Rondina Responds

After writing the previous entry, I contacted Christopher Rondina to see if he'd take up my challenge. The resulting correspondence may surprise you.

When it comes to writing my exposés, I'm not one to hit-and-run. I allow for benefit of the doubt, as I'm somewhat hesitant to call "fraud!" without some pretty damn solid proof. I deal with that kinda stuff on my other blog, on a regular basis. In this case, I engaged Rondina through correspondence. I sent him an e-mail subjected 'A Challenge' (January 26 at 1:47am):

Good morning Mr. Rondina,

I wanted to discuss a critique I have written on a certain section of your 1997 book, "Vampire Legends of Rhode Island". Here 'tis:

http://doaav.blogspot.com/2011/01/bats-where-they-dont-belong.html

Are you willing to undertake the challenge I have offered you towards the end of the blog entry?

He replied shortly afterwards (January 26 at 3:05am) with admirable candour and courteously allowed me to reproduce his response:

Anthony,

Good morning, and thank you for your query!

You've clevery stumbled upon a faux pas from my earliest days as a writer - A glitch in my cereer that I had forgotten in the nearly fifteen years since I first wrote about New England's vampire folklore. I would love to be able to dismiss the "bat scandal" by claiming it was a typo or editing error, but the truth is much simpler.

"Vampire Legends of Rhode Island" was not only my first book, but my first serious attempt at writing, and I was, at best, an immature "journalist" when I began the project. As an avid vampire fan, I was also disappointed to see the absence of bats in the original folklore, and I inserted the reference into the 1892 article as a vanity "enhancement" for my own satisfaction. Regrettably, my grasp of ethical journalism was less well-developed at that time than it is today. I like to think I have grown since then, but I hope there will always be people like yourself around to help keep me honest.

Regards,
Christopher Rondina

Wow. Didn't see that coming! It's rare to see such a frank admittance. Quite refreshing, actually. Reminds me of something J. Gordon Melton wrote in his review of Elizabeth Miller's Dracula: Sense & Nonsense (2000):

She even has the audacity to criticize my books in several places, the pain of which was only slightly alleviated by her own confessions of falling short of the high standard she is setting. But I hope that you were as lucky as I was early on in having a teacher who drilled into me the virtue of being grateful to colleagues who assist us in checking our errors.

Despite the tongue-in-cheek nature of that first sentence, Melton makes a valid point on the importance of criticism. Rondina recognises it, too. To ensure the 'health' of any field of study, it needs to be regulated. Monitored. Watch for bullshit slipping through the cracks. Miller's practically made a career out of it.

If we can dish it, we gotta take it, too, but it's always important to start off with a strong case. When one of my readers, Jonathan, questioned certain possibilities I raised as to why Peter Haining saw fit to conjure a book out of thin air, I was able justify my claims with evidence. He acceded.

Same principle with this 'bat scandal'. All I had to do was chase up the original source. Pretty damn hard to refute that. I didn't title my e-mail to Rondina 'A Challenge' for nothing! Heh heh. He just graciously handed me the smoking gun. Doesn't mean everyone's gonna do that (again, something I encounter on my other blog), so it's a testament to the character of those that do.

Across the Forest, Across the Sea

Yesterday, I received a copy of Justin Blair and Matthew Vincent's Across the Forest doco in the mail. I'm gonna give a brief background into how that came about.

I received an e-mail from Justin ("Justin Blair here, the maker of the vampire (strigoi) documentary set in Transylvania, Across the Forest", Tuesday, 26 January 2010 2:28:55 PM) saying that he came across my blog via Magia Posthuma and said that I'm doing "really excellent work".

He then asked if I'd be interested in having a copy of the film sent to me for review on my blog and asked if I wanted to interview him, as well.

As this e-mail came hot on the heels of "Blogging Ethics", I was somewhat torn. There was an air of self-promotion I wasn't entirely comfortable with.

However, he did have a point: his doco's subject matter is in sync with what I discuss on my blog.

In my reply ("Re: Justin Blair here, the maker of the vampire (strigoi) documentary set in Transylvania, Across the Forest‏", Friday, 29 January 2010 10:14:05 PM), I made him aware of my "Blogging Ethics" post, but complemented him on addressing me directly, rather than group-send me spam. I also admitted that its subject matter was in context with what I write about and mentioned that I had seen Niels' review of it.

I also said that, in the interests of disclosure, I'd have to reveal that he suggested I interview him (should I actually do so, mind you and I probably will) and if he was ok with that, then yes, I'd agree for a copy of the film to be sent to me. But I also iterated that if I had any issues with the film (i.e., criticisms) then I'd certainly be raising them in my review.

Can't play favourites here, ya see.

He wrote back shortly after ("Re: Justin Blair here, the maker of the vampire (strigoi) documentary set in Transylvania, Across the Forest", ‏Friday, 29 January 2010 10:14:05 PM) saying that he admired my viewpoints and had "no problems with the criteria" I gave. He also said that if I did have any problems with the film, then they'd be his own, and had no beef with my pointing them out (awww).

