#caesar shelley

[stastrodome]

Sir John Gielgud as Caesar, Jason Robards as Brutus and Shelley Fabares as Portia in 1970's Julius Caesar.

Go cry about your tenure’s end Go complain to Aunt Blabby For those who keep too many friends Life can get a little stabby

[thebanishedreader]

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote made me fall in love with both true crime and unreliable narrators.

Julius Caesar made me fall in love with Shakespeare.

Frankenstein is one of my favorite books of all time. <3

got thoughtful about opinions on bad books so here’s an inverse: what’s a book you had to read for school that you actually enjoyed/have grown to like? mine is Lord of the Flies

[twistedtummies2]

Top 15 Werewolves

If there is a specific trifecta of truly classic monsters - a Terrible Trio as iconic together as they are separate - it would undoubtedly be Count Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, and the Werewolf. The interesting thing there is that, while “Dracula” and “Frankenstein” are specific creations, the werewolf is more woolgathering. (Ha-Ha! Sheep puns for the win!) There is no Bram Stoker or Mary Shelley novel for the werewolf that everyone looks to for inspiration and remakes, reimagines, or re-adapts over and over again. Yet, at the same time, the idea of the werewolf is older than either Dracula or Frankenstein and his progeny: werewolf myths can be traced back all the way to Ancient Greece. That’s older than even most vampire legends! And that, dear readers, is probably why this list proved…challenging. I could go on and on about the symbolism of the werewolf, the themes present in most werewolf tales, the appeal and evolution of the concept, and so on…but I’m not going to right here in this introduction, for two reasons. First of all, because I will have ample room to bring those things up throughout the countdown…and second of all, because I just want to state OH MY FREAKING GOD, YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW HARD IT WAS TRYING TO MAKE THIS LIST. This was sincerely one of the most frustratingly tricky lists for me to sort out that I’ve ever made. There are multiple reasons why, but it ultimately comes down to two major ones: first, much like with vampires, I haven’t seen every single werewolf-related thing under the Sun. So I knew there were a lot of really popular werewolves that I couldn’t rightfully include simply because I don’t know anything about them. Second, for the ones I DID know, it was hard to figure out what would make certain characters count, and what would help determine who ranked higher than others. There were just a lot of different factors to consider. Just as there were two major issues that made this difficult, I ultimately made my choices based on two points. First, I decided to exclude characters who were anthropomorphic wolves, but weren’t necessarily werewolves: to qualify, the characters in question had to either shapeshift from a more human form to a more wolf-like form, or - if they were in the same form all the time - the human side had to be more the focus. Second, I simply asked myself one question: “What characters do I think of most when I think of werewolves?” That was really the plain and simple point, and I tried to approach my rankings based on that: this is not a list of the “hottest” or the “coolest” werewolves, and it is not a list of the most sympathetic or the scariest werewolves, nor is it - for a change - a list about which ones I’d rather play or write for the most. I’m still not sure the ranking here is in any way definitive. If there are wolf characters you don’t see here that you really love (I KNOW there WILL be, frankly), the chances are high that I either just don’t know them, or they just didn’t make the cut because, again, this was a very difficult list to sort out in general. If you don’t like it, make your own. :P With that said…in honor of Halloween, here are My Top 15 Favorite Werewolves!

15. Grimm, Caesar, and Douglas Wolf.

From the games “A Villain’s Twisted Heart,” “Ozmafia,” and “Lost Alice,” respectively. I decided to include all three of these characters in the same spot because a.) I like all three of them roughly the same, and b.) all three of them have a lot in common. Grimm, Caesar, and Douglas are all “anime boi” type characters, all of them originate from fairy-tale themed romance games from Japan, and all three of them are their universe’s version of the Big Bad Wolf from “Little Red Riding Hood.” All three also start off the stories they appear in as villainous characters: brutal, vicious, murderous monsters, who will gobble you up as soon as look at you. However, in all three cases, as their stories in the games go on, you do see more sympathetic sides to them; in the cases of Grimm and Caesar, you even have the option and ability to fall in love with them. Douglas remains a villain to the end, but that’s about the only EXTREMELY major difference within the trio, at least that’s worth noting for this countdown. While I love all three characters, and the obvious eye candy cannot be ignored, I frankly don’t tend to think of “sexy anime guys” first when I think of the word “werewolf,” so I decided to place them very low on the list. Sorry, for any (if any) who were hoping they’d be higher.

14. Keaton, from Fire Emblem.

Yet another “anime boi” character. (Don’t worry, if you’re not a fan; they won’t be in great abundance from this point on.) I’m not SUPER familiar with the Fire Emblem universe as a whole, but I AM fairly well-versed with at least one character, and that is Keaton. He is the leader of a pack of lycanthropes referred to as “Wolfskins”: a tribe of barbaric, man-eating hunters living in the mountains of Nohr. They are able to shapeshift from an appearance that looks basically human, but with some wolf-like traits, to huge, hulking, grotesque monsters that are even more wolfish in form. At first, Keaton is an enemy of the main characters, but he ultimately becomes an ally and a friend and joins forces with the heroes on their journey. Keaton is one of those characters I love who effectively has two different sides to his personality: on the one hand, he’s a bloodthirsty sadist who makes no secret of the fact he enjoys tormenting his prey, and even collects the bones of some of his victims. On the other hand, however, once he comes to trust you and care about you - which is absolutely possible - he suddenly becomes flat out adorable: just a scruffy, silly puppy dog who likes to act all big and scary, but really is a softy. The funny part about this is that neither side is a facade for the other: Keaton is both a savage beast and a sweetheart, and that dichotomy is just so interesting to see at work.

13. Eddie Munster, from The Munsters.

From Japanese gaming guys, to suburban USA; what a segue. “The Munsters” was a 1960s sitcom series, inspired by the popularity of “The Addams Family,” which was going on around the same time. Though it only lasted two seasons, the show made a big impact, largely due to its interesting premise: it featured a family of Universal Monsters, interacting with the normal folks of the American town around them. While the original Wolfman - here called “Uncle Lester” - did appear in a couple of episodes, the most prominent werewolf character of the series was Eddie Munster: the daughter of Herman Munster (Frankenstein’s Monster) and his lovely bride, Lily (Dracula’s Daughter). How they gave birth to Eddie is beyond me, but regardless, Eddie is probably the friendliest and most adorable werewolf you could ever meet. The character didn’t start off that way, though: in earlier ideas for the show, including an unaired pilot, Eddie was a vicious, bratty little gremlin. However, by the time the show officially aired, the character had changed into a loving, happy young fellow who simply enjoyed spending time with his dad and was never seen without his beloved werewolf plushy, Woof-Woof. The character was originally played by Butch Patrick on the TV show; like other Munsters characters, Eddie has been reimagined and reinterpreted a few times over the years, but not a single version has really had the success that the original had.

12. Jiro, from Kamen Rider Kiva.

And now we return to Japan, though this time in the world of live-action media. I’ve mentioned “Kamen Rider Kiva” a couple times this month, and on other past occasions, but for those who don’t already know: the long and the short of “Kamen Rider Kiva” is a Japanese superhero show themed around Universal Monsters. One of the main characters of the series is our resident anti-hero, Jiro - a.k.a. Garuru - the last of the Wolfen Race. Most of his most prominent appearances take place in the past scenes of the series, set in 1986. For much of that section of the series, Jiro is an antagonistic presence; unlike Universal’s Wolfman, he isn’t a tortured soul tormented by his animal nature, but instead a cynic who sees the world of humans as corrupt and filled with folly. He enjoys devouring people whole, especially young women, and is as seductive as he is dangerous. However, as the series goes on, he shows more and more of a noble side to his character. By the time of the present day in the show, Jiro has changed his ways, and now works alongside Riki (the Frankenstein Monster character) and Ramon (the Creature From the Black Lagoon) to assist the main protagonist, Wataru, on his quest to defeat the vampiric Fangires. In his human form, Jiro was played by Kenji Matsuda. As Garuru, he was played by Seiji Takaiwa.

