards out on time. Nevertheless, you don’t want to appear rude. So here’s an easy etiquette tip that solves the problem. Write at the top on the front of the card:

I can’t understand why this is just now reaching you! I mailed it weeks ago.

Shiite Insurgents. Shiite Insurgents!

“Shiite Insurgents.” The Bush administration has been rolling this surprising combination out in recent weeks. I think we’ll be hearing more of it.

For years, “Insurgents” has meant Sunnis, because they are trying to bring down the government. Shiite fighters, have been “Militants,” and “Extremists,” but they haven’t been “Insurgents.” Whom would they be insurgent against? There is already a Shiite government in Baghdad. At the same time, Sunni fighters are being transmogrified into “Allies.” Allies of whom? The US Army?

My basis for the following is very thin at this point, but I suspect we are about to be sold a major “paradigm shift,” an extremely dangerous one. that “Shiite Insurgents” represents. If so, the inexorable Iraq Study Group plan—the Bush version of it, anyhow—would turn very ugly as we watch its generalities turned into specifics.

The Generalities:

—We end “Combat Operations.”

—We concentrate on training.

—We continue to strike at just one remaining target.

They used to say this target was Al Qaeda in Iraq; but increasingly they say it is “Terrorists.” (So, we’ll strike terrorists, but not truck bombers. Truck bombers would be “Combat Operations.” What do you have to do to be a terrorist around here?)

The Specifics (according to my very speculative suspicions):

1- “Combat Operations” turn out to be operations coordinated with, and subject to, the Iraqi government. Majority rule in Iraq has become an annoyance. We’ll cut the government out.

2- “Training” bypasses the government and goes directly to the army—or rather to the parts of the army we select. Maybe (discreetly) to our new Sunni Allies too. Our favored Training Units get good food, supplies, armor, weaponry, Intel, and logistics. They get paid on time. They get patronage. They bond directly to us. They stop answering Maliki’s phone calls.

3- “Terrorists” will be whoever we say they are, including these new Shiite Insurgents (probably Moktada’s forces), and definitely the vast network of Iranian-controlled (i.e., anti-US Shiite) terrorist cells that we say riddle the country.

The Shiite Insurgents turn out to be insurgent against us.