* (restored)
Misconceptions
‘Werewolves don’t eat humans. They never have and I doubt they ever will. I know a few lycanthropes, perfectly nice people. I’m sure that far more cannibalistic humans have eaten their fellow beings than werewolves, who are generally immune to most insanity. The ludicrous myth that werewolves eat humans is based on the equally ludicrous myth that wolves eat humans.
‘The silver bullet thing is half-true. All werewolves are strongly allergic to silver. if it gets into the bloodstream it will kill almost instantly. An iron bullet through the heart will kill them, but a silver bullet grazing one, say, through the hand and infecting them will also kill. Skin-surface silverburn begins by burning like touching a hot stove, fading away to a tingle. The area around the burnt skin and the burn itself is temporally paralyzed, the nerves contracting. I have seen a burnt hand curl into a twisted, helpless claw for about two or three days from accidentally brushing against some jewelry. Please note that I am first aid certified.
‘Werewolves are about as far from licentious as can be. They mate for life, staying devoted to their chosen mate until both die. Widows or widowers will not re-“marry”, and will mourn their lost mate, grief-stricken. Most werewolves die within a month of their mate. There’s never been a Christian werewolf. Church ceremonies would be impossible. I’ve never seen a werewolf that could sit still for more than ten minutes at a stretch unless they were stalking something.
‘Werewolves have no aversion to running water or garlic. One of my lycanthrope friends’ great joys in life is wading through water. Something about mud between her toes, she says. She also makes great garlic-parmesan spaghetti.
‘Lycanthropy is hereditary. The child of two werewolves is a werewolf. If a werewolf bites a human, the human will bleed and most likely sue the werewolf, but lycanthropy isn’t contagious.
‘Werewolves can change from wolf to humanoid at any time, not limited by the full moon, and are undistinguishable from wolves in wolf-state. A werewolf in human-state can be distinguished by their general disgust towards most humans, and vegetables (referred to collectively as ‘plants, the things that cows eat’.)
‘I hope this has been of some help.’ — werewolf page.com
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Transformations
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Quotes
‘A gentleman is simply a patient wolf.’ — Lana Turner
‘In its blind unrestrainable passion, its werewolf hunger for surplus-labour, capital oversteps not only the moral, but even the merely physical maximum bounds of the working day. It usurps the time for growth, development, and healthy maintenance of the body.’ — Karl Marx
‘I’m hairy on the inside.’ — Angela Carter
‘The modern Little Red Riding Hood, reared on singing commercials, has no objection to being eaten by the wolf.’ — Marshall McLuhan
‘I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had.’ — Shirley Jackson
‘There is a beast in man that should be exercised, not exorcised.’ — Anton LaVey
‘Welcome to the mystery that is men. I think it goes something like, they grow body hair, they lose all ability to tell you what they really want.’ — Buffy the Vampire Slayer
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Heads 1
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The Werewolves of France
1. The Werewolves of Paris were a man-eating wolf pack that entered Paris during the winter of 1450 through breaches in the city walls, killing forty people. A wolf named Courtaud, or “Bobtail”, was the leader of the pack. Eventually the wolves were destroyed when Parisians, furious at the depredations, lured Courtaud and his pack into the heart of the city, where they were stoned and speared to death before the gates of Notre Dame Cathedral.
2. In 1521, Jean Boin, Inquisitor of Besancon, tried Philibert Montot, Pierre Bourgot, and Michel Verdun for having made a pact with the devil and for lycanthropy. These men became known as the werewolves of Poligny.
These men came under suspicion when a traveler passing through the area was attacked by a wolf. While defending himself, he was able to wound the animal, forcing it to retreat. Following the trail of the injured creature, the man came upon a hut where he found a local resident, Michel Verdun, under the care of his wife, who was washing a wound on his body. Believing Verdun’s injury to be a sympathetic wound, the man notified the authorities. Arrested and tortured, Verdun admitted that he was a shape-shifter; he also revealed the names of his two werewolf accomplices, as well as confessing to hideous crimes: diabolism, murder, and eating human flesh.
The three men were promptly executed.
3. In the sixteenth century town of Dole, a proclamation was publicly read in the town square. It’s contents gave permission for the people to track down and kill the werewolf, that had been terrorizing the village.
