When Will Vampires, Werewolves, and Zombies Jump The Shark?

I’ve been observing the contemporary fad, zombies, for awhile now. Their new compatriots the vampires and werewolves have also crawled into our collective consciousness’. What is behind it? I tried to explain a fad from my youth to The Varmint the other day: pet rocks.

She just laughed at me and said “Are you serious?” Truly, I was. Pet rocks were a pretty self-limiting contagion though. Zombies, vampires, and werewolves (ZVW) have a long, long, history, though. Many cultural groups scattered across the globe and through history have their own versions of ZVW lore. The monster in the dark. The monster that carries off the unwary, the unchaste, the unfortunate. Monsters have always had a place in our legends. Grendel surely wasn’t the first, and the sparkly vampires of Twilight intensely hypersexual Trueblood brood surely won’t be the last. They have always been there, just not so…omnipresent.

Jumping the shark, though? Daylight vampires seem to be a first step towards that. Vampires in the cheerful daylight are an absolute abnegation of what those monsters are. The Shadowspawn of S.M. Stirling’s A Taint in the Blood strike me as a much more realistic (if the word can apply) imagining of the ZVW mythos. The Shadowspawn see us as little more than cattle, and why should they? They rule the world from behind the stage, much as the sinister puppet masters that they are. The Shadowspawn owing to their very long lives are fossilized reactionaries who long for nothing less than the bad old days, hating the modern world very non-cordially. As a group they are immensely wealthy, powerful, and influential. They use those attributes for their own ends, as a dairy farmer milks or culls as he desires.

What does this have to do with the ZVW phenomenon slipping blissfully into that long night? I see the Shadowspawn of Sterling and the sparkly vampires of Twilight fighting for ownership of the new ZVW mythos. Perhaps not an existential crisis, but conflict regardless. If Stirling doesn’t carry the day, then sparkly vampires and their Disneyfied cousins will transform the monsters of our nightmares and legends into nothing more than the literary equivalent of Three’s Company. Charming, I suppose, but mindless fluff in any event. What I want to know is when can I get back to serious business, like Civilization V?

Still single? What's the matter with you? - CNN.com

The short answer is that if she had wanted to get married, she should have done so at least ten years ago. It is now, alas, too late. The usual lament one hears is "where are all the good men?" The answer which I'm positive she doesn't want to hear is: the good men are back in her twenties, where she left them. I shouldn't have to tell her. If she is the least bit perceptive and honest with herself she already knows this. If the thought of never marrying bothers her (and it does) then this though keeps her up at night, wondering "what if..."

That's right -- it just hasn't happened yet. Single women aren't screwed up (well at least no more than anyone else out there), we don't need to register for self-improvement seminars or undergo eight years of psychoanalysis. There's nothing more we should or could be doing and nothing we need to change. It just hasn't happened yet.

She goes on to repeat the plaintive mantra, "It just hasn't happened yet" over and over. This may be hard to hear, but since she is a scientist (PhD in psychology) the math speaks for itself. It isn't going to happen. The only realistic set of choices she has left now are whether she is going to be the cool aunt that everyone will secretly believe is gay, or whether to stockpile cat food. Who knows, though. She may find the love of her life next week. Hope springs eternal, they say. I'll buy a lottery ticket next week, too.

Two More Reasons Why College Isn't All It's Cracked Up To Be

Truer words are rare to read or hear. I'm such a different student today than I was back in 1983 that I find it had to believe that I'm actually the same person. That comparison is absurd, of course. I'm not the same person at all. Nineteen year-old schlubs for the most part don't have a clue. I didn't, and the vast majority of those I've known haven't either. No crime of course, but knowing who we are is the most powerful knowledge one can have.

The students who have come to college after a hitch in the military or working for a few years know why they are in college, why they are taking a particular course, and what they want out of it, in ways that kids fresh out of high school seldom do. Apart from that, quoting my wife, "Henry James wasn't writing for nineteen-year-olds." Neither were Aristotle, Milton, or Adam Smith.

The reason why I was suspended from college (academically) back in 1984 was a direct result of my age, nineteen, and my maturity level, poor. The reason why Phi Beta Kappa keeps trying to sell me pins now is also a result of my current age. Rather, it is the result of what I've seen, done, talked about, experienced, read, and been, since 1983.
I find myself sitting in class thinking about my fellow students. I want to tell them to take this seriously, that there are enough hours in the week to study and party and watch Adult Swim. Alas, those who would heed the advice don't need it, and those who do would give me that blank look that says "If it's too loud then you're too old."
An aside: my daughter said that to me the other day. She is 10.

As I always say: read it all and chase down the links for context.