Cracking the Hundredth Mark

While I was watching Neighbours today (ahem), one of the ad breaks screened a compilation album called Forbidden: Songs of Love, Lust & Blood.

What does this have to do with vampires, praytell?

It was the angle being used to promote it. That's right, they were pitching a vampire connection!

The ad was too brief - and surprising - for me to have jotted down any notes (not that I sit in front of the telly with a notepad and pen in hand, mind you), so I'll hand you over to CD Online's spiel:

2 CDs for the lovers of all things vampire. The world has been swept up in the craze of Vampires, whether it be the romantic movies, tv series, books, actors etc, we can't get enough of this fantasy world. Disc 1 features Rock/Emo sounds with Vampire themes and Disc 2 features Acoustic/Indie focusing on love, lust & passion.

Some of the inclusions are certainly a bit...unusual. I mean, blink-182's "First Date"? 3 Doors Down's "Kryptonite"? Really?

Despite the (mostly American) acts present on the album, it's certainly an Aussie compilation in that it features a pretty decent amount of Australian acts, namely, The Living End, Short Stack, Kisschasy, Sia, Missy Higgins, Butterfly Boucher, Josh Pyke, The Audreys and Little Birdy.

It's quite obviously a cash-in on the recent release (November 19) of New Moon, but boy that cover looks pretty!

It's also interesting to see the romance (for want of a better word) angle being so prominently featured. Tragic love. That, I believe, is the drive behind the success of Meyer's books. Not vampires, per se, but the themes she explores in her series. The vampires, I think, are practically peripheral.

Now, as you may have noticed from the title of this entry, this is my hundredth post for this blog! So, after that previous ramble, I'll share some goodies with you to mark the occasion:

• "Meet the Twlight Mums". Read this heartwarming (or, disturbing, if you prefer) story of a bunch of mums who got together to share their love over Meyer's books.
• Martin V. Riccardo's "The Vampire as a Psychic Archetype", TAT Journal: The Forum for Awareness 2.3 (1979).
• I was recently looking for a copy of Matthew Kratter's "Twilight of the Vampires: History and Myth of the Undead", Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture 5 (1998). I wound up contacting the journal's publisher, Michigan State University Press, only to be informed by its Order Fulfillment Manager that the article was...available for free as a download! Woohoo! You can access download it via this page. But, a word of warning: you'll need Adobe Acrobat (it's a pdf file) and you'll have to download the entire issue (c. 25mb) to have your own copy of the article.
• Remember my entry on the (rather dubious) connection between porphyria and vampires a while back? Well, I've got something a bit more scientific for you: Ann M. Cox's "Porphyria and Vampirism: Another Myth in the Making", Postgraduate Medical Journal 71.841 (1995). You can download it through here, and yes, it'll be another pdf file.
• Lastly, here's a stack of articles from Innana Arthen's "Rare Article Archive" from her webiste, By Light Unseen.
  

Well, that about wraps it up for now. Have fun kids!

I'd like to take the time to thank my readers, commentators, followers and even casual browsers of this blog. Wouldn't be much point without you!

I'd also like to give particular thanks to Niels K. Petersen and Andrew M. Boylan for some wonderful correspondence.

Thanks guys and keep up the good work!

Vampirism and Porphyria

The link between vampires and porphyria has been in popular circulation since 1985, when Dr. David Dolphin (a prominent Canadian biochemist) presented his theory connecting the two, to the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

It even inspired some real-life sufferers of the disease to make tenuous links between their condition and vampire "mythology". Tammy Evans, founder of the Porphyria Education and Awareness Foundation, authored an autobiography called Porphyria: The Woman Who Has "The Vampire Disease" (Far Hills, NJ: New Horizon Press, 1997).

I find the correlation between the two rather unfortunate. It also betrays a distinct lack of knowledge of vampire folklore.

Rather than rehash my thoughts on the subject, I'll direct you to a couple of blog entries in which I've illustrated just how flimsy the theory is.

First, there's Peggy Kolm's "Vampirism as Disease?", Biology in Science Fiction. Here's a direct link to my comment on the blog entry.

Next is Elizabeth Miller's "Porphyria and Vampirism: Crappola 101" for her LiveJournal. My comments to it are here and here.

It's good to see this "modern myth" torn apart and exposed for what it is: pure speculation with no substance in "reality".

If you think my attitude to a "harmless" theory is harsh, then you should have a read of Chapter 6 (titled, "Vampire Victims") in Norine Dresser's American Vampires: Fans, Victims, Practitioners (New York/London: W. W. Norton & Company, 1989), pp. 171-199.

Here's a sample, relating the aftereffect of the theory's popularisation:

One patient said that as soon as the media bombardment occurred, her phone rang constantly. Some friends now avoided her, but she was mainly disturbed at being the butt of jokes, many of them having to do with drinking blood in the middle of the night. She was bitter. "Nobody makes fun of leukemia or MS." (180)

Thus, it is most disturbing to hear this theory still, occasionally, being perpetuated.

Most disturbing of all, is that one of the people responsible is...Dr. David Dolphin himself!

Elizabeth Miller's aforementioned blog entry recounts her attendence of one of his lectures, entitled, "From the Bench to the Bedside to the Bank: How to Make Money from Vampires!" in 2006.

After confronting him with the harmful attention some porphyria sufferers experienced at the hands of the media and his theory, he brushed it off saying

"That is why I now refer to vampires in the Middle Ages." He seemed completely oblivious to the ethical implcations. I was reminded of Victor Frankenstein and his monster.

This is quite a shame, because, as Mark Dawidziak points out in The Bedside, Bathtub & Armchair Companion to Dracula (New York/London: Continuum, 2008), p. 101:

Dolphin's research credits are impressive, by the way. He is the lead creator of a medication used in connection with laser eye surgery, and, in 2005, he was awarded the prestigious Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering.

This, of course, doesn't make him a qualified vampire researcher, though.

For one thing, I could point out that the "vampires" Dolphin discusses, were not even in existence during the Middle Ages. But that is another story!