While walking through the forest, a group of peasants heard the screams of a small child accompanied by the howling of a wolf. When they arrived they saw a wounded child fighting off a monstrous creature whom they later identified as Gilles Garner. When a ten year old boy disappeared in the vicinity of Garrier’s home, he was arrested and confessed to being a werewolf. He was then burned at the stake.
4. The Wolf of Soissons was a man-eating wolf which terrorized the commune of Soissons northeast of Paris over a period of two days in 1765, attacking eighteen people.
The first victims of the wolf were a pregnant woman and her unborn child, attacked in the parish of Septmont on the last day of February. Diligent locals had taken the infant, a scant four or five months old, from the womb to be baptized before it died when the wolf struck again not three hundred yards from the scene of the first attack. One Madame d’Amberief and her son survived only by fighting together.
On the first of March near the hamlet of Courcelles a man was attacked by the wolf and survived with head wounds. The next victims were two young boys, named Boucher and Maréchal, who were savaged on the road to Paris, both badly wounded. A farmer on horseback lost part of his face to the wolf before escaping to a local mill, where a boy of seventeen was caught unawares and slain. After these atrocities the wolf fled to Bazoches, where it partially decapitated a woman and severely wounded a girl, who ran screaming to the village for help.
Four citizens of Bazoches set an ambush at the body of the latest victim, but when the wolf returned it proved too much for them and the villagers soon found themselves fighting for their lives. The arrival of more peasants from the village finally put the wolf to flight, chasing it into a courtyard where it fought with a chained dog. When the chain broke the wolf was pursued through a pasture, where it killed a number of sheep, and into a stable, where a servant and cattle were mutilated.
The episode ended when one Antoine Saverelle, former member of the local militia, tracked the wolf to small lane armed with a pitchfork. The wolf sprang at him but he managed to pin its head to the ground with the instrument, holding it down for roughly fifteen minutes before an armed peasant came to his aid and killed the animal. Saverelle received a reward of three-hundred livres from Louis XV of France for his bravery.
5. Dark times lived in Gascony, France in 1603. Innocent children were plucked from their beds to suffer a hideous fate. Mass hysteria descended on the village when 13-year-old Marguerite Poirer swore before the magistrate that on the night of the full moon she was savagely attacked by a wolf-like beast while tending her cattle. Luckily she was able to drive the creature off with her sturdy, iron pointed staff.
Jeanne Gaboriaut, 18-years-old, told the judge that 14-year-old Jean Grenier had made advances on her and when she denied him because of his yellow complexion and dirty appearance he told her “That is because of the wolf’s skin I wear.” The creepy jerk told shepherdess that his wealthy employer gave him a pelt to put on that he might go “haunting” the woods and fields. There where nine other like himself, who roamed the forest between dusk and dawn. Grenier immediately was arrested.
6. One of the worst-ever lycanthropes was the Werewolf of Chalons, otherwise known as the Demon Tailor. He was arraigned in Paris on 14 December 1598 on murder charges which were so appalling that the court ordered all documents of the hearing to be destroyed. Even his real name has become lost in history.
Burnt to death for his crimes, he was believed to decoy children of both sexes into his shop, and having abused them he would slice their throats and then powder and dress their bodies, jointing them as a butcher cuts up meat. In the twilight, under the shape of a wolf, he roamed the woods to leap out on stray passers-by and tear their throats to shreds. Barrels of bleached bones were found concealed in his cellars as well as other foul and hideous things. He died (it was said) unrepentant and blaspheming.
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Cat Power ‘Werewolf’
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The Ginger Snaps Trilogy
‘Try to imagine what Buffy the Vampire Slayer would look like if it had been written by Angela Carter and you might get close to the heady cocktail of high-school pubescence and feminist folklore that is Ginger Snaps. This is the story of 16-year-old Ginger (Katharine Isabelle) and 15-year-old Brigitte (Emily Perkins), two repressed, weird, goth-styled sisters whose bland Canadian suburb happens to be plagued by a werewolf. Ginger Snaps is a sparky, sharp film marked by intelligent dialogue and a complex view of that moment when girls hover on the brink of womanhood but would rather not take the next step.
‘Ginger Snaps is a radical film in a number of ways, not least in its twist on the economies of punishment that haunt the horror genre. Ginger Snaps‘ sister heroines are essentially female Peter Pans who have contrived to delay the onset of menstruation for years, masking their terror of adulthood with a performance of supreme adolescent alienation. And who can blame them for not wanting to join the ranks of women? Ginger Snaps glories in the notion that being a woman is in itself such a crime, one might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb.
