Matthew Wrather hosts a panel including Peter Fenzel, Mark Lee, Josh McNeil and Jordan Stokes to overthink the role and appeal of stories like Twilight and to relate this latest take on the vampire story to the OTI horror muse, the zombie.
Warning: Twilight spoilers. Inconsequential spoilers, since if you care about that kind of thing you’ve probably read the books already, but still.
For another take on vampires, be sure to visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Count_von_Count
OVERTHINK THIS
Our Weekly Picks Return
- Jordan: Ginger Snaps – http://tinyurl.com/566o6c
- Matt: Schotts Miscellany – http://tinyurl.com/5lo5pb
- Mark: Give Chinese Democracy a Chance – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aG2mcOI4oME
- Pete: Series Finale of The Shield – http://www.fxnetworks.com/shows/originals/the_shield/
- also: Ninja Warrior – http://www.g4tv.com/ninjawarrior/
Hey. Hey. Hey.
Young adult literature = bad = no no no. Also, young adult literature = easy = not necessarily. There are no reading level requirements for young adult books. There are for middle grade and lower. There must have been a reading level requirement for The Da Vinci Code as it seems to be at a fifth grade level.
There aren’t really many thematic differences between YA books and adult books — both are full of sex, drugs, rock and roll, etc. My old 9th grade students specifically would ask me for “book about kids cutting themselves.” Of course, some YA writers like the sexy, sexy chastity. Some don’t.
The only major difference between young adult lit and adult lit is that young adult lit features teenage main characters. Catcher in the Rye would definitely be marketed as young adult if it came out today.
Also: Jordan’s joke about Harold Bloom’s head scroll saying “deconstruct” wins the award for nerdiest joke ever. Man, think of the cultural capital you need to get that joke:
-You need to know who Harold Bloom is.
-You need to know what a golem is.
-You need to know that golems come to life with scrolls.
-You need to know what deconstruction means.
-You need to know that Harold Bloom deconstructs things.
Bravo, sir. Bravo.
Just for the record, Papa Bear (which is what Harold Bloom called himself in class, as well as “This Old Brontosaurus” and “Sir John Bloomstaff”) would RAIL against (what he would call) the literary-critical travesty of deconstruction. Even though he came of age in the same era of literary scholarship as Derrida, De Man, he had an antithetical way of approaching literature.
My point about YA lit was more in the vein of “What We Talk About When We Talk About Young Adult Literature” — that is, what are the connotations for the larger culture who, aside from Harry Potter and perhaps now Twilight, are largely unfamiliar with the genre.
A quick amazon search yields the following, which are worth a click for the titles and covers alone:
http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/141690235X?tag=overtit-20
http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0805080791?tag=overtit-20
http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/1595140859?tag=overtit-20
http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/1416953701?tag=overtit-20
(Yes those are amazon affiliate links. Help a blog out.)
Re: The Count
http://tinyurl.com/589grq
Oh my counting god that’s funny.
ZOMG. That is funny indeed. What European musical style is this supposed to evoke? German? Russian?
Roma. It’s a pretty standard musical shorthand.
Re: Re: The Count
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hl6VpmjKZAs
I love the quote in the sidebar.
Re: Socialability of Vampires in _Twilight_
Don’t forget about the group of vampires in charge from Italy, though. Having a set of “rules” implies to me they are social in that they have a structure and (albeit very short-laddered) hierarchy.
Great YA novel about werewolves: _Blood and Chocolate_. The movie is alright as far as horror movies go, but don’t watch it if you want to see the plot from the book onscreen.
hey all.
Just started listening to the pod casts, I’ve started at 13 or 14, as the others are not in mp3 format and I’m not aware of a good converter.
Anyways…
The reason behind my post is re:vampires.
My friends made me aware of a phenomenon I believe called “popcorn Ninjas”. What it entails is that when you have a few (less than 3)Ninjas (IE Shredder) you have to pull out all the stops to take him down. But when you have numerous (numbering in the dozens, often coming from rafters and whatnot IE: The Foot clan) then these Ninja’s fall down like paper dolls.
This could easily be transferred to any other genre – Mobsters, Robots, Pirates, and Vampires. It would seem there is a radical exponential curve between power level and number of foes.
That’s all I wanted to say about that.
Love the shows, they give me something smart to listen to while walking home. I thank Jick from the fine people at http://www.Kingdomofloathing.com for giving you a shout out and directing me here for some overthought insight and over-the-top rambling, ranting, and raving about popular culture.
Look forward to the next 40 shows!