So why the sudden popularity boost? If they’ve always been there lurking in the shadows what’s made them so popular all of a sudden? Well, in my opinion the commercialisation of vampire romance popped up because it fills a void that was previously filled by Hospital Dramas. They’ve got everything we’ve been missing; suspense, drama, sexual tension and most importantly, blood and gore. Grey’s Anatomy can only do so much.

Whilst there is nothing new about vampire stories these ‘new and improved’ vampires differ quite dramatically from the old folklore vampires. The most marked difference being that they seem to be allowed outside much more than before which means they get to try out for the football team and stuff.  They used to come from Romania and live in castles but now they go to high school and drive Volvos. They used to be scary but now they’re sexy. They used to be the stuff of nightmares. Now they’re dreamy.  It’s not too bigger leap to make though, any woman will tell you that scary is sexy…just look at Bram Stoker’s Dracula. It was just a matter of time before the tweens cottoned on.

So we’ve established the tweeny vampire romance seems to be quite different from the adult kind. I’ve therefore compiled a list of things to watch out for. Remember:  if you spot any of the following you know you’re watching either Twilight, True Blood, The Vampire Diaries, or Vampire Academy….or possibly all four. Slowly and calmly pick up the remote and change the channel.

1. The male lead (vampire) will be the moody, strong but silent type usually resentful of his vampire status which  will inevitably result in an argument when the female lead wants to be ‘turned’.

2. The female lead (human) will be earth shatteringly beautiful but completely unaware of the fact. She’ll usually be a bit of a loner as well and feels like she ‘just doesn’t fit in’.

3. After the initial novelty of vampirism has worn off be prepared for the introduction of werewolves.

4. There’s a love triangle. These are incredibly important as it helps to highlight rule no. 2 and you know…everyone loves a good love triangle. This rule almost always applies–I haven’t read Vampire Academy but judging by the books I have read by Richelle Meade I’m fairly sure there’s a love triangle in there somewhere.

“I’ve never seen Casablanca.” My hapless friend replied.

My parents all but spat out their wine and stared, mouths agape. “You haven’t seen Casablanca!?” My Dad asked. “No.” She replied, innocently, oblivious to the wasps nest she was poking. “But it’s one the greatest movies of all time.” He said as though talking to a slow person. My friend shrugged. “I haven’t seen it.” My Dad stared at her with a mixture of disbelieve and nausea and my poor friend (at least she got a holiday out of it) didn’t hear the end of it for the rest of the week. I’m surprised they didn’t strap her down and make her watch it.

Whilst it was a slight overreaction on my parents part they are (for the most part) right. It is one of the greatest movies of all time and she should have seen it (she still hasn’t–probably traumatised). If for nothing else than for the scene when the Nazis start singing the German national anthem and in retaliation all the French stand up and sing La Marseillaise. It still gives me chills.

And of course there’s the relationship between Ilsa and Rick; supposedly one of the greatest love stories ever told. This, I’m not so sure about. For one thing Ilsa is the most ridiculously anti-feminist role model EVA. When she finally breaks down and admits she’s still in love with Rick and goes “Oh Rick I can’t think anymore. You have to think for both of us” it makes me want to vomit. And Rick, the typical male, chases her and chases her until she caves and tells him she loves him then all of a sudden he’s backtracking. “Uh…gee. Look, maybe you should get on the plane…for the good of the resistance of course. We’ll always have Paris *wink*”.

Oh Wick. I'm just a gooey overly emotional woman. Save me with your man-logic

It’s also one of those very special movies that is so famous that its most famous quote is actually incorrect. The words “Play it again, Sam” are never uttered by Rick…or anyone else for that matter. What he does say is “You played it for her now play it for me. If she can take it I can. Play it Sam”. So you have my permission to slap the next person who says “Play it again, Sam”. Another great (and often misremembered) quote is “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world she walks into mine”.

It’s basically a great movie even by today’s standards. Especially by today’s standards. Humphrey Bogart is just so darn cool and Ingrid Bergman is…you know, suitably swoony. Apparently actor John Gielgud once said of her “She speaks five languages and can’t act in any of them”. But then, I think you could have put a plastic doll next to Humphrey Bogart and he’d manage to pull it off. I kid, of course, she’s not that bad.

Well to wrap up my story, about year after “Casablanca Gate” I had a different friend staying with me and my parents and it was brought up again as it inevitably did anytime anyone mentioned Casablanca, France, neon sign or friend who shan’t be named. “Can you believe,” my Dad said. “That she hadn’t seen Casablanca!?”

