My first paying job was at a public library, and I worked that job for almost four years. In that time, I had a lot of exposure to the Twilight books, mostly via people asking me where they were.* Initially, my instinct was to dislike the books just because I was sick of hearing about them, but after I read the series, and the icky feeling wore off, I kind of fell in love with them. This wasn’t because of the writing, which is horrendously purple, or the characters, who (with a few notable exceptions) are abhorrent, or the underlying themes, which make me want to watch Skins just to be contrary. I enjoy the Twilight books with the kind of glee that can only come from reading something ovary-crushingly fucked up (see Cleolinda Jones’ recap of Breaking Dawn for a near-perfect example).

When I ask a lot of guys I know (not all, but a lot of them) why they Don’t Like Twilight, they don’t explain that they find the prose awful, or the characters unlikeable, or the message detestable. They say it’s because “the vampires sparkle.”

Now, there are no hard and fast rules about what makes a vampire a vampire, aside from the blood-drinking thing (and that’s not really necessary either—the vampires from Peter Watts’ Blindsight are cannibals). Even the “No Sunlight” rule is a 20th century invention. Any writer who chooses to introduce vampires into their story is going to have to pick and choose what traits they want for “their” vampires. So if Stephenie Meyer really, really wants to make her vampires sparkle, she can go right ahead. Edward the Sparklepire’s meebling about what a monster he is becomes doubly hilarious when he’s wearing the kind of body glitter most women (and a lot of gay men) would kill for.

I explain all this to the guy friends, and they adamantly reply, “vampires do not sparkle.”

See, in modern pop culture, the classic vampire is a masculine power symbol. The vampire is sexually potent. He has mesmerizing power over people (especially women). He easily, and happily, disobeys the laws and breaks the taboos of humanity because they are weak and he is not. His interaction with these weak humans he has power over is penetrative: fangs into the neck. He doesn’t require your love, only your deference.

(The same rules apply to female vampires. Vampire lesbians!)

So when men see this masculine power symbol being in any way feminized (by, say, sparkling), their reaction is immediate and vehement. All of us, men and women, are still ruled by the principles taught to us in elementary school. Tattling, sucking up to the teachers, and being into “girly stuff” will get your ass kicked. When girls get their gross girl cooties all over a masculine idol, it’s diminished in the eyes of those who revered it.

That’s not to say that all men think this way. MovieBob, a male critic, did an excellent review on the unpleasant implications of the Twilight series’ approach to sex, and a significant amount of guys read into the books and movies on the same level. There are plenty of reasons to dislike Stephenie Meyer’s work, excellent reasons. But “the vampires sparkle” is the most superficial and telling of them.

*Incidentally, the answer to that question was never, “on the shelf,” because the queue in our hold system was so mind-bogglingly long that no book with “Stephenie Meyer” on the spine ever stayed in one branch for more than an hour.

A young lady we passed on the way to the trolley station this morning asked Amber if she wanted a copy of Watchtower. Amber. Amber with the dark eye makeup and black lace gauntlets. Amber in the demonic schoolgirl getup. That Amber. Yeah.

We made sure to show up early this time round, especially since we wanted to get into the Coraline panel. Anime fantards ruined everything yet again, with three rejects from the Viz Media panel next door sitting directly in front of us, one with a burlap Domo costume head on. There were stern talkings-to before the panel started.

I don’t think Henry Selick opened his eyes once for the whole Coraline panel. I bet backstage he boasted that he could do the panel with his eyes closed.

The Flashforward panel was in the same room, so all we had to do was hang around and move up to better seats once people cleared out. I’m mostly interested in the series because Rob Sawyer is a Canadian science fiction GOD who graciously visits Edmonton on book tours unlike every other author in the universe, and thus anything he’s touched even tangentially deserves a few minutes of my time at least. I don’t mean to fangirl, but the guy is damn cool. The series makes a lot of changes from the book, but that’s to be expected if it’s going to appeal to a television audience, although the change in perception shift from 21 years to six months means that one of my favourite bits (Dimitrios’ “you killed us all” speech) is going to be cut (BAWWW).

Also Dominic Monaghan is going to be in it after all, surprising absolutely fucking nobody.

We were going to go to other panels that afternoon, and the Mighty Boosh panel in the evening, but the need for food and preparations for the Amanda Palmer concert meant that we had to miss them. Good thing the concert was so wonderful.

We got to the Women’s Club fairly early (or, if the sign is to be believed, the Woman’s Club, making me wonder who the Woman is). Amber and I met LeeVi, who is quite possibly the most enthusiastic Palmer fan I have ever met and who owns a wonderful embroidered blue bra that we happened to see by accident. Or not-so-accident, I’m not sure.

Hair Machine opened, simultaneously giving us the worst rendition and the best performance of “Final Countdown” I have ever seen. One day they will make it through a whole song. Today was not that day.

I have resolved to listen to more Vermillion Lies after seeing their performance tonight. I’m always a sucker for narrative songwriting, just because first-person love songs have so saturated the market and I crave something different. I would have bought their CD except that I didn’t want to go near the merch table for reasons I will explain later.

I downed about half a bottle of water in 30 seconds after Vermillion Lies finished, but I was back inside for Amanda Palmer’s first song. The power of music always amazes me; the club wasn’t absolutely packed, but it was pretty full. No amount of noise control could have got that room to shut up, but a woman singing softly while plucking away at a ukelele was enough to make the place dead silent. Maybe it shouldn’t be “speak softly and carry a big stick,” but “speak softly and spend 10 minutes trying to tune a $19 ukelele”.

After the concert ended the following exchange took place:

AMBER: Look, there’s Neil Gaiman!
CANCERBABY: OH CHRIST NO
AMBER: I’m gonna go get my picture taken with him, you coming?
CANCERBABY: NO I CANNOT MEET HIM THAT WOULD RUIN EVERYTHING

Yes, I’m a neurotic basket case. I also take that “never meet your idols” advice very seriously.

AMBER: Hey look, there’s Henry Selick!
CANCERBABY: WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE BEFORE I ACCIDENTALLY MEET SOMEONE

Yeah.

I hate when I’m reading the paper and see the phrase “shot to death” or “stabbed to death” only to later find that the person in question was only stabbed or shot once. It seems misleading to me. I realize that if the single gunshot or stab wound were enough to end that person’s life, then the addition of “to death” would be perfectly accurate, but there’s still a certain plurality implied by the words “to death.”

When I read “the victim was shot to death” I immediately interpret that as “the victim was shot, repeatedly, until they were dead.” Really, what I’m expecting here is a scene out of Rambo minus the shirtlessness because it’s cold where I live. Instead, what I find out is that

A) the victim was only shot once, most often in the head, and
B) (in one case) the victim was a baby, which made me feel bad.

So, really, newspapers, if you’re going to use “stabbed to death” or “shot to death”, make sure the mental image the reader has as a result matches the story at least a little bit.

Also I’m sorry for making light of brutal murder.