The other day, Liz Williams came to give a talk at the University of Bristol Pagan and Earth Religions Society on the nature and legacy of the gothic imagination, and how we continue to sanitise the dark side - making vampires sexy (Lestat) or cute (The Little Vampire). It was a romp through the literary and artistic antecedents of goth culture, with a sideways look at SF and horror. Fascinating.
Talking of which, Cat showed us the silent movie of The Call of Cthulhu the other day - it was ace. I'm not a Lovecraft fan, but it was a very good silent movie, replete with expressionist motifs, meaningful looks, period angst, and authentically 1920s special effects. If you can't be bothered to read the Cthulhu stuff, this is an ideal way to understand what everyone's going on about.
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I find it endlessly amusing when I see all the mini-Goths sulking around and the double-take they do if they see me in my duster coat, bandana and pirate shirt - you can tell that they haven't a clue that there was anything 'Gothic' before Marylin Manson...
They also subscribe to that unimaginative idea that all you need to be Goth is a fiew piercings, makeup and a manic depressive attitude. One young former colleague once told me I wasn't Gothic like he was. I agreed I wasn't at all like him since I was proper Gothic and actually had read books like The Castle of Otranto or The Monk... He looked blank, so to explain my point more easily I kidnapped him, took him to a semi-ruined Castle in a remote rural setting and bricked him up in the wall...
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