“What’s the big deal?” My friend asked. “I haven’t…” I managed to kick her before she finished her sentence.

Here’s lookin’ at you kid.

]]> http://luthorblog.com/?feed=rss2&p=398 http://luthorblog.com/?p=385 http://luthorblog.com/?p=385#comments Mon, 28 Jun 2010 12:08:25 +0000 Lex http://luthorblog.com/?p=385 If you’re like me (and you’re English) you probably watched yesterdays game with a mixture of excitement and optimism. So we hadn’t been playing all that well but we had a good team and a manager with an outstanding CV. Germany aren’t that good. Surely a victory was possible…You may have noticed I’m writing in the past tense . This is because (in case you’ve been living under a rock) England’s world cup hopes are no more following a pounding at the feet of Germany. Germany, quite literally, ran rings around our defenders.

I don’t want to dwell too much on the 4-1 though (mostly because it makes me angry). What I brought you hear to talk about is what should have been the 4-2 or given the actions of the referee possibly 4-4….or even 2-2. Who knows? His first blunder was getting in the way of Rooney charging up the field causing him to lose the ball. Now, given Rooney’s performance over the last couple of weeks this doesn’t necessarily mean a goal of course but like I said; who knows. Mr. Ref also missed quite an obvious hand ball during a free kick which should have resulted in a penalty. But all this pails into insignificance. I, and I think I speak for the nation here, would be willing to forgive all that if he hadn’t disallowed a perfectly legitimate goal by Frank Lampard in the 38th minute. We were ecstatic that we’d managed to equalize so soon after we thought we were finished but no….it was not meant to be. Ridiculous really as we all saw it; Copello saw it, Lampard saw it, but Mr. Magoo obviously forget to wear his glasses that day.

You may think there’s no point moaning…we still would have lost 4-2. We still played badly. Germany were still the better team. But how do you know? It’s possible that if we hadn’t gone off at half time and been told we’d been robbed of a goal we wouldn’t have been so determined to get another goal leaving our defense vulnerable to attack. You can’t dismiss the underlying psychological implications that this ‘missed’ goal created. Does the flap of a butterfly’s wing in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?

It was, however, quite funny coming back after half time and the referee started giving us free kicks all over the place. Someone had obviously shoved a TV screen under his nose during half time and gone ‘See? See? Goal. R-tard’. Apparently the referee was given extra security leaving the stadium as they were worried there would be an angry backlash from the England fans. Facebook has been swamped with (sometime borderline racist) remarks about the German team despite the fact that at the end of the day they were the better team. I think we need to remember it’s important not get too carried away. People make mistakes. And remember, if we had managed to hold the draw it would have gone to penalties and then we’d be buggered anyway.

I know, I know, I’m awful. I don’t really have an excuse other than I’ve got this new job and it threw my schedule out of kilter. I should have made time though and for that I’m sorry. Honestly.

Bygones.

So as I’m blaming my new job for taking me away from you I thought I’d make it the subject of my triumphant return(Slightly like rubbing salt in the wound I know). But still, I’m really enjoying myself. The staff are (for the most part) lovely and I’ve made some really good friends. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so much at work. I am, it would seem, slap-bang in the middle of the honeymoon period where everything is peachy. I’ve no doubt that in a couple of months I’ll be bitching as much as I did in my old job (old habits are hard to break after all) but in the mean time it’s all fun and fairycakes so I’ll make the most of it while it lasts.

So, if everything’s hunky dory you’re probably wondering what I could possibly have to talk about. Don’t worry. I’m not going to gloat for one thousand words because whilst I do fit into the small percentage of people who enjoy their work and 90% of customers are  delightful, it is my belief that certain people really shouldn’t be allowed in restaurants. If, for example, you order the house wine and go through the process of swirling it round your glass, holding it up to the light and gargling with it; you’re obviously an idiot.

Customers, you see, are stupid and there’s something about running around like a chicken with your head cut off whilst people ask you inane questions such as ‘excuse me, is there cream in your cream of broccoli soup?’ that makes one a trifle irritated. We run into people that annoy us everyday but being a waiter means you can’t shout ‘Piss off you stupid old bat!’ even though you desperately want to. Chefs have it pretty bad but at least they can scream and throw knives at each other. We don’t have an outlet. We have to smile and ask if we can get you anything else.

