#Pasko Simone

[cpmbumba2020]

This Season we appreciated all of your support and we always here to support all of you this Christmas. Mula sa amin mga CPM Bible Sharing Sqaud Family kami bumabati sa inyo ng Maligayang Pasko o Merry Christmas sa inyong lahat.

Photo and Caption by: Simon Tanjutco

[issela-santina]

so I got Simon Pegg to notice me in his livestream again by telling him to go check out Filipino Christmas songs (these are just a few omg)

[gorogues]

Spoilers for comics in May!

Pretty sparse again, and it’s really just collected editions which are of interest...though Len appears on the variant cover of the Super Sons issue.  I don’t think he’s in any of the stories thus far.

You can see the solicits in full at CBR.

CHALLENGE OF THE SUPER SONS #2 written by PETER J. TOMASI art by MAX RAYNOR and JORGE CORONA cover by SIMONE DI MEO card stock variant cover by NICK BRADSHAW ON SALE 5/11/21 $3.99 US | 32 PAGES | 2 of 7 | FC | DC CARD STOCK VARIANT COVER $4.99 US Okay, Robin and Superboy saved the Flash from certain annihilation...surely the day is saved and everyone can go home and watch TV, right? Wrong! Once the Doom Scroll inscribes a name on its mystical list, the bearer of that name will be imminently killed—and the heroes of the Justice League are being targeted one by one! Next up? Wonder Woman! Plus, see just what happened when the boys were snatched from reality, and how they first encountered the Doom Scroll...in medieval England?

From here, we’ve got a ton of collected editions.  The Mark Waid book has some Replicant and Piper.  @one-rogue-army

THE FLASH BY MARK WAID BOOK EIGHT TP written by MARK WAID, BRIAN AUGUSTYN, and JOE CASEY art by PAUL PELLETIER, DUNCAN ROULEAU, SCOTT KOLINS, DOUG BRAITHWAITE, and others cover by STEVE LIGHTLE ON SALE 6/15/21 $34.99 US | $45.99 CAN | 368 PAGES | FC | DC Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-77951-010-5 As this latest collection of Flash tales written by Mark Waid begins, meet Walter West, a Flash from a parallel reality where his beloved Linda Park died and the speedster doles out brutal justice to criminals as a response. Can the two Flashes co-exist long enough to stop Replicant, a villain with the combined powers of the Rogues Gallery? Better find out fast—the longer Walter West stays on Wally’s Earth, the more he poses a threat to all of reality! Collects The Flash #151-162, The Flash Annual #12, and pages from The Flash Secret Files #2.

This Justice League trade has a classic Eobard story, from the Secret Society of Super-Villains (he acts like a creep towards Black Canary).  There’s also a good Kadabra and Sam story reprinted here.

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA: THE BRONZE AGE OMNIBUS VOL. 3 HC written by GERRY CONWAY, PAUL LEVITZ, MARTIN PASKO, and STEVE ENGLEHART art by DICK DILLIN, GEORGE TUSKA, and others cover by KARL KERSCHL ON SALE 7/6/21 $125.00 US | $163.00 CAN | 1,192 PAGES | FC | DC Hardcover 7.0625" x 10.875" ISBN: 978-1-77951-016-7 The JLA moves into the second half of the ’70s with tales guest-starring the Justice Society of America, the Legion of Super-Heroes, and heroes from the long-gone past including Jonah Hex, the Viking Prince, Enemy Ace, and more. Plus, the League’s mascot, Snapper Carr, turns against the team, the Phantom Stranger helps the team battle a returning pantheon of ancient gods, the Martian Manhunter faces Despero for the lives of the League, and the Secret Society of Super-Villains swap bodies with the World’s Greatest Superheroes. Plus, Black Lightning is invited to join the JLA—but turns down the invitation for mysterious reasons. Collects Justice League of America #147-182, Super-Team Family #11-14, DC Special #27, DC Special Series #6, Secret Society of Super-Villains #15, DC Comics Presents #17, and pages from Amazing World of DC comics #14.

If you missed the digital releases, here’s your chance to buy this cool AU Hartley story!

DCEASED: HOPE AT WORLD’S END HC written by TOM TAYLOR art by DUSTIN NGUYEN, RENATO GUEDES, CARMINE DI GIANDOMENICO, MARCO FAILLA, KARL MOSTERT, and DANIELE DI NICUOLO cover by FRANCESCO MATTINA ON SALE 6/15/21 $24.99 US | $33.99 CAN | 176 PAGES | FC | DC HARDCOVER ISBN: 978-1-77951-128-7 In Earth’s darkest hour, heroes will bring hope in this new addition to the DCeased saga, taking place within the timeline of the original epic! DCeased became a smash horror hit in 2019 by offering a twisted version of the DC Universe infected by the Anti-Life Equation, transforming heroes and villains alike into mindless monsters. DCeased: Hope at World’s End, previously only available digitally, expands the world of that original DCeased series by filling in that story’s time jump and focusing on characters including Superman, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, Stephanie Brown, Wally West, and Jimmy Olsen. In DCeased: Hope at World’s End, the Anti-Life Equation has infected over a billion people on Earth. Heroes and villains have fallen. In the immediate aftermath of the destruction of Metropolis, Superman and Wonder Woman spearhead an effort to stem the tide of infection, preserve and protect survivors, and plan for what’s next. In the Earth’s darkest hour, heroes will bring hope! The war for Earth has only just begun! This volume collects DCeased: Hope at World’s End Digital Chapters 1-15.

And this is for the AU Eobard story.

TALES FROM THE DC DARK MULTIVERSE II HC stories and art by VARIOUS cover by DAVID MARQUEZ ON SALE 6/8/21 $34.99 US | $45.99 CAN | 368 PAGES | FC | DC Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-77951-007-5 The gateway into the Dark Multiverse has been opened...what stories will emerge? Follow Batman, Wonder Woman, and the Justice League as our heroes battle their way through these crumbling and shattered worlds! Collects Tales from the Dark Multiverse: Batman: Hush #1; Tales from the Dark Multiverse: Flashpoint #1; Tales from the Dark Multiverse: Wonder Woman: War of the Gods #1; Tales from the Dark Multiverse: Crisis on Infinite Earths #1; and Tales from the Dark Multiverse: Dark Nights Metal #1, plus the stories that inspired these tales from Batman #619, Flashpoint #1, Wonder Woman: War of the Gods #4, Crisis on Infinite Earths #12, and Dark Nights: Metal #6.

[cooltrainererika]

Alt-talia Compilation: December Fun

Well, it’s already New Years for me. Fortunately this is the last story I want to get out since I’m delaying Key to Zorn part 2 again. Hooray. All I need to do is that alternate ending and I’m done! Goodbye 2019! 

This compilation is three super short fics: December 22, 2019: Snowball fight/Skiing/Christmas without snow. The first two are for Skiing, the last one is Christmas Without Snow, though it could also be filed against “Decorations”. While admittedly the first two aren’t Christmas related, the last one is so hopefully it still counts. 

Btw this is a semi-AU. I don’t have time to explain, so those unfamiliar with it, please reference my other works. 

And the awful titles are especially bad this time around. And the writing quality is super rough. Still, I don’t really have much time here. 

Name key: Denmark: Simon, Norway: Lukas

So without further ado, happy new year! 

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This is a message from the event holder:

I would like to ask one thing (but this isn’t part of the rules, so don’t worry) , if it is not too demanding… please, if you like someone’s work say it (comment), I personally think that put only a “heart” on it doesn’t make enough justice for the artist. I mean… as an active fan that contributes for the Hetalia’s fandom… a “heart” means nothing to me, at least reblog it. “Creators” get demotivated and sincerely it doesn’t hurt be nice to others. Of course, this is my opinion and a selfish request, so I won’t expect too much.

Please listen to them, I would really appreciate it. 

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Skiing Lessons

“Orv... You make it look so easy!”

Lukas seemed to glide across the snow, the boy weaving between thin trees agilely as if it took him no effort. 

Simon could only admire his Union-Brother’s skills; he had to observe closely, after all. 

That morning, Simon had finally decided to ask him about it; Lukas’ skiing had helped him in so many wars over the years. While Simon was considered to be part of Scandinavia, his land being as flat and close to the ocean as it was, the art of skiing was never something he had to learn; Lukas was different. On the snow, where horse hooves sunk impotently, he commanded the ski as his steed. Ever since he was very young, he had used them not only to run circles around his enemies, but as one of his companions in daily life. 

“Teach you?”

“Yeah! You’re so good at it, and it’s helped us in so many wars, so… could you? Please?”

Lukas had nodded. 

“Mmm. No problem. I have a few boards as spares. Though it’s not easy. I’ll warn you.”

So now, here they were, up north. 

And indeed, it was much harder than it looked. 

For the fifth time that day, Simon fell facefirst into the snow. 

Lukas shook his head like a monk chastising a child. 

“Get up!”

“I’m trying!”

“Danmark, you’re not supposed to put that much weight on your feet. You’re supposed to glide atop the snow. Don’t dig in too much. Let the snow carry you.”

“Right…”

He pushed himself along. 

“Glide... Glide atop the snow...Wait... I think I’m getting the hang of it!”

Mmmm. That’s it... follow me.”

“I can do it! Look Norge, I’m doing it-“

And then he fell into the snow again. 

“It’s not that easy.”

Lukas pulled him out of the snow, his Union-Brother’s face having gone pink from the coldness but still determined 

“We’re doing it again.”

“Yessir!”

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Alpine Rivals

Austria and Switzerland cascaded down the mountain, dodging everyone on the slope as they went with masterful skill. 