11. Man-Wolf AND Werewolf By Night, from Marvel.

Just as Marvel has had many wizards and vampires, it is also home to multiple werewolves. And just as I credited two vampires from the comic company in the past, I’m going to credit two werewolves. First, there’s Man-Wolf; a recurring foe of Spider-Man. The Man-Wolf is actually John Jameson, the son of J. Jonah Jameson. John is an astronaut, who was transformed into the monstrous Man-Wolf thanks to a mysterious ruby he found while exploring the Moon. (As you do.) The jewel was grafted to his skin, and though it was eventually removed safely, John has returned to his Man-Wolf form off-and-on throughout comics history. Next, there’s the Werewolf By Night. A couple of people have held this title, the first and most famous being Jack Russell: a man whose entire bloodline is plagued by the curse of the werewolf. Initially a drifting beast of ambiguous alignment, the Werewolf By Night now uses his lycanthropic abilities to battle other supernatural terrors and criminal powers. While neither character is a household name, both have shown up in other media multiple times; Werewolf By Night, for instance, recently got a very interesting short film adaptation in the MCU, where Jack Russell was played by Gael Garcia Bernal. As for Man-Wolf, while John has appeared multiple times, his werewolf alter-ego isn’t QUITE as common. His most popular appearances have been in cartoon shows like “Spider-Man Unlimited” and “Ultimate Spider-Man.”

10. Ethan Chandler, from Penny Dreadful.

“Penny Dreadful” was a Showtime series that was made in homage to the various characters and tropes of “Ye Olde Gothic Horror.” The main cast consisted of a combination of original characters, as well as figures from famous works of dark classic literature, such as “Dracula” and “Frankenstein.” Ethan Chandler - played by Josh Hartnett - was sort of in-between. At the start of the series, Ethan is a gunslinger working as a performer for a Wild Bill style traveling show. He leaves show business - albeit reluctantly - after being offered a job as a bodyguard by the two main protagonists of the series, Vanessa Ives and Sir Malcolm Murray. Ethan thus joins them on their quest to find the vampire that kidnapped Sir Malcolm’s daughter and Vanessa’s friend, Mina, and thus the series is set in motion. However, things take a turn when it’s revealed Ethan has some dark secrets of his own: his real name is Ethan Talbot, and he is - what else? - a werewolf. (Interestingly, while Ethan’s true name was inspired by the Wolfman, Josh Hartnett’s werewolf makeup was inspired by an earlier Universal werewolf, the Werewolf of London.) As a man, Ethan is a charming, heroic, attractive fellow, albeit not one without flaws. When he becomes a werewolf, however, he turns into a feral, monstrous beast that has no other purpose but to kill. As a werewolf, Ethan recognizes neither friend nor foe, simply lashing out in bestial fury at anything and anyone that enters his path. As the series goes on, Ethan’s werewolf nature becomes more and more a focal point of his character, eventually leading him on a journey back home to America, where he must try to come to grips with the ghosts of his past. While Ethan’s actual werewolf form didn’t show up very often throughout the show, this just made the moments where he gave in to the beast within all the more impactful and interesting.

9. Jon Talbain, from Darkstalkers.

I’ve brought up Darkstalkers two or three times throughout this month, and it seems I must do so one last time. For those who don’t already know, this classic fighting game series was a tribute to the Universal Monsters, with characters inspired by Count Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, the Mummy, the Creature From the Black Lagoon, and others. Jon Talbain is our resident werewolf of this universe, and while I actually only recently got into this series and its lore, I actually knew about Talbain for a long time. The character seems to be one of the more popular in the franchise, and I’d seen a great many pieces of fanart featuring him long before I actually looked into the games and spin-off materials. Talbain is a bizarre combo of the Wolfman and Bruce Lee…no, seriously. Those were the two separate influences on his character. Talbain has been plagued by the werewolf’s curse since birth: his parents were a human and a werewolf respectively. He has lived as an orphan most of his life, as his mother died in childbirth, and his father apparently left early on. Talbain finds his lycanthropy a curse, as he is shunned by human society, which he has since formed a bit of a grudge against. While not necessarily evil, Talbain sees humanity as corrupt, prejudicial, and untrustworthy; he doesn’t go out of his way to hurt people, instead hoping to find a way to fight his primal urges, but he has no love for humanity as a whole. Now, that’s all well and good, but your probably wondering where the Bruce Lee side of things kicks in: to try and keep his powers in check, Talbain took to studying martial arts, and his moveset in the games, and his taunts, are inspired by Lee’s, with a bit of supernatural spookiness thrown in here and there. I think it’s the exposure to the aforementioned fanworks, before even learning much of the universe, that gets Jon so high in the ranks; I always liked the character’s design and the bare basics of what I knew from those pieces, and learning about him AS a character has only intensified that interest.

8. The Three Werewolves from Van Helsing.

Yes, once more we return to Stephen Sommers’ less successful attempt at managing the Universal Monsters, following his generally more lauded work with “The Mummy.” A critical and box office failure, “Van Helsing” - a tribute to classic “Monster Mash” movies of the 40s - nevertheless gained a cult following, and while it has its fair share of detractors, it also has a decent number of fans. I suppose you can count me as among them, since I do consider the movie to be something of a guilty pleasure; it’s completely over-the-top and insane, and that’s part of the fun. While characters like Dracula and the Frankenstein Monster are prominently featured, the film chooses not to adapt the Wolfman specifically, and instead gives us three different werewolves! The first is an unnamed, somewhat older-looking lycanthrope, whom Dracula sics on the last members of the Valerious family: Anna, one of the main protagonists, and her brother, Velkan. Although Velkan succeeds in slaying this werewolf, it is at the cost of becoming a werewolf himself. In his werewolf form, Velkan ironically becomes a puppet of Dracula, until he is slain by Van Helsing. But the cycle continues, as Van Helsing himself ends up bitten by Velkan in the process. This leads to a climactic final battle, where a werewolf Van Helsing duels the demonic King of the Vampires. While the CGI in this movie is notoriously “meh,” I’ve always loved the actual character/creature designs, and the three werewolves of this film are among the first I think of when I think of werewolves in general. Incidentally, Will Kemp - the actor who plays Velkan - is most well-known as a dancer; I say this because he later appeared in a ballet version of “Peter and the Wolf.” Somehow, I doubt this casting choice was a coincidence.

7. The Colony, from The Howling.

“The Howling” was a 1981 horror movie, based on a bestselling novel of the same name. I actually HAVE read this novel, for a change…BUT, I’ve only read it once, and it was a long time ago, so I really don’t remember a whole lot about it, sadly. As a result, I can really only judge the movie, but thankfully the movie is pretty good. The film is considered one of the key essential werewolf movies ever made, as it took the concept in a very different direction from most. In many past werewolf movies, the focus of the story was on the singular, outcast werewolf, who was usually depicted as a tragic figure: possessed by a literal inner monster they couldn’t really control. “The Howling,” however, changes things up: the story focuses on a young husband and wife, traumatized after an encounter with a sadistic serial killer called Eddie Quist. To try and recover, they head to a place called “The Colony,” a secluded countryside resort. It turns out, however, that the people who live at the Colony are all werewolves, and among their ranks is none other than Eddie and his family. There is nothing remotely tragic about most of the werewolves in the Colony: instead, the idea of the animal within is taken in a more twisted direction. This pack of wolf-people believe they are superior to the human race, and gleefully embrace their dark sides with wicked abandon; to become a werewolf, in their minds, is to embrace the carnal, primal, powerful sides of themselves. They are truly free and in control of the world around them. It’s an interesting and genuinely scary direction to go with the concept, and the film led to multiple sequels…none of which I’ve seen, and my understanding is that most of them suck, sadly. But hey, at least one of those sequels had Christopher Lee in the mix, so I guess they can’t be ALL bad.

6. Leon Corledo, from Curse of the Werewolf.

When Hammer studios gained Universal as a North American distributor, they were given access to use more characters and concepts from the classic Universal Monster franchise for their films. Their one and only werewolf feature, “Curse of the Werewolf,” is usually overlooked, sadly, with many dismissing it as just being Hammer’s version of “The Wolfman.” I find this incredibly saddening because - while certain story elements are shared between the films - the two movies are extremely different, and this film takes the concept of the tragic monster in its own unique direction. Played by Oliver Reed (in his first starring role for a motion picture), our werewolf of the hour is Leon Corledo. His lycanthropy is a supernatural affliction that has infected him since birth: his mother’s tragic and extremely brutal life and death have apparently led to his blood being tainted with some evil curse, which manifests itself in the form of werewolfism. Leon gains a taste for blood at an early age, and struggles to keep his vicious, predatory side at bay. As he grows older, Leon finds that the love of a beautiful woman is able to tame his inner monster, but his struggle with his cursed nature remains a hard one. Reed’s first starring performance remains one of his best, in my opinion, mixing powerful ferocity with a gentle vulnerability. While the explanation of the werewolf’s curse is a bit bizarre, the actual trials poor Leon must endure are among the most harrowing of any movie monster.