‘Ginger Snaps is haunted by stories of high-school massacres (notably Taber and from across the border Columbine) which makes its glorious take on a schoolgirl gone (literally) wild a sensitive subject. The film also nods to contemporary notions of sexual morality in its casting of werewolfism as a blood-borne disease that can be caught through the ‘consumption’ of carnality. Where the early-90s spate of vampirism-as-Aids narratives figured ‘haemosexuality’ as a metaphor for STDs (mirroring Bram Stoker’s syphilis in the 1890s), here it’s werewolfism that’s sexually transmitted.’ — Linda Ruth Williams, Sight & Sound
Excerpt: ‘Ginger Snaps’ (2000)
Trailer: ‘Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed’ (2003)
Trailer: ‘Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning’ (2004)
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Movie stars
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A Boat
O beautiful
was the werewolf
in his evil forest.
We took him
to the carnival
and he started
crying
when he saw
the Ferris wheel.
Electric
green and red tears
flowed down
his furry cheeks.
He looked
like a boat
out on the dark
water.
— Richard Brautigan
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RIP: Deikitsen Wolfram Lupus
‘Adrian Baine Manley, also known as Deikitsen Wolfram Lupus, leader of the San Antonio Crimson Wolf Pack, age 16, passed away September 29, 2010. The boy’s mother said her son, who wore long hair, chains and a tail, was bullied at school before he killed himself. She found him wearing a collar and hanging in his closet by a leash. “He stuck out because he chose to wear the tail, and they made a spectacle of him,” she said. “Because he was different, he’d get teased.” The boy had recently been expelled from Brandeis High School for bringing a knife to campus and was attending Bexar County’s Juvenile Justice Academy, Northside Independent School District spokesman Pascual Gonzalez said. The mother of the 16-year-old boy Friday night organized a candlelight vigil at her home that was attended by about 75 friends, some members of the wolf pack. Packmates at the vigil described the boy as “sweet” and “kindhearted.” Steven Suwanasung, 17, who sports fangs and a tail, described the wolf pack as a support group. “It’s a big family, all of us,” he said. “We care for each other.” The pack’s “alpha” leader, Sarah Rodriguez, is known as Wolfie Blackheart. She said Friday that the boy who killed himself recently asked her if he could start his own wolf pack at Brandeis. She told him he could. “He’s one of my submissives, but he leads a group of others,” Blackheart said.’ — mySA
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Heads 2
Werewolf heads appear again and again in your work. I’m not sure if this has a specific meaning for you or not.
David Altmejd: I started using that three years ago. At the beginning it was just an alternative to the human body. I made a chopped-up werewolf. Body art is so familiar, in terms of experience. By making a monster leg, it has something of the familiar feeling but there is an added level of weirdness. Then I was very interested in the werewolf because of its complexity, its symbolic potential. It represents both good
and evil, human and animal, Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – extremes on both sides.
Every time I talk about my work I use the word “energy” a lot, not in a new age kind of way. The werewolf head with crystals on it is an energy-generating object. A man transforms into the werewolf, which is the most intense transformation, physically and mentally. The werewolf goes from one state, man, to a totally opposite state, animal, in the matter of minutes or even seconds. In movies it always happens in, like, thirty seconds. It even looks painful.
Were you thinking of pop movies like Michael J. Fox in Teen Wolf or Michael Jackson in Thriller? Do you deal with Pop issues?
David Altmejd: I do deal with Pop, but that’s not where the werewolf comes from. For me, it is more of a Romantic notion from the end of the 19th century. In a story I made up about the werewolf, in the seconds right after the super-intense transformation from man into werewolf, the head is chopped off. It is put on a table, and instead of rotting the head crystallizes. The energy related to the transformation is kept inside the head and it crystallizes and becomes an energy-generating object. The architectural structure I use in the installation presents the object in such a way that triggers this energy and circulates or channels it throughout the piece.
So even where there is a decapitated werewolf you are being optimistic?
David Altmejd: Yes, totally. It is intended to be alive. Maybe weird and dark, but certainly alive.