The two raced neck-and neck, the freezing air whistling past, nipping their cheeks, through the hair that wasn’t tucked inside their helmets. 

Italy had been close behind, but in a moment of distraction had reverted to his klutzy self; a split second which had proved disastrous, and sent him falling into the snow with his feet sticking out like a cartoon, and now he was way behind, desperately trying to catch up. Poland was a close third, wrestling his place with Bavaria, and France and Germany were a few meters behind those two. However, especially as the Nordics were taking a different course on the other side of the mountain, the undoubted champions here were Austria and Switzerland, as they long had always been.

But even if the Nordics were racing with them, it was entirely possible they would still be left in the dust. For they were the Alpine duo; the only ones who even rivaled, even surpassed, Norway himself in the ancient sport of downhill skiing.  

But as usual, Switzerland seemed to be winning this time. There was a reason he had the most Alpine skiing medals in the Olympics. 

Austria wasn’t giving up so easily though; when it came to skiing, his suppressed competitiveness had a rare opportunity to shine. And best friend or no, or especially because of that, it wasn’t over until the end of the slope. 

He was certain that Bavaria was going to complain about it after all of this as he usually did though. His father wasn’t exactly known for being humble.  

“See you at the bottom!”

“Gah! Get back here!”

Soon, the foot of the mountain came into view, flattening to soften the landing. 

Almost there…

Wait, was that…

Snow flew in waves as Switzerland skidded to a halt. 

“Eek!”

An extremely familiar voice squeaked. 

When the snow cleared, standing there, brushing herself off, in her skis, was Liechtenstein. 

“Look, look! I won! Finally! I told you I practiced!”

Switzerland raised his goggles, his jaw ajar. 

“...Since when were you here?”

“About a minute ago?”

They heard the loud muffled sounds of snow crunching as Austria skidded to a stop above them.

“Österreich... It’s Liechtenstein. She won.”

“...Mein Gott. Goodness. I did know you were quite good, but…”

Her cheeky grin widened. 

“I’m Alpine too, you know!”

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Starry Streets of Tropical Bethlehem 

Now, think of Christmas. What do you think of? 

Not just the trees, the music, or even the religious elements. What is expected of the scenery outside? 

Snow, of course. Without snow, Christmas just seems so incomplete. 

Most of us aren’t fortunate enough to experience a white Christmas, however, there is something inseparable about these two things in our minds.  

Or so it seems. For one nation, while knowing little of snow, may be one of the biggest lovers of Christmas of all. 

“YEHEY! YEHEY! IT’S ALMOST CHRISTMAS!”

Others looked on in confusion as the personification of the Philippines barreled through the halls as soon as the meeting got out. 

It wasn’t too long until she had crashed into America, sending papers flying everywhere. 

“GAH! Whoa! Whoa! Hey, slow down!”

“I can’t wait! It’s almost Pasko!”

“Wha?”

“Christmas!”

America stared at her in confusion. South Korea was standing above, his face blank as he processed what just happened. 

“...Wha? But it’s September! I swear, Christmas gets earlier every year, but I didn’t think it was this bad!”

“What do you mean, Kuya America? Of course it’s long! All my people come home on Christmas! ...Ay! There’s something I want to show everyone.”

She reached into her purse and pulled out a flyer; a clearly handmade one, with just a date, location, and absolutely nothing else. 

“Come to San Fernando on the Saturday two weeks before Christmas! I’m inviting the rest of ASEAN too!”

“Wha?! What are we being invited to?!”

“It’s a surprise!”

“She always is so excited, this time of year…”

Then, she grabbed South Korea as well, thrusting the “flyer” into his hand, her dark brown eyes sparkling. 

“You come too, Kuya! Please?!”

“I… I presume so…”

“Yehey! See you!”

With that, she ran off. 

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For Philippines, Christmas started at the beginning of September in the truest sense of the word; the carols started, everyone broke out the trees, and talk of presents was fresh on everyone’s mind. 

For some, this may have seemed absurd. However, even without the snow, even without many Christmas trappings, she never tired of this festive, yet sacred atmosphere which enveloped her islands for half a year. 

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Even in the middle of December, it was warm in the Philippines. 

Though everyone expected it, actually experiencing it was a bit strange for America, though Australia seemed to not notice any difference. And poor Japan looked like he was going to melt. 

For some ASEAN members, those who could afford to come anyway, the festive Christmas cheer emanating from everywhere was an unusual sight in it of itself. 

So many other people had already gathered around them under the San Fernando sky, mostly locals. 

“So… what are you goin’ to show us, hermana?”

Philippines grinned a wide grin. 

“You’ll see, Kuya Mehiko! Oh, it’s starting!”

Just as the music started, she threw open her arms. 

“...NARITO! MALIGAYANG PASKO!”

And immediately, like that, as her voice boomed into the air, everything lit up. 

Star-shaped, intricate fractals of light, red, orange, blue, green, yellow, white, silver, gold, big and small, arranged in beautiful designs. 

They moved, spinning and dancing as they lit up the night. 

A collective gasp took over them as stars lit everything in their field of vision. 

“...It’s… it’s awesome!”

“See? I told you! I told you!”

And so, under a tropical urban December sky, a starry night shined brightly not above, but right on Earth. 

[pangeanews]

Volontariamente emarginato da tutti festival e felicemente escluso da tutte le fiere culturali, mi estinguo tra queste mura, passo la vita recluso tra migliaia di libri…

Non amo l’aria che penetra dalla mia finestra. Solitamente chiusa. M’intimano di aprirla almeno una volta al giorno per non morire soffocato. C’è la certezza diffusa di virus sempre nuovi. In effetti gli spazi liberi, qui da me, si sono ristretti all’inverosimile. Mi estinguo tra queste mura, foglio dopo foglio.  Ma i virus nella mia stanza di isolato, corazzato lettore, hanno l’apparenza ben definita di libri d’ogni specie, vecchi e nuovi, antichi e moderni. Migliaia di libri, milioni di fantasmi… Tutto ormai per me si svolge nella misura asmatica delle azioni consentite e indispensabili fra quattro nere mura.

Anche la natura, per suo conto, si adegua alla mia ricerca di solitudine nulla producendo se non un brulichio di vermi futuribili… Caldo e gelo si alternano nella fuga precipitosa delle stagioni. Amo tuttavia questa mia libertà fatta di solidi confini e di torri eburnee. Volontariamente emarginato da tutti i festival “mercatali”, felicemente escluso da tutte le fiere del libro, respiro a pieni polmoni come se fossi al centro di una pianura aspra e desolata. Nel dolce riparo degli anfratti sabbiosi, silhouette di neri cipressi orientano lo sguardo nella penombra in cui ristagno verso grigie isole di carta. Alberi furono qui un tempo a darci ombra e respiro.  Oggi preziose raccolte di volumi (dai diecimila in su!), prime edizioni, libri d’arte, guide illustrate, opuscoli di propaganda politica, giacciono silenti nel buio dei tempi in attesa di partire per un viaggio senza ritorno.

Cella funebre della mia estrema zoppicante vecchiezza, sempre inappagato cacciatore di vite mancate, gli spazi pubblici e privati di questa stanza-obitorio, sono da tempo completamente assegnati e classificati. C’è l’angolo dei grandi russi e lo spazio esclusivo dei poemi omerici, c’è l’epopea delle imprese cavalleresche e lo scaffale segreto dei folli e dei suicidi, maledetti di ogni latitudine e, in ostentata evidenza, i visionari utopisti dei bei tempi andati… Oltre che a trattati di ogni genere: disattesi bollettini di pace, resoconti di guerra di varia ampiezza e misura nonché milioni di accordi segreti disposti in alterna sequenza proto e meta storica.

Nel notturno fiabesco delle mie quattro mura, ci si muove come tra mille continenti di storie universali, si procede zigzagando tra busti tombali, cippi sepolcrali e lapidi di morti prematuri. I virus hanno ceduto il passo ai fantasmi di una silente replicante Babilonia. Una volta chiusa la finestra, i racconti (a milioni!) si accalcano nel cerchio necrologico della lampada mortuaria, messaggeri misteriosi e pur pieni d’inaspettate infinite sorprese. Le antologie antiche e recenti restano rincantucciate nei loro angoli di sempre. Incallite raccolte prosaiche e poetiche, cupe e meste reliquie pentametrali, respirano a stento i lugubri effluvi del lavico sottosuolo paradigmatico.  Sinfoniche melodie tradizionali si riappropriano, con fare liberticida, dei testi poetici canicolari, gloria delle antiche comunità montane. Luoghi illacrimati e personaggi corrosi da stimoli prostranti, animano la liquida scena terrestre che io solo intravedo nel riquadro epigonale della mia stratosferica finestra.

Tutto all’interno del mio capitale libresco, romanzi e trattati, dissertazioni in prosa e in poesia, tesi e relazioni, atlanti storici e geografici, ogni cartaceo discorso improduttivo convive forzatamente con lessemi e fonemi logaritmici, pandette e panegirici consapevolmente predisposti per il viaggio finale verso il putrido cuore di questa lugubre notte etimologica che è tuttora considerata vita su questa terra d’ineludibili fantasmi.

Pasko Simone

*In copertina: la Biblioteca Gambalunga di Rimini. Aperta nel 1619 ai cittadini, per lascito testamentario del suo proprietario, Alessandro Gambalunga, che nei suoi antri diceva di aver passato i momenti più belli della vita, la ‘Gambalunga’ è la più antica biblioteca civica d’Italia. 

