You get grunge and then you get grunge. And then you get Camden grunge. I am the mom of a totally adorable (if I may say so myself) 9-month-old baby girl. Everyone loves her… including the hobos, the dustbin-diggers, the unbathed, the toothless, the druggies, the drunkards and the mentally challenged – all of whom inhabit the wonderful town of Camden, where I live. Before I proceed, I need to say that: I love North London, I love Camden and I am of the firm belief that babies are for sharing (not in a gross paedophile way but in an ‘aah sweet, look at the lovely baby’ kind of way). The privilege of being a parent does not form everyone’s lot in life and I am well aware that motherhood is, indeed, a privilege. The aforementioned life-philosophies that share space in my brain with the ‘I will never live in South London’ philosophy, have placed me in a predicament. Babies bring delight to so many and what kind of person denies the odd head-stroke or hand-touch? Except when the Camden grunge are concerned. Camden grunge has nothing to do with torn stockings, Dr Martins and over-sized dresses, but rather, old food, dirt and oil. Let me explain.

One day I was sitting happily on the bus, my daughter Amelia was sitting on my lap casually surveying the 134 commuters going about their daily… commuting. A very tall, old man, who was struggling to walk, climbed onto the bus and sat down opposite me and Amelia. Amelia batted her gorgeous big blue eyes and Mr Old Man was besotted. As Amelia proceeded to gnaw on her finger, a favourite past time, Mr Oldy proceeded to tell me in no uncertain terms that Amelia was teething and that as Chamomile is known for its ability to soothe, I should rub some on her gums. I stored this reasonable piece of advice in my memory bank for further investigation. As I was contemplating the drool that had escaped Amelia’s mouth and was making its way down towards my arm, I saw Mr Oldy’s hand reaching out… what was I to do? Some random old guy touching my baby is just not cool, and even as that protective mommy instinct kicked in I second guessed myself: Mr Oldy is just a sweet old man reliving his youth by squeezing the hand of an infant, perhaps hoping for some supernatural beam of light to whisk him back to his childhood. My uncertainty (and imagination) won and Mr Oldy goochie-gooed as he clasped my baby’s hand. My well-mannered upbringing told me to resist the urge to haul out a wipe and rub the germs well off. The moment passed, I exited the bus, wiped Amelia’s drool/germ infested hand hoping that she has not put it in her mouth but I am sure that I am too late, and headed on my way. As the days passed, the incident took a back seat in my mind until… until one day, whilst making my way down the high street, I saw Mr Oldy with his hand in a dustbin. Perhaps he was just making extra sure that his rubbish made it into the bin? But no. Oldy is a digger. A dustbin digger. Oldy the Dustbin Digger touched my daughter’s hand, she put her hand in her mouth. I am gagging just about now. The guilt set in. Should I have asked Oldy not to touch my child? Would the request be disrespectful if I was polite? Then again, who cares about respect when Amelia’s well-being is at stake. Who knows what was on Oldy’s hand. Right about now, I make my way to Pleasantville, where dustbin-digging old men don’t touch baybs’ hands.

I would like to say that my experience of Camden grunge ends there but it does not. There was the lady with the nails; yellow, chipped, broken and harbouring last night’s dinner, who reached out to touch Amelia but I think even Amelia was unsure of Mrs Nails and she quickly whipped her chubby little fingers out of reach. There was Mrs Crazy who, at the decibel range of a large aircraft, called me an unfit mother and bellowed profanities at me for half a mile as I walked slowly… and then speedily away from her. Madame Oil, had in all likelihood, not washed her hair in a decade and I thank heaven above that all she did was send a few syllables Amelia’s way. There was no touching. There was also Plaster Lady. Plaster Lady is named after the giant piece of gauze taped to her head – that should have been a clue. She was overwhelmingly, enthusiastically, exuberantly (plus the rest of the applicable adjectives in the dictionary) excited about Amelia. It all went down in the lift at Tufnell Park tube station. Amelia just had to go and bat her baby blues and Plaster Lady squealed (literally) with delight and proceeded to have a conversation with my baby in a high-pitched tone that would surely have broken any glass had we not been in a lift. I noticed the people around us shift uncomfortably… and then I saw it; a hand, reaching out. Not again! Seriously. What should I do? As with Oldy, that protective mom instinct kicked in. But poor Plaster Lady. Surely a little hand squeeze is harmless. Amelia brings me so much joy, surely I should allow her to deliver the same happiness to others. Maybe plaster Lady is not able to have children of her own. Yet again, uncertainty won. I have yet to see Plaster Lady digging in any bins.

I have a responsibility, as a mom, to protect my child – as far as possible. But I am also polite and do not want to hurt the feelings of others unnecessarily. My daughter is no worse for wear after being handled by some of Camden’s grunge. And maybe calling an old homeless man grunge is not politically correct. but sometimes, as a parent, we can’t afford to be politically correct. I am going to have to teach my child ‘stranger danger’ at some point yet at the same time I do not want her to go through life void of trust. Not all people are out to get her. London is a city that commands its citizens to be street-wise. And while the beautiful people of Camden Town will teach my daughter acceptance and tolerance, I need to instil in her a sense of compassion touched with a pinch (maybe a handful) of savvy. I’ll keep you updated.