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The Cramps ‘I Was a Teenage Werewolf’
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A History of Little Red Riding Hood
from reconstruction.eserver.org
The story most commonly known today as Little Red Riding Hood has a far-reaching and controversial history. One of the most studied and interpreted fairy tales, this story has many variants, problematizing interpretation, namely, which version is considered by folklorists as the “authoritative” version of the tale. LRRH is a multi-voiced, multi-cultural tale that has been told and retold, suffering endless plot and character morphing and reinterpretation.
As many readers are unfamiliar with any oral variant of LRRH it seems prudent to reproduce one here (the version which, according to Paul Delarue, was the source material for the Perrault tale). The translation here is from Delarue via Jack Zipes from his Trials and Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood:
The Story of Grandmother
There was a woman who had made some bread. She said to her daughter: “Go carry this hot loaf and bottle of milk to your granny.”
—-So the little girl departed. At the crossway she met bzou, the werewolf, who said to her: “Where are you going?”
—-“I’m taking this hot loaf and bottle of milk to my granny.”
—-“What path are you taking.” said the werewolf, “the path of needles or the path of pins?”
—-“The path of needles,” the little girl said.
—-“All right, then I’ll take the path of pins.”
—-The little girl entertained herself by gathering needles. Meanwhile the werewolf arrived at the grandmother’s house, killed her, and put some of her meat in the cupboard and a bottle of her blood on the shelf. The little girl arrived and knocked at the door.
—
–“Push the door,” said the werewolf, “It’s barred by a piece of wet straw.”
—-“Good day, granny. I’ve brought you a hot loaf of bread and a bottle of milk.”
—-“Put it in the cupboard, my child. Take some of the meat which is inside and the bottle of wine on the shelf.”
—-After she had eaten, there was a little cat which said: “Phooey!… A slut is she who eats the flesh and drinks the blood of her granny.”
—-“Undress yourself, my child,” the werewolf said, “And come lie down beside me.”
—-“Where should I put my apron?”
—-“Throw it into the fire, my child, you won’t be needing it any more.”
—-And each time she asked where she should put all her other Clothes, the bodice, the dress, the petticoat, the long stockings,
the wolf responded: “Throw them into the fire, my child, you won’t be needing
them anymore.”
—-When she laid herself down in the bed, the little girl said: “Oh granny, how hairy you are!”
—-“The better to keep myself warm, my child!”
—-“Oh granny, what big nails you have!”
—-“The better to scratch me with, my child!”
—-“Oh granny, what big shoulders you have!”
—-“The better to carry the firewood, my child!”
—-“Oh granny, what big ears you have!”
—-“The better to hear you with, my child!”
—-“Oh granny, what big nostrils you have!”
—-“The better to snuff my tobacco with, my child!”
—-“Oh granny, what a big mouth you have!”
—-“The better to eat you with, my child!”
—-“Oh granny, I have to go badly. Let me go outside.”
—-“Do it in the bed, my child!”
—-“Oh no, granny, I want to go outside.”
—-“All right, but make it quick.”
—-The werewolf attached a woolen rope to her foot and let her go outside. When the little girl was outside, she tied the end of the rope to a plum tree in the courtyard. The werewolf became impatient and said: “Are you making a load out there? Are you making a load?”
—-When he realized that nobody was answering him, he jumped out of bed and saw that the little girl had escaped. He followed her but arrived at her house just at the moment she entered.
The wolf asking her to remove her clothing, while seen as a moment of seduction for some, also signifies a return to the infantile status. Naked as a babe she enters the primitive bed, is asked to defecate there and is threatened with incorporation by the maternal stand- in. The child’s challenge then, is to realize the dangers inherent in such an endeavor and to refuse such a movement back into the primitive; refuse to confuse her borders and boundaries. When the “correct” choice is made by the girl, she escapes from the wolf.
In the first written version of the oral tale, Perrault’s, several major changes occur. The first and most obvious is the title which becomes Little Red Riding Hood. Much has been made of the famous red cloak, but few address the fact that this detail was fabricated by Perrault himself and was not, apparently part of the oral source. The written tale is longer and more detailed. The “girl” in the oral tale becomes “the prettiest creature that ever was seen.” Her mother is mentioned explicitly in Perrault’s version, where only a “woman” existed in the oral tale. It begins:
Once upon a time there lived in a certain village a little country girl, the prettiest creature that ever was seen. Her mother was very fond of her, and her grandmother loved her still more. This good woman made for her a little red riding-hood, which became the girl so well that everyone called her Little Red Riding Hood.