L'articolo Volontariamente emarginato da tutti festival e felicemente escluso da tutte le fiere culturali, mi estinguo tra queste mura, passo la vita recluso tra migliaia di libri… proviene da Pangea.

from pangea.news https://ift.tt/2xrQop7

[bluewatsons]

Caroline Joan (Kay) S. Picart, Crime and the Gothic: Sexualizing Serial Killers, 13 J Crim Justice & Pop Cult 1 (2006)

Male serial murderers are typically construed as having vampiric qualities and display the primordial evil that such murderers seek to inspire, assuming the status of a vengeful deity in relation to their victims. However, once a female serial killer (and particularly a lesbian one) becomes the object of such a narrative, it is less the vampire (which is aligned with the archetype of the male serial killer in popular film) than the Frankensteinian Monster who becomes the main analogue. Thus, this article is focused specifically on depictions of Aileen Wuornos (and in particular Charlize Theron’s interpretation of Wuornos) as a Frankensteinian Monster.

Introduction

In reflecting upon serial killing, it is apparent that criminological fact and literary fiction have become irretrievably intertwined. The focus on the twilight region of fact, fiction, and myth is important, because it gets at the ambivalent workings of the social construction of these contemporary monsters. Rather than assuming that film (and particularly fiction film) is a medium that tells us little about the reality of criminological phenomena, Gothic criminology, as envisaged here, recognizes the complementarity of academic literary and aesthetic popular accounts of deviant behavior. What prompts this article is thus an explosion of books and films that link violence, images of monstrosity, and Gothic modes of narration and visualization in American popular culture, academia, and even public policy. As Edmundson (1997) noted:

Gothic conventions have slipped over into ostensibly nonfictional realms. Gothic is alive not just in Stephen King’s novels and Quentin Tarantino’s films, but in the media renderings of the O.J. Simpson case, in our political discourse, in modes of therapy, on TV news, on talk shows like Oprah, in our discussions of AIDS and of the environment. American culture at large has become suffused with Gothic assumptions, with Gothic characters and plots. (p. xii)

Understanding the term Gothic is crucial. It is generally understood as a literary or aesthetic term that was coined during the 18th and 19th centuries, and can mean primitive (which runs the gamut from being barbaric to uncivilized)—the earlier 18th century characterization. But Gothic can also connote a nostalgic search for the true or lost foundations of modern European culture, suppressed by neoclassicism and the Enlightenment, with their obsessive search for order and rules—the later revaluation (though a precise date is impossible to come by; Bayer-Berenbaum, 1982).

Vampires possess this mythic primitivism that is both a positive and a negative and, as this article points out, so do male serial killers. Male serial murderers are typically construed as having vampiric qualities and display the primordial evil that such murderers seek to inspire, assuming the status of a vengeful deity in relation to their victims. If Katz (1990), one of the leading experts on serial killers (and fictionalized as Clarice Starling’s mentor, Jack Crawford, in The Silence of the Lambs; Bozeman & Demme, 1991) was correct, serial killer films should bring to audiences a “sensual awareness of evil in the forms of dread, defilement, transgression, vengeance, sacrilege and sacrifice” (Katz, 1990, p. 292). Such psycho-emotional elements should be discernible in the films that paint converging portraits of serial killers and vampires, which I examine using a Gothic aesthetic. This is significant because traditionally, as Pirie (1977) points out, though there is a natural link between serial killers and vampires, the two are usually set apart because of a conventional desire to separate a realistic account from an account of fantasy. Thus, he argued, “the true life psychopath is very rarely a source for vampire movies. There is a world of difference between the psychological horror of mass murder and the dreamy romantic atmosphere of the undead” (Katz, 1990, p. 292). Yet contemporary characterizations of male serial killers converge with those of vampires, making the Gothic aesthetic not an obscure 18th century oddity, but a rhetorical feature of everyday life. However, as this paper ultimately shows, once a female serial killer (and particularly a lesbian one) becomes the object of such a narrative, it is less the vampire (which is aligned with the archetype of the male serial killer in popular film) than the Frankensteinian Monster who becomes the main analogue.

The topic of this article is focused generally on depictions of Aileen Wuornos, and in particular on Charlize Theron’s interpretation of Wuornos, as a Frankensteinian Monster. Of course, larger criminological implications that flow from this case study can be pointed to. Female criminals, particularly those who commit violent crimes, are depicted as not women, bastardizations of women, or counterfeit women. There is a long history in criminology that aligns the transmogrification of women with criminality, with Lombroso being one of the most infamous (Adler & Simon, 1979). When men kill, these actions are naturalized as males simply doing things that are natural to men (e.g., violence, domination) who have stepped slightly outside the rules of acceptable behavior, such as a football player who makes a late hit. In other words, men who violate social norms/laws are seen merely as untamed or uncontrolled men. Male serial killers may be detested as aberrant, but the audience often ambivalently views the male serial killers’ skills of tracking, trapping, and physically overcoming their prey as skills that normal or real men are supposed to have as men (no matter how far these actions are criminalized). Within the popular imaginary, as I point out in a later section, male serial killers are seen as brilliant (as in the case of the mythic Hannibal Lecter). Male serial killers possess traits that are desirable even if these skills are used for evil. In contrast, incarcerated violent women are seen as strange, alien creatures and, often, beings beyond redemption.

An examination of Wournos’ criminal record reveals that she was very different from male serial killers. Henry Lee Lucas may have killed hundreds, Wournos killed only six. Though definitions generally vary, most experts would agree that it takes at least four victims to be considered a serial killer (Bahn, Hazelwood, Morrison, & Ressler, 1995), so Wournos just barely qualifies. Male serial killer Ted Bundy is often described as someone who had charm, cunning, and even brilliance in his killing, while Wournos lumbered along like someone on a very slow killing spree. Wournos was sloppy with her killing and, even if her motive was not financial, she appeared in the movie Monster (Jenkins, 2003) to be a cheap hood who killed as part of a robbery. Wournos, even if given the title of being “America’s first female serial killer,” in comparison with heterosexual male serial killers, was not generally perceived as a skilled serial killer but, rather, as being a woman who did not know how to be a real woman (as defined by the patriarchy).1 This observation is very much in line with the gendered (and raced and classed) dimensions of being a female criminal. Chesney-Lind and Shelden’s (1998) work, for example, demonstrated how, even within gang culture, female gang members, relative to their male counterparts, are placed in a lower prestige ranking. Furthermore, they are often seen as sexual auxiliaries to their male counterparts, which is reinforced through the female gangs’ adoption of names that mirror the male gangs they pair with, often for economic and physical protection (e.g., the Vice Queens in relation to the Vice Kings). Ironically, as Chesney Lind and Shelden also pointed out, there are very few empirical studies that confirm the “stereotype of the hyper- violent, amoral girls found in media accounts of girls in gangs” (p. 72). Indeed, the face of today’s demonized woman is a “violent African American or Hispanic teenager”(Chesney-Lind & Pasko, 2004, p. 53). In Aileen Wuornos’ case, it is possible that her whiteness was cancelled out by both her class and sexuality. However, her whiteness may also have contributed to her being given the double edged title of being America’s first female serial killer—a title ambivalently tinged with some prestige, but also with some derogation.

Thus, the criminological ramifications that extend from this analysis stem from not only a critique of gender and sex (feminine behavior as natural to female bodies and the criminalization of deviations from this norm) but also from the pathologization of lesbian female bodies. Lesbianism, in Wuornos’ case, became tautologous with man-hating behavior. Her serial killing of men, therefore, became understandable precisely because lesbianism is man hating behavior. As Schmid (2005) astutely pointed out:

In an article written for Glamour magazine, Susan Edmiston quotes Robert Ressler as saying, “There may be an intrinsic hatred of males here, as well as an identification with male violence which helped push her across the line into what has been considered a ‘male’ crime . . . In stark contrast to the complex motives attributed to male serial murderers, and the evocation of those male murderers as essentially unsolvable mysteries, Wuornos’s motives are presented with absolute clarity: she is a lesbian; therefore she hates men and therefore she killed them.” (p. 238)

Cultural Commentaries on the Contemporary Fascination with Serial Killers in Real and Reel Life

Other theorists have focused on the cultural significance of the serial killer craze. Caputi (1987) saw both the rise in serial killing and the cultural fascination with the phenomenon in fiction and film as indicative of male sexual dominance. Defining sexual murder as sexually political murder or functional phallic terrorism, Caputi argued that serial killer films include the following typical elements:

The films refer to Jack the Ripper and the established tradition of sex crime.

The killer corresponds with, or Gothic-ally doubles with, the police or media.

The mother is blamed for her son’s criminality, as a result of psychological or physical abuse.

The killer claims to love his victims, helping them by killing them.

The female victims are ultimately responsible for their own demise (either the killer mentions this or the plot construction naturalizes this).

The killer is waging a holy war against women, punishing them for their sexuality, aggression against men, feminism, and the like. (p. 64)

Newitz (1999) similarly focused on the gender identity anxieties of (hetero)sexual murder as “the serial killer kills off the ‘feminine vulnerability’ in himself when he kills women, and thus proves himself a man” (p. 65). In contrast, Jenkins (1994) criticized Caputi (1987) for ignoring female serial killers (who more often work in health-related professions) and limiting her analysis to feminist perspectives. He viewed the rise of conservative Protestantism in the 1980s and 1990s as a major factor in the shift from images of serial killers as psychologically damaged human beings to monsters (Jenkins, 1994).