5. Jack Howl, from Twisted Wonderland.

Well, if you know me, and you know about this game, then this really shouldn’t have been a surprise. For those who are not aware already, however, “Twisted Wonderland” is a Japanese-made mobile game themed around Disney Villains. The premise has the main character getting transported to a parallel universe, where they end up staying at a School of Dark Magic, with different houses themed around seven of those villains. Throughout the game, you encounter characters based around “The Great Seven,” as well as some other Disney characters. Jack Howl, however…he’s an anomaly. Jack isn’t really based on ANY Disney character in question. He seems to be more a tribute to just…ALL the wolves Disney has given, with references to the pack from “The Jungle Book” and the more vicious predators from “Beauty and the Beast” both being made at different points. While these may have inspired Jack, he is, in essence, a totally original character. Jack is a bona-fide werewolf, able to shapeshift from a sort of “beastman” form (pictured here) to a massive silver-white timberwolf. He is also quite possibly the most adorable werewolf in history since Eddie Munster. While he looks tough and tries to act standoffish and surly, Jack is basically just a big puppy dog. Despite his constant insistences that he doesn’t really care about anyone and isn’t out to make friends, he gets attached to people quickly, is always eager for praise from those he respects, and has a strong code of personal honor (which often gets him into trouble as much as it gets him out of it). In short, he’s a big softy who tries to seem meaner than he really is: always a fun character, in my books. It’s more my love for the game, as a whole, that lands Jack so high up in the ranks, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a warm spot in my heart for this wolf-eared sweetheart.

4. Professor Lupin, from The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

While there are a couple of werewolves in the Harry Potter universe, by far the most famous is Professor Remus J. Lupin. In the third book of the series, “The Prisoner of Azkaban,” Lupin is introduced as…well, quite frankly, the only GOOD Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher Hogwarts has ever seen. He’s supportive of his students, friendly to his peers, and ends up forming a close bond with Harry. This is partially because Remus and Harry’s father, James, were best friends in school. As a result, Lupin feels a certain responsibility towards Harry, trying his best to keep him safe. Ironically, however, it turns out that Professor Lupin is a potential danger to Harry and his friends, himself: it’s revealed that Lupin is a werewolf, and he goes from one of the main protagonists of the story to a major antagonist in the climactic chapters of the novel. Much like with Ethan Chandler and many other classic werewolves, once Lupin transforms, he changes from a good and amiable man to a bloodthirsty monster, who recognizes no friends. While Lupin has a special potion or medicine he can take to keep the wolf at bay, it is only a temporary fix. If he runs out, or just accidentally forgets to take it, you can imagine the consequences. As a result of this terrible tension, Lupin ultimately resigns from his teaching duties at Hogwarts (continuing the running gag, if you want to call it that, of Defense Against the Dark Arts always being the class with the worst luck), but he remains a major character in later books. The same goes for the movies, where Lupin was played (as pictured here) by the great David Thewlis.

3. David Kessler, from An American Werewolf in London.

This is yet another “essential werewolf movie” in the ranks, which made a big impact on lovers of the concept back in the year of our Lord 1981 - the same year as “The Howling.” (I’m sensing a pattern.) However, while “The Howling” took the concept to its frightening extremes, by making the werewolves murderous monsters without a shred of human decency, the titular character of “An American Werewolf in London” is both one of the most tragic werewolves ever put to the screen, while also being one of the most utterly horrifying. The story begins with young David Kessler (played by David Naughton), an American graduate student, on vacation in Yorkshire. He is accompanied by his friend, Jack Goodman. While backpacking across the Moors, the two are attacked by a werewolf. Jack is savagely killed, while David is bitten and forced to become a werewolf himself. As the film goes on, David is haunted by the ghosts of Jack and his own victims, as they try to convince him to commit suicide, since only the death of the werewolf can free not only David from the curse, but also release their souls. While the film has a deliciously dark and wicked sense of humor, it is still, at its heart, a horror story, with a somber ending and a very disturbing edge. The realization of David’s werewolf form, and the transformation he undergoes, is widely regarded as one of the most horrifying in cinematic history. I am heartily inclined to agree.

2. Bigby Wolf, from The Wolf Among Us.

Let’s take a brief tangent to discuss the fairy-tale of “Little Red Riding Hood.” Many scholars and historians have suggested that the classic fable may actually be one of the earliest examples of werewolf fiction. After all, people certainly believed in werewolves at the time, and how many normal wolves can wear human clothes, speak human language, or are large enough to swallow a little girl and her granny alive? Whether this is true or not, it is not uncommon for reimaginings of the story to envision the Big Bad Wolf as a werewolf: I already discussed three such examples with the “Anime Boi Trio” at the start of the countdown. They, of course, are not the only instances: enter Sheriff Bigby Wolf, the main character of the video game “The Wolf Among Us,” based on the “Fables” comic series (which I have not read). The game is essentially a noir-styled murder mystery story, with Bigby as our resident hard-boiled detective of the hour. In typical fashion for such an archetype, he smokes, drinks, and is equal parts grumpy and sarcastically snarky. However, unlike most such examples, he’s also a werewolf: a rarity for film noir. (Unless you count Sam Spade. No way someone that cool is human.) Bigby is able to transform from a human form, to a sort of half-human form, to the “werewolf form” shown here, and finally to a giant feral wolf that’s bigger than an elephant. The story of the game once again plays with the idea of our protagonist battling his inner demons, but with a different twist: Bigby can’t change what he is, nor does he really wish to. HOWEVER, his struggle is more with his villainous past and the darkness still inside him. He’s the Big Bad Wolf, the bogeyman of many legends; that’s a hard thing to deal with when your job is to save lives and try to make amends. Being a Telltale game, the players can choose just how nasty or how nice Bigby really is, but regardless of which direction they take him, he nevertheless seems sincere in his desire to do right. It’s an interesting twist on both the fairy-tale figure and the idea of the werewolf.

1. Larry Talbot, a.k.a. The Wolfman.

Our number one pick is the entire reason WHY I set up this list the way I did. As I said before, this countdown was never about the “sexiest” werewolf, or the scariest werewolf, or anything else like that. It was simply about what character or characters came first to mind when I thought of that word. And, let’s face it…for both myself and a lot of other people, Larry Talbot - the Wolfman - is that character. The 1940 film, entitled “The Wolf Man” with a space in the middle (contemporary spellings go back and forth between that and it all being one word), pretty much established the classical lore of the werewolf that so many of us recognize today. And while it was not the first movie to tackle lycanthropy, nor to depict its protagonist as a tragic figure who was more fallen hero than true villain, it was the first to make an especially potent impact. It is because of this character and this movie that werewolves are so particularly recognized today, and the influence of this one figure cannot be overstated. Lon Chaney Jr. and his performance are an important part of why; several other people have played the Wolfman in remakes and reimaginings of the character and story (such as Benicio del Toro and Jonathan Gries), but Chaney’s performance remains the most iconic, and the one that set the bar for how so many other werewolves would be portrayed. Larry Talbot is a good and fairly normal guy who finds himself transformed into a monster against his will, and while the stories of other famous Universal Monsters got warped and went into crazy territory as the series continued, the Wolfman actually remained fairly consistent throughout his run, helped by the fact that Chaney was the only person to play the character through the entire franchise in its original years. While the films and his makeup/costume do show their age, they’re nevertheless still classics for a reason, and I doubt very many of the other characters on this countdown would even EXIST if he hadn’t set the standard. For that reason above all else, Lawrence “Larry” Talbot takes the cake as My Favorite Werewolf. Case dismissed.

HONORABLE MENTIONS INCLUDE…

Dr. Wilfred Glendon, from Werewolf of London.