He mentioned it was a low-budget film, but that it "dovetails" with what I write about and reiterated his offer to send me a copy, and thanked me for writing back.

I was pretty impressed with Justin's manners and professionalism, so I wrote back ("RE: Justin Blair here, the maker of the vampire (strigoi) documentary set in Transylvania, Across the Forest", Tuesday, 2 February 2010 12:41:58 AM) thanking him for his courtesy and gave him the go-ahead to send the film. I did mention that there might be problems concerning DVD region codes (we use PAL in Australia, whereas the Yanks use NTSC).

He got back to me ("Re: Justin Blair here, the maker of the vampire (strigoi) documentary set in Transylvania, Across the Forest‏", Tuesday, 2 February 2010 11:33:58 AM) saying that the disc was region-free and that they had customers from "Australia, the UK, Denmark, Brazil, Japan, etc and no reported problems".

He signed off by saying he'd send it soon and would be looking forward to hearing back from me.

Which now brings us back to the present.

I haven't had time to watch the DVD yet, but when I do, the review will follow soon after.

Blogging Ethics

Brian Solomon wrote a great piece on the ethics concerning bloggers and promotional material sent along to them for review.

I confess that some of my posts have made use of such material.

What'll happen is, a publicist of some sort will send me an e-mail promoting the product they're trying to sell/promote. If I consider it interesting or relevant to this blog, then I'll incorporate it into a post.

Here's the posts that have used such promotional sources and why I wrote about them. I should also point out, that in all posts, the source of the info was disclosed:

Blog Entry: "Vampires on Telly"
Product: Stephenie Meyer's appearance on Oprah.
Why'd I Mention It? Simple, really. I found the idea of a vampire fiction author's appearance on one of TVs most successful shows (ever), to be an incredible step in the mainstreaming of vampires.

Blog Entry: "For Twilight Fans with a Sense of Humour"
Product: "Emo Vampire" music parody.
Why'd I Mention It? The sentiment expressed in the song appealed to me. Yeah, I'm one of those "what happened to evil vampires?" types. I admit it. Not that I've done much to hide this attitude, mind you! Check out my Amazon review of F. Paul Wilson's Midnight Mass. To balance things out a bit, though, I gave coverage to the de-romanticisation of vampires, which, in a roundabout way, is romanticisation in itself. Anti-romanticising, that is.

Blog Entry: "Free Plug!"
Product: A new webseries by Ti West, called Dead & Lonely.
Why'd I Mention It? Two reasons: 1) the courtesy of the promotor and 2) Ti West. As I mentioned in the blog entry, he's the mind behind The Roost (2005), a flick I've been hanging out to see. I wrote about it to see if anyone would be interested in checking it out. I didn't.

Blog Entry: "Contributing Elsewhere"
Product: Vampire-themed "Haunted House" event in New York.
Why'd I Mention It? It combined vampires and Hallowe'en. Perfect! As I mentioned, I was actually offered to visit the place itself. This was somewhat prohibitive, as I live on the other side of the world.

Off the top of my head, those are the only ones I can recall.

I've also received promotional e-mails from other sources, most notably, The Weird World of Wibbell. They've got a film out called The Vampires of Bloody Island.

The problem is a) it looks incredibly amateur, b) this isn't a movie review blog.

I've made one notable exception, but mainly because I was discussing the film as an adaptation of Stoker's novel, as well as its impact on vampire movie history.

I doubt Bloody Island could claim the same level of critical status.

Nonetheless, if you wanna read about the film, I'm happy to forward you along to Andrew's review.

Other than that, I should clearly state that I'm not interested in being used as a promotional mouthpiece.

I can certainly appreciate the efforts undertaken in promoting a movie or other media. It's no easy feat. But I'm not gonna be a publicity sock puppet, either.

We do raise a teeny bit of a dilemma, here. I recognise that. After all, where does one draw the line on promotion? Don't I promote things? Don't I point to things on sale?

Sure I do. But that's cos they fit in with the purpose of this blog, that is, to entertain, share resources and knowledge I've gleaned in the field. No one's telling me to do it, or making subtle "suggestions".

You'll note that there's no ads incorporated into this blog, either. That was a deliberate move on my part. After all, as fellow Bloggers would know, there's an AdSense function one could make use of. Sure, I considered it. Came mighty close. But, I thought I might lose some integrity along the way. Not to mention that they ain't exactly aesthetically pleasing.

That said, I've got no issue with Bloggers who do use it. If they wanna make money off their blog, by all means! Nothing wrong with making a living - or getting some spare change - from your writings.

I should also point out that I'm certainly receptive to readers sending me items of interest. Sometimes, I might incorporate them into a blog entry. Take the articles sent to me by Martin V. Riccardo (as mentioned in "Localised Vampire Interest"). He didn't send them to me to promote anything, they just caught his fancy. They're news articles, after all.

But when we've got something as overt as a forwarded press release (I'm looking at you, Wibbell!), then clearly a line has been crossed. We're talking spam tactics here, people.

And dammit, I hate spam!