Corey Taylor strikes again. The all-American-rock-accentuated-by-hints-of-metal sound of Stone Sour’s third studio album will bowl over fans with a gust of listenability. Audio Secrecy is a multi-layered tribute to alternative music, and is best described by Stone Sour’s frontman: “It’s heavy, it’s melodic, it’s dark, it’s slow, it’s light and it’s beautiful. You’ll hear something different with each listen.” Testament to Stone Sour’s fan clout, the triple-Grammy nominated band, which includes Slipknot’s Jim Root on guitar as well as Josh Rand (guitar), Shawn Economaki (bass) and Roy Mayorga (drums), recently headlined the second stage at 2010’s Download festival. Audio Secrecy is likely to propel the band further forward to the ‘bigger and better’.

Mission Statement is Audio Secrecy’s version of Reborn but it doesn’t seem to pack quite the same punch as its predecessor (hailing from Come What(ever) May). The Bitter End is reminiscent of Slipknot’s later style but true to the sound of Stone Sour, the song’s melody undermines the brutality of the Slipknot influence. And whilst the album boasts a couple of heavy hitters, the tracks are predominantly mellifluous, which gives Corey Taylor the most perfect opportunity to showcase the smooth soulfulness of his voice. The dual guitar work of Root and Rand makes for a ‘big sound’, so even when songs are a tad more on the mellow side the distortion infiltrates every nook and cranny. Slipknot rears its head now and again as Taylor punctuates songs with the intermittent bellow, but melody is by far the album’s vocal signature. Taylor’s lyrics are honest and the album’s depth is exemplified by the ability of songs to elicit seemingly incongruous responses. One minute, there is a desire to sit on the porch and ponder life, love and everything else… and in the blink of an eye (or the strum of a chord) that desire is jarringly interrupted by the compulsive need to get the hell up off that porch and bang the crap out of your head. Then you are left with “WTF?” A good “WTF?”, not a bad one. Threadbare is hauntingly reflective in tone… almost entirely and then desperation sets in as Taylor screams out a plea for the final 20 seconds of the song. It is totally unexpected, totally intrusive… and totally brilliant. Interestingly, Threadbare was written by Mayorga and marks a song writing debut for the drummer. Although Taylor and Root bring the fame of Slipknot to Stone Sour, the band’s art is a collaborative effort. But Taylor’s trademark charisma is undeniable and cannot escape Stone Sour. The listener never doubts that an entire heart and soul is put into each song.

While there is no stand out track of breath-taking awesomeness, the album is a well-rounded, with songs for all moods. The choruses are catchy, the ballads are beautiful, the songs are listener friendly and Audio Secrecy is thus most likely to appeal more to the band’s rock/alternative fans than its metal followers.

It all began with Vlad the Impaler and Stoker – Bram Stoker that is. Vlad came first. He was also known as Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia or, more simply, as Dracula – Drakyula in Romanian. According to folklore, tyrannical Vlad was sadistically cruel. His victims numbered between 40,000 and 100,000 (depending on who is telling the story) and favoured methods of punishment, other than the infamous impalement, included torturing; burning; skinning (skinning the feet of thieves, thereafter placing salt on the wounds and allowing goats to lick off the salt was a favourite); roasting and boiling people; feeding people the flesh of their friends or relatives; cutting off limbs; and drowning. Edward Cullen clearly missed out on Vamp101.

Most researchers agree that there is a connection between Transylvanian Vlad and Stoker’s Count Dracula; the extent of the association between the factual man and the fictional character is, however, a point of debate. More important than what inspired Stoker’s prolific character is how influential that character has been. The vampire trend has dipped in and out of consciousness since Dracula was published in 1897. In 2010, not only has vampire lore staked a large claim to popular culture but has also called into question the moral fibre of the community and thus raised a hullabaloo similar to the one elicited by Stoker in 1897. Gone is the attraction of long-haired Fabios waggling their penises around the lusty loins of hot blondes in Mills and Boon escapades. Vampire sex is IN; it’s dangerous, possessive and most importantly animalistic. And no tale exposes vampire magnetism better than Charlaine Harris’s Southern Vampire Mystery novels – recently translated into hit show True Blood. Harris has built on Stoker’s legacy; she has written a social satire that uses a seemingly innocent gal from Louisiana as a agent for astute commentary and shrewd observation.