Predating the Wolfman, this is one of the earliest werewolf films, and almost as iconic. While it has its merits, however, I think that actor Henry Hull’s performance in the main role is a bit stiff and stagey, which brings the character down a peg.

Cornell, from Castlevania.

Despite being a huge Castlevania fan, I’m weirdly not very familiar with Cornell, by virtue of the simple fact I haven’t looked that much into most of his appearances in the franchise. Ironic, isn’t it?

Free, from Soul Eater.

This anime/manga series is basically what you’d get if you put Tim Burton in charge of…well…an anime/manga series. Free is a recurring figure, and he’s a lot of fun, but I just tend to think of other characters first. This may partially be because it’s been a long time since I rewatched this show…I’ll have to get on that in the future. :P 

There are a TON of other werewolves I could name, but after this point they kind of all conglomerate into a lupine glob of interest. Again, sorry if characters you loved didn’t show up. Who are some of YOUR favorite werewolves? Feel free to name your picks below!

[brokehorrorfan]

The Universal Classic Monsters Collection will be released on 4K Ultra HD (with Digital) in digibook packaging on October 3 via Universal. Designed by Tristan Eaton, the eight-disc set is limited to 5,500.

It includes 1931's Dracula, 1931’s Frankenstein, 1932’s The Mummy, 1933’s The Invisible Man, 1935’s The Bride of Frankenstein, 1941’s The Wolf Man, 1943’s Phantom of the Opera, and 1954’s Creature from the Black Lagoon.

All eight films are presented in 4K with HDR10. The Spanish version of Dracula is also included. Special features are listed below, where you can also see more of the packaging.

Dracula is directed by Tod Browning (Freaks) and written by Garrett Fort (Frankenstein), based on Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel. Bela Lugosi, David Manners, Helen Chandler, Dwight Frye, and Edward Van Sloan star.

Dracula special features:

Alternate score version by Philip Glass

Dracula (1931) Spanish version directed by George Melford

The Road to Dracula

Lugosi: The Dark Prince

Dracula: The Restoration

Dracula Archives

Monster Tracks

Trailer gallery

Transylvanian vampire Count Dracula bends a naive real estate agent to his will, then takes up residence at a London estate where he sleeps in his coffin by day and searches for potential victims by night.

Frankenstein is directed by James Whale (The Indivisible Man) and written by Garrett Fort (Dracula) and Francis Edward Faragoh (Little Caesar), based on Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel. Colin Clive, Mae Clarke, John Boles, and Boris Karloff star.

Frankenstein special features:

Audio commentary by film historian Rudy Behlmer

Audio commentary by historian Sir Christopher Frayling

The Frankenstein Files: How Hollywood Made A Monster

Karloff: The Gentle Monster

Universal Horror

Frankenstein Archives

Boo!: A Short Film

100 Years of Universal: Restoring the Classics

Monster Tracks

Trailer gallery

Dr. Frankenstein dares to tamper with life and death by creating a human monster out of lifeless body parts.

The Mummy is directed by Karl Freund (Dracula) and written by John L. Balderston (Dracula). Boris Karloff, Zita Johann, David Manners, Edward Van Sloan, and Arthur Byron star.

The Mummy special features:

Audio commentary by film historian Paul M. Jensen

Audio commentary by Rick Baker, Scott Essman, Steve Haberman, Bob Burns, and Brent Armstrong

Mummy Dearest: A Horror Tradition Unearthed

He Who Made Monsters: The Life and Art of Jack Pierce

Unraveling the Legacy of The Mummy

The Mummy Archives

100 Years of Universal: The Carl Laemmle Era

Trailer gallery

An Egyptian mummy searches Cairo for the girl he believes is his long-lost princess.

The Invisible Man is directed by James Whale (Frankenstein) and written by R.C. Sherriff (Goodbye, Mr. Chips), based on H.G. Wells’ 1897 novel. Gloria Stuart, Claude Rains, William Harrigan, Dudley Digges, and Una O'Connor star.

The Invisible Man special features:

Audio commentary by film historian Rudy Behlmer

Now You See Him: The Invisible Man Revealed

Production Photographs

100 Years of Universal: Unforgettable Characters

Trailer gallery

A scientist finds a way of becoming invisible, but in doing so, he becomes murderously insane.

The Bride of Frankenstein is directed by James Whale (Frankenstein) and written by William Hurlbut. Boris Karloff, Colin Clive, Valerie Hobson, and Elsa Lanchester star.

The Bride of Frankenstein special features: 

Audio commentary by film historian Scott MacQueen

She’s Alive! Creating The Bride of Frankenstein

The Bride Of Frankenstein Archive

100 Years of Universal: Restoring the Classics

Trailer gallery

Dr. Frankenstein, goaded by an even madder scientist, builds his monster a mate.

The Wolf Man is directed by George Waggner (Operation Pacific) and written by Curt Siodmak (I Walked with a Zombie). Claude Rains, Warren William, Ralph Bellamy, Patric Knowles, Bela Lugosi, and Lon Chaney Jr. star.

The Wolf Man special features:

Audio commentary by film historian Tom Weaver

Monster by Moonlight

The Wolf Man: From Ancient Curse to Modern Myth

Pure in Heart: The Life and Legacy of Lon Chaney Jr.

He Who Made Monsters: The Life and Art of Jack Pierce

The Wolf Man Archives

100 Years of Universal: The Lot

Trailer gallery

Larry Talbot returns to his father's castle in Wales and meets a beautiful woman. One fateful night, Talbot escorts her to a local carnival where they meet a mysterious gypsy fortune teller.

Phantom of the Opera is directed by Arthur Lubin and written by Eric Taylor (The Ghost of Frankenstein) and Samuel Hoffenstein (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde). Claude Rains, Nelson Eddy, Susanna Foster, and Edgar Barrier star.

Phantom of the Opera special features:

Audio commentary by film historian Scott MacQueen

The Opera Ghost: A Phantom Unmasked

Production Photographs

100 Years of Universal: The Lot

Theatrical trailer

An acid-scarred composer rises from the Paris sewers to boost his favorite opera understudy’s career.

Creature from the Black Lagoon is directed by Jack Arnold (The Incredible Shrinking Man) and written by Harry Essex and Arthur A. Ross. Richard Carlson, Julia Adams, Richard Denning, Antonio Moreno, Nestor Paiva, and Whit Bissell star.

Creature from the Black Lagoon special features:

Audio commentary by film historian Tom Weaver

Back to the Black Lagoon

Production Photographs

100 Years of Universal: The Lot

Trailer gallery

A group of scientists try to capture a prehistoric creature luring in the depths of the Amazonian jungle and bring it back to civilization for study.

Pre-order Universal Classic Monsters Collection.

[catoswound]

list of guys obsessed with catos virtussy (in no specific order): marcus favonius, pompey, seneca the younger, cicero, caesar, rousseau, brutus, munatius rufus, michel de montaigne, dante, plutarch, everyone who did catone in utica, the guys behind cato's letters, lucan, ?herman melville (mary shelley while we're at it. barely there but i couldn't NOT add them in), thrasea paetus, every christian ever probably, virgil, lucullus,

[denimbex1986]

'Production images have been released for the Donmar Warehouse’s revival of Macbeth.

Leading the production are David Tennant (Doctor Who, Good) and Cush Jumbo (Julius Caesar, Hamlet), taking on roles of the regicidal Macbeths, alongside Moyo Akandé (as Ross), Annie Grace (as Musician and Gentlewoman), Brian James O’Sullivan (as Donalbain/Soldier/Murderer and Musician), Casper Knopf (as Macduff’s Son/Fleance/Young Siward), Cal MacAninch (as Banquo), Kathleen MacInnes (as The Singer and ensemble), Alasdair Macrae (as Musician and ensemble), Rona Morison (as Lady Macduff), Noof Ousellam (as Macduff), Raffi Phillips (as Macduff’s Son/Fleance/Young Siward), Jatinder Singh Randhawa (as The Porter/Seytan), Ros Watt (as Malcolm), and Benny Young (as Duncan/Doctor).

Director Max Webster’s production employs binaural technology to create an immersive 3D sound world, courtesy of sound designer Gareth Fry (The Encounter), which the audience experience through wearing headphones.