While Jenkins (1994) also discussed the decline of interest in the psychological background of serial killers, Grixti (1989) saw the rise of depictions of real life monsters as indicative of the uncertainty in which we currently live and its resulting fears (e.g., “Feelings of fear...derive from the conviction of loss of control and the sense of helplessness,” p. 153). When real life policies for controlling crime are perceived as weak, and a general atmosphere of social malaise prevails, magical solutions for controlling the monstrous are sought, often imaginatively worked out through narratives in film and popular culture. As each era has its own fears, certain crime-related genres tend to dominate during these periods. Thus, gangster films emerged in the 1930s, film noir in the 1940s, science fiction in the 1950s, horror films in the 1970s, and serial killer films in the 1990s, each of which dealt with their era’s most troubling tensions (Rubin, 1999).

Along a parallel track, Seltzer (1998) discussed the rise in interest in serial killing as an example of America’s wound culture—the “public fascination with torn and open bodies and torn and opened persons, a collective gathering around shock, trauma, and the wound” (p. 1). As those who pass traffic accidents cannot seem to help but look at the carnage, the exploits of serial killers are depicted in documentaries, docudramas, and fictional films, and large audiences avail themselves of these images.2 Similarly, Tithecott (1997) described the different ways in which we, as a society, construct the serial killer in our own image. We were both “thrilled and horrified by what we see, that we exist in a kind of horror movie which we write and perform for ourselves daily” (Tithecott, 1997, p. 9). All of these point to the gendered and Gothic dimensions of portraits of serial killers in popular culture as well as criminological theory.

Unnoted in previous literature until Simpson (2000) is a striking similarity between the mythic characterization of a vampire and the description of a serial killer: both kill out of an overpowering compulsion, and in similarly periodic and patterned ways. It is this thought- provoking convergence between criminological theory and popular cultural representations that formed a significant section of this analysis. As Simpson pointed out, “While serial murder indeed remains a favorite staple of tabloid journalism and cheap fiction, it has also compelled a variety of serious contemporary American writers and film directors to grapple with its philosophical implications” (p. ix). This article thus builds upon Simpson’s position that the serial killer genre results from a combination of earlier genre depictions of multiple murderers, and inherited Gothic storytelling conventions and threatening folkloric figures that have evolved into a contemporary mythology of violence. Contemporized and repackaged for popular consumption, the Gothic villains, the monsters, the vampires, and the werewolves of the past have morphed into the fictional serial killer, who clearly reflects American cultural anxieties at the start of the 21st century.

In other words, what enables the Gothicization of crime and, in this particular case, serial killers, is a narrative mode that moves across fact (verité) and fiction (horror, melodrama). This movement across the narrative visual modes of the authentic documentary and the fictional is particularly evident in purported true stories of serial killers such as Henry Lee Lucas (Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer; McNaughton, 1986) and Ed Gein (In the Light of the Moon; Boot & Parello, 2000). In each of these accounts, attempts to sketch the portraits of the real men and to explain their supernatural compulsions to kill become reduced to Gothic tropes. These real men, Gothicized into reel archetypes become either a monstrous cipher (in Gothic literature a zero or an unreadable or inscrutable code—that is, a monster beyond human understanding or rationale; e.g., Henry Lee Lucas) or an offspring of Psycho’s (Hitchcock, 1960) Norman Bates, the conventional victim-monster (e.g., Ed Gein; Picart, 2003).

In The Silence of the Lambs, Immortality (Berwin & Leong, 1998), and Hannibal (De Laurentiis & Scott, 2001), the figures of the vampire and the serial killer blur into each other. For example, the face of the monstrous in The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal is initially visualized through Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins), a brilliant but institutionalized psychiatrist known as “Hannibal the Cannibal.” Admittedly, there are technical differentiations between cannibals and vampires, but The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal conflate these two, such that Hannibal’s vampiric and hypnotic gaze (which is characteristic of vampires, not cannibals) becomes inextricable from his blood-soaked, man-eating teeth (which are ambiguously placed in between cannibalism [an atavistic real life horror] and vampirism [a supernatural horror]). More pertinently, in terms of the history of film (as opposed to literature), there is certainly precedent for the conflation of cannibalism with vampirism in zombie films like George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (Romero, 1968), which spawned a host of derivatives such as Horror Express (Gordon & Martin, 1972), Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things (Clark, 1972), The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue (also released as Don’t Open the Window; Amati & Grau, 1974), Fear No Evil (Laloggia 1981), One Dark Night (Schroeder & McLoughlin, 1982), and Dawn of the Dead (Argento & Romero, 1978). According to Waller (1986), Romero’s presentation of the living dead in Night of the Living Dead was derived from Richard Matheson’s (1997) novel, I am Legend, which strips vampires of: (a) their ability to transform into mists or bats, (b) their legendary wealth, and (c) their need to be invited into a home in order to invade it. The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal continue this conflation of vampirism and cannibalism, but restore to the serial killer-cannibal the vampire’s aristocraticism, combined with a supernatural intelligence and the ever-present threat of his barely contained physical power (which rationally explain Hannibal’s ability to terrorize and feed on others’ terror; Picart, 2003). What is new about this article is that it emphasizes how the serial-killer-as-vampire analogy is very clearly gendered and, thus, insufficient for understanding serial killer mythology as generated in both popular and criminological literature. The vampire-male connection needs to be expanded by introducing the Frankensteinian Monster model as a female counterpart. The Silence of the Lambs is an interesting film to cite in this context because Buffalo Bill, the other (in more ways than one) male serial killer, also fits the Frankensteinian Monster model in one aspect: he craves acceptance and wants to remake himself into an image of what he wants to be (and wants society to see him as). Such a deviation from the vampire-male serial killer mold is both possible and believable, precisely because of the gender deviations written into Buffalo Bill’s characterization. Buffalo Bill’s pathological and aberrant masculinity, which prefers imagined femininity to normal masculinity, thus ends up as the villainous counterpart to Hannibal’s elevated Dark Angel status. Yet what happens when the body of the serial killer is now female, and her orientation is lesbian rather than feminine? To answer that question, we turn to a detailed examination of Monster.

Gender, Class, and Sexuality in Relation to Serial Killing: The Case of Aileen Wuornos

No discussion of the representations of serial killers in media is complete without a discussion of Jenkins’ (2003) highly acclaimed docudrama, or biopic, Monster, alongside Broomfield’s (2003) second documentary on America’s first female serial killer, Aileen Carol Wuornos: Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer. Both films were released during the same year and a media account reveals that Broomfield shared information and outtakes from his film with Jenkins and Theron, reasoning that “a good Hollywood movie about Aileen would be preferable to a bad one” (The Internet Movie Database, 2004a, p. 1). Since the focus of this article is on fictional films, Monster remains the central fulcrum of the piece, with the documentary drawn in mainly for comparative purposes and for demonstrating the difficulty in sifting fact from fiction. Ultimately, the focus of the article is how the films on Wuornos call attention to the inadequacy of the vampire/serial killer analogy and suggest a corollary one: the female (lesbian) serial killer as a Frankensteinian Monster.

Unlike the male serial killer films surveyed in an earlier article (i.e., Picart & Greek, 2003), Aileen’s portrait in Monster is neither vampiric (like Hannibal Lecter) nor that of a cipher (like Henry Lee Lucas). The Gothic monster who returns our gaze in this film is the Frankensteinian Monster. The principal features of the Frankensteinian Monster relevant to this argument are: (a) the Frankensteinian Monster is characterized as a lumbering, clumsy, and ugly body (compared with the glamorous, erotic, and often sophisticated body of the [male] vampire); and (b) the Frankensteinian Monster, like its body, is a social misfit and a lonely child in need of love, rather than a brilliant and dangerous rebel who flouts society’s rules, which fits the typical characterization of vampires. This portraiture of the female serial killer as a Frankensteinian Monster is evidenced in: (a) the heavy media emphasis (a construction by the media outside of the film’s production history) on the transmogrification of Theron’s physical perfections into a grotesquely real simulation of the actual Wuornos (with a stress on Wuornos’ ugliness as a form of physical deformity symptomatic of social alienation and emotional abuse), and (b) the framing of Wuornos’ serial killing within the context of an overwhelming loneliness and an obsessive desire for love and companionship. Both of these traits are very much attributes of Mary Shelley’s (1818) Frankensteinian Monster (an internal construction that could be characterized as an intentioned narrative shaped by Jenkins, the director of the film). One could argue these two realms are not necessarily too disparate by saying that Jenkins shaped or elicited the media response to some extent precisely through the choices she made regarding the portrayal of Wuornos. But intent is not the point of this article. The important thing is the interesting convergence between precisely the narrative content of Monster, which teems with allusions to the misunderstood social outcast (i.e., Frankensteinian Monster), to the rhetorical tropes critics of the film repeatedly fell back on, particularly in relation to the transmogrification of Theron’s glamorous body into lumbering and ugly (still Frankensteinian). In other words, despite the difference in the sources of the texts (external and internal), they resulted in a coherent narrative.

