Beware the out-of-date: Piercing the darkness

Piercing the Darkness:
Undercover with Vampires in America Today
by Katherine Ramsland
(ISBN: 0061050628)



As Emerson, Lake and Palmer once sang, welcome back my friends, to the show that never ends. I emerge from an involuntary seven month hiatus to bring you...out of date information. Hooray!

Originally published in 1998, Katherine Ramsland's book Piercing the Darkness capitalized on the Anne Rice vampire craze by linking fictional vampires to a real-world urban underbelly akin to the World of Darkness universe, a dangerous place populated by strange, macabre people. Capitalizing on crazes is nothing new: take the $10 Edward body glitter from Hot Topic, for example. But Ramsland uses her community status as well as her encyclopedia deal with Anne Rice to try for an investigative reporter approach, an approach that ultimately fails.

Her book begins with a simple thesis: retrace the haunts of missing reporter Susan Walsh, then suspected to be a victim of New York's gothic and vampiric subculture. (Many people now believe she was a victim of the Russian mafia, as her last assignment involved the mob's ties to strippers and strip clubs.) After briefly stating her thesis and giving an overview of historical, literary, and media-driven vampirism (peppered heavily with Ricean vampires, of course), she experiences the "scene" in New York, Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago, New Orleans, and briefly overseas in London and Paris. Ramsland engages in everything from BDSM club parties to good old fashioned LARP. I noticed that throughout her narrative she seemed rather amused by the community in concept, but when presented with the more visceral aspects of the community (whipping a submissive, witnessing a feeding ritual) she shied away from them. I guess one would have to steer away from illegal behavior in nonfiction--especially if the participant is also the author--but in my opinion one shouldn't be gung ho up until the knives come out. Just sayin'.

Ramsland also devotes much of her book to Sebastiaan van Houten a man who changes his community identity as often as his underwear. (At the time of Piercing the Darkness's writing, he was known as Father Todd.) As Ramsland chronicles it, Van Houten started out as a vampire enthusiast (my words, not hers) and LARPer before becoming a fangsmith and club promoter and eventually a leading figure in the late 90s New York vampire community. No doubt Ramsland's information and interviews are accurate, and indeed, quite fascinating. However, the vampire community comes with a caveat: to judge the product, one must consider the source. Van Houten is to the vampire community what Gordon Ramsay is to cooking or even Dave Ramsey is to finance: knowledgable, but near the fringes. And while Ramsland interviews other self-professed vampires and visits other scenes in the U.S. and Europe, her main focus is the Big Apple, and her main focus there is Father Todd. (Oh, and some mysterious ultra-Goth man who acts as Ramsland's fetish tour guide in New York.)

Did I also mention that she originally undertook the entire endeavor to investigate Susan Walsh? After gallivanting all over the place playing with the bloodsuckers, she barely manages to bookend her tome with her thesis, never resolving it. Way to write an investigative report there.

Nowadays, Katherine Ramsland works as a true crime writer with a minor in parapsychological happenings. It's rumored that she had a falling out with the vampire community, and alas, I cannot substantiate it, so it must remain a rumor. As for Piercing the darkness, it paints an interesting picture of the late 90s scene, the vampires before widespread internet and teenybopper crazes.

Why sourcing is important: Vampires (Dunn-Mascetti)

Vampires:
the complete guide to the world of the undead
by Manuela Dunn-Mascetti
(ISBN: 0670846643)



Most vampire books end up being like this one. Be warned, these types of materials tend to multiply in dark corners and bargain bins. A little bit of everything...and ultimately nothing. I already have a title to dote on like a spoiled child--I don't need another one.

So what makes this book so wince-worthy? First and foremost, lack of sources. Never trust something that calls itself an authoritative work if the author doesn't name where he or she got the information. By naming that information source, the author tells the book's audience what he or she used to substantiate claims or make points. For example, If a book on psychic vampirism uses Michelle Belanger's Psychic Vampire Codexas a source, you know it's a reliable source because of the author's reputation. However, if the author sources The Psychyk Vampyr Dark Cult of Jim Bob, you may want to investigate Jim Bob's works. Poor sources lead to poor information. If you don't source anything in your supposedly fact-based work, why bother even linking it to facts at all? Unsourced nonfiction is fiction.

Down off my soapbox now.

That said, this is a fluffy read. It mixes fact and fiction freely. Convinced that the chapter on the knight Azzo involves a historical figure? He's actually a character from a 19th century anonymous German novella. Intrigued by the mysterious Golden Age of Hollywood vampire starlet? It's a short story written for a pulp magazine. And, of course, the usual tropes are along for the ride: how to become a vampire, how to live with and around vampires, how to kill vampires, etc. Everyone from Montague Summersto folks trying to make a buck off popular sparkly honeychilesput that crap into print.

Okay, so I never really got down of the soapbox. Again, a little bit of everything, and ultimately nothing.

A bloody quickie: Five quarts

Five quarts:
a personal and natural history of blood
by Bill Hayes
(ISBN: 0345456874)



I admit, I checked this book out from the library because of the title. If you're into vampires, you're probably acquainted with blood to some degree. Even if you're not drinking it from lancets, scratches, tablespoons, or disposable vials, you know the role it plays and you're overopinionated about it.

Should this be required reading for blood drinkers? Not quite. Written by a gay insomniac whose parter is HIV positive, Five Quarts devotes little of its space to vampires and glosses over such historical and literary luminaries as Vlad, the Countess Bathory, and John Polidori and Lord Ruthven. He describes both porphyria and hemophilia, two diseases long linked to vampires. He even talks about Van Leeuwenhoek, the man who first examined blood under a microscope and came to some conclusions about blood, most of them incorrect to the point of embarrassment. It's a decent historical and cultural look at the red stuff, and witty to boot.