In addition, live music comes from an onstage Scottish folk band led by Macrae and featuring award-winning Gaelic singer MacInnes.

The creative team also includes Rosanna Vize (designer), Bruno Poet (lighting designer), Shelley Maxwell (movement director), Macrae (composer and musical director), Rachel Bown-Williams and Ruth Cooper-Brown of RC-Annie Ltd (fight directors), and Anna Cooper CDG (casting).

Macbeth officially opens tonight and runs until 10 February 2024.'

[notjusthespongenextdoor]

A human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind and never to allow passion or a transitory desire to disturb his tranquility. I do not think that the pursuit of knowledge is an exception to this rule. If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your affections and to destroy your taste for those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind. If this rule were always observed; if no man allowed any pursuit whatsoever to interfere with the tranquility of his domestic affections, Greece had not been enslaved, Caesar would have spared his country, America would have been discovered more gradually, and the empires of Mexico and Peru had not been destroyed.

Damn ok. Mary Shelley really said ambition is a destructive force hang out with your friends

[theicarusconstellation]

books you read that made you go oh man regulus would love this?

THE SECRET HISTORY BY DONNA TARTT!! (hence why i’m writing a tsh jegulily au lmao [i also think he’d like the goldfinch but not love it iykwim])

anything and everything dostoyevsky

the picture of dorian gray (obviously) by oscar wilde

anna karenina and war and peace by leo tolstoy

madame bovary by gustave flaubert

these aren’t books but he’d definitely have collections of edgar allan poe and emily dickinson’s works

jane eyre by charlotte brontë

we have always lived in the castle by shirley jackson

dracula by bram stoker

frankenstein by mary shelley (i also oddly think barty would like this and relate to frankenstein’s monster)

the count of monte cristo by alexandre dumas

little women by louisa may alcott, though he’d never admit it (he’d kin amy)

also not books but macbeth, julius caesar, and hamlet by shakespeare

anything involving the tragedy of orpheus and eurydice

i’m on the fence about how he’d feel abt les mis by victor hugo

[lizziestudieshistory]

Books of 2023 - March

I've run out of things to say here...

Anyway here's the list of books I read. As usual, if you want to hear my thoughts then feel free to ask.

The Leviathan by Rosie Andrews

Carmilla by J. Sheridan le Fanu

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling

The Cloisters - Katy Hays

Julius Caesar - William Shakespeare

Goblin Market - Christina Rossetti

The Castle of Otranto - Horace Walpole

Matilda - Mary Shelley

The Death of Ivan Ilych - Leo Tolstoy

[mr-independent]

I appreciate that yallre appreciating these lol. I have to be up in like 6 hours but, like Ted, i have severe insomnia so let's keep this train running. EP 6: futbol is life

-- Ted has a weird habit of changing in his office with the large windows when there's other people in there.

-- Nate 'im deeply worried about ageing' Shelley choosing not to dye his hair back when it greys is certainly a choice. Idk if he thinks it makes him look wiser or he's just trying to distance himself from the Wonder Kid thing or it's a confidence thing..

-- ah yes the emergence of the 'Trent Crimm- The Independent' joke which was always weird to me. It's not unusual to state your name and credentials often at pressers for the sake of transcriptions and proper recordings. But also the joke is funny AF so I'll let it slide

-- I fucking live for these glimpses of Teds deep seated anger that he never lets show bc it scares him, but it adds so much depth to his affable character

-- Colins so fucking tiny in the early days, he really beefs up as the seasons go on. Go Twink Go 😂

-- do you think Dani and Trent ever swap hair tips? Trent's hair is great but could definitely benefit from whatever conditioning routine Danis got going on there

-- the song choices in this show always fascinate me. Jerk It Out by the Caesars??? What a fucking throwback, and to introduce new blood Dani? Interesting choice

-- there's something to be said for Dani Rojas being the cure for Jamie's funk, and Dani and Ted both having this sense of unerring optimism that doesn't allow for any other emotion, except when the heavy shit breaks through and completely takes over their lives. Idk what is there to say, I'm sure someone smarter than me can make an essay or something out of that, but i can tell there's something there

-- and again loving the payoff here, Rebecca mentions in EP 1 that people believe dead soldiers haunt the stadium and now we get that callback 5 episodes later. The longevity is refreshing as hell given the current state of the media with it's ten second attention span

-- this is like the 3rd time someone referred to The War. Is that. Is that an English thing? Are there multiple names for the war that happened in the early 1900s? (I won't say what i say to not pollute y'all's opinions but like. Is...that a Thing?)

-- Sam asking Rebecca to the exorcism and her misconstruing it as a date, then later the Bantr bit and Sam begging Rebecca to take it seriously, and now Rebecca possibly missing her window for this big change? Amazing A+ writing

-- Zoreaux dropping the Van Damme figurine as his personal object 🥺

-- i forgot if Ted ever addresses his...less than healthy relationship with alcohol but if not yet, I'm sure we can see that in the future

-- Rebecca learning Ted makes the biscuit seconds after she finally seemingly broke him down..... How can I thank these writers? How can I fully express my undying gratitude and devotion bc yallre amazing

[si-jeunesse-savait]

Dystopian literature 20th century

1850s–1890s:

"Paris in the Twentieth Century" by Jules Verne (written in 1863, published in 1994)

Verne's bleak depiction of a future dominated by technology and a lack of artistic or cultural development was ahead of its time, though it wasn’t published during the 19th century.

"The Coming Race" by Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1871)

Often considered proto-dystopian, it describes an underground society that has achieved technological and social superiority over surface dwellers.

"Erewhon" by Samuel Butler (1872)

A satirical look at an alternate society, exploring themes of industrialization and mechanization. It’s considered an early dystopia due to its critique of contemporary society.

"Caesar’s Column" by Ignatius L. Donnelly (1890)

Set in a future where a corrupt oligarchy rules and the lower classes suffer in poverty, this novel is an early example of a politically charged dystopian narrative.

1900s:

"The Iron Heel" by Jack London (1908)

One of the earliest true dystopian novels, depicting a future in which an oppressive oligarchic regime known as "The Iron Heel" subjugates society.

"Lord of the World" by Robert Hugh Benson (1907)

A Catholic dystopia portraying a future world dominated by secular humanism, with a global government suppressing religion.

"The Sleeper Awakes" by H.G. Wells (1910)

A dystopian vision of a man who wakes up after centuries of sleep to find a society ruled by a small elite controlling the working masses.

"Men Like Gods" by H.G. Wells (1923)

While not a traditional dystopia, this novel critiques the ideal of utopia, portraying an alternate universe without government but with undercurrents of control.

1920s:

"We" by Yevgeny Zamyatin (1920)

Often considered the first modern dystopian novel, it presents a future where individuality is crushed under the rule of an all-powerful totalitarian state.

"R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots)" by Karel Čapek (1920)

Though a play, it introduced the concept of robots and a dystopian future where human workers are replaced by artificial beings, ultimately leading to societal collapse.

"The Machine Stops" by E.M. Forster (1909)

A short story that envisions a future where humanity lives underground in isolation, relying on a machine that controls all aspects of life.

1. "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley (1818)

While primarily seen as science fiction or horror, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein introduces dystopian themes of unchecked scientific progress and the ethical questions surrounding human life. Victor Frankenstein’s creation, combined with society’s rejection of the creature, reflects fears of technology's consequences.

2. "The Last Man" by Mary Shelley (1826)

Another novel by Mary Shelley, The Last Man is set in a future world devastated by a plague that wipes out humanity. The novel delves into themes of isolation, leadership, and the collapse of society in the face of disaster.

3. "Paris in the Twentieth Century" by Jules Verne (written in 1863, published in 1994)

Written in the 19th century but only published much later, this novel imagines a dystopian future where a technologically advanced Paris is devoid of art, culture, and individuality. It was rejected by Verne's publisher at the time for being too pessimistic.

4. "The Coming Race" by Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1871)

This novel describes a subterranean race of beings with advanced technology and psychic powers. While not purely dystopian, it explores themes of the dangers posed by a superior race and technological dominance over humanity.

5. "Erewhon" by Samuel Butler (1872)

A satirical novel that critiques Victorian society, Erewhon is set in a fictional land where illness is treated as a crime, and machines are feared for their potential to overtake humanity. The novel reflects early fears of industrialization and its impact on society.