So it would appear that for most people the act of walking through a restaurant door renders one’s IQ inconsequential and I have come to the conclusion that most people have no idea about restaurant etiquette. I have therefore thrown together a small list of things that not only annoy me but pretty much every other waiter I know:

1. First off, what is it with customer’s and their complete and utter inability to tell the time? Why do they always think ten minutes is an hour? I’m acutely aware of how long your food’s taken; it’s part of my job. Don’t insult my intelligence and tell me you’ve been waiting forty minutes when I know damn well you’ve been waiting fifteen. If you’re the kind of person that gets stressed waiting for food then make a note of the time I took the order. If it’s longer than half an hour then you have my permission ask where your food is although most waiters will have already been on the phone to the kitchen. We don’t like waiting for your food either.

2. I spend an extraordinarily large part of my day wondering how people who are so obviously lacking in social skills manage to procreate let alone tie their shoe laces in the morning. They don’t know what pesto is but by some survival of the fittest loophole they’ve managed to spread their dysfunctional genes. I know this because the result is jumping up and down on my foot screaming that it wants ‘jooose!’. I have nothing against children. I plan on having my own someday but for goodness sakes if you want to enjoy your meal and you don’t want your waiter to be having visions of killing your darling child with a fork then leave the brat at home. Especially babies. Sod’s law dictates that the little bundle of joy will start screaming as soon as your food arrives. In what way does that contribute to an enjoyable meal?

3. The term ‘corked’ does not refer to the molecular make up of the thing plugging the top of your wine bottle. It means the wine has gone bad. With cork it’s usually some kind of fungi and the wine will smell like feet. With screw-tops it means air has got in so the wine has oxidized and will smell like vinegar. Screw-tops CAN GO OFF. If I offer you the wine to taste don’t look at me like I’m an idiot and say in a hoity toity voice, ‘It’s a screw top. It’ll be fine’. Most of the time I don’t say anything because I don’t want to make you look stupid in front of your friends but you might catch me when I’m in a bad mood so STOP IT.

4. At any one time during the rush (that’s generally 6:30pm-9pm for most restaurants) waiters have a list of about fifteen things they have to do in the next thirty seconds.  An average food order should take less than five minutes, ideally less than two. If you insist on waving at me like a groupie and then are not totally prepared to order when I come over, I’m going to start having murder fantasies. There’s nothing that irks me quite so much is when I have a million things to do and someone goes ‘uuuuh…what’s better? The steak or the fish?’. I actually get visions of beating said person around the head with my order pad. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mind answering your mind numbingly stupid questions but if you’re the sort of person that can’t eat something until you feel like you’ve got to know it, I would suggest you don’t go to restaurants during the busy period. Come it at 3 o’clock I’ll be happy to talk to you for hours.

5. Please. For the love of God. Remember what you ordered. Plates are usually very hot and very heavy so when I’m standing at a table with three plates scalding ‘made in china’ into my skin and you’re going (with a look of mild bemusement on your face) ‘The lasagna? Did I have the lasagna or did Mary have the lasagna?’. I don’t care. Just take the freakin’ plate before I drop it in your lap.

6. Half way through your meal we’re required to come over and say (with mock enthusiasm) “How is your food!?”. It’s called a check back and you need to understand something; I honestly couldn’t give a rat’s ass what your food is like. It’s my job to ask. If I get found out I’m not doing check backs I get in trouble. So don’t look at me like I’m the rudest person in the world for interrupting your tediously insipid conversation. And yes, if you’ve got your mouth full, a thumbs up is more than acceptable.

7. The single rudest thing you can do without actually being abusive is to put your crap on the table next to you. NOTHING annoys waiters more. We don’t tend to look at empty tables so chances are we won’t notice it and it’ll leave a mark and we’ll end up having to clean the table/change the table cloth. Don’t put things on the floor either because I’ll kick it over. If you’re so uptight you can’t bear having an empty bottle on your table then politely call me over and say something along the lines of ‘Sorry I know I’m an anal-retentive simpleton but would you be so kind as to remove this from my table. It’s upsetting my dining experience’.

8. And finally, that squiggly ‘can i have the check’ mime-thing is OK. Honestly. People who call me over to say ‘Can I have the check?’ when I was standing by the till in the first place need to get over themselves. If I could do the whole thing in mime at a distance of twenty feet, I would.

So you’re probably wondering how on earth I can enjoy my job when I have such apparent disdain for my customers. Well, as I said before the majority of people are OK. Most people are aware that waiters are human beings with emotions and hopes and dreams and not nameless faceless drones sent to indulge your every whim. You people are cool. There are though, as always, a few people who ruin for the rest of us. Besides, complaining about customers is half the fun. I get to feel superior that I’d never say anything so stupid as ‘How’s your roast salmon cooked?’ and then have a good laugh about it with my waiter buddies. Which is ironic really because I say stupid things all the time.