Stoker’s Dracula was not the first vampire story ever told or written but it is by far the most imperative, and the most insightful. Motifs and symbols run amuck in Dracula but the most poignant are those relating to the theme of suppressed sexuality that, arguably, lies at the heart of Stoker’s novel. Dracula is a reaction to the purist morality of Victorian society. Vampirism provides a metaphor for the unbridled sexuality that women were forced to restrain in a society that frowned upon the mere mention of sex. In the novel, Lucy is corrupted by the evil Count Dracula and turns from a subdued, sweet natured and somewhat naïve, woman to a vampish sex fiend. Lucy is finally staked through the heart by Arthur Holmwood. Lucy’s dire end serves as a warning; the threat of unbridled sexuality is real and those who engage therein will meet a bitter end. The novel suggests that the innocent (symbolised by Lucy) are in danger of falling prey to the debauchery of sexual enlightenment and need to be protected from the more liberal-minded members of society. Count Dracula threatens to destroy civilized society, the core values of which are embodied in the character of Mina; the Victorian ideal – intelligent, feminine and moral. Mina almost succumbs to vampirism after she is bitten by Dracula and it is only ‘cured’ once the Count is destroyed. The metaphor is obvious; anything that threatens the moral decorum and virtue of society should be eradicated. But was Stoker merely moralising? Or was he playing devil’s advocate? A fantasy novel certainly serves as a fantastic vehicle for social commentary.

Michel Foucault in The History of Sexuality says

Toward the beginning of the eighteenth century, there emerged a political, economic, and technical incitement to talk about sex. ….. This need to take sex ‘into account’, to pronounce a discourse on sex that would not derive from morality alone but from rationality as well, was sufficiently new that at first it wondered at itself and sought apologies for its own existence. How could a discourse based on reason speak like that?

What emerged in the early nineteenth century is what Jane Austen so aptly speaks of in her novels – the public versus the private. So by the time Dracula makes its appearance, any attempt at sexual liberation within the strict rules of social conduct that defined Victorian society is kept private, hence the severe dichotomy between the inner and the outer, the public and the private. In an essay entitled Sexuality and Modernity, it is proposed that

The Victorian bourgeois may have covered their piano legs out of modesty, but as an emergent social and political force they chose sexuality as the basis for delineating their identity from the aristocracy, peasants and emergent working classes… The polarisation of public and private spheres becomes the foundation upon which the ascendant bourgeoisie constructed the family and its sexuality. The passionless reproductive wife confined to private domesticity, along with her publicly and competitively orientated husband becomes the central reference point for discussions concerning sexuality.

Sex and sexuality may have infiltrated the minds of the nineteenth century individual as a tool with which to moralise and distinguish but sexual liberation was certainly not acceptable, and those who favoured ‘deviant’ practices would have done so in private – a ‘second private’ behind the privacy of domesticity and family values. Whether we choose to view Stoker as moralist or liberator (or perhaps a bit of both), by drawing attention to sexuality and the passion, fantasy and lust associated therewith, he stoked a fire that turned into a blazing torrent of flames.

Now, jump ahead 100 years. In front of our faces is Rolling Stone’s September 2010 edition that has True Blood stars Anna Paquin, Stephen Moyer and Alexander Skarsgård naked, covered in blood and as sexy as hell, featured on the cover. Softcore porn? Hardcore porn? It’s all relative. Either way, Rolling Stone, known for their cutting edge writing and photo journalism, has drawn attention to the vampire as pop-culture icon and sex symbol. ‘Shock value’ always draws the moralists out of the woodwork and my favourite response to the cover comes from davidsabb

I like True Blood and it’s one of my favorite shows, but the covers to your magazine are getting ridiculous, I normally [have] to rip off the cover[s] and throw them away the second my magazine [arrives] in the mail so no one sees it lying around and asks what the hell it is. And if I don’t see a shift from these idiotically pornographic magazine covers I don’t think I’ll continue getting a Rolling Stone subscription.

Dude! Like the show itself is not hardcore porn? WTF? So watch the show but cancel your subscription? I repeat: What The Fuck! In Rolling Stone’s article The Joy of Vampire Sex: ‘True Blood’ readers are reminded that in True Blood

…every available orifice is used for intercourse: gay, straight, between humans and supernatural beings, and supernatural being on supernatural being, whether he be werewolf, dog or an enormous Minotaur-looking being called a maenad. None of the sex is quite as good as vampire sex, though, which can happen at the astonishing rhythm of 120 bpm while simultaneously devouring one’s neck and making your eyes roll back into your head.

The show’s creator Alan Ball says

To me, vampires are sex… I don’t get a vampire story about abstinence. I’m 53. I don’t care about high school students. I find them irritating and uninformed.

Ball has disdainfully rejected the mushy-gushy gagerific romance of Twilight, in favour of Charlaine Harris’s real, raw and riveting characters. The vamps’ hunger for sex and blood is carnal. The show is as erotic as Harris’s novels and resultantly the fantasy of vampire sex has impregnated the minds of millions. The operative word in the preceding sentence is “fantasy” – the orgasmic euphoria of the sex described in Harris’s books and in the True Blood show seems to be as achievable as marrying a prince and living happy ever after in a castle next to a lake. The ‘twentieth century film’ has done a great deal to fuck up the reality and beauty of living in a monogamous relationship, and True Blood seems to blaspheme on the very church of monogamy. But is that the point? Not entirely.