6. "Caesar's Column" by Ignatius L. Donnelly (1890)

Set in a future dystopian world where society is ruled by a corrupt elite and the lower classes are oppressed, Caesar's Column tells the story of a revolution against this ruling oligarchy. It reflects anxieties about class struggle and the rise of industrialization.

7. "News from Nowhere" by William Morris (1890)

While technically a utopian novel, News from Nowhere presents a critique of the dystopian aspects of industrialized, capitalist society. Morris imagines a future where industry has been dismantled, and people live in harmony with nature. It stands in opposition to the capitalist dystopias of the time.

8. "The Time Machine" by H.G. Wells (1895)

One of the first science fiction novels, The Time Machine is also dystopian. The protagonist travels far into the future, discovering a world divided between the idle Eloi and the monstrous Morlocks. The novel reflects Wells’ concerns about class divisions, capitalism, and the future of humanity.

9. "The War of the Worlds" by H.G. Wells (1898)

Although known for its alien invasion plot, The War of the Worlds includes dystopian elements, particularly its examination of colonialism, imperialism, and humanity's vulnerability. The novel explores the fear of an advanced species overthrowing civilization.

10. "The Sleeper Awakes" by H.G. Wells (1910)

In this dystopian future, a man wakes after centuries of sleep to find a world dominated by corporate monopolies and a brutal class divide. The protagonist becomes a pawn in a battle between the oppressed masses and the elites who control them, reflecting Wells' critique of capitalist excess.

11. "Lord of the World" by Robert Hugh Benson (1907)

A Catholic dystopia, Lord of the World depicts a future where a secular, totalitarian government suppresses religious freedom. It is a dark vision of the future shaped by secular humanism, socialism, and globalism, with Christianity as the last bastion of resistance.

12. "The Iron Heel" by Jack London (1908)

Often considered one of the earliest dystopian novels, The Iron Heel portrays a future where an oligarchy controls society through oppression, with the working class subjugated. The novel is a socialist critique of capitalism and portrays a grim class struggle.

13. "The Machine Stops" by E.M. Forster (1909)

A short story that imagines a future in which people live underground and communicate only through a vast, controlling machine. Individuality and direct human contact are forbidden, and the machine governs all aspects of life. Forster explores themes of technology, control, and human isolation.

14. "The World Set Free" by H.G. Wells (1914)

This novel imagines a world where nuclear weapons have been invented, leading to the collapse of nation-states and the rise of a new global order. Wells’ vision of atomic power prefigures later dystopian fears about nuclear warfare and its potential to destroy civilization.

15. "The Night Land" by William Hope Hodgson (1912)

This dark, apocalyptic novel is set in a far future where the sun has died, and humanity is confined to a gigantic pyramid, surrounded by monsters in a nightmarish landscape. While difficult to read due to its archaic language, it is a pioneering work in the dystopian and horror genres.

16. "We" by Yevgeny Zamyatin (1920)

Set in a future totalitarian state where individuality is forbidden, We tells the story of D-503, a citizen who begins to rebel after falling in love. The novel’s themes of surveillance, state control, and the conflict between individuality and collectivism heavily influenced later dystopian works.

17. "R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots)" by Karel Čapek (1920)

A play that introduced the word "robot" to the world, R.U.R. depicts a future where robots, created as laborers, rebel against their human masters. The play raises questions about artificial intelligence, labor exploitation, and the potential dangers of technology.

18. "Swastika Night" by Katharine Burdekin (written in 1937, published later)

Though technically published after the 1930s, this early draft was written earlier. It envisions a future where Nazi ideology has completely dominated the world after centuries of rule. It is a feminist dystopia depicting extreme patriarchy and fascism.

19. "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley (1932)

This famous novel imagines a future where technological advancements and consumerism dominate society. People are conditioned from birth to accept their roles, individuality is discouraged, and emotions are controlled. The novel critiques the dehumanizing effects of technology, state control, and social conditioning.

20. "The Revolt of the Angels" by Anatole France (1914)

This satirical novel is not purely dystopian but includes strong elements of rebellion and critique of the established order. It involves a group of angels who rebel against God, with themes related to revolution, oppression, and challenging authority.

21. "Men Like Gods" by H.G. Wells (1923)

While more utopian than dystopian, Men Like Gods features a parallel universe where human society has reached a state of perfection. The novel serves as a critique of contemporary British society, with its themes of scientific progress and social reform, though Wells' idealized vision contrasts sharply with more pessimistic dystopias.

[wimples-sr]

*pushing my glasses up* the use of real "western" songs from various time periods before the 2000s as an alternative soundtrack for the game via the new vegas radio channel obviously does the work of solidifying the genre elements of fallout new vegas that draw from westerns, helping to build the fantasy of living in "the wild west", as well as grounds the world of fallout firmly as an imagined future of our current world by having in universe references to real musicians. however, by merging the fantasy of the western with the scifi elements of fnv, the game introduces aesthetic tensions between a genre that defines itself with an imagined future and a genre that defines itself with an imagined past - the western as a genre is no less fictional or realistic as scifi, involved in constructing a romanticized vision of the colonial era of the united states' expansion into the west and the subsequent american project of genocide of native american peoples in its campaign to claim territory. the tension between the two major genres that inform fnv echoes one of the major themes of its main storyline: the desperate desire of many people and factions in the world of fallout to return to the imagined "past" of pre nuclear fallout, and the way this desire often results in catastrophic violence and failure. we see how obsession with returning to an imagined past can cause harm in many ways (an obsession with the past, though not necessarily returning to the past, is the critical failure of the brotherhood of steel; the ncr's obsession with replicating US american culture just before fallout is also what informs their politics and results in an illiberal democracy that results in tragedies like bitter springs, which echoes the violent colonial past of the US; even House is driven by his dream of recreating las vegas as he remembers it pre fallout, carefully maintaining new vegas as faithfully as possible even while he claims to want to make new vegas the technological capital of the world that looks to the future) but perhaps the most guilty of this are the fascists, caesars legion. they desire an imagined past that is even further removed in time, beyond just the few decades before fallout, and is characteristic with real fascist ideology that posits modernity as malignant and an imagined idyllic "historical" return to traditionalism as a moral imperative.

notably, scifi as a genre has origins too in the colonial imagination, with many of its earliest and most culturally enduring examples being reflections on or fantasies of colonization in a scientific era (hg wells war of the worlds, star trek, mary shelleys frankenstein, jules vernes 20000 leagues under the sea). this provides a point of contact for the two genres to dovetail in the themes they can enhance even as they provide contrast in other respects.

i think its no coincidence that the independent routes are also the ones that are most unsure in their future. the logical conclusion at least of the genre tensions and their associated thematic implications would say that there is a need to relinquish the desire to return to a past that does not exist and a necessity to think towards a real future and imagine a new future beyond the confines of what structures existed in the past and plague our present. very speculative fiction of fnv. *gets off my soapbox*

[boldlycrookedsalad]

Tomato Nation’s Book Smarts

Here is what Sarah D. Bunting recommends reading and knowing in this piece, “Book Smarts” from tomatonation.com (up until where she writes “After you surface from “Wasteland,” you can pretty much read whatever you like.”): https://tomatonation.com/culture-and-criticism/book-smarts/

Quotes are from that piece.

I have bolded the parts I have finished doing. I added my own commentary in brackets.

“You need to know the major stories of the Old Testament: The Fall, Cain and Abel, Noah and the ark, the diaspora, all that good stuff.”

“You also need to know the story of Christ’s birth and the story of his death.”

”Skim the psalms and the Song of Solomon if you have a minute”

“[T]hen read Revelations.”

“Understand what “Shinto” means.”

“Read a little Confucius.”

“Know a few facts about Muhammad’s life.”

“Know what Martin Luther did.”

“Buy a secondhand copy of Edith Hamilton’s book of myths — or, if you have more time, Ovid’s Metamorphoses — and bone up on the Greco-Roman pantheon.”

“Learn the major figures in Nordic/Viking mythology.”

 “Don’t know the dates of the American Civil War, where the battles took place, why it started? Learn it”.

