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A friend emails:
My own idea about elites runs something like this:
[1. Social evolution is largely unintentional.
[2. Social subsystems (politics, economics, demographics, cultural, etc) evolve rather independently of one another. This from Niklas Luhmann.
[3. Nevertheless, there are overlaps among *people* at the apex of these elites, as seen in boards of directors, cocktail parties, etc. To join this overlapping consensus of respectability, you can't criticize other subsystems to vigorously, e.g., you can't denounce modern art as a fraud.
[4. Power very largely consists of being able to define what criticisms are off the wall, over the top, and out to lunch. Racial differences in intelligence and certain aspects of U.S. foreign policy (past and present) are two examples that come to mind. This is a negative or Calhounian veto power. Those who wield it do not "run the world." Rather they can block significant changes that reduce their power.
[5. Nevertheless, what is regarded as respectable over time evolves, again, largely outside the intentions of the gatekeepers. Thus, Tom Wolfe can lambast modern art and still get invited to the right cocktail parties. And libertarians now have a seat at the table, though not a full seat. This depends on the seat: libertarians have no place at a table made up of the Education administrative blob.
[6. Organizations evolve with a logic of their own and getting into an organization elite requires displays of loyalty above anything else.
[7. There once was a "power elite," chiefly made up of business, government, and military, but such a consensus has been replaced since the 1950s if not before by what Luhmann calls functional subsystems in a plural elite model.
[8. The respectability elite continues, and Bill Gates has managed to become a full-fledged member by mouthing the right opinions. But Gates, while his company has changed the world, has no power to change the respectability consensus about the goodness of public education or any other respectability shibboleth. His alleged power, outside of Microsoft, is really gaining applause for himself. In fact, the respectability elite is more of an inner circle of pretense than a group that can significantly change things.
[9. There can be a wide divergence between mass and elite opinion. Examples are the Lone Nut Hypothesis of who shot JFK (all the elite, 20% of the public), continuing to ban school prayer (ditto), and allowing unlimited immigration (not quite all of the elite, but again 20% of the public). There are less drastic divides over strange phenomena and evolution (few of the elite against, but smaller portions of the masses) and over unorthodox medicine (more of the elite but not as great as of the masses). The reasons for this divide vary quite a bit and are well worth inquiring into.
[My model, in short, is that intentions matter little, that a plurality of elites represent functional subsystems, and that there is a respectability consensus that rewards those who refrain from making off the wall, out to lunch, and over the top pronouncements.]
By Steve Sailer on 4/14/2007 28 comments
Surowiecki and Sailer v. Galt and Cowen
Back when I was taking economics courses, during Alfred Marshall's heyday, economics professors drilled into us that financial markets were efficient, and therefore you should just put your money into a no load mutual fund because even professionals can't beat the market. Being a trusting soul, I believed them and went into marketing research. My classmates at MBA school in the turning point year of 1982 paid no attention, went to Wall Street, and got rich.
Now, we are told, it's the "efficiency" of the modern financial markets that is allowing a few thousand players to get richer than Croesus