The million dollar question is why is vampire sex so attractive – even in an age when pretty much anything goes and the word “taboo” is being pushed out of the dictionary? I think that Sigmund Feud and Angela Carter hit the nail on the head. Before Freud is booed out of the argument, irrespective of opinion and like it or not, the man left a significant legacy regarding the modern conceptualisation of sexuality and its physiological, psycho-sexual and social dimensions. Freud’s psychoanalytic theory challenged the notion of sex as merely natural – as a means of reproducing, and pointed out the

dark inaccessible part of our personality… a chaos, a cauldron of seething excitations.

In terms of Freudian psychology, aggression represents the death instinct and sex (libido) the life instinct. These two instincts are in constant conflict – they are opposing drives. Freud believed that the aggression (death) instinct needs to be controlled. If it is not controlled, psychosis will result. Hence the model of the Id, Ego and Superego. The Id is our pleasure drive, the Superego is our internal voice of authority and morality and the Ego, which is governed by the reality principle, mediates between the two opposing forces. Not only are the sex and aggression drives battling for domination within the Id, the Id is battling for domination against the Superego. Poor us, what a stressful time our minds have – fighting for some fun. The point: if we agree with Freud, poor little Id is trying really hard to exercise some pleasure but in order to harness the chaos of our carnal desires, bossy Ego and very bossy Superego are required to mediate. Civilisation is only possible at the expense of repressing and regulating our natural sexual instincts. The sexual animalism that we hold in check so aptly is released through the metaphor of the vampire in True Blood. The vampire is void of Ego and Superego – the creature is purely Id. Books & TV: it’s called vicarious living.

Angela Carter, English novelist and journalist, in her revision of the Little Red Riding Hood tale entitled The Company of Wolves, explores the notion of carnal desire. The girl in Carter’s tale engages with her newly acquired sexual independence and gives in to her carnal desires and through her submission triumphs against her perceived enemy:

The girl burst out laughing; she knew she was nobody’s meat. She laughed at him full in the face, ripped off his shirt for him and flung it into the fire, in the fiery wake of her own discarded clothing. The flames danced like dead souls on Walpurgisnacht and the old bones under the bed set up a terrible clattering, but she did not pay them any heed.

See! Sweet and sound she sleeps in granny’s bed, between the paws of the tender wolf. (Carter, A (1979) The Bloody Chamber, The Company of Wolves)

Carter empowers the girl and she sleeps with the werewolf – carnivore incarnate, a symbol of a man’s sexual aggressiveness; the girl submits to that aggression and ends up lying sweetly in the arms of the tender wolf. Carter’s distinctly feminist approach rings true for Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse. Sookie satiates her carnal desires by submitting to the aggressive prowess and sexual appetite of on/off boyfriend Bill Compton. The fact that Sookie works as a waitress at a bar wearing a skin tight white T with some skimpy shorts seems the antithesis of the feminist ideal. But Sookie is no victim of circumstance – she works where she chooses and wears what she will; sounds like feminism to me. Although she is often the damsel in distress, Sookie is mostly her own rescuer, and not only does she rescue herself but her vampire friends as well. Who can forget True Blood‘s first season finale? Sookie beating Rene to a near pulp in the graveyard as Bill almost rescues her but is burnt to a crisp in the sunlight before he can lift a finger. In Harris’s book, Bill doesn’t even feature in the scene. Sookie rescues Bill in Club Dead and comes to Eric’s rescue in Dead to the World. Sookie embraces her femininity and her sexuality… and perhaps we are jealous of her.

But feminism isn’t really the point, just a side note. Sookie allows Bill to teach her about sex but he is never master over her – their relationship is one of mutuality: I rescue you, you rescue me; I pleasure you, you pleasure me; I love you, you love me. Sookie and Bill are not perfect and their relationship ebbs and flows – often their symbiosis is an ideal rather than a fact. Just as the vamps struggle to fit into a society that does not accommodate their differences (a metaphor for any minority), so too do Sookie and Bill (and Sookie and Eric for that matter) struggle to fit into their relationship. Although emotions may be unsteady and unsettling, sex is never a problem. Harris’s novels make a point of distinguishing between sex for love and sex for lust, and then the author undermines her theoretical stance with the practical realities of life and love, which is never that unmessy. Blood is life; as a vampire sucks the lifeblood from his victim, so too do we suck the life out of one another – physically, mentally and emotionally… and the result is catastrophic pain. Emotional vampires we are.

Blood, sex and vampires is a metaphor so transient that a mere change in season can obliterate all sentimentality, and yet so incongruously intransient that it has lasted for centuries.

Sources:
Foucault, M, (1976), The History of Sexuality, Vol.1, Penguin Books, London,Pg: 25
Sexuality & Modernity
Vlad III the Impaler

Metal’s favourite doll killing maniacs have injected some uber-attitude into the scene with the release of their second Roadrunner album Women and Children Last. Murderdolls’ driving duo Joey Jordison (Slipknot) and Wednesday 13 (whose band goes by the same name) have put together an album that brings horror-punk-metal to the masses with a vengeance.