“Don’t know how long the Depression lasted, how many Americans died in the Great War, when the influenza epidemic took place? Learn it”.

“[R]ead The Odyssey or the first four books of The Aeneid…You don’t have to slog through every page of these, but at least buy the Cliff’s Notes to The Odyssey.”

“Hit the highlights of Catullus’s poems to Lesbia and Horace’s “Odes.””

“Find the existing scraps of Sappho and read those (it’ll take you five minutes, tops).”

“Know what Petronius and Apuleius wrote, but don’t bother reading them.” [Petronius wrote the satirical novel The Satyricon, and Apuleius wrote the novel The Golden Ass.]

“You should also read the greatest hits of Plato and Socrates.”

“Then make sure you know what really happens in the Oedipus cycle.”

“Know what Thucycdides and Aristophanes wrote, or at least the genre.” [The genre is history for Thucycdides and comedy or Old Comedy, the first phase of ancient Greek comedy, for Aristophanes.]

“You need to know what happens in “Beowulf.”” “You need to know what happens in “Canterbury Tales” and why it’s important as literature. The excerpts they give you in the Norton cover the subject quite nicely; there’s no need to kill yourself reading the whole thing.”

“Learn the Arthurian legend, and the Tristan/Isolde legend.”

“Read St. Augustine. It’s…a key tract on the philosophy of faith. Get as far as you can without your heart stopping.” [I emailed Sarah to ask which book she meant here and she said "I assume I was being snotty about ;) the Confessions, which is what I would have had to read for lit survey; hope that helps!"]

“You need a firm grounding in Shakespeare. I think three out of the big four — Lear, Hamlet, Othello, and Macbeth — should do you, but know what happens in all of them.”

“You should also know Twelfth Night, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, The Taming Of The Shrew, The Tempest, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the Henry cycle, but four out of those seven will cover it; again, know which characters go where and why they’re important. Knowing that someone said “et tu, Brute” doesn’t cut it. Renting the movies is fine.”

“You also have to have read Paradise Lost…Okay, just read up until Satan’s fall.”

“Know what John Donne and Ben Jonson and Marvell did.”

“You need Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats.”

“You need one Austen.” [I picked Pride and Prejudice.]

“You need one Dickens.” [I picked Oliver Twist.]

“You need one Twain.” [I picked The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.]

“You need as much of Whitman’s Leaves Of Grass as you can stomach”

“[P]lus When Lilacs Last By The Dooryard Bloom’d.”

“You need some Hawthorne (if you can’t bear the thought of Hester Prynne, try his short stories instead).”

“You need a smattering of Dickinson.”

“Move on to Eliot, Pound, Yeats, and Frost.”

“Try Joyce. Don’t do Ulysses alone; start a book group and get The Bloomsday Book. Dubliners is nicer.”

“After you surface from “Wasteland,” you can pretty much read whatever you like.”

[loganpm]

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

The line above is, as with many lines in Ozymandias, double-edged. When I first read it, I thought it filled with unintentional ambiguity; but now that I better understand Shelley's view of the world, I see this not to be true: doubtless this doubleness is in fact the whole point of the poem: the ancient 'king of kings' asks us to despair in fear and trembling because of his extraordinary power, his 'greatness'; but then Shelley asks us to despair because of this power that so often hovers over our lives as a cruel eclipse - both then and now - as we are forced to abide amidst male power and chaos, abide in the midst of the weakness and wastefulness of such reckless, overconfident boy-soldiers as these, these self-centered conquerors, controlling others because incapable of controlling themselves; each one a dwarf in a giant's gold gown, a fascist flibbertigibbet, alienated more even from themselves than from their subjects.

Nothing beside remains.

Such grand and great power leaves nothing after itself; nothing but a transient monument to an era of vainglory; all memories of shared values, from each hand falling, falling far, far down, until in the deep shadow of the great cliff shattering, a million disconnected atoms whistling amid the wind.

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.

While Athens created lasting monuments, celebrating their city's Gods, and creating temples and great spaces of assembly for democratic debate, Rome, 'great' Rome only built temples and statues to celebrate Rome -- and Romans.

Ancient Rome, it seems to me, is the ultimate embodiment of the great myth-making power of nationalism, racialism, and imperialism. Caesar's legions were filled with slave-drivers, debt-riddled traitors, and exploitative businessmen: the means they used were efficient, and the end still unequivocally remained, steadfast and unquestioned: the domination of the world by Rome.

Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare the lone and level sands stretch far away.

[7r0773r]

In Search of the Great Dead by Richard Cecil

In Search of the Great Dead

In Paris, Vallejo's hotel near the Bibliothèque Nationale charges a hundred a night, and Ginsberg's seedy room on the rue Git-le-coeur sports flowered wallpaper now, and a couple of Michelin stars. Cabourg's Grand Hotel on the chilly Normandy coast, nearly driven from business by the sunny "costas" of Spain, rents "Chambre Marcel Proust" for twice the price of a suite— a week's pay for the profs who book it, months in advance, to lie in Proust's bed one night fighting sleep as they read his description of insomnia in his snail-paced masterpiece. And, speaking of Spain, in Ronda Rilke slept for a month in room 208 of the Reina Victoria Hotel, which exhibits souvenirs— some scribbles, a cancelled bill — that cold man left behind when he resumed his search for gorgeous emptiness hollow as his hollow heart. But if their names have jacked ridiculously the rent of the tiny, outmoded rooms they slept in for pocket change, like the "Taube" in Hemingway's Shruns, now a first class Austrian Inn with a three-color brochure where, for $2.50 a night, he polished The Sun Also Rises, abandoned his wife for his mistress, and blamed it all on Dos Passos — consider visiting their tombs.

In Cimetière Père-Lachaise in Paris you can stand for nothing by Alice B. Toklas's and Gertrude Stein's remains and stare at their blank stone — not a single word but their names after thousands of pages of chatter! From their excellent address in the capital city of death, avenues of genius fan in all directions. But if you prefer the lonely and isolated dead, Chateaubriand in St-Malo on an island linked to the mainland for an hour at ebb tide rests within the sound of the wind and the sea—and the tourists who photograph his inscription quick! before the causeway floods. Then they board the ferry to the sullen Irish coast to add William Butler Yeats to their album of poet's tombs. Graves's grave's in Majorca near the Chopin/Sand Condominiums; Dante's is in Ravenna, Keats's and Shelley's in Rome, where poets and Caesars lie whose marble cenotaphs barbarians burned for lime. Augustus paid Virgil and Horace to praise his empire and Virtue, then Nero slaughtered Lucan for winning a poetry contest, and Seneca for hating vice, but all of their tombs are lost. There is no place to stand feeling your heart expand at the greatness of the waste that lies between you and them; at the brilliance of their lines through centuries of gloom overshadowing patronage and hostility alike. First the houses they lived in, then their houses of death disappeared, and all that's left are their works—some of their works— some fragment of their works. Half of Livy's History, the juiciest parts of Tacitus were ripped out, charred, scraped off to make paper for another bible or wipe the ass of a monk. All that's left of Sappho is several hundred words caught drifting on the wind from the fire at Alexandria, and Gilgamesh, written on stone, is written on pebbles now— pebbles displayed like diamonds for crowds at the British Museum.

When the pebbles become grains of sand and blow away in the wind of a nuclear strike on London or the gentler breeze of erosion after the city's abandoned, that epic's only remnant will be Hatred of Death, which is the theme of Gilgamesh and also the impulse that drove its author to hack it in granite. "Now I'll never die," he said to himself as he wiped his bleeding hands on his shirt. And he hasn't, quite, yet, though bombs from the War for Oil rocked his ancient, anonymous bones recently and will again. The little wars and the Big One the lovers of death are planning will leave no monuments but rubble and rows and columns of identical soldiers' tombs next to the fields and trees or featureless, shifting dunes that thousands of xs and ys died for, not guessing why, and the unmarked humps of mass graves of civilians who got in the way. These, too, attract their visitors, veterans and survivors who've vowed never to forget, and, later, politicians for a century or two, but at last only the haters of death walk these bone yard acres shaking their heads and digging their nails into their palms, driving needles of pain up their arms into their brains to shake the drowsy numbness of so much nameless slaughter, exactly like the numbness that comes, reading Livy's History in bed, late at night. 10,000 Carthaginians slaughtered 10,000 Romans in 300 B.C. or vice versa — annihilating armies annihilated in turn until the Empire, secured, turned upon itself and Romans murdered Romans— fathers, sons, brothers— for four more hundred years. Their civil war graveyards, long buried by barbarians, must once have looked like ours at Fredericksburg and Shiloh, where every numbered marker listing Company and Regiment whispers, like Emily Dickinson, "I'm Nobody —are you Nobody, too?"