Most of the book, however, describes Hayes' personal experiences with blood. While he writes at length about his sex life--when your lover's condition makes up the bulk of your book, it's hard not to--Hayes also describes several commonplace incidents where the fear of catching AIDS from his partner complicates the situation. At one point, Hayes' significant other broke a jar and accidentally cut himself on the shards. It makes me curious if people think that anyone of the vampirism persuasion goes bonkershit whenever something like this happens.

Hayes' partner was involved in a San Francisco clinic scandal in 1998, where a phletbotomist (licensed professional blood-drawer) was caught reusing butterfly needles, spreading such illnesses as Hepatitis C to unsuspecting patients. Hayes' partner's HIV diagnosis happened while the phletbotomist worked at the clinic; did a reused needle cause his disease? The phletbotomist's reason for reusing the needles: "Butterflies were expensive--eighty cents apiece as opposed to five cents for a standard needle--and they were intended for use only with a small number of patients, mainly pediatric and geriatric" (163-164). The idea that someone could risk the health of their patients to save money is chilling.

I've been a witness to irresponsible bloodplay. I once attended a party where the participants broke out knives and started cutting at random. If you ever find yourself in a similar situation, and you can't convince the group that they're engaging in something life-threatening, get out of there. Trust me.

A personal first: Vampires among us

Vampires among us
by Rosemary Ellen Guilley
(ISBN: 0671723618)



This book is pretty special to me because it's the first nonfiction book on vampires I ever owned. I bought it at a used bookstore over a decade ago and I read it cover to cover about every year or so. Without this book, I doubt I would have gotten heavily involved in the vampire subculture.

I see many of Guilley's works as gateway books for goths, much like Edith Hamilton's Mythology is a fair to middling starter book for students of Greek, Roman, and Teutonic myths. Vampires Among Us is no exception. Written in 1991, several years before the vampires flocked to the Internet, Guilley relies on vampire legends and personal interviews to fill the book and converses with everyone from practicing British vampires to an American who spent a night in Vlad Tepes' rediscovered castle. Guilley also includes sections on literary vampire fan clubs and briefly mentions psychic vampirism.

The interviews fascinate me the most, and the chapter on the British vampire couple most of all. Damien and Damon (female and male--it's hard to tell from the pseudonyms) sought Guilley out in London on a referral from a mutual friend. Survivors from the 1970s, when Christopher Lee and Frank Langella spurred a Dracula revival with a few remakes, Damien and Damon seemed to possess a sort of preternatural ennui. Their black hair and clothes, heavy makeup, silver jewelry, and pointed nails and teeth practically screamed bloodsucker. According to Damien, "the blood drinking is secondary to being a vampire. You've got people who drink blood who are sadistic. They're not vampires. Even as a vampire, you don't have to drink blood. The sooner somebody dresses like and calls himself a vampire, he's on the right ladder" (36).

Nearly twenty years later, the non-vampiric blood drinkers, now better known as blood fetishists, still cause ripples through the community. However, when it comes to extreme costuming, people are still divided. It's been years since I first read that, and it's been years since I felt the need to wear black to prove something. I'm almost as old as Damien when she gave the interview. Instead of seeing vampire mystique in Damien, I see a portrait of a mixed-up young woman, forced to give up her first child when Social Services deemed her an unfit mother, unable--or possibly unwilling--to hold a job due to her diurnal sleep cycle, and unable to find peace in Germany with her lover Damon due to their lifestyle choices. I have to ask myself, how much of their grief did they bring on themselves? How often did they find themselves choosing between the life they needed to life and the life they wanted to live?

And sadly, Guilley doesn't ask these questions, wrapping up the interviews in a neat bow before racing ahead to describe the Dracula Society or the Highgate Vampire or dream vampires or psychic vampirism. I wish she could have picked a format and stuck with it--a book of discourse, a book of modern vampire media lore, a book of interviews, something.

So why do I own this? Again, it's a starter book. When reading anything nonfiction, the bibliography in the back names other resources for more information. If you happen upon this in a bookstore, like I did, buy it for the list of books on the last few pages and order those. And while your waiting for the detailed books to arrive, give this one a read.

Test post and introduction

I kept my word from Twilight III, found the time, and made the blog. Go me.

I am the Pink Lady and I've been a member of the Vampirism Community E-List since 1999 and a moderator since 2000. When I'm not being a petty Internet tyrant, I'm a researcher. In the years I've been a part of the online vampire community, I've noticed that there's a dearth of legitimate factual sources for information about vampires and vampirism. Sure, you can always find someone by the name of Lord Darkmoon or Lilith Bloodsucker in various email groups or Internet chatrooms willing to teach arcane lore, but few people consult print and even online texts for answers. I highly doubt if folks like Lord Darkmoon and Lilith Bloodsucker and their glittery gothic kin do any research either. Not that there's anything wrong with learning from others, but anyone can be anything on the Internet, including a vampire.

So I made this blog as a place to post

• nonfiction book reviews pertaining to vampires and vampirism
  
• book and site reviews from prominent community members
  
• links to journal and news reports about vampirism
  
• and whatever else I may find appropriate
  
• all laden with commentary by yours truly.
  

I'm taking a small vacation right now, and I've packed two books that I plan to post when I've finished them, an old favorite and an interesting history. Let's see how this goes.