Women and Children Last is permeated with the “scum, filth, anger and greed… chaos [and] darkness on a violent binge” that is mentioned in album opener The World According To Revenge. The vision of Joey Jordison (guitar, drums) and Wednesday 13 (vocals, guitar) is realised with the boisterous bellow of speedy guitar riffs and accelerated punk drumming with a touch of metal bashing along the way, which is set to “ piss people off and shake things up”. Jordison went on to tell Kerrang! that “Everything is such a product or a fucking formula these days… Fuck formula! Fuck the norm! (Kerrang! Exclusive! Murderdolls are back). And goal achieved: Women and Children Last is pure, perfect, unadulterated pandemonium.

Summertime Suicide and Drug Me To Hell pay homage to the ‘sex, drugs, rock & roll’ attitude of twenty years ago, and the ‘Dolls even make a summertime suicide something fun to put on this year’s to do list. Being drugged to hell doesn’t seem like a bad idea either. With tongue firmly planted in cheek, Wednesday 13 uses the sordid tone of his dilapidated vocals to up the filth to the max in Homicide Drive – with “lollipops and lunatics sucking on your crucifix” satan claps his hands with glee as the ‘Dolls declare that “salvation is such a scam”. And who wouldn’t want to be a Blood Stained Valentine married in a Chapel of Blood? My Dark Place Alone will get heads a-banging with some groove-heavy guitaring and Death Valley Superstars screeches the motto of a lost generation “you don’t need luck when you don’t give a fuck”. With full stops replaced with “motherfucker/ing” and rhyming lyrics with dauntlessly catchy choruses par for the course; Women and Children Last has a way of getting into one’s head and under one’s skin.

If metal had a band and an album that paid tribute to the god of popular culture; Murderdolls would be that band and Women and Children Last would be that album.

Murderdolls are scheduled to play alongside Korn, Skindred and Ozzy Osborn at this year’s Ozzfest in London at the at the O2 Arena on 18 September. The ‘Dolls have also recently announced a pre-Ozzfest 2010 London show at the Garage on 17 September.

Metal’s head-banging cellists are currently playing their way into metal heaven. Apocalyptica’s new album, 7th Symphony, marries Brutal to Beauty in a truly magnificent ceremony. The symphonic tone of the Finnish quartet is typical of the style of metal coming out of Scandinavia at the moment. The classical music training common to many of Scandinavia’s metal heroes is evident in Apocalyptica’s technically advanced compositions. Fourteen years ago the band grabbed the metal community’s attention with their expert covers of Metallica hits and in 2010 Apocalyptica continue to impress with innovative creations.

The songs on 7th Symphony use the expression and intonation of instruments to tell stories and the mythological/fantastical subject matter helps the album to achieve a resonance of atmospheric complexity – it is a symphony; from the melancholic plight of the hunchback in On The Rooftop With Quasimodo to the black fury of Rage Of Poseidon and the warlike confidence of At The Gates of Manala. The dark beauty on the cover 7th Symphony is a perfect metaphor for the album’s tone, which, although acutely elegant in songs like Beautiful, is enforced by some destructively heavy-as-hell riffs.

7th Symphony features some truly special guest appearances from Brent Smith (Shinedown), Dave Lombardo (Slayer drummer) and Lacey Mosley (Flyleaf) but two of the album’s most exceptional scores, End Of Me and Bring Them To Light are accompanied respectively by Gavin Rossdale (Bush) and Joseph Duplantier (Gojira). The mass of talent that Apocalyptica attracts is testament to the band’s standing within the metal community.

Apocalyptica are due to play in London at the HMV Forum in Kentish Town on 2 November 2010.

My paternal grandmother died a week after my baby girl was born. As a new existence replaced an old one, the circle of life was never more vivid to me as it was then. I was not close to my grandmother and I wish that I had been. I called her granny but have never really appreciated the sentiment that is attached to the title. Retrospect can be a wonderful and yet decidedly pointless exercise but on this occasion I’ll allow my thoughts to run their course. I feel like I have been cheated out of a treasure. A treasure called wisdom: a sacred wisdom that belongs to a grandmother and is relinquished in death as a new matriarch, a grandmother’s successor, assumes the role. My grandmother’s wisdom has been lost in the sands of time due to my own apathy as a granddaughter. I’ve ignored the source and missed the scoop. And my head droops further in shame as I admit that I don’t feel sad about the loss of my grandmother, the person, but rather my grandmother, the wise one.

This yearning I have; the urge to consume the wisdom of the wise, seems somewhat parasitic or even cannibalistic. However, if a family fulfils its purpose by functioning as a unit, the fundamental yearning for wisdom will be satiated in the most natural of ways. What I know about womanhood, wifehood and motherhood is what I have learnt from my mom (and she in turn learnt from her mom) and what I cherish most are the things that my mom has taught me without even realising it – the implicit lessons; a love for books; an exuberance for life; the benefits of healthy eating; an appreciation for history and art; the importance of education… and I could ramble on. These are the lessons that are learnt only by spending time with someone. Time: something my grandmother and I missed out on largely due to familial circumstances. As a child of divorce it would be easy to blame my parents but I have been responsible for my own actions for a long time and my parents are not to blame. In the modern world of today, the notion of generational wisdom seems to have depreciated, and I bought into that for a long time. I think motherhood has changed that for me… perhaps a little too late.