Perhaps one thing that compounds the Wuornos case is the attention given in particular to the uglification of Theron, the ravishingly beautiful blonde star. Media accounts regarding Theron’s transformation from ultra-feminine, gorgeous starlet to menacing, homeless streetwalker scopophilically hyper-analyze the details of this uglifying makeover. Repeatedly, references are made to the splotchy make-up, protruding false teeth, dark contact lenses, and extra 20-30 pounds that produced the illusion of the real Aileen Wuornos so convincingly. Holden (2003) of The New York Times remarked, “With crooked yellow teeth that jut out from a mouth that spews profanity in a surly staccato, a freckled weather-beaten face and a prizefighter’s swagger, Charlize Theron pulls off the year’s most astounding screen makeover” (p. 1). Perhaps the wittiest gloss of this Oscar-angling transformation, with a comparison to its cinematic precedents, was coined by Sinagra (2004):

If you’re willing to glug a few hundred cans of Ensure, wear prosthetic teeth, conjure terminal impairment/homosexuality, and dredge up an Oxycontin-slurred drawl that would scare the banjo off the inbred Deliverance boy, importance can be yours. And thus, with...[a] performance that swings from muscularly sympathetic to pre-Extreme Makeover crass, the bulked-up, butch-struttin’, perma-frownin’ Theron is poised to ride the tribulations of state-executed Florida prostitute and john-sniffing serial killer Aileen Wuornos straight to Slingbladin’ Hilary Swankdom. (p. 1)

Edelstein (2003) used the protruding teeth to make a vampire analogy, but the analogy is in jest, and it is clear, based on tone, that a Filipino vampire is more comical and exotic than fearsome:

Although some of her features are bare, her skin has been lightly speckled (to simulate the ravages of the Florida sun on Wuornos’ white Michigan complexion), her eyebrows plucked, her cheeks affixed with jowls, and her mouth with choppers that recall a Filipino vampire movie. (p. 1)

Even more consistently noted than the simulation of Wuornos’ physical imperfections through make up magic was Theron’s adoption of a lumbering and clumsy gait, a spastic head twitch, a corporeally hulking yet uncontrolled body, and a general nervousness that could explode into violence at the slightest provocation. All of these were traits of the Frankensteinian Monster, particularly in its cinematic iterations (Picart, 2001). Witness, for example, Boris Karloff’s poignant interpretation of the lumbering and speech deficient creature, capable of playing innocently like a child or suddenly erupting in violence (largely in self-defense), in Laemmle and Whale’s (1931) Frankenstein. Or Christopher Lee’s menacing interpretation of the Monster as a silent, grotesquely mangled, and unthinking killing machine, characterized by a clumsy gait and spastic body twitches, in Hind and Fisher’s (1957) The Curse of Frankenstein. Ebert (2004) observed:

Aileen’s body language is frightening and fascinating. She doesn’t know how to occupy her body. Watch Theron as she goes through a repertory of little arm straightenings and body adjustments and head tosses and hair touchings, as she nervously tries to shake out her nervousness and look at ease. Observe her smoking technique; she handles her cigarettes with the self-conscious bravado of a 13-year-old trying to impress a kid. (p. 1)

Along a parallel track, Meyer (2003) perceptively remarked, “The actress slides a palpable fear beneath a weary frown and lumbering gait,” as she uncovers the vulnerability and childlikeness that lurks underneath the raucous boisterousness and bravado of Wuornos’ shell (p. 1).

In Branagh’s (1994) cinematic rendition of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the mirror-imaging qualities of creator and created are magnified by their common search for an eternal love. Victor Frankenstein (Branagh), in this version, creates the female monster motivated by the desire to enable a love that overcomes death, as his creature (Robert De Niro) is determined to have a mate with whom he can share all the passions of his heart at all costs. In Monster, which appears to be based on letters Wuornos shared with Jenkins before her execution, Wuornos is similarly obsessed with hanging on to her lesbian lover Selby Wall at all costs, even killing (Snipes, 2004).

This, rather than simply the desperate need for money, constitutes the rational or sane part of why Wuornos turns from being a prostitute to being a serial killer. Yet it is also equally clear that there is a thick miasma of mixed motivations and powerful passions that incite her to kill: self-defense and revenge for having been violently raped, penetrated by a stick, sadistically tortured, and almost murdered in the first instance; then a deep seated hostility against men rooted in her childhood experiences of sexual abuse, moralized as a form of vigilante-ism later on. In one sense, this version of Wuornos’ life does not fit the compunction model easily because Wuornos is not moved to kill in a patterned, compulsive manner. With one exception, the viewer sees the effort it takes for Wuornos to get herself into the mindset of being a justified avenger. She verbally prepares herself by casting her potential victim in the role of a child molester or someone who enjoys sadistic, rough sex. If he does not protest, and even relishs the role-playing involved, she pulls the trigger several times without remorse. When one of the men who picks her up turns out to be a shy, socially awkward virgin with a speech impediment, Wuornos cannot go on with her prepared script, and with downturned, set lips, perfunctorily gives him a quick hand job. When he thanks her, she grabs his wallet, extracts her due fee, and says, “You’re welcome” sullenly.

Finally, guilt, pain, and shame mingle in her cry for forgiveness as she reluctantly pulls the trigger on her last victim, a man who had genuinely wanted to help her, but who presented a danger as he could now identify her to the police. All these details still show the remnants of a sane and rational mind, even if one perpetually racked and tortured. As Holden (2003) noted, “What makes these encounters all the sadder is Wuornos’ obvious horror, and guilt at the pattern she has been repeating” (p. 2). It is this characterization that brings Monster’s portraiture of Wuornos at odds with Broomfield’s (2003) documentary rendition of her last days in Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer. For Taubin (2004), Monster’s most hideous misrepresentation was this:

The movie’s unforgivable flaw is that it portrays Wuornos not as the totally insane person that, on the basis of the Broomfield documentaries, she clearly was, but as a woman who merely had a problem with anger management, a woman who was a fool for love. If anything, Monster supports the sanctimonious assertion of Florida governor Jeb Bush (then up for re-election) that the three psychiatrists he ordered to examine Wuornos on the eve of her execution (they spent all of 15 minutes with her) found her to have been of sufficiently sound mind to be dispatched by lethal injection. (p. 1)

Indeed, the portrait that emerges from Broomfield’s (2003) documentary is different in terms of its depiction of Wuornos’ sanity. As Winter (2004) eloquently described Wuornos’ conduct, “Wuornos spills streams of damaged consciousness and contradictory half-inventions, while her puffy, ravaged face freezes into nervous cheer or contorts in molten rage” (p. 1). The condemned woman appeared to have a tenuous hold on reality: she proclaimed that after her death she was going to heaven and returning to earth with Jesus in a spaceship like the one in Independence Day (Emmerich, 1996).

Since Wuornos was an uneducated homeless prostitute, Hannibal Lecter’s mythic erudition, high-class refinement, and vampiric charisma could not be part of her portraiture. Also, though she occupied a similar economic sphere and suffered from a similar background of abuse as Henry Lee Lucas and Ed Gein, she is not given the Gothic trope of the cipher. In fact, the movie strains to make Wuornos as emotionally transparent as possible in order to create empathy for her character. Nevertheless, references to Wuornos’ heartbreakingly tragic history of abuse and alienation are kept to a minimum. Based on the two documentaries by Broomfield, we find out about the mother who deserted Aileen, the grandfather who consistently beat her up and threw her out of the home (thus forcing her to live in woods after she got pregnant and had an abortion as a young teen), and her subsequent relationships that ended in betrayal (making her a predictably paranoid person). Her life leading up to meeting Selby—a life marred by rape, incest, violence, and abandonment, and on the brink of suicide—is barely hinted at in Jenkins’ script. Instead, the focus remains on the period from 1989-1990, when the hitchhiking prostitute killed six male clients—crimes for which she was executed by the state of Florida in 2002. During this 2-year period, Aileen happened to meet and fall in love with the aptly (re)named Selby (fictitiously renamed for legal reasons; Broomfield, 1992). The cinematic depiction of Wuornos’ relationship with Selby is important to note in detail, because the changes from fact to fiction underline the melodramatic character of the narrative. Monster is conceived of as a love story, not principally as a horror story. A telegenic love object must therefore possess certain acceptable feminine traits, and Selby in particular must be a believably appealing character to make the audience understand why Wuornos would kill to keep her.

The real name of Selby Wall (Wuornos’ former lesbian paramour portrayed in the film by Christina Ricci) is Tyria Moore, who functioned as the prosecution’s chief witness against Wuornos. Those who stayed atop the media coverage immediately took issue with the film’s characterization of Moore, who in real life was a tough, masculine-looking redhead (Persall, 2004). In contrast, Ricci’s small stature, large, doe-like eyes, smooth features, soft-spokenness, childish rebellion, and physical infirmity (she has one arm in a cast when the two meet) make the character easier to like, and it is thus easy to see her through Wuornos’ besotted, overprotective gaze. Selby is trying to tiptoe out of the closet, attempting to escape a domineering family. She clings to Wuornos as a potential savior, provider, and soul mate. Wuornos, so long accustomed to rejection, eagerly assumes the role of the husband and breadwinner, her desire to keep Selby’s devotion at all costs drives her to justify killing and robbing her tricks to support them both. Ricci infuses her interpretation of Selby’s weak character with a cloying neediness, materialism, and fickleness that delicately balance Theron’s brash bravado and armor of cocksureness. Finally, Selby’s feigned ignorance of her lover’s nocturnal fundraising activities “establishes an air of complicity that suggests Wuornos is not the only monster in this little domestic unit” (Germain, 2003, p. 2). Ricci’s acting and scripted role in this movie have been panned by several critics. Meyer (2003) decried:

Selby’s fuzzy motivation [that] boxes the actress into a performance that’s often unreadable. The character didn’t have to be much to attract a lost soul like Wuornos, but for viewers convinced by Theron’s magnificent show of ardor that this girl means the world to her, she should have been more than this. (p. 1)

There seems to be a direct proportion between the degree of transparency and empathy encouraged in the portrayal of Wuornos, and the degree of opacity and distance from the aptly named Selby Wall, who occupies the position of the cipher and traitorous beloved in this story. Nevertheless, it is clear that Ricci deliberately portrayed Wall’s character in that manner because that was the way she interpreted the script. In an interview, the young actress claimed that a significant source of attraction for Ricci was the idea of “playing someone who was such a weak person, someone so motivated by fear that they really couldn’t do anything...That to me was interesting, because I generally don’t play very weak people” (Buckalew, 2003, p. 3).