9. Oh yes. If you don’t want to pay for service go to effing McDonalds. OK?

This particular post is about a quiche she made for me (despite me not liking eggs). It was very nice. My housemate, Mel, liked it too and for some reason evaded a hangover which she attributed to the quiche’s superfood qualities.

I was not so lucky.

So without further ado I present to you my *cough* blog post for this week.

I, however, truly have found a gift for the person who has everything.

I was bumming around on the internet the other day and in honour of zombietalk Thursday on Twitter I typed in ‘zombie art’. I came across a rather interesting take on the ’send me your photo and I’ll draw it’ website. There’s a guy called Rob Sacchetto who (for a small fee) will recreate your face in zombie fashion. Yes. You heard me right. Send him a photo and he’ll send you back a beautifully rendered picture of what you would look like a zombie. So next time you’re pondering what to get Gran for her birthday, maybe give Rob a call. I know I will.

Before and after

If you have no idea what I’m talking about (or you do and what to know more) check out his website.

Mr. Di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni…or Michelangelo to you and me.

Drawing of Michelangelo by Daniele de Volterra

Like Leonardo Da Vinci he was somewhat multi-talented and was considered a Renaissance man. Unlike Leonardo Da Vinci he was a bit of a grump. He was arrogant and at the same time, often dissatisfied with himself. He believed art originated from culture or from within a person’s soul and he thought of nature as a power to be overcome (compared to Da Vinci who believed art flowed from the natural world). He also generally disliked painting as a medium and preferred sculpture likening it to divine creation (even if I do say so myself). He believed that inside every stone was a figure waiting to reveal itself.

The very famous statue of David

As well as being a bit of a cantankerous genius he was also, in all probability, a bit of a stinky fellow choosing to live the life of a pauper and sleep in his clothes and boots. He had little interest in food and drink seeing it as a necessity more than a pleasure. His brother described him as ‘rough and uncouth that his domestic habits were incredibly squalid’. On top of this, he may well have been a few sandwiches short of a picnic. One anecdote claims that when he finished The Moses he hit it violently in the knee with a hammer shouting ‘Why won’t you speak to me!?’

Er…because it’s a statue.

Unsurprisingly, he was not a person you wanted to piss off. He had a marvelous sense of revenge using his paintings and sculptures to pictorially ‘get his own back’. One of the best examples is The Last Judgement; a fresco painting on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel. He started working on it three decades after he completed the ceiling of the Chapel. Michelangelo painted all the figures nude which didn’t swing too well with the Church. He therefore included the Pope’s Master of Ceremony Biagio Da Cesena in his painting as Minos, judge of the underworld with donkey ears (meaning foolishness). When Cesena complained, the Pope replied that his jurisdiction did not extend to hell so the portrait would have to remain (who knew the Pope could be cool?).

Biagio Da Cesena as Minos

He also does a self portrait depicting himself as St. Bartholomew after he had been flayed. Which was supposed to indicate Michelangelo’s chagrin at being commissioned to paint The Last Judgement (someone gave me job boo hoo). The figure holding the skin of St. Bartholomew depicts the satirist and erotic writer Pietro Aretino who had tried to extort a valuable drawing from Michelangelo. This is said to symbolize the attempted victimization by Arentino.

After Michelangelo’s death the painting was subjected to ‘The Fig Leaf Campaign’ and most of the genitalia were painted over by a guy called Daniele da Volterra. He painted drapery etc. to cover the man parts. Rather hilariously Volterra is remembered in history by his nickname “Il Braghettone” which means ‘the breeches painter’. Bummer.

I haven’t included a picture of The Last Judgement as it’s absolutely massive and I wouldn’t be doing it justice. You can see it here though.

One of his most famous paintings (next to the Mona Lisa) is ‘The Last Supper’ is a 15th century mural which depicts the moment when Jesus announces one of his disciples will betray him. Due to dirt, pollution and bad restoration efforts the painting was virtually unrecognisable by the 1970s and so a major restoration was undertaken. It took 22 years; the painting was finally put back on display in 1999 but visitors have to book ahead and can only stay 15 minutes.

It’s most recent claim to fame is its inclusion in Dan Brown’s novel ‘The Da Vinci Code’. In which Brown’s characters reveal that the person on Jesus’ right was not John but Mary Magdalene (because the figure is girlish) and thus indicates that she was not a prostiute (never actually said outright in the Bible) but Jesus’ wife and the mother of his child. Brown does say that these views were not supposed to be new or shocking as they were originally the main topic of the book ‘The Templar Revelation’.