Older societies placed great value in the wisdom to be attained from their elders. This is best described in the folk tales of old, and in particular the earliest recorded oral version of the Little Red Riding Hood tale. In Paul Delarue’s translation of the Little Red Riding Hood tale, recorded by Jack Zipes in The Trials and Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood, a werewolf kills the girl’s grandmother, placing her “meat in the cupboard and a bottle of her blood on the shelf”. Upon arriving at grandmother’s house, the girl consumes the meat and the blood. The act is symbolic. The tale is describing the natural act of succession; the fact that the girl consumes the grandmother and thus, symbolically, her wisdom. The idea is developed when the girl, upon the instruction of the werewolf, unclothes herself and proceeds to throw her clothing and apron into the fire as she “won’t be needing them anymore.” The symbolism is poignant. The girl replaces the clothed innocence of her girlhood with the worldly nakedness of a woman, symbolising her step into adulthood. The grandmother dies to make way for her granddaughter. Unlike the more familiar versions of the tale from the Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault, the girl, upon realising that she is lying next to a werewolf, is able to outsmart her enemy and escape. The implication is that it is with the newly acquired wisdom of her grandmother that the girl is able to save herself. According to Robert Darnton, a historian of early modern France, the Little Red Riding Hood folktale can be traced to France in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The girls to whom the tale was told would have been conscious of the empowering nature of the grandmother’s wisdom, which enables the transition from girlhood to womanhood. As modern audiences ponder this tale of maturation and evolution, the principles and values of the society it reflects seem sadly foreign in this day and age.

I am the first to acknowledge that unwarranted advice is a royal pain in the posterior. But when I speak of wisdom, I am not referring to the impartation of knowledge. Wisdom is more than knowing. It is a way of life that permeates the mind without the speaking of words. It is the kind of understanding that is gained through experiencing, observing and listening. Wisdom is ethereal in nature. It assumes the form of tacit teachings that are taken for granted until later – until one draws on those teachings, usually without intention. The more those teachings are applied the more conscious they become – they will inevitably be realised, and then consecrated as wisdom. Reflection then occurs, and the value of wisdom comprehended in a moment of illumination. It sounds almost like a religious experience. For some it can be but I like to think of it as a natural process; a natural process that has been disrupted by modern living. Although people are, intrinsically, social beings, ironically social media has assisted in the devaluing of person-to-person relationship in favour of cyber relationship. Through the internet, the world has become smaller and yet strangely detached. It’s as if we have forgotten how to be friends, mothers, fathers, lovers, husbands, wives brothers and sisters. Instead of that that special family recipe being taught in the kitchen or that hilarious tale told around a camp fire, cyberspace has extracted the personality from those family gems; “no thanks gran, I’m too busy. How ‘bout you shoot me an email.” Gag. It’s embarrassing. It’s not even the recipe or the story that we are missing out on, it’s what gran will talk about while she is baking; it’s what grandpa will reveal as he explains the context of the campfire tale.

I write all of this within the most ironic of contexts: I am an expat living in England and most of my family members are continents away. Nonetheless, as the mother of my daughter, I am determined to ensure that family is something that she treasures. It is important that she place value in her role as daughter, granddaughter and niece – not in a self-sacrificing, sentimental way but in a way that will empower her as a woman and teach her confidence and independence. The women in my daughter’s life have so much to teach her and one day, when she assumes responsibility for her own life, she will draw on the wisdom of others; sift through it; accept what she likes and reject what she doesn’t and then she will adapt it to suit her. In order to do this, she will require a wealth of wisdom on which to draw. And that is my job: to make sure that she has that.

I went to the park with my baby girl and some gal pals the other day and came back with a whole bunch of little red bites all over my feet. These ‘bites’ had spread to my ankles the following day. Considering I had not been in the park for 24 hours and the bites had multiplied and certainly looked bite-ish as opposed to rash-ish, I was a tad distressed. I showed my husband my ailment in the hope of some sympathy and a little comfort. His version of sympathy went as follows: “you probably have that thing where those spiders lay their eggs under your skin and then hatch”. Hilarious. Luckily the little bites disappeared, slowly but surely, and just when I was getting over the idea of bird-eating tarantulas bursting forth form my skin in a scene reminiscent of Alien, my dad (privy to my misfortune) so generously delivered me an article entitled “Beware of the Superfly with a taste for humans” Daily Mail, Thursday, July 29, 2010.