Despite the use of nerve-jangling music and sharp, controlled cinematography (both of which serve to intensify the flesh-crawling reality of these horrifying events) Monster is shot not as a horror film, as are the prior serial killer films we have written about in this article, but principally as a romance and melodrama. Both the film’s formal properties and promotional packaging seem to enact a complex rhetorical dance between the realms of fact and fiction. Though the film’s trailers moved across color and frozen black and white images (thus contributing both to its grittiness and seeming authenticity), the final film stays fully in color. Thus, the film’s form from the start is ambiguous, straddling the realms of documentary reality (its gritty look in some sections) and feature fantasy (particularly in its depiction of the love story, or of Wuornos’ dreams of becoming a star and of being beautiful).

Hints of Wuornos’ childhood begin with a colorful snapshot of a beautiful blonde child playing dress-up in front of a mirror as a voiceover narrates the young girl’s dreams of being discovered as a movie star by a prince who would rescue her from the overwhelming poverty that surrounded her. The screen widens, still in color, though no longer shot in soft focus and heightened color, to reveal a teenager who lifts her shirt to reveal her breasts to a small crowd of fascinated boys who, after ogling her body, rush off as if in fear of becoming infected with a dreaded disease. Then, during a nocturnal scene, she is shown being picked up by a man in a car, where a transaction occurs before she is thrown out of the car and abandoned, underlining the heavy irony of her dreams in contrast with the realities that weigh her down. Particularly during the violent scenes, the movie generally adopts the cinema verité look characteristic of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, and the camera work is almost seamlessly invisible. During the disturbing scene in which Wuornos is raped and penetrated by a stick used by her assailant, the camera focuses mainly on her face as she grimaces and begins to struggle in pain, anger, and protest. In a quick set of shot-reverse shots, we then look down upon her as she manages to grab her gun, only to assume her point of view as she guns down her attacker, before moving into a medium shot as she repeatedly mangles her attacker’s corpse (with the barest hint that her panty is still pulled down). As if in deference, the camera then moves into a long shot as Wuornos staggers about, howling like a primeval beast.

The juxtaposition of the rape scene with the lesbian lovemaking scene is important, because it highlights the conflicting properties of the Frankensteinian Monster, which is capable of wreaking violent havoc as much as of being vulnerable and childlike. During the much- publicized lesbian lovemaking scene, despite extreme close-ups on lips touching in ardent kisses or hands traveling over bodies that remain clothed for the most part, the camera resists the scopophilic gaze so characteristic of lovemaking scenes, particularly of the lesbian variety shot for heterosexual patriarchal consumption. Persall (2004) complained that:

When the women are shown making love, Tommy James and the Shondells’ Crimson & Clover makes it seem more like prom night than a porn film. Writer/director Jenkins never misses a chance to remind us these kids are in love, as if that’s justification for what Wuornos does. (pp. 1-2)

Nevertheless, what is also equally clear in this scene is that a role reversal occurs: it is now Selby who initiates the act of seduction and lovemaking. It is her small figure, dressed in jeans and a masculine shirt that lies atop Aileen’s body, which is draped merely by a towel. Later, when their lovemaking is done and they embrace, Selby’s head is above Aileen’s, as if she were the one cradling the larger woman. The majority of the scene is shot in low-key lighting infused with deep blue, as if in romantic nostalgia.

Thus, despite the meticulous detail put into simulating reality, such as shooting in the very locations Wuornos used to frequent (which are reputed to be haunted by her ghost), the film ultimately cannot make a claim to being either a realistic or objective depiction (The Internet Movie Database, 2004c). It was clearly shot from Wuornos’ point of view several years after the events had transpired, and it was the emotions that seared in the memories that animated the portrayal. In fact, the film aroused considerable controversy as the relatives of the men victimized by Wuornos took offense at the generally unflattering portrayal of the men she killed. The film also aroused the ire of John Tanner, the Florida state attorney who prosecuted Wuornos, who claimed he was never consulted by the filmmakers. Tanner dismissed the film’s depiction of what occurred as a total lie. In defense of the film, Brad Wyman (one of its producers) attempted to pacify the film’s detractors by claiming that, “It’s not a documentary...It is a dramatic portrayal searching for a greater truth than a factual truth” (The Internet Movie Database, 2004b, p. 1). Rabin (2004) summarized the formal and thematic contents of the film in this manner:

Patty Jenkins combines the gritty, claustrophobic neo-realism of Dahmer with the unlikely gutter romanticism of Boys Don’ t Cry, creating a haunting portrait of how a person can feel so desperate and hopeless that murdering for a few crumpled bills and maybe a beat-up car can begin to seem like a reasonable option. (p. 1)

(One could make the argument at this point that it is the dark side of the “American Dream”— that is, the “cultural emphasis on achievement, which promotes productivity and innovation, also generates pressures to succeed at any cost” [Messner & Rosenfeld, 2001, p. 13]—that produces monsters like Wuornos, but that is not the focus of this article.)

What is crucial to this article is that there are Gothic elements to the portrayal of Wuornos. For example, the polluted urban highways and dark woods in which Wuornos and her customers furtively do their commerce display the mimetic correspondence between the Gothic setting and its characters. In an interesting parallel, Wuornos’ depiction as both childlike and animal-like in her stunted moral development resembles Van Helsing’s description of Dracula as operating as if motivated by a “child-brain in much . . . and it is of the child to do what he have done” (Stoker, 1997, p. 336). This childlikeness is crucial to what makes both vampires and the Frankensteinian Monster Gothic, because childlikeness is actually construed as a form of primitivism, and as freedom from conventional morality. This is not to collapse one into the other, but to show the key affinities they possess in common, which make them repositories of Gothic imagery.

Nevertheless, the principal Gothic monster who emerges from this narrative is the Frankensteinian Monster—a lumbering, lonely misfit desperately in search of love; a neglected child in a body too large for it to control; and a creature who ends up a fallen Eve despite the purity of her aspirations. In the end, it is hardly surprising that Wuornos meets the fate of female monsters or the feminine-as-monstrous characters who inhabit the classic horror versions of the evolving Frankensteinian cinemyth. It is either they commit suicide (such as Helena Bonham Carter’s composite Elizabeth-Justine in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein or Susan Denberg’s Christina Kleve in Frankenstein Created Woman [Keys & Fisher, 1967]) or someone else (usually a white, masculine aristocratic figure, or an establishment upholding this hierarchy) kills them off (e.g., Elsa Lanchester’s monstrous bride in Bride of Frankenstein [Laemmle Jr. & Whale, 1935]). Broomfield’s (2003) second documentary on Wuornos reveals an eerie parallelism between the two narratives. Before her execution, not realizing the camera was still rolling, Wuornos admitted that she changed her story of self-defense to one of robbery and murder in order to hasten the execution which, after 12 long years on death row—a period she claimed was not immune from further abuse and exploitation—she welcomed.

Conclusion: Of Monsters and Doppelgangern

This article began by gesturing toward the overlap of vampiric themes in male serial murder films. In contrast, it is the implicit portrait of the Frankensteinian Monster that surfaces in the depiction of the lesbian female serial killer Aileen Wuornos. This article also broadly outlines a significant change in the depiction of the vampire in more recent literary Gothic popular novels. For example, in Saberhagen’s (1975) The Dracula Tape, Rice’s (1976) Interview with the Vampire and Scott’s (1984) I, Vampire, vampires acquire the authorial voice. In crafting their own narratives, they become more sympathetic, more superhumanly human, and much less radically the other. As noted by Punter and Byron (2004), “They are more likely to offer a site of identification rather than a metaphor for what must be abjected, and with the movement from the metaphorical to the metonymical, the vampire increasingly serves to facilitate social commentary on the human world” (p. 271). This grows even more pronounced in the most recent characterizations of Wuornos as a Frankensteinian Monster—a neglected social misfit in search of love—both in fictionalized and documentary treatments of her story.

Arguably, the move toward establishing the monstrous other as a site of identification becomes particularly disturbing in the case of the serial killer, one of the most compelling monsters that dominate the last part of the 20th century. While sympathy is not precisely the word to describe the response encouraged by serial killer narratives, as we point out in our analysis of fictional serial killer films, there is often nevertheless a certain ambivalence in the representations of modern monsters. In docudramas such as Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer and Ed Gein, the serial killer as an abused abuser emerges, while in horror films such as The Silence of the Lambs and Immortality, vampiric aristocraticism and Byronic sex appeal become key features of the mythic serial killer. Often viewed as merely symptomatic of an increasingly violent and alienated society, the serial killer might seem to call for the most emphatic reassertion of social norms and the strongest reaffirmation of conservative values, which happened in the creation of the new FBI Behavioral Science Unit, as Surrette (2005) pointed out (see also Punter & Byron, 2004). This is, however, rarely the case in fictional and popular narratives (Surrette, 2005).