They have a point. It’s entirely possible that the figure is Mary Magdalene as John the Baptiste was said to have been excecuted a few days before the last supper and so could not have been present. However, there are thirteen figures (including Mr. Christ) so who’s the twelfth figure? Well, according to scripture Mary Magdeline was present at the last supper to wash the feet of the disciples or something similar. Whether or not she sat at the table is unlear. She was certainly a devoted follower and the only one to stay with Jesus while he was crucified while the other disciples fled and she was the first to see him after he ressurected. All this leads people to believe that she was married to Jesus and they had a child which if you think about it isn’t an unreasonable assumption (assuming you believe he was a real person).

Further fuelling the theories is a recent discovery that if you reverse the painting to create a mirror image and then superimpose it on top of the original it shows Mary Magdalene/John holding a baby. It’s entirely possible this was purposely done by Da Vinci as he was big on mirror images.

Others have said all this is simply conspiracy theories run amock. The figure in question is wearing male clothes and John was believed to be the youngest of the group; often depicted looking a bit feminine with long wavy hair. Also some of the original sketches are preserved by Da Vinci and none of them show female faces.

The main thing I think we need to remember here is a fact that seems to have been overlooked; it’s not a photo. It’s a painting done some thousand years after the event was supposed to have taken place. Even if the figure is Mary Magdalene (and personally I think it is) it doesn’t, by any stretch of anybody’s reasoning, mean she was there or married to Jesus or had his baby. It was just Leonardo’s opinon of what took place.

Another thing about the Last Supper is that it’s relentlessly parodied. These are some of my favourties:

House

The Sacrament of The Last Supper by Salvadore Dali

Battlestar Galactica

There are literally hundreds you can see a bunch of them here.

Dr. Hunt...we love a man in uniform

So yeah, if you don’t watch Grey’s Anatomy, all this is not very interesting.

I’m not here to talk to you about the show though. I’m here to talk to you about its namesake ‘Gray’s Anatomy’ by Henry Gray which, in case you don’t know, is a medical text book depicting very detailed drawings of bones, muscles, and organs. It’s much celebrated as the ‘anatomy bible’ and despite being over fifty years old, I believe it’s still used by Med students today.

So what does all this have to with art? Well…if you’d like to draw the human body I would very much recommend you grab yourself a copy of this book. It’s virtually impossible to accurately draw a person without having some basic knowledge of underlying bone and muscle structure. Gray’s will teach you this. However, If you’re starting out in drawing and are feeling a little daunted; it may be better to buy yourself an ‘anatomy for the artist’ book (which will be more tailored to your needs than Gray’s). Take the book and draw from it a few skeletons and muscle groups. You’ll be surprised how much it’ll improve your drawing if you know what the skin’s lying on.

Here endeth the lesson

Some random muscle drawings (by me)

I’ve always quite liked Claude Monet (not to be confused with his friend, Édouard Manet who not only has a similar name but also had a similar painting style). Monet’s paintings always make me think of springtime and Paris and he has the added benefit of not counting among the ranks of the hopelessly depressed. See: Wake me up before you Gogh Gogh and Munch ado about Nothing.

One of his water lily paintings for which he is most famous

His first wife, Camille, died from Tuberculosis at the age of 32 but rather than dissolve into a pit of despair à la Munch, he used his grief and vowing never to be mired in poverty again went on to create some of his greatest paintings. In my head I sort of see it as Scarlet O’Hara in Gone with the Wind, clutching a hand full of earth to the heavens and vowing that she’ll ‘never be hungry again’. He went on to marry a second (and last) time and had a large family which he relocated to Giverny where he ended his days among his Lily ponds. His eldest son even went on to marry one of his second wife’s children. Incest is best and all that.

Claude Monet, photo by Nadar 1899

This is not quite how I envisaged him  and I can sort of see his beard scraping along the canvas as he paints. You never know, maybe that’s how he got his effects. Along the same vein, I’ve always joked that perhaps he didn’t have very good eyesight which is why his paintings look the way they do (Philistine, moi?). It turns out I was half right. Whilst his eyesight was fine, he did develop cataracts in later life for which he underwent two surgeries. After surgery he found he could see certain ultraviolet wavelengths and even went back to repaint some of his paintings in bluer tones (see above lily painting).

He also has the honour of being the inspiration for the coinage of the term ‘impressionism’ by art critic, Louis Leroy from his painting ‘Impression, Sunrise’.

Impression, sunrise 1872/1873