Cage Match: Eric Northman vs. David

Well, that was a squeaker. I honestly had no idea which way that last match was going to break, but Damon Salvatore walked away with an 11-9 win. He's on to the quarterfinals.

And that's it for the first round of Bracket A! When we come back this way again, we will see fights between The Master and Spike, and Angel and Damon. But before that can happen, we move on to the preliminary round of Bracket B.

Our first fight here is between Eric Northman of True Blood and David (last name unknown) of everyone's favourite 80s vamp-fest The Lost Boys ... a film which featured not only a very young Kiefer Sutherland in his perennial bad-boy role (really, David is just Ace Merrill from Stand By Me with a worse haircut and fangs), but also both of the Coreys. Not having seen the movie since it was actually in the theatres, I watched about two-thirds of it online last week, and realized three things: (1) Kiefer's voice in that film is unrecognizable—it has no gravel in it whatsoever, (2) it's always a pleasant surprise to see the various parts Edward Herrmann aka Richard Gilmore shows up in, and (3) fashion in the 80s was really just embarrassing. (This last one was really less of a realization than a reaffirmation).

This fight, by the way, is a total hat-tip to Mark of Polivision. His idea for how this should go was too good not to steal.

Eric won the coin toss, so this fight will take place in the Louisiana bayou ... um, pretty far away from where Lestat's and Damon's took place, I am sure.

HOW I THINK THIS FIGHT WILL GO:

Eric Northman waits for his opponent on a high bank that slopes away into the swamp's murk. He is alive to the bayou's teeming life, thousands of little thoughts and heartbeats and fears and hungers that are like a hum at the edge of his senses. He smells the cigarette David smokes long before he sees him.

David enters from the dense forest into the clearing, looking around in distaste. Eric smiles.

"You do not care for our setting?" he asks.

"I'm from California," David sneers. "Ocean, beaches, open highway. I don't know how you live here."

"No, I imagine you don't," Eric replies evenly. "You are still young. You have not learned. It is a shame I will have to put an end to you."

"You're confident for a guy with a girl's haircut."

Eric cocks his head, almost quizzically. "I believe the expression is 'glass houses,' my friend."

David is about to respond when a loud, metallic buzzing noise disturbs the heavy air. Eric frowns, patting his hands over his pockets, and retrieving a cell phone.

"I didn't realize I was carrying this," he says, perplexed. "Hello? Um ... what?" He looks across at David. "Yes ... yes, I suppose so." He holds the phone out. "I think it is for you."

David gingerly holds the phone to his ear. "What?"

"Jack, this is Chloë. Listen carefully, I don't—"

"Who the hell is Jack? My name is David, lady."

"Jack, David, whatever. It doesn't matter. I've pulled up this guy Eric's record on—"

"Lady, I don't know who the hell you are or what you want, I don't know who this Jack asshole is, and I'm about to fight someone, so if you don't mind—"

"I know you're about to fight someone, Jack—"

"David!"

"Whatever! Look, this guy Eric is pretty tough, but I've found out that his weakness is—"

Plop. Glug. Chloë's last words are lost as David pitches the phone into the swamp. Eric watches it sink, his brow furrowed.

"That was my phone!" He pauses. "I think."

"Doesn't matter. You're going to be dead in a few minutes, so don't worry." David advances on Eric.

"No. I think not."

David does not even see Eric move. He feels a massive blow to his chest, and is suddenly flat on his back. He springs up, but Eric is nowhere to be seen.

"As I said," his voice says in David's ear, "you are young."

David spins, swinging his fist into empty air. He sees a blur of motion, and is pinned to the trunk of a massive, bearded tree. Eric holds him by the neck, and the other hand plunges a sharpened stick into David's chest.

He just has time to think that perhaps he should have listened to that Chloë person after all.