Rather than being established as the demonic other that must be exorcised from mainstream society, the serial killer is explicitly identified as that society’s logical and inevitable product. Thus, society, rather than the individual, emerges as a primary site of horror. In such narratives, there is rarely any assurance that the threat can be contained. Rather than being staked, the serial killer, society’s monstrous progeny, is simply left to carry on. Even in the most reassuring serial killer narratives, often those in which a criminal profiler is offered encouraging evidence that the monstrous can be identified and contained, the majority of texts remain at the very least ambivalent about the repudiation of the monstrous. The stability and autonomy of the self and the other, as well as the clear separability of good and evil, are frequently undercut through a particularly emphatic use of the traditional Gothic Doppelgänger. The killer may ultimately be caught and punished, but this is often brought about by the profiler’s over- identification with the killer, as in Clarice Starling’s pursuit of Buffalo Bill under the mentorship of Hannibal Lecter. Popular narratives such as these are actually more complex and force us to confront the realization that the potential for corruption and violence lies within us all, and the horror comes above all from an appalling sense of recognizing ourselves in our others (Punter & Byron, 2004). Ultimately, one could argue that the Frankensteinian Monster archetype is perhaps more frightening than the vampire archetype precisely because it elicits sympathy (and, in so doing, questions the self/other dichotomy) more than the male vampire model. And perhaps precisely because it is more frightening, it is harnessed within a predominantly feminized film genre: the melodramatic.

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10 Things You Should Do In Spongebob Intro Painting | spongebob intro painting

TV and comic-book biographer Martin Pasko, accepted for his assignment on iconic DC curve like Superman and Daytime Emmy Award-winning about-face as biographer and adventure editor for Batman: The Animated Series as able-bodied as its affection film, Mask of the Phantasm, has died at age 65. Friend and adolescent biographer Alan Brennert aggregate in a Facebook column that Pasko anesthetized Sunday night of accustomed causes. He had been active in North Hills, CA.

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Pasko was built-in Jean-Claude Rochefort in Quebec in 1954. The ambitious biographer got a bottom in the comic-books aperture with common appearances in the letter columns of comics and in fanzines — he and Brennert alike founded their own, Fantazine. Pasko began autograph for comics in 1972, acceptable a approved contributor to DC titles including Superman, DC Comics Presents and Superman Family by 1974. He additionally bound installments of the publisher’s Justice League of America, Wonder Woman and Swamp Thing.

Continuing to assignment in comics throughout the 1980s and ’90s, Pasko added a admeasurement of TV titles to his resume — somewhat of a hit account of cornball animation. Pasko wrote or was adventure editor for Mister T, Blackstar, Thundarr the Barbarian, Goldie Gold and Action Jack, The Berenstain Bears, G.I. Joe, Moon Dreamers, My Little Pony ‘n Friends, the Superman TV shorts (“Fugitive from Space”), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Bucky O’Hare and the Toad Wars!, The Legend of Prince Valiant, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, Mega Man, Exosquad and, best recently, Cannon Busters (2019).

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Pasko was alert nominated for the Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Autograph in an Animated Program for Bruce Timm’s Batman: The Animated Series, in 1993 (when he aggregate the win with Paul Dini, Michael Reaves and Sean Catherine Derek) and in 1994. He additionally wrote the cine for the feature-length Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993).

His live-action biographer and adventure editor credits included The Twilight Zone, Simon & Simonand Roseanne, as able-bodied as episodes of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, The Incredible Hulk and Max Headroom.

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In the ’90s, Pasko was on agents for both the Disney Comics characterization and DC, area he was the accumulation bazaar accumulation editor and communication to Warner Bros. Studios until 2005. In this role, he consulted on the development of affected and TV projects including Birds of Prey and Smallville. As above admiral of DC Paul Levitz wrote on Facebook, “[T]he allowance are you’ve apprehend his work, accustomed or not, or enjoyed a banana or animation or TV appearance or alike a affair esplanade accident he fabricated better…”

[Source: The Hollywood Reporter]

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Gotham By Geeks ep 170 Batman: Black & White

Gotham By Geeks ep 170 Batman: Black & White

We recorded this episode prior to the passing of Marty Pasko a creator who has contributed so mch to comics but also tv and animation he shall be missed.

Detective Comics 463-464 Batman Family 17 Gerry Conway, Jim Aparo Batman Black and White World , Simon Bisley, Neil Gaiman Batman Black and White Good Evening Midnight by Klaus Janson Batman Black and White Two of a Kind by Bruce Timm Detective…

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“Non abbandonare la cura con cui regoli il tuo cuore su queste tenerezze parenti dell’autunno”: intorno a una poesia di René Char (in traduzione d’eccellenza, introvabile)

La poesia che riproduco è tratta da Le Poème pulvérisé, pubblicato in edizione d’arte, con “una incisione di Matisse”, nel 1947. L’anno prima Gallimard edita Feuillets d’Hypnos, l’anno dopo Fureur et Mystère. Dopo l’ipnosi della lotta, in cui René Char indossa il nome di “Capitaine Alexandre” – Alessandro, protettore di uomini – e prima del furore impregnato di mistero, la polverizzazione. Char – degno nipote di Rimbaud – sa che la scrittura scortica fino all’ultimo, non arretra agli orrori, fino al grido primo, alla purezza insopportabile. Sa che si scrive per strapparsi la lingua e convertire il sangue in luce.

*

Si polverizza il canto perché dalle ceneri sorga una parola nuova, che dia natura e nitore all’alba del prossimo millennio. Char, in quel grumo di anni, conosce Camus e Braque, divorzia dalla moglie, Georgette Goldstein, si unisce all’antropologa Tina Jolas, instaura una frugale asperità nel dire, assurge alla sorgente della solitudine. Se la poesia va scovata, scavando a perpendicolo tra la petraia delle civiltà sepolte e la fiumana dei futuri, il poeta è creatura da pretendere, da predare nella giungla, nella giuncaia dei sensi. Di René Char molto si dice – troppo poco si pubblica. Capisco: educarsi alla luce significa non accettare altra cecità.

*

Vent’anni fa, nel 1999, Palomard esce con una silloge di Poesie di Char. Non dico l’assurdo dicendo che la traduzione di Pasko Simone e più bella di quelle – bellissime per altro modo, per l’incontro con il poeta – di Vittorio Sereni e di Giorgio Caproni. Il libro mi è stato donato, e diventa verbo da masticare appena svegli, quando la finestra che sfoga in azzurro mi abbaglia, e così il suono delle nuvole. Mastichi quel verbo che non ha bisogno di meditazione ma di tocco – la poesia non si ‘comprende’, si assedia – e il seguire delle ore – “la stregoneria della clessidra”, dice Char – è sequela giustificata, sguainata. Un libro introvabile, forse, per questo, un dono memorabile, di insopprimibile bellezza.

*

“Tradurre Char vuol dire amarlo. La pazienza, la dedizione, la passione non possono essere che quelle di un amante eccezionalmente felice perché corrisposto in ogni sua aspettativa”, scrive Pasko Simone. La traduzione di Char è compito liturgico, anche la lettura è ingresso in un luogo, in una dimora. Le parole fanno questo: aprono una dimora, una città rifugio.

*

Penso che bastino le parole giuste per convertire un destino dal terrore all’amore del buio e di tutte le sue tigri. Le parole agiscono come mute di cani e statura d’abete. Se la parola assertiva carcera quella poetica apre, turba per eccesso di possibilità, ti scaglia alla pianura sterminata, al sauro senza briglie.

*

Dare peso alla notte – leggeri – e poi disfarsi, signoreggiare sull’impossibile, essere i contadini del proprio abisso, “ma tu hai scavato negli occhi del leone” – per dissotterrare quale speranza?, quale acuminata promessa? René Char ci insegna a non obliare il dolore, che è la nostra identità, ma a curarlo, come la cosa cara, lo sgomento che conforta. Si spartisce la morte dopo l’amore, dissi, perché l’amore sia un patto, il più forte. (d.b.)

***

Abito un dolore

Non abbandonare la cura con cui regoli il tuo cuore su queste tenerezze parenti dell’autunno, di cui ricalcano la placida andatura e l’affabile agonia. L’occhio è precoce nel piegarsi. La sofferenza conosce poche parole. Preferisci coricarti senza pesi: sognerai dell’indomani e il letto ti sarà leggero. Sognerei che la tua casa non ha più vetri. Impaziente di unirti al vento, al vento che percorre un anno in una sola notte. Altri canteranno l’incorporante melodia, le carni che non rappresentano altro che la stregoneria della clessidra. Tu condannerai la gratitudine che si ripete. Più tardi, sarai identificato con qualche gigante in disfacimento, signore dell’impossibile.

E tuttavia

Non hai fatto altro che dare più peso alla tua notte. Sei tornato alla pesca alle murate, alla canicola senza estate. Sei furioso verso il tuo amore, nel centro di un’intesa che sgomenta. Pensa alla casa perfetta che non vedrai mai innalzata. A quando la raccolta dell’abisso? Ma tu hai scavato negli occhi del leone. Tu credi di veder passare la bellezza al di sopra delle nere lavande…

Che cosa ti ha sollevato, ancora una volta, un po’ più in alto senza convincerti?

Non esiste pura dimora.