The article describes a vampiric fly that has a taste for human blood and is responsible for “a surge of infected insect bites that [have] left some victims hospitalised”. These small horrors have recently become tired of their prosaic country lifestyle and have been magnetized by the bright lights (and increasing number of water features) of the big city, inspiring a recent migration spurt. The concrete jungle is no longer a bug repellent and city dwellers have to be on their guard. The vampire-insect of which I speak is known as The Blandford Fly. It is a water dweller and is described as “small, dark and dangerous”. According to the article, the little terrors “are small enough to crawl through fabric and clothing to attack the flesh. Females use their lacerated mouths to chew through the skin and feed on blood just before mating. They prefer the taste of human blood to animal blood – and ankles and feet are their favourite targets”. So maybe The Blandford Fly has mutated to a grass dwelling creature with a sweet pair of fangs, and on my picnic day managed to eat through the leather of my Dr Martens 16-up boots to bite my poor feet… and then nested in my shoes so that when I wore them the next day my ankles served as Blandford fly lunch. Bring on Ripley: Master (or Mistress) of extermination.

Peter Steele died. Not many people will care – “Everything Dies”, as the esteemed muso said. But those who appreciate the talent and artistry enveloped in Type O Negative will shed a sad moment. As I have never been a maniacal Type O fan, it isn’t my place to write a gushy Peter Steele tribute, and so I won’t. However, the death of the iconic muso has reminded me of just how powerful music is.

I am sure that people mourn artists for different reasons but the catalyst for mourning, in my mind, would be the death of an artist who I feel understands and expresses what I feel better than almost anyone. This feeling can’t really be inspired by actors because they are always acting parts, so maybe one falls in love with a character, rather than the man (or woman) behind the mask. Musicians, through poetry and music, have the power to grab a hold of a soul and wrench it and rip it until emotions are felt that would otherwise have remained dormant. Music is evocative in the extreme. What is a film without the musical score? The arts are interdependent. An image, from the sublime to the grotesque, is enhanced by an accompanying soundtrack; an actor’s expression is heightened by colour and tone; a music note is elaborated by a voice; and Type O is consummated with the abyssal baritone of Peter Steele.

The guy was kinda weird – singing about periods and all (I guess that’s what you get for growing up in a home with five sisters). Many would argue that only a brilliant individual would have the ability to get more than ten people to sing along to a song about menstruation. He liked drugs and alcohol (although recently rehabilitated); his hair and he liked his cats. He was bipolar and depressive. He went to prison. He saw a psychiatrist. He posed for Playgirl. He sang about death. He was sometimes paranoid. He proclaimed atheism only to embrace his Roman-Catholic roots in later years. He composed songs, wrote poetry and was a bassist/vocalist. Peter Steele lived and loved, hurt and healed. He inspired and aroused. Peter Steele was a man. Peter Steele was an artist. His life has ended. His soul lives on in his art and through those who admire him.

“There are no atheists in foxholes, they say, and I was a foxhole atheist for a long time. But after going through a midlife crisis and having many things change very quickly, it made me realize my mortality. And when you start to think about death, you start to think about what’s after it. And then you start hoping there is a God. For me, it’s a frightening thought to go nowhere. I also can’t believe that people like Stalin and Hitler are gonna go to the same place as Mother Teresa.” Peter Steele

I am most pleased to reveal that Jaume Collet-Serra’s Orphan recently ended a severely dry spell of horror film boredom. I am a horror junkie and nothing of late has been spine chillingly awesome. Gruesome … yes. Scary … sort of. Predictable … of course. Orphan is a psychological horror as opposed to the supernatural kind and the reason the film is successful is because it is a character-driven story that is played out exceedingly well by the cast.

The film’s protagonist is the Coleman family, consisting of parents Kate and John, and children Daniel and Max. The family is recovering from the loss of Kate and John’s third child, which was stillborn. Kate used alcohol as a coping mechanism and her addiction and recent recovery there from sets her up as untrustworthy – so naturally when things go seriously awry no one takes Kate’s suspicions seriously – in true horror form. The Coleman family is typical: close but flawed and thus easy for an audience to relate to. In order to fill the void ensuing from their loss, Kate and John decide to adopt a child. And in comes nine-year-old Esther. As the film progresses, Esther changes from sweet-natured Russian orphan to psycho child killer (ambiguity intended). An age old horror tactic is to take something innocent and twist it … and twist and twist until what is left is so disturbing that it is barely fathomable. The Bad Seed, The Omen and The Exorcist are cases in example. And Orphan does exactly that. It can be argued that the climactic reveal of Esther’s secret sort of undermines the whole child psycho thing, but it is an intellectual consideration for after the film rather than something that one would react to when watching it. Esther’s secret is frightening and yet unavoidably fascinating. The plot is scripted according to classic horror blueprint and the fact that it is somewhat formulaic is completely undermined by the brilliance of character and the psychological tension within the film.