The child is to bring custards and butter to the grandmother who is believed to be ill. On the way she meets the wolf, who wants to eat her right there, but fears the wood cutters near by. She answers, “not knowing that it was dangerous to stay and hear a wolf talk”. Here the story returns to the oral format except that the paths of needles and pins are omitted. Instead, the wolf chooses the fastest path while the child dallies picking flowers. The wolf eats the grandmother and dons her clothing. When LRRH enters, she is told to leave her clothes and come to bed with the wolf. At this point there is much talk of hair, claws and the like, and then the story takes an entirely new twist. Missing in the written variant is the girl child’s pressing need “to go,” and she is not allowed to trick the wolf and escape. Instead, she is simply eaten by the “wicked” wolf.
The “final” major reworking of the tale is performed by the brothers Grimm in their Kinder-und Hausmarchen. Once again, in the re-telling of the tale there are some changes. These changes are not only of details (the Grimm version is a longer version with many added specifics), but also serious alterations in the plot. The tale opens:
Once upon a time there was a sweet little maiden. Whoever laid eyes upon her could not help but love her. But it was her grand-mother who loved her most. She could never give the child enough.One time she made her a present, a small, red velvet cap, and since it was so becoming and the maiden insisted on always wearing it, she was called Little Red Cap.
Grimm’s major change in the story is the addition of a male character who comes in, divines the problem, and rescues the two women from the wolf’s belly. With a pair of scissors, the hunter cuts the belly open and out pop Red Ridinghood and Grandmother in a male-effected birth. The Grimms here illustrate a movement from a primarily female identified (oral) story to a tale ending with two insertions of male power: first in the rescue and then in the male birth. The hunter then kills the wolf by stuffing his open cavity with stones which causes him to fall down dead. The hunter gets the wolf pelt for his troubles and the women go home happy. Perrault’s moral is summed up in the Grimm version as Red’s last thought to herself ” Never again will you stray from the path by yourself and go into the forest when your mother has forbidden it”.
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Red Sword (2012)
‘Long, long ago, there was a wolfman tribe who had no women. All through history these desperate wolf men have attacked and raped female humans as a way to continue their species. But the wolf men have a terrible legend where every hundred years, on the night of a red moon, a little girl is born and she is destined to destroy the wolf-man tribe. The lecherous wolf men are so afraid of females that they have developed a code which requires they kill baby girls soon after they are born. But only the lovely Beniko Akatsuki survives this terrible fate.
‘These days, Beniko fights endless battles against the wolf men. Poor Beniko’s mother was ruthlessly raped by a wolf man and gave birth to Beniko. To save her baby girl, Beniko’s mother had to sacrifice her own life. Now, Beniko wears a memento of her beloved mother, a red riding hood, and she has dedicated her life to killing all the wolf men. One day, Beniko senses that the evil wolf men are sneaking into a high school. The clever Beniko pretends she is a school girl and starts attending school, only to find vicious, horny pack of female-deprived wolf men. Beniko protects her fellow school girls as she fights them off with her sword and her red riding hood.
‘Will the brave, sexy Beniko Red Riding Hood be able to finally kill the vicious pack of sex-starved wolf-men?’ — Director Naoyuki “Erotibot” Tomomatsu
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Werewolf Porn
Liru the Werewolf
Fucked By A Werewolf
Queer Werewolf Stories
Lady Cop and the Horny Werewolf
Hot Asian Girl Fucks Werewolf
Lezley Zen fucked by werewolf
Just because Buffy slays vampires, doesn’t mean she can’t fuck the shit out of werewolf!