René Char

*da: René Char, “Poesie”, Palomar 1999, traduzione italiana di Pasko Simone

L'articolo “Non abbandonare la cura con cui regoli il tuo cuore su queste tenerezze parenti dell’autunno”: intorno a una poesia di René Char (in traduzione d’eccellenza, introvabile) proviene da Pangea.

from pangea.news http://bit.ly/2WujqDd

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“Dì ciò che il fuoco esita a dire, e muori d’averlo detto per tutti”: René Char e Paul Celan, poeti dell’impossibile. Dialogo con Marco Ercolani

“Siete uno dei rari poeti con cui vorrei incontrarmi”, gli scrive, due giorni dopo, nel luglio del 1954. Paul Celan gli aveva descritto l’“angosciata speranza che domina i miei rari incontri con la Poesia”, confessando il desiderio, “senza disturbarvi”, di incontrarlo. Segue, appunto, la risposta di René Char. A quella vertigine d’anni Char ha già pubblicato Feuillets d’Hypnos e Fureur et Mystère; Celan ha dato Papavero e memoria – che dedicherà “A René Char, che mi ha aperto la sua porta” – e lavora a Di soglia in soglia. Leggo queste lettere, il riconoscimento di poeti che sondano l’inconosciuto del linguaggio, che sono penetrati nel fiammeggiare del verbo, e mi commuovo. Ci sono incontri, in effetti, che mutano l’asse terrestre. I libri importanti, oggi, vanno cercati, tra le ombre. Le edizioni Carteggi Letterari hanno pubblicato, per la cura di Marco Ercolani, L’archetipo della parola. René Char e Paul Celan, testo di lucente necessità. Il libro presenta un florilegio di testi poetici di Char e di Celan (per le traduzioni di Francesco Marotta, Pasko Simone, Viviane Ciampi, Anna Maria Curci, Mario Ajazzi Mancini), e alcuni saggi di granitica necessità (di Peter Szondi e di Maurice Blanchot, una intervista di Jacques Derrida, la testimonianza di Peter Handke, “Allora ho osato tradurre René Char, e mentre lo facevo ho riletto i presocratici, in particolare Eraclito. Il mio lavoro di traduzione non si è mai svolto a casa, sul mio tavolo: la soluzione – sì, era una soluzione, un chiarimento – mi è sempre venuta stando fuori, davanti alla casa, e sempre mentre camminavo, specialmente su e giù nel giardino, mai quand’ero seduto, spesso fermandomi di colpo e ridendo, sempre in pieno sole”). A me pare un libro bellissimo, nella clandestinità editoriale, opera di chi, fuori dal cappio economico, presta il tempo e l’intelligenza al decisivo, al salvifico. Nel suo lavoro di cucitura, Marco Ercolani dichiara il gesto poetico, stratosfericamente esemplificato da Char e Celan, come “esperienza dell’impossibile”. In questo modo va letto l’altro suo libro, anamnesi della generosità, Fuochi complici (Il Leggio, 2019), in cui Ercolani raccoglie l’esito di una lettura decennale, l’incontro con poeti più o meno celebrati, nel sigillo della meraviglia. “Il poeta, da sempre, mette al centro della scena il dissolversi del mondo e il dolore della bellezza che svanisce, del tempo che ci ruba la vita”, scrive Ercolani, che s’immerga con stupefacente candore nella lirica, senza il peso della catastrofe e del pregiudizio. Consapevole della fragilità del verbo, dell’alfabeto d’ombra e di fiamma della poesia, parola gettata a destinatari inauditi, dalle cui palpebre si fanno culle, amaca al mostro. (d.b.)

Cosa ti ha portato a Char e a Celan, al loro intreccio, di poeti letali e liminali, nell’adozione di una lingua che sfida il nascosto e sfida l’inaudito, l’in-detto, l’indeciso e l’indecifrabile, eppure, per l’esistere, quasi opposti?

Quando avevo poco più di vent’anni, in una rivista genovese pubblicavo un saggio dedicato proprio a René Char e Paul Celan, con Osip Mandels’tam i poeti decisivi della poesia contemporanea, e lo intitolavo Poesia per una fine. Mi sono accorto, con il passare degli anni, che entrambi sono le due facce di una stessa medaglia: l’enigma petroso di Char non poteva che convivere con il folle affanno di Celan. Uno stesso mistero declinato da due versanti diversi, quasi opposti. E ho capito che la loro poesia non mi parlava di una fine” ma, al contrario, di un “inizio”, del quale discutere ancora oggi.

Del libro (“L’archetipo della parola”) vedo e apprezzo il lavoro comune, una comunità del limite. Come sono stati scelti i testi, e dove ti sei introdotto, tu?

Nel blog “La dimora del tempo sospeso”, curato da Francesco Marotta e Antonio Devicienti, ho scoperto ottime traduzioni di Char dello stesso Marotta, e lo splendido lavoro di Annamaria Curci, traduttrice di Celan e Szondi. Ho chiesto a Giuseppe Zuccarino traduzioni da Blanchot, Derrida, Handke. Lucetta Frisa ha ri-tradotto una poesia di Eluard dedicata a Char per i “Cahiers de l’Herne”. Io stesso ho scelto una breve antologia di lettere che testimoniassero l’incontro reale dei due poeti, e ho composto un saggio su Char. Più che una “comunità del limite” ho trovato una “comunità dei senza comunità”, in senso batailliano: delle persone capaci di partecipare a un lavoro collettivo che testimoniasse l’inutile e indispensabile bellezza della poesia, in un clima di sorridente e tragica “dépense”. Natalia Castaldi, direttrice di “Carteggi letterari Edizioni”, ha sostenuto con entusiasmo il progetto editoriale.

In forma di premessa dici: “Char e Celan sono interpreti di quell’esperienza dell’impossibile che è e sarà sempre la poesia”. Mi pare una poetica in pillole. Spiegala. 

La sentenza di Char: «Dì ciò che il fuoco esita a dire, e muori d’averlo detto per tutti» è già un’indicazione che sgretola l’ego del poeta. La poesia deve innalzarsi e andare oltre di sé, come scrive Bonnefoy: «L’uccello varca il canto dell’uccello ed evade». L’enigma della poesia è essere “fuori di sé”, è costruire le forme di questa “evasione” con esattezza. Non vivere la pienezza del canto ma la sua radice, che è grido: e, in quanto grido, sperimentare l’impossibilità della parola di descrivere il suo oggetto. La poesia è stare ai margini dell’afasia, davanti a qualcosa che ammutolisce il linguaggio. Il suo stupor crea e reinventa con le parole le forme del suo stupore. Il poeta ha un solo dovere: fondare limiti nuovi al linguaggio poetico che esprime il dissolversi di ogni limite. Afferma con potenza Novalis: «La poesia è il reale veramente assoluto».

Come si salda quella tua poetica ‘dell’impossibile’ con gli autori con cui sei entrato in sintonia in “Fuochi complici”, e cosa intendi dunque per complicità (essa non è, in fondo, implicita nell’atto di lettura)?

Sono convinto, da lettore, che la complicità sia parte integrante dell’atto di lettura. In Fuochi complici sono entrato in personale sintonia con cento libri, in versi e in prosa, scritti tra il 2001 e il 2019 da cento poeti italiani, nati fra il 1929 e il 1985, dove il sigillo dell’autenticità si accorda alla logica interna del testo, e ne ho tratto delle mie note di lettura (il termine “note” rammenta sia l’idea del segno musicale sia la brevitas dell’annotazione). Questo libro-atlante, non classificabile e non esaustivo, condotto per gusti, analogie, assonanze, mi ha persuaso che la poetica dell’impossibile, di cui parlo, è il desiderio di trovare sempre, nell’atto poetico, nell’azzardo di una voce, quella felice ulteriorità, sintattica e tematica, che rompa gli schemi di una poesia innocua, banale, prevedibile – quella poesia tout court che Lev Lunc già ridicolizzava negli anni delle avanguardie russe.

Insomma, vorrei dirti, dato il frutto di una lettura proficua e ventennale: come sta la poesia italiana del nuovo millennio? Lo chiedo a chi, al di là di nichilismi assolutori (tutto fa schifo) e di bieco ottimismo (siamo nel migliore dei mondi lirici possibili) legge al cuore dell’alterità totale del poeta. 

La poesia contemporanea non sta male. Molte voci la abitano, e testimoniano uno sguardo non allineato, “altro” rispetto a una visione comune. È sorprendente scoprire come in molti poeti, naturalmente ignoti alla maggior parte dei lettori, ci sia una libertà di sguardo transgenerazionale. Difficile, nella marea dei libri pubblicati, è operare una selezione e “trovare” quegli autori che ci convincano a leggere il loro libro senza provare la noia del già visto, del già letto. Trovarli è già una gioia. Un libro come Fuochi complici ha la presunzione di averne scoperti alcuni, e vorrebbe anche sottrarsi alla domanda implicita in ogni libro antologico: «perché hai scelto quei poeti e perché hai trascurato quegli altri?». La risposta è semplice: gli autori di cui parlo si accordano ai miei gusti, e cercano la “dépense”, l’alterità, il rischio, la sincera originalità del dettato, seguendo una musica interiore a me consona e una profonda dedizione esistenziale al fenomeno “poesia”. Aspetto, sempre e comunque, di leggere nuove voci presso nuovi editori, perché rinasca il desiderio di comporre un ulteriore libro sui poeti e sulla poesia, come già accadde per Fuoricanto, pubblicato nel 2000 da Campanotto, e Vertigine e misura, apparso nel 2008 per le edizioni La Vita Felice.

A un giovane, poco avvertito e con molta voglia (ne è pieno il tempo, oggi): che libro di poesia gli consigli, che poeta gli dai, per avventurarsi nell’avventato? 

Due nomi: Lorenzo Calogero, poeta del sonnambulismo interiore, e Bartolo Cattafi, creatore di immagini materiche: due classici sommersi e diversi ma sempre fecondi, letti nella totalità della loro opera. Per la poesia contemporanea italiana molti sarebbero i nomi da fare, ma scoprirli da soli, per un lettore giovane, sarebbe già un bel viaggio, orientati dal web. Chi legge va sempre verso i suoi simili. Pronuncio appena qualche nome: Antonella Anedda, Lucetta Frisa, Massimo Morasso, Alfonso Guida, Ilaria Seclì.

*In copertina: René Char (1907-1988)

L'articolo “Dì ciò che il fuoco esita a dire, e muori d’averlo detto per tutti”: René Char e Paul Celan, poeti dell’impossibile. Dialogo con Marco Ercolani proviene da Pangea.

from pangea.news http://bit.ly/2VnEr22