Projected Winner: ERIC NORTHMAN

The ghost of Gertrude Stein is sending me spam

Ever read the more or less random text that appears in those spam emails, which usually precedes an ad for cheap Viagra or something? Sometimes, you could be forgiven for taking it to be a species of avant-garde poetry. This one showed up in my inbox this morning:

it the had as word down in down
motor me person has had in others ten
and in great the after later tact later porter later in down it and and needed person and motor alone clothes very after me slipped as clothes going much as top the motor the dollars also much very on in in ten dollars as and he word school much and great ten top me great the others alone great main on going others the bought in great had dollars in bought the and main much needed and me He needed bought as it purse paid purse great has

You know, I'm pretty sure I've heard very similar stuff at poetry readings. And I know I read stuff like that in my modernist lit class back at York. For example, from Gertrude Stein's poem "If I Told Him: A Completed Portrait of Picasso":

Exactly as as kings.
Feeling full for it.
Exactitude as kings.
So to beseech you as full as for it.
Exactly or as kings.
Shutters shut and open so do queens. Shutters shut and shutters and so shutters shut and shutters and so and so shutters and so shutters shut
and so shutters shut and shutters and so. And so shutters shut and so and also. And also and so and so and also.

Now, I'm not saying that Gertrude Stein lives on in the digital afterlife and is sending me cryptic messages by email. I'm not saying that at all.

Except that I have a deep suspicion that Gertrude Stein is sending me messages from the digital afterlife. The evidence here is almost ironclad.

Summer of the übermensch(es)

Two nights ago I went to see The Losers, largely on the strength of three things: (1) the trailer was cool, (2) it had Zoe Saldana, whom I am quite happy to watch in any context that doesn't involve her being CGIed into a giant blue Amerindian cat person, and (2) it featured Idris Elba, who for me will always be Stringer Bell from The Wire. The movie is of the Elite Squad action sub-genre, the kind in which you have a team of soldiers, mercenaries or thieves, each of whom has a particular area of expertise, and who over the course of the film carry off several daring / difficult / impossible missions and/or heists.

Let's be clear: The Losers is an extremely bad film, but fortunately bad in very entertaining ways. This is a film that does not embrace the clichés of its genre so much as immerse itself in them as if in a warm bath. Lots of explosions, fire-fights, and the Elite Squad walking toward the camera in slow motion. Good times.

What is more interesting to me however—honestly, this film does not really rate a mention on this blog otherwise—are the trailers that preceded the movie. First was a film called The Expendables, which stars—wait for it—Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Eric Roberts, Randy Couture, Mickey Rourke, and Stone Cold Steve Austin ... and with cameos from Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger. In other words, pretty much all of the major action stars from the previous three decades. And yes—it is an Elite Squad film about, as iMDB.com sums up, "a group of mercenaries hired to infiltrate a South American country and overthrow its ruthless dictator." As a friend of mine observed, whether this film intends it or not, it will be a parody.

The next trailer featured was for Takers (which also, interestingly, stars Idris Elba—so glad he's getting post-Wire work), a film about an elite group of thieves and their plan to make off with a twenty million dollar heist.

At this point, knowing full well what The Losers is about, I'm thinking to myself "Huh ... I kind of don't have to watch this movie now ..."

It strikes me that we seem to have a critical mass of Elite Squad movies hitting theatres this summer. The Stallone film in and of itself cranks this dial up to eleven, but we also have The A-Team coming out soon ... and I'm kind of happy to have seen The Losers, because after that ... honestly, how bad could the film adaptation of my favourite TV show when I was eleven be?

Don't answer that.

Cage Match: Lestat vs. Damon Salvatore

Well, Angel won that fight pretty handily by a margin of 22-5. And now to decide whom he will face in the quarterfinals, a showdown between the vampire Lestat of Interview With The Vampire, and Damon Salvatore of the new hit television series The Vampire Diaries.

Lestat won the coin toss, so today's fight will take place in a majestic but mouldering old manor house in the Louisiana bayou.

HOW I THINK THE FIGHT WILL GO:

Lestat awaits his opponent in the house's old parlour, a room that still carries the grandeur of years now long past in spite of its damp and its mouldering old furniture. In the flickering candlelight, the water stains on the walls shiver and dance. Lestat sips thoughtfully from his wineglass, eyes narrowed as the dark form of Damon Salvatore sidles into the doorway.