Oh, yes, I'm Nobody, too. My plot, reserved for a small down payment at Valhalla Memory Gardens, isn't a pilgrimage site; it's not on the tour bus route, not topped with a simple stone carved with memorable words, waiting, impatient, for me to die to make them immortal. My house, 912 East First, lacks a bronze inscription screwed into its plastic siding and will certainly be converted to a rental, not a museum when I leave it dead or, alive, determined to die in Florida or Southern France, like Yeats, desiring a year in the sun after a lifetime of gloom and greenness and peasant neighbors. That year's when I plan to write my deathless epitaph and enter it in the contest glutted with Baby Boom poets dying at the rate they were born. But first, I'll waste my life, like now, writing against the grain of drowsiness— I rose at 4 A.M.— with Olive, my black and white cat, kneading my arm with her claws— a pleasure so much like pain, a pain so much like pleasure, like dying after a long illness, then haunting the house you lived in, brushing the fabrics you touched, shoving ghostly feet into shoes, marveling at their size and weight, in which you once walked like a giant. For even the greatest dead, if death isn't just dirt in the mouth, must moan with their reedy voices for the life they lost to be famous.

***

Front Porch Visiting

On the nursing home's front porch swathed not in wool, but air smudged by global warming to an even, tepid gray, I'll think of cold blue days like this one with nostalgia. Wheeled out of my room for "sensory stimulation," and issued a docile cat to cradle in my arms, I'll look straight at the sun through gasoline haze and remember today's wintry glare falling on this page so brightly I have to shade it with my left hand as I write. And I'll remember the feisty cat rolling on my lap, her licorice-colored fur turned chestnut by warming light which drugs her defenses so that I can stroke her unguarded white belly.

Ranged on that porch beside me, strapped into their wheelchairs, my tranquilized companions will stare, like me, at the sun while chatting with dead husbands and wives about dead friends. I'll overhear their halves of intimate conversations as I have at public phones— pleading or angry voices transmitted over black wires to invisible listeners whose inaudible replies stir terrible emotions sometimes. Waiting to call a tow truck, I've eavesdropped on jilted lovers sobbing into receivers and viciously low-pitched voices threatening hearers with death while I shifted from foot to foot, and the dimes in my palm grew hot.

But calls from that future porch placed very, very long distance, will require my companions to speak up to be heard on the other end. Even with my deafness, I'll intercept their messages to the dead as I did in childhood, sprawled on my front porch, when the widower next door sat at his table with two glasses of beer and muttered to his dead wife. His voice rose in argument while I bounced my ball and swept jacks— onesies, twosies, threesies— and listened for her replies. I couldn't hear her talk, but when he went in I peeked over the ledge that divided our connected row house steps and saw that her glass was drained. So I knew she'd returned from the dead to silence his complaints.

They quarreled on their porch all summer as they had the summer before her heart attack and funeral. And then, that fall, their daughter took him to a "home." My mother said he was crazy talking to himself like that, but I knew he wasn't. I learned to hear her side of their talks as I lay flat on the concrete behind the ledge and listened to her indignant denials that she wasted money on doctors and kept a filthy house. "I'm too sick to scrub floors," she said, as she had in life, and he grumbled, "no, you're not," as if she hadn't died to prove it.

Between that haunted porch a nd the haunted one in my future everything I love will have turned into a ghost, even this winter sun, which has put the cat to sleep. The shadow she casts on this page prefigures the gray afternoons I'll sit with dying strangers mumbling to our dead lovers. But they won't come to us as Lilly did to Chuck next door, when I was six. They'll cling to their clear black vacuum sucking us toward them on the other side of the veil of smoke shrouding our planet.

***

Incident at Third and Woodlawn

The flaming trees, like girls on prom night dressed in orange and gold they'll change to gray tomorrow, distract me as I step into the street. A horn, a brake, a turning driver's scream— I dodge her bumper, hopping to the sidewalk, luckier than that squirrel laid by the curb. He's flattened, abstract, except for his glassy eye.

Meeting his stare reminds me I've been struck down twice by cars. Once, looking neither right nor left, I raced toward Carol Anne's yellow curls bobbing on her neck across the street. When I woke up, unhurt, one whole day off from grade school with an x-ray of my skull for a souvenir, I said I'd learned my lesson,

but twelve years later, many states away, musing on the date I hustled toward, I got knocked down again, by a swerving teen on her first day of driving and my last on earth, almost. Looking up I wondered if stars I saw were real, or the kind you see unconsciously in transit to your death.

They turned out real— the Big Dipper, Venus glittering green beneath the crescent moon. The stretcher crew so gently lifted me, I sighed like a taken-care-of child. Once more, x-rays showed no fractured bones, and when I knocked, hours late, at my date's door, my bruises turned her rage to sweet concern.

It's half a lifetime since her frown unwrinkled in dim porch light to wide-eyed sympathy, but I can see and feel that same change, now, as sun breaks through a rift in mottled sky and brushes my face like her unfisted hand. The smiling sun and her gorgeous daughter-trees, tossing down the favors of their leaves,

seem to love me as she seemed to, then, loving, really, only my persistence in trailing beauty like a bee in fall, when threatening frost turns flowers into gems and trees to flowers, and men in their forties to squirrel brains. Oh Nature, take my hand and help me safely cross to brown November.

***

Picnic in the Basement

For the last time this year I clip what's left of the stunted elm hedge— brown gaps in it like rotten teeth. Then I heave the picnic table no one's eaten at all summer onto my shoulders, like Atlas, and stagger through the garage to the black basement, stumbling over the broken trellis that held the climbing rose that died the month after I moved here. I reach for the wall to steady myself and grab a handful of plastic pickets I bought to fence the vegetable garden I sowed that first year with lettuce whose leaves tasted bitter as weeds. The table slips and luckily falls away from the wall of flowerpots filled with geranium skeletons blighted by frost last September, and lands in the center of the concrete floor an inch from my foot. I set it upright, slide one of its splintery redwood benches to elbow-resting distance from it, and, panting, take a seat. I'm finished with outdoor living for another year. I've oiled my push mower with the price tag still attached from ten years ago when I bought it downtown at the hardware store converted to a savings bank when the courthouse turned into a mall. I've taped the orange power cord slashed in six or seven places where the suicidal trimmer trimmed it almost in half but not quite. I shudder whenever I touch its coils, remembering the first time I plugged it in to a living room socket and dragged it outside. While I hacked the weedy hedge, my cats nosed past the screen door and wandered into the strange yard, bordering a street of speeding cars, hundreds of miles from where they were born. When, finished, I wiped sweat from my eyes, looked up, and saw the door ajar, I rushed inside and ransacked rooms, reached deep into closets and hidey-holes. Finally, desperate, I ran out again. Crying their names, I crawled the yard at cats' eye level until-what joy! I found them cowering under this table— new then, half rotten now, with its redwood paint bleached almost white. That family picnic was our last. Since then they've watched from kitchen windows each spring when I haul the grill outside, each fall when I haul it in again, though I haven't cooked meat on it for years. Now they're waiting for me upstairs. I hear their claws click overhead as they pace the kitchen, hungry, impatient. Why not invite them to scamper down the cellar stairs and join me here, each with her plastic dish of Friskies while I gnaw my bone of nostalgia? I feel my way upstairs and fling the cellar door open. Suspiciously, they sniff their way down every stair, while I slide the other bench up to paw-resting distance and set the largest pot of geraniums over the table's umbrella hole. It's safe here, sweeties, out of the glare of the murderous outside world that's dying for the eleventh time in eleven years. Nothing's scary here but corpses dragged in from the lawn and garden— steel cutting edges eaten by weeds, charcoal long ago flamed to ash, and our ghostly centerpiece— branching in your eyes of phosphorous— flowers of death that bloom in the dark.