Re: Vampires & crosses

Thinking way too much.

 

Also reminded me of this:

 

Temporarily Humboldt County
(Scene 1)

Firesign Theater

INDIAN 1: Well, I think it's about time . . .  the way the corn's been
growing for the last two or three generations . . .

INDIAN 2: Look at that herd of Buffalo.  They're ready.

INDIAN 1: Everything's living the Great Spirit's way.  In harmony.  

INDIAN 2: He'll be here soon.

INDIAN 1: The true white brother's coming home.  Remember what the Great
Spirit said? If we did what we were supposed to do and lived according to
the plan?  White brother would finish his work in the East and come back to
us.

INDIAN 2: It'll be nice to have the family together again.

CONQUISTADOR 1: Buenos Dios, amigos!

INDIAN 1: Hello!  You must be the true white brother.

CONQUISTADOR 1: Sure!  You must be the Indians!

INDIAN 1: Yes.

INDIAN 2: Welcome home! 

CONQUISTADOR 1: Welcome to New Spain!  This is your new father, Father
Corona.

FATHER CORONA [with thick Irish brogue]:  [Mutters in Latin.] Down on your
knees now!  Do you recognize what I'm holding over your heads, lads?

INDIAN 1: It's a cross: the symbol of the quartering of the universe into
active and passive principles.

FATHER CORONA: God have mercy on their heathen souls.

 

 

From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On
Behalf Of Johne Cook
Sent: Friday, March 04, 2011 8:17 AM
Subject: [DADL-OT] Vampires & crosses

 


 <http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2009/09/vampires-crosses.html>
http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2009/09/vampires-crosses.html


Vampires & crosses


It's a well-established fact that vampires can't abide crosses. There seems
to be some confusion, however, as to why this is so.

 <http://slacktivist.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c582a53ef0120a561bda7970b-pi>
Vampire-crossI should note here, before we go on, that I believe in vampire
stories. I don't mean that I believe these stories are "literally" true --
they're not that kind of story. But I believe they are true stories --
stories by which we tell ourselves true things so that we do not forget
them.

Vampire stories tell us, for example, that any of us can have great power if
only we are willing to prey on others. Feed off the blood of others and
great power will be yours. This is demonstrably true. It's how the pyramids
were built. And Standard Oil.

The stories also tell us that there's a downside to this predatory choice.
You become a creature of the night, unable to stand in the light of day.

And crosses will confound you.

Some mistakenly think that this is because the cross is a holy symbol,
imbued with religious power. But this is wrong. The symbol, like the thing
itself, is powerless. And that's the point. That is why vampires can't
tolerate it.

Most vampires don't believe in the cross, but that hardly matters. It's the
idea of the thing that gives them fits. The cross confronts vampires with
their opposite -- with the rejection of power and its single-minded pursuit.
It suggests that no one is to be treated as prey -- not even an enemy. The
idea of the cross, in other words, suggests that vampires have it wrong,
that they have it backwards, in fact, and that those others they regard as
prey are actually, somehow, winning.

This notion is incomprehensible for vampires. The one thing they're certain
of, the thing that drives them and tells them who they are and how the world
works and that they've got it all figured out is that the key to immortality
is in choosing to be the predator rather than the prey. The idea that this
might be wrong is so befuddling, so contradictory to everything they have
chosen to be that it forces them to recoil. They can't get past it.

It has become fashionable in modern vampire stories to portray these
monsters as unaffected or somehow immune to the cross. Don't you believe it.
This confusion arose due to the ridiculous, contradictorily cruciform
objects being bandied about these days as "crosses." A filigreed gold or
bejeweled cross refutes itself, denying its own representation of
powerlessness. Likewise the oxymoronic martial crosses -- a problem since at
least the time of Constantine -- that attempt to present themselves as
sanctified symbols of power. Crosses like that aren't the least bit
disturbing to a vampire -- they merely proclaim vampirism by other means.
Vampires have been known, in fact, to have such crosses emblazoned on flags,
or even to have tattoos of them etched into their undead flesh.

So the apparent immunity of modern vampires to such crosses isn't what it
seems. Sacrificial powerlessness still confounds them, but that idea is no
longer quite so effectively signified by this particular symbol. I've heard
rumor of a vampire not so long ago being turned away by one of Margaret
Bourke-White's photographs of Gandhi at his spinning wheel. Fortunately I
have not had the occasion, personally, to attempt to repeat this experiment.

As for garlic, well, I'm not really sure what that is supposed to tell us,
but I'm open to theories.

(What brings all this up, by the way, is that I've just finished reading
Jeff Sharlet's excellent book, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the
Heart of American Power. The central figure in that book, Doug Coe, is
absolutely a vampire.)




Johne Cook
| http://raygunrevival.com | http://authorculture.blogspot.com |

"I am not responsible for actions of the imaginary version of me you have
inside your head."
Attributed to Teresa Nielsen Hayden

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