"Please, come in," Lestat gestures to the overstuffed armchair across from him. A second wine glass sits on the small table between them. "Have a drink."

Damon doesn't move at first, his eyes taking in the details of the room around him. "Nice house," he says.

Lestat laughs. "Yes, I have a girl come in once a century to tidy up."

Damon enters finally, and sits. "Ah. Vampire humour."

"Won't you drink?"

He looks at the glass suspiciously. "Wine?"

Lestat frowns, swirling the viscous red around his glass. "Of course not." He gestures to a dark, moaning heap in the room's corner. "A gift from a willing and generous donor." He sips.

Damon snatches the glass out of Lestat's hand. "I think I will drink. From your glass. No offense, but we are meant to fight to the death here."

Lestat shrugs, and picks the other glass off the small table. "No offense taken. I just thought it might be nice to have a chat before getting down to business. We might find we have more in common than we think."

Damon eyes him shrewdly. "What are you suggesting?"

"It has been some time since I have met a vampire of a similar mind to me. I've heard about you ... and about your brother."

Damon snorts. "Don't talk about that idiot to me."

"A tortured, brooding, self-hating vampire who refuses to drink human blood."

"That's Stefan. Your point?"

Lestat leans forward. "Sounds an awful lot like an old friend of mine. My point is that there are a distressing number of these pathetic weaklings clinging to their 'humanity,' and here we are being asked to kill one another when we are the ones who should be leading."

Damon leans forward as well, his face close to Lestat's. "I'm listening."

"Why go along with this inane idea?" Lestat whispers, his eyes sliding over the contours of Damon's face. "Why not be the ones left standing when all these others have destroyed themselves?"

Damon places his mouth next to Lestat's ear and breathes, "I like the way you think."

Lestat gives a start, and leans back in his seat, looking down at the wooden stake protruding from his chest. "Hmm. Nicely played. One problem, though ..." he jerks the stake out. "My kind of vampire can't be killed by staking. You really should do your research."

All at once, Lestat and Damon are on their feet, facing each other down. "It might have been nice to have a partner again," sighed Lestat.

Damon shrugs. "It would never last. As you say, we're too similar."

"Right. Shall we do this?"

Projected Winner: TOO CLOSE TO CALL

This week in historical revisionism

Several days ago, the Republican candidate for the New York 19th district and apparent Ann Coulter-wannabe Kristia Cavere wrote a column for the Record-Review, an upstate New York newspaper, in which she argued that every "advancement of freedom" in American history has been carried out by Republicans.

Unfortunately, the Record-Review does not publish an online version—which is a shame, because I would really love to see the justification for her suggestion that "The Republicans are the ones who liberated Europe in World War II."

Catch that? Let me repeat it, just for the double-take factor: "The Republicans are the ones who liberated Europe in World War II."

So, who's got two thumbs and thinks Kristia Cavere is a political hack who needs to retake remedial American history? This guy:

In an observation I wish I had made but will have to settle for just quoting, Attaturk at Firedoglake.com says that, since the larger portion of Europe was actually liberated by the Red Army, if we pull out our Glenn Beck ChalkboardTM, we can thus demonstrate that Republicans are Stalinists.

Cage Match: Angel vs. Santanico Pandemonium

Well, that certainly didn't go well for Edward—Spike mopped the floor with him by a margin of 30-4 (the fact that Edward got four votes would appear to be evidence that this blog gets the occasional teenage girl audience).

On to the next fight!

We have a slight schedule change. I've been watching The Vampire Diaries to get a sense of how the Damon-Lestat fight would go, and I'm almost there ... almost. I don't quite have the shape of it yet—this one might be too close for me to call. It was, I must say, serendipitous to have these two draw their fight together. Such delightful assholes, both of them. Don King would bill the fight as "The Battle of the Bastards" or "Skirmish of the Scumbags."

Anyway, while I figure out how to write that fight, I'm moving up the next showdown. This one was fun: today's match is between Angel, of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, and Santanico Pandemonium of From Dusk Till Dawn—the exotic dancer vampire who has the distinction of effectively launching Salma Hayek's career.