Gay Werewolf Movies By Title
Werewuff Fullsuit
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Robert Ashley ‘The Wolfman’
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The Last Werewolf
‘ … Adrenaline isn’t interested in ennui. Adrenaline floods, regardless, in my state not just the human fibres but lupine leftovers too, those creature dregs that hadn’t fully conceded transformation. Phantom wolf energies and their Homo sapiens correlates wriggled and belched in my scalp, shoulders, wrists, knees. My bladder tingled as in the too fast pitch down from a Ferris wheel’s summit. The absurdity was being unable, shin-deep in snow, to quicken my pace. Harley had tried to press a Smith & Wesson automatic on me before I’d left but I’d laughed it away. Stop being a granny. I imagined him watching now on CCTV saying, Yes, Harley the granny. I hope you’re happy, Marlowe, you [expletive] idiot. …
‘If, then . . . If, then . . . This, aside from the business of monthly transformation, the inestimable drag of Being a Werewolf, is what I’m sick of, the endless logistics. There’s a reason humans peg-out around eighty: prose fatigue. It looks like organ failure or cancer or stroke but it’s really just the inability to carry on clambering through the assault course of mundane cause and effect. If we ask Sheila then we can’t ask Ron. If I have the kippers now then it’s quiche for tea. Four score years is about all the ifs and thens you can take. Dementia’s the sane realisation you just can’t be doing with all that anymore. …
‘My face was hot and tender. The snow’s recording studio hush made small sounds distinct: someone opening a can of beer; a burp; a purse snapping shut. Across the road three drunk young men hysterically scuffled with one another. A cabbie wrapped in a tartan blanket stood by his vehicle’s open door complaining into a mobile. Outside Flamingo two hotdog-eating bouncers in Cossack hats presided over a line of shivering clubbers. Nothing like the blood and meat of the young. You can taste the audacity of hope. Post-Curse these thoughts still shoot up like the inappropriate erections of adolescence. …
‘These, you’ll say, were not the calculations of a being worn out by history, too full of content, emptily replete. Granted. But it’s one thing to know death’s twenty-seven days away, quite another to know it might be making your acquaintance any second now. To be murdered here, in human shape, would be gross, precipitate and — despite there being no such thing as justice — unjust. Besides, the person tracking me couldn’t be Grainer. As Harley said, his lordship prized the wulf not the wer, and the thought of being despatched by anyone less than the Hunt’s finest was repugnant. And this was to say nothing of my one diarist’s duty still undischarged: If I was snuffed out here and now who would tell the untellable tale? The whole disease of your life written but for that last lesion of the heart, its malignancy and muse. God’s gone, Meaning too, and yet aesthetic fraudulence still has the power to shame. …
‘At which point a silenced bullet hit the street lamp’s concrete three inches above my head.’
— Glen Duncan
—-
*
p.s. Hey. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Well, to be fair, my assessment of Pollard’s inability to write a bad song is not exactly the consensus opinion. Yes, it’s my current circumstances with the film that cause me to maybe sort of wish I could schmooze. Actually, I’m being called upon to schmooze this evening in a Zoom call with a potential investor in the film, and I’m trying to figure out a way I can do that while remaining completely sincere. There must be a way. I’d even take a hat of one of those boringly attention seeking Dubai record breakers over my Tour Montparnasse hat. I think the head cold is in its death rattle phase, I think, I think. Dinner was super yum and you should’ve been there, but one of these days. It’s kind of boring that your dream description made ‘Twin Peaks’ spring immediately to mind. Not that ‘TP’ is remotely boring, of course. Love wondering how the world would change if pigeons were incredibly charismatic, G. ** David Ehrenstein, Yes, and ‘Gimme Shelter’ is no slouch either. ** _Black_Acrylic, I predict that your new apartment’s interior is going to look very exciting. I’ve still never seen ‘Lords of Chaos’, and it’s on Youtube? Okay, then, problem solved. Thanks, buddy. ** l@rst, Hi, man! Enjoy the parental units. And it sounds like you are. Which can be, in circumstances unlike yours, not the easiest task. So, congrats! And I highly look forward to your new spoken poem. Whoop! Everyone, l@rst aka the fine writer Laurence Lillvik has a new spoken poem up on bandcamp that he would like to share with all and sundry, and, more immediately, you. Put on your headphones (or not), and join him/me here. ** Bzzt 2.0, Hi, Quinn! Wow! I was just thinking about you yesterday and wondering how and where you are. Paris is in splendid form. Maybe a little too warm, but that’s the New World for you. We are inching ever forward towards shooting the new film this fall. Not without difficulties, but steadily. I’ve always had this little romance with the idea of working at a movie theater, I don’t know precisely why, so … congrats. Bipolarity is definitely nothing to be ashamed of, for sure. Some of my favorite and most interesting friends have been and are. Tough, though, as my recent novel lays out in an extreme case. I’m glad you’re on it and seeing the bright side. There always is one and sometimes it’s really bright. Yes, I too really enjoyed seeing you here back then. And I’m very glad to hear from you and know you’re doing okay and interestingly. Please keep me up on you and yours, if you feel like it. Love, me. ** Paul Curran, Hi! July-ish, okay. I think at this point the idea to give ourselves the gift of a Japan trip as a reward for finishing our film, which will probably mean late this year or possibly early in the next one depending. Can … not … wait! Fantastic news about the signing off on your new novel!!!! So excited! And not even hugely long to wait. Great, Paul! <3 <3 ** Okay. I thought it was a good idea to restore the old Werewolf Day, am I wrong? See you tomorrow.