Vera Farmiga’s portrayal of Kate Coleman as the grief-stricken, yet perceptive and persistent mom, is astute. The relationship between Kate and John Coleman (Peter Sarsgaard) is natural, as a result of a genuine affinity between the actors who are indeed friends. Aryana Engineer is brilliantly cast as deaf-mute Max, child to John and Kate. The relationship between Max and Esther is essential to the success of the horror and the revelation of Esther’s extreme psychosis. Max immediately bonds with Esther and idolises her in the way that a younger sister would look up to an older sister. Max’s childlike beauty and innocence are necessary: as the audience falls further in love with Max, so too does the audience grow to hate Esther, who is hell bent on corrupting little Max and destroying the Coleman family. Esther is played superbly by Isabelle Fuhrman. The thirteen year old actress shows a remarkable maturity and has an intelligent understanding of her character and what drives Esther’s actions and decisions. Fuhrman is able to evoke a sense of fear and disturbance with her presence; a brief look, a subtle gesture or an ambiguous tone of voice. Her relationship with her adoptive mother is also central to the revelation of Esther’s insidious nature. As with Max, the audience’s sympathies lie with Kate and as events unfold the audience will undoubtedly plunge into a realm of extreme frustration and anger as Esther manipulats her way out of each situation, with deadly duplicity. Fuhrman’s evocative embodiment of Esther is the film’s foundation and Collet-Serra’s insightful directing has elicited an atmospheric horror film that outrages, sickens and terrorizes – as a good horror should.

Today, two of my favourite things met up, had a chat and raised the roof. No doubt ‘WTF?’ is scrolling through your head at this very moment so I will rid you of the expletive. Spotify has hooked up with Glee and now my life is complete. I have been known to get excited, ecstatically excited, but today I managed to scare even myself. I have been waiting for this moment since the day that Kurt taught the football thugs to overwhelm their opponents with a song and dance recital of Single Ladies (Put a ring on it). Result: paralytic; on the floor; laughter – that was me. Quick interlude: on the subject of Beyoncé; the only thing to ruin my Glee karaoke session was the elimination of Kurt’s Single Ladies cover from the soundtrack. Tangible disappointment. No doubt Queen Diva herself would not give up the rights to her song, or some such thing. But even that biyatch could not dampen my spirits. Back to the point: today DevilDriver, In Flames, Nightwish and co. made way for my Gleek identity, which stays in the closet (unless I am spotted humming a Glee tune as I walk down the street). The Glee cast’s version of LG’s Bad Romance is one of my favourites, and was made all the more endearing when my metal-head hubby said “WTF is ‘caught in a Bankomat’” – undoubtedly his hearing skills were tainted by a bad experience in Florence that involved Bankomat auto-tellers refusing to let us draw cash. It was traumatic. And more to the point, now “caught in a Bankomat” has replaced “caught in a bad romance”. I am sure LG would appreciate the creative license I have taken with her lyrics. Sue Sylvester’s Vogue obsession made for a great Madonna themed episode and the Glee cast’s version of Like a Prayer and 4Minutes have cemented a spot on my Spotify favourites list, as has wheel chair bound Archie’s ironic rendition of Safety Dance and Mercedes Jones’ Jazmine Sullivan cover of Bust Your Windows. Question to the Glee people: why the crap are Salt ‘N Peppa’s Push It and Quinn Fabray’s It’s a Man’s Man’s World (James Brown) missing from the album? Again, tangible disappointment.

So what’s with the Glee hullabaloo anyway? I watched Glee on a whim one day – I was bored. And now I can’t stop watching it. The satire is sharp and the show is just so damn funny. The Glee characters represent every high school stereotype fathomable and the tongue-in-cheek portrayal of teen angst is amplified (literally as well as figuratively) by the song and dance ala-high-school-musical routines inserted into the story. I was not surprised to learn that Glee was created by Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan – Murphy and Falchuk being the creators of the sharply satirical Nip/Tuck (also brilliant). Brennan, Falchuk and Murphy write all of the Glee episodes. One can easily liken Nip/Tuck‘s Christian Troy to Glee’s straight-talking Sue Sylvester. Neither character registers very high on the morality scale, which creates a perfect playground for the black humour enveloping each show – Nip/Tuck to a greater degree and Glee to a lesser degree. Yet, both Troy and Sylvester, usually arrogant, ethically vacant and just plain rude are not merely two-dimensional characters; each has a sense of humanity and humility (however small). Troy adopts Wilbur, the African-American son of Gina (Troy’s deceitful, sex-addict ex lover) and James, and displays genuine love for the boy (as opposed to narcissistic self love) and Sue Sylvester bears the same manner of adoring affection for her younger sister, who has down syndrome. Nip/Tuck picked up a sledge hammer and bashed away at the cement wall covering society’s taboos and dark, dirty secrets, and Glee uses that same sledge hammer on the façade that is known as ‘the politically correct’. Christian Troy does what people fantasize about doing and Sue Sylvester says what people fantasize about saying. Sue Sylvester is the chief proponent of the politically incorrect and, in addition to the mass of Glee paraphernalia that will undoubtedly saturate the market, I vote for the production of a Sue Sylvester CD containing quotes by Her Royal Cheerioness. Such as:

Sue: Your hair looks like a briar patch. I keep expecting racist, animated Disney characters to pop up and start singing about living on the bayou.

Sue: All I want is just one day a year when I’m not visually assaulted by uglies and fatties.

… and that’s how Sue C’s it.