Santanico won the coin toss, so the fight will take place in the bar with the subtle and tactful name The Titty Twister, just over the Mexican border.

HOW I THINK THE FIGHT WILL GO:

Angel sits uncomfortably at his table near the stage, looking around the filthy bar at the bikers and banditos who comprise its clientele. Latin music throbs in the air and topless dancers in harlequin masks writhe in the many alcoves. Not really my scene, he reflects. Spike would love this. Too bad he didn't draw this fight. He notices that he is getting a lot of dark looks from the club's patrons. Angelus would have loved this place too.

He looks to his right, and realizes that most of the hostile curiosity is actually focused on Wesley, who is very conspicuously absorbed in a massive leather-bound tome.

"Fascinating!" Wesley exclaims suddenly. "This ... bar ... "

"You can't say the name, can you Wes?"

He squirms. "Of course I can. I just choose not to."

A papery voice whispers from beneath them. "Titty Twister."

Angel starts, and looks down. "What ... Fred? What are you doing under the table?"

"Hiding," she says. "A man at the bar offered me a ride on his hog. I calculated that the odds are thirty to one he wasn't being euphemistic."

"Um, OK ... fair enough. So ... what does your book say, Wes?"

"That this ... bar ... is built on an ancient Aztec temple, and is a beacon of mystic energy. Vampires are drawn here. It's sort of like a Hellmouth."

"Like a Hellmouth?"

"OK, it is a Hellmouth." Wesley runs his finger down a line of the crabbed text. "Your opponent, this Santanico Pandemonium, is a princess of sorts, revered by the vampire community here."

"Huh. So what you're saying is that if I kill her in this fight, there'll be a lot of pissed-off Aztec vampires wanting revenge?"

"In a nutshell."

"Well, good thing I brought the troops." Angel looks around. "Speaking of which, where are the troops?"

"Well, Gunn is chatting with that ... ah ... lady over there. Last I saw Lorne, he was trying to instruct the bartender on how to mix a proper Manhattan, Fred is hiding under the table, and Cordy refused to come when she heard this bar was named ... the, um, name it has."

"And Spike is in the Pacific Northwest fighting a vampire idolized not by Mexican biker undead but teenage girls. How did I pull this gig again?"

Before Wesley can answer, the lights in the bar dim and the improbably-muscled bartender climbs onto the stage.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" he bellows into his mike. "For your viewing pleasure this evening we bring you a battle to the death! In this corner, I give you the Mistress of the Macabre! The Sanguinary Seductress, the Madam of Mayhem! Bow down before the glory that is ... SANTANICO PANDEMONIUM!"

Underneath the thunderous applause, Angel hears Wesley murmur appreciatively, "Oh. My."

Santanico sways forward into the spotlight, wearing a traditional Aztec headdress and not much else.

"Uh ..." Angel leans over to Wesley. "I don't know how good I'm going to be fighting a woman in a bikini, Wes."

"A little after midnight," Wesley responds distractedly, his eyes not leaving the stage.

"AND IN THIS CORNER ... the Brooding Byronic Bachelor of the City of Angels! Helper of the Helpless, the Vampire With a Soul, I give you—" the bartender does a double take at the note in his hand, and leans over to exchange some words with someone near the stage. "Seriously? That's his name? Seriously. Well, OK ... Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you ... 'Angel'," he finishes, his voice dripping scorn and sarcasm.

Raucous laughter and wolf-whistles accompany Angel as he vaults onto the stage. Santanico stands hipshot, her eyes raking over him. "Well," she purrs, "you're an awful lot prettier than most of the men I see in here. It will be a shame to ruin those babylike looks."

Annoyed, Angel puts on his game face, feeling his brows contract and teeth jut into his vampiric rictus. "I'm not that pretty."

Santanico laughs derisively, and her face similarly transforms into a grotesque, snakelike mask.

"Huh," says Angel. "How about that." He glances down at Wesley. "Looks like that bikini thing isn't going to be an issue after all."