Cue Warren Zevon
Well, I’m in Paris, and close to the source of the blog, so I’m gonna be bold and pushy. This is a real favorite topic of mine, and my favorite film version is the 1941 The Wolf Man, which I love for many reasons (we just talked about my attraction to early, archaic forms of a genre or technology etc with automata) not least of all that it’s kind of a distillation of Curt Siodmak’s themes and contributions to cinema. I just feel close to his worldview.
So this film was shown in my class on The Uncanny, and we all talk about how the lycanthrope theme derives from unease with the animalistic that persists in culture, the aggression, the tearing of flesh with the teeth; and also how the werewolf film draws adolescents, especially males, because it dramatizes and romanticizes the crisis of sudden uncontrollable urges, fits of anger and alienation, and of hair bursting out from the body, sometimes seemingly overnight.
But in the class I’d start with how the film embodies the inevitability and discomfort of change – a film about metamorphosis, a very old theme. A lot of the 1941 Wolf Man is about science and Reason overcoming dark instinctual forces; that position is depicted sympathetically, but the counterpoint is a psychological one: Yeah, that’s not gonna work again the werewolf curse.
Horror as a genre works (like pornography), and is especially resonant for adolescents because it elicits strong physical response, and because it temporarily wrecks the conditioning we get from culture. Wolves are natural; sex is natural; and it’s great to sink into that and have an aesthetic experience of what’s expunged from culture. (BTW another movie I showed a lot is Kinsey, which is really good on this point.)
So we feel a lot of sympathy with the Wolf Man while fearing him, which makes a very interesting and sort of rare horror hero. We can feel his resistance to being overcome by just what we like in a way to be overcome by, but he’s frightening–and ultimately has to be destroyed–because he also operates according to basic principles of magical thinking that we cannot avoid: 1 he’s a magical object himself that we can use to project our own sources of discomfort on to and thus eliminate by eliminating him; 2 he threatens us with contagion, the instinctual idea that contact with a substance or person will infect us with its qualities (or lend us its strength or holiness).
If this sounds artsy-fartsy, these are exactly the two psychological points controlling politics in the US now, as they have done and do elsewhere. Maybe it’s even a cliché, it’s certainly a foundation of queer “theory,” but it astounds me when Americans try to counter the trumpeting of trans people or queers or Mexicans as irresistible sources of contagion with pure sweet reason. “Yes, I do know that reading a book about a gay family doesn’t make you gay. What I want to argue against is you beating me with that big club.”
When I show The Wolf Man in class, I generally end up making an analogy between Lyle Talbot and Oedipus — and there’s a lot in that movie about the man who doesn’t mean to attack the patriarchal order but does so against his will, and finally accepts being sacrificed to maintain the patriarchal order.
So anyway, I love it and the other werewolf movies don’t have Maria Ouspenskaya intoning, “Even a man who is pure at heart and says his prayers by night . . . ”
I think Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man is a much better movie than it’s given credit for. I recently pulled out a story draft with that title and will try to consider it while I’m here.
XO I’m around, coupla dates with Paris friends and others passing through.
Hi!!
I guess we all have those artists, writers, etc. who can’t really create anything truly bad in our eyes. I sure have a few too.
How did the schmoozy Zoom call go?
I actually didn’t think of Twin Peaks, so I don’t find it a boring association. I can’t really remember too many details from my dream, so it’s entirely possible that I was in the Black Lodge, haha.
Well, for one, my city’s bus terminal would be a whole lot more interesting because it’s always full of pigeons, haha. Love wearing the above werewolf shoes to ballet class, Od.
Dennis, That first werewolf is hella funny. I know you know that.
Yah, I try to support my fellow writers and friends. Nothing like a little star love to get things going. 😉
Gotten quite busy at work. But that’s expected.
I need to do something about this malaise I’ve been experiencing over the past few weeks. Maybe it’s a subtle depression. Idk. I’m fine, it’ll pass, blah blah. Just a weird feeling lately.
Otherwise, onward and upward.
Gonna see that new Doctor Strange movie this weekend. Seems it kinda sucks, but whatevs. I like sitting in a theater and watching shit.
Oooh, Bernard’s in Paris. Don’t go to one of “those movies” with him. You’ll be lucky to get out alive, what with all the bears and shit prowling around those theaters.
Hi Dennis,
Here’s a werewolf story of sorts: My wife used to work in the erotic romance novel industry as both a writer and editor. At the time, the industry was in the process of transitioning from being primarily influenced by the Twilight books to being primarily influenced by the 50 Shades books. The target audience for these books was straight / middle-aged / middle class / white women. For some reason, the other thing that was hot in the industry at the time was books featuring gay, male protagonists — even though the primary audience was still straight women. These books were not concerned with being reflective of actual gay relationships at all, but basically just transplanted the dominant-man-who-solves-problems-and-fucks-like-a-god / submissive-woman-in-trouble dynamic from straight erotic to stories about two dudes.
Anyway, these three trends (Twilight, 50 Shades, gay protagonists) all collided, resulting in a deluge of books about gay werewolves who were into BDSM that were being marketed to bored housewives. The books were so popular that it led to problems with selling on Amazon, because Amazon had a “no beastiality” rule. The books kept getting flagged, so they had to devise a set of bizarre rules, like “It’s okay to get fucked by a werewolf mid-transition, as long as his dick is still human, but it’s not okay to get fucked by a fully-transitioned werewolf or a man with a wolf-dick.”
As tends to happen, readers/writers quickly grew tired of the basic formula and started putting twists on it: different kinds of were-animals, shape-shifting dinosaurs, etc. Eventually, this culminated in a book called “Shape-Shifting Santa and the Vampire: An Unlikely Christmas Combo,” which I can only assume was some kind of masterpiece. My wife quit shortly after, so, unfortunately, this is where my insight into this odd blip in literary history ends.
I used to love Teen Wolf growing up and if I recall correctly, they made a cartoon spin-off series of that too. Cartoon spin-offs are cool, and I remember in the 80s there were a lot of those about.
David Altmejd’s cover for Derek McCormack – The Show That Smells is one for the ages.
I’ve started working on a review of the 700 Bliss album. It’s the most hip-hop-influenced project Moor Mother has ever made, full of boasting and even a 2-minute skit mocking their haters, but her voice is far more suited to this than DJ Haram’s. The contrast in timbre between their voices should be a plus, but DJ Haram sounds like she’s just joking around or recording reference bars half the time. The production is excellent, though, with complex percussion influenced by African music.
TEEN WOLF was gonna play in Anthology’s ongoing transgender cinema series in the spring of 2020!
Picking up from what Nick Toti said, surely werewolf fetish furry porn exists.
Hey Dennis, I’ve only seen Ginger Snaps once and I was probably 11 or younger, I think I watched it on IFC one summer morning or some other vacation, it always stayed in my mind as a great film even though I never revisited, the opening and the “ultimate fuck you suicide” thing still stays kinda as an ideology. I had to have watched The Wolf Man before that I think but I can’t be sure, that one also stayed even though i’ve only seen it once, the warning he gets the dread. I’m gonna revisit hat soon along with all the Universal monsters but probably Frankenstein mainly, I just got a cheap dvd of all of them a few days ago and I have a huge crush of Karloff as faggy monster men so that’ll be fun. Unfortunately not much to update on, about to be on summer break so at least I don’t have to do any writing I don’t want to do anymore but money’s tight and I still hate my job but that’s what it is I guess. But at least I’ll have more tattoos in the coming months, and I’m probably gonna quit this job and get another bullshit one to last the rest of college, but hopefully a less tedious one. How are things with you? Any exciting or absurd events? How’s the film going? Hope it’s all lovely and blooming. Talk more later, Brandon.
Hey D-
Thanks for sharing another poem of mine. I was super into American Werewolf in London and the Steven King book cycle of the Werewolf as a kid. And also the werewolves in What We Do In The Shadows movie, “we’re werewolves not swearwolves!”
Twas a good visit with the folks.
-L
Haha, for some reason werewolves have been on my mind recently. I’m sure most DLs have seen The Company of Wolves. I’m also fond of this arch and quirky flick:
https://letterboxd.com/film/the-wolves-of-kromer/
Hope you’re enjoying Paris, Bernard!
Bill