Hissing, Santanico launches herself at Angel, her hands outstretched. She's fast, Angel has time to think before instinct kicks in and he catches her by the wrists, wrenching her arms apart. She uses the movement to force her head forward, her teeth bared and aiming for his neck. Angel falls backward, putting a foot on her midriff, launching her over top of him to fall on a group of tables clustered together. The bikers sitting there scatter as she crashes into their midst.

Angel pauses for just an instant as Santanico crashes down, his fingers at his throat. Weird ... why would she ...? And then Santanico is on her feet again, and Angel leaps from the stage. She comes at him, hands again outstretched. He knocks her arms apart and kicks straight out. The blow catches her by surprise, but she recovers quickly. Now she is warier, circling Angel with her hands raised as claws. The bar has gone quiet. All eyes watch the two combatants. They are shocked, Angel suddenly realizes. They did not expect anyone to give their princess a run for her money. He lunges forward, landing two, three blows on Santanico's snakelike head while she vainly tries to block his attack. His last punch sends her flying backward. Again, she is on her feet quickly, but her face is back to normal, her expression baffled and hurt.

"How ...?" she asks.

Angel passes a pool table as he strides toward her, snatching up a cue and spinning it about theatrically in his hands.

"You don't know how to fight vampires," he tells her. He looks around at the bar, his words taking all of them in. "None of you do. You have lived here so long, preying on the humans that cross your path, taking the easy pickings that wander into your bar for liquor and sex. But fighting vamps? It's pretty much what I do for a living."

He crosses the short distance to Santanico, lunging with the pool cue as if it was a fencing foil. She stands, shocked, as fire spreads from the wound and she disappears into flame and ash. Angel stands still for a moment as silence reigns in the bar.

"Uh .... Angel?"

He straightens, and turns to see that Gunn, Lorne, Fred and Wesley have all clustered near him, weapons in hand. All around them, the faces of the bar patrons have transformed into fierce vampire masks. Angel nods.

"All right, then. Now the fun part."

Projected Winner: ANGEL


This is just to say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

... actually, no. I did not eat the plums that were in the icebox. But when I wrote out this blog post title, that lovely little W.C. Williams poem came rather naturally into my head.

This is, in fact, just to say that I have posted every day for the past two weeks, which hasn't happened since I first started this blog. At first I thought April 2010 set a new personal record for most blog posts in a month, and then I realized that August 2005 had thirty-three. That was my first month in St. John's, and indeed the first full month of this blog. One day I will look at the prolific stretches this blog has had and compare them to the empty stretches and try and remember what was going on in my life at the time, and see if I can't figure out what combination of factors leads me to blog or not.

Further to the poetry above, I may as well give this post some substance and make it, in part, a celebration of vividly brief poetry—something at which William Carlos Williams was a master. His most famous, of course, is:

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

As much as I generally loathe the poetry of Ezra Pound (which, I will admit, gets complicated with my loathing of Pound the person), he had a couple of gems, usually when he was keeping things brief. He loved haiku—and for a time advocated that kind of short, vivid, imagistic poetry ... an advocacy he sadly abandoned later in his career when he wrote his voluminous and opaque Cantos. But he gets it right with this two-line poem titled "In a Station of the Metro":

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

These three poems will always be linked in my mind, because of something I saw while I taking a course on modernist literature in my first year at York. Williams and Pound were both on the reading list, and we studied all three of these poems and many, many more. There was construction at the time being done in the field across the way from Winters College, and on the temporary fence erected around the site, someone—someone, I like to think, taking the same class as me—spraypainted:

this is just to say
so much depends upon
the apparition of these faces in the crowd

I love the memory of that as much as I loved seeing it at the time. Modernism mash-up!

Cage match: Spike vs. Edward Cullen

Well, Miriam put up a pretty good fight, but in the end succumbed to The Master by a margin of 17-10. The Master moves on to the quarterfinals.

And now, a fight I'm sure many are anticipating, between Spike, the peroxided king of mayhem from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, and Edward Cullen, the brooding sparkly guy from the Twilight series.

Edward won the coin toss, so the fight will take place in an old-growth forest in the Pacific Northwest.

HOW I THINK THE FIGHT WILL GO:

It is late afternoon, the dusk light fading into ... well, twilight. Spike lounges against one of the massive redwoods, smoking a cigarette and peering up into the gloom. Constantly overcast, he thinks. No direct sunlight during the day. Bloke could get used to this. He wipes moisture off his face with the sleeve of his leather coat. Except for the bloody wet.

He looks down from the leaden sky to see his appointed adversary enter the clearing, a mousy brown-haired girl trailing apprehensively behind him. Spike looks his opponent over with mounting disgust. "'Kin' hell," he mutters, pitching away his fag-end. "Brooding pretty boy who went tragic with the hair gel. What, do these twats follow me?" Peering more closely, he exclaims to himself, "Is he sparkling?" He raises his voice. "Hey, nancy. Who's the bird?" When Edward looks skyward in confusion, Spike clarifies, "The girl, nimrod. Who is she, and what's she doing here?"

"She is my great love," Edward intones sententiously, and Bella favours him with a look so slavish Spike feels the whiskey he downed an hour ago fighting to come up.

"Oh, lovely. Let me guess: you're a hundred-and-something year old vampire with a tortured soul and a thing for jailbait. And it's all very agonizing and poetic and chaste because you're afraid if you actually go in for the rumpy-pumpy you'll go all savage and bestial on her?"

Startled, Edward nods. "Yes. How did you know?"

"Old story, mate. Chap I know had the same problem. Except, his girl at least had some spunk." He winks. "I know. Did her myself."

Edward steps in closer. "Well ... she's kind of got a thing for werewolves," he says conspiratorially.

Spike laughs. "Oh, you don't want a piece of that, mate. Last bird I knew dallied with a werewolf, totally lost the taste for the meat-and-veg. If you follow me."

Edward furrows his sparkly brow. "I don't, actually."

"Colour me shocked," Spike sighs. "All right. Shall we do this?"

Without hesitation, Edward launches himself backward, kicking himself off a redwood and flying over Spike's head to land immediately behind him. Almost casually, Spike turns, driving the stake he had under his coat into Edward's chest.

"Sorry, mate," Spike says conversationally. "Trick a friend taught me. This is Mr. Pointy."

Edward explodes into a cloud of sparkly dust.

Projected Winner: SPIKE

A hatful of HBO

There are many times when I love my job, and right now is one of them. Why? Because this evening I start re-watching The Wire. As research.

As mentioned a few posts ago, I have begun my research term, and believe me when I say I have my work cut out for me, considering I come up for tenure and promotion in September. My writing habits tend to be stress-inducing at times like these, as I tend to jump from project to project, advancing them all more or less in parallel towards completion, rather than working on them serially and knocking them off one by one (as sane people tend to do, or so I am told). As a result, I have a cluster of papers all close to being done and I need to sit down with them over the next month and get 'em finished.

Always Be Closing. That will be my motto for the next four weeks.

Why one month? Well, mainly because at the end of May I am yet again packing myself into my trusty car and trundling off to London, ON to spend the balance of the summer with Kristen. Once there, I want to have the pesky uncompleted articles off my plate so I can focus on putting together a proposal for a book on HBO, and the preliminary writing thereof.

Hence The Wire re-watch. This will be an evening pursuit while I spend my days grinding my current crop of articles to completion. And then Deadwood. And then The Sopranos.

Did I mention that I love my job?

All this is by way of giving fair notice that you'll likely be seeing posts about all this over the next while. This blog has become, among other things, a place for me to think out loud, as it were—as evidenced in the zombies post and the one on Richard K. Morgan that attracted the attention of the man himself. And I've just started drafting something on The Wire and the logic of counterinsurgency.

You have been warned.

Weekly Wisdom


"I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal."
—Jane Austen

End of term

Well, I'm pleased to see that the Master/Blaylock fight has received a decent response, with Miriam putting up a better fight than was expected. At the time of this posting, she is still only at half the Master's votes, but could still stage a comeback ...

Also, I reiterate my offer (plea!) to have guest-bloggers write fight accounts for upcoming battles. Specifically, if there are any Vampire Diaries fans out there who have an idea for how the Damon-Lestat fight should go, please let me know. As I have mentioned, I have never watched The Vampire Diaries, and included Damon because of the requests I received to do so. Even if you just want to give me the bullet points, I'm happy to do the actual writing. Email me here if you have any ideas. Failing that, I might have to bump up the Angel-Santanico fight to give myself time to watch a few episodes ...


Anyway, on non-vampire wars related subjects, my semester is done. DONE. Yesterday I submitted my final grades and am now looking at my summer research term with a relief and anticipation that makes the whole PhD worthwhile.

And as an upshot, I find myself at the office with nothing to do. Well, that's not true—I have at least a dozen things to do, but since none of them involve the immediacy of grading, class prep, lecturing, or administrative work, it's hard to make myself feel any sort of immediacy. So I had breakfast downtown this morning to celebrate the end of term, and then wandered out to Chapters to buy some books for the research term that really have nothing to do with any of my ongoing research.

Considering that the term just ended yesterday, I suppose I should feel justified in taking the day off. Why am I even at the office? This is one of those elements of the academic life that never really goes away. If Jews and Catholics have cornered the market on guilt, academics from grad school onward have at the very least a controlling share. It starts with the sense of always feeling you should be working on papers, but really only becomes pervasive with the writing of the dissertation: with term papers, you can at least time things so that you have breathing space at the end of a semester, but the thesis becomes an all-encompassing thing that is constantly whispering "you really ought to be working." For a glorious week after my defense, I would hear that voice, feel that nagging guilt, and realize that that thing I should be working on? Finished!

Of course, about a week is all you get—if that—before that voice comes back in force, this time coming at you from various directions, whispering publications—postdoc applications—job applications—conferences. And even once a full-time gig gets landed, it sort of goes full bore publish—publish—publish.

Don't get me wrong—I'm not complaining. I love this life, and I am myself pretty well equipped when it comes to strategically telling that voice to take a flying fuck at the moon. But I find it funny that force of habit brings me to the office when, at least for today, there is no earthly reason I need to be here. Aside from posting to my blog, of course.

Cage Match: The Master vs. Miriam Blaylock

So here with are with Fighte the Firste, between the first boss of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the ancient vampire known only as The Master; and Miriam Blaylock, the über-fashionable and sexy immortal from The Hunger who inspired at least two generations of vampire-obsessed Goths.

And thanks to everyone who made their predictions in the comments section yesterday, but the first fight takes place in the poll button immediately to your right.

These fights, just as a side note, will not actually take place in a cage, but on one of the two vampires' home turfs. Miriam won this coin toss, and waits in her lavish New York townhouse for her opponent.

HOW I THINK THE FIGHT WILL GO:

As the light fades, Miriam walks through her sumptuous rooms lighting candles to set the mood. She knows little of her assigned opponent, only that he goes by the name "The Master." Men, she thinks, so hubristic ... such febrile egos to grant themselves such titles. And gauche at that, she reflects—could he not have had at least a touch of subtlety in selecting his moniker? I shall use that. She reclines on her divan, artfully allowing the shadows to fall across her face.

She does not wait long. The door opens, and a figure steps into the parlour. She cannot see his face in the shadows, but he is dressed simply, in what looks like a plain black suit.

"Miriam Blaylock?" the voice is a file drawn across a rusty chain.

"Indeed." She uncrosses and crosses her legs. "And you are 'The Master'?"

He makes a sound that may be a laugh, may be a snort of derision. "Yes. You would do well not to put my name in scare quotes, madam."

He steps forward, and the light of a cluster of candles illuminates his face. In their flickering light, the deep ridges of his cheeks and brow stand out in stark relief like canyons. His eyes burn red. He smiles, bearing his teeth, as he hears Miriam's sharp intake of breath.

This is all wrong, she thinks. He isn't ... human. The immortals with whom she has crossed paths over her long life have been elegant, sometimes somewhat wasted and gaunt, but always with the insouciance that came with lives spent preying on willing, even slavish men and women. This one ... He radiates menace and cruelty, she thinks, her mind working fast.

Miriam forces herself to stand, to step forward and reach out a graceful manicured hand to touch The Master's cheek. The other fingers the ankh around her neck, ready to draw the hidden knife when she sees her moment.

"My dear," she purrs, "I see now that I am truly matched against a master. Perhaps this is wrong—let us not fight. Let me help you, and together we can do undreamt-of things."

She does not see his hand move. Suddenly he has her wrist in his crushing grip, and his other hand is around her throat,

"No," he says in an oddly resigned tone. "I no longer employ minions. They only disappoint. I work alone now."

Desperately, she draws the tiny blade from the ankh and plunges it unto his chest.

"Oh my dear, no. No, no, no." He chuckles, shaking his head. "You see, there are a lot of people in this tournament, worthy opponents, that I look forward to facing. And scores to settle, I might add. You're in my way. I'd say I was sorry I had to do this, but ... well, I'm really not."

And with that, he squeezes. Hard.

Projected Winner: THE MASTER

Vampire cage matches — round one

So after careful consideration, consultation with experts and a little bit of guesswork, I have arrived at a final list of competitors and ranked them (I hope) appropriately.

Here's how things will go: matches will occur every three or four days, depending on how the voting goes. So, please vote! And please tell your friends to vote! I don't want these bouts decided 5-3 or anything pathetic like that. So if you've got a blog, post a link; tell your friends on Facebook to check it out; email those not on Facebook; and if you're really desperate, talk to people in person and tell them to come and weigh in. (I realize this last suggestion is a bit radical, but we want a good turnout).

Here are the scheduled matches:

BRACKET A

The Master (Buffy) (1) vs.
Miriam Blaylock (The Hunger) (16)

Spike (Buffy, Angel) (5) vs.
Edward Cullen (Twilight) (12)

Lestat (Interview with the Vampire) (7) vs.
Damon Salvatore (The Vampire Diaries) (10)

Angel (Buffy, Angel) (4) vs.
Santanico Pandemonium (From Dusk Till Dawn) (13)

BRACKET B

Eric Northman (True Blood) (3) vs.
David (The Lost Boys) (14)

Marlow (Thirty Days of Night) (8) vs.
Drusilla (Buffy, Angel) (9)

Selene (Underworld) (6) vs.
Bill Compton (True Blood) (11)

Blade (Blade) (2) vs.
Max Schreck (Shadow of the Vampire) (15)


The fights will unfold in exactly this order, and I will post the first tomorrow.

ALSO: Anyone wishing to be a guest commentator/fight predictor is more than welcome. If there is a particular fight listed here you would like to write the blurb for, please let me know. I've already got the first two written, but everything else is open season. You can email me here.

Hoping for a slow news day

It's April 19th, and in the latest of a string of Tea Party-style demonstrations, today will feature an "armed march" on Washington D.C., in which gun fanatics—I'm sorry, Second Amendment advocates—will march on the Capitol with firearms proudly displayed in a symbolic gesture asserting their constitutional right to bear arms.

I wrote a much lengthier post on this subject, and on the paranoia infecting anti-government groups and their media cheerleaders on Saturday afternoon while invigilating an exam. I'm shelving that one for now, as it was turning into a much broader commentary on the paranoid style. I'll satisfy myself today with just observing that the criticism of the broader Tea Party movement as irrational, paranoid, hysterical, and racist has been broadly accused of cherry-picking the fringe elements and tarring the entire movement with that brush.

I have no doubt that, to a certain extent, this charge is true. I also have no doubt that a great many people flocking to the many, many various protests over the last few weeks and months are genuinely angry, and concerned over government spending. There are many points of valid argument to have here.

But when a protest involving weapons is scheduled on the anniversary of Timothy McVeigh blowing up the Federal Office Building in Oklahoma City? At that point it becomes difficult not to do a whole bunch of tarring with a rather big brush.

A few interesting articles:

I hope everyone joins me in wishing our American brethren a monumentally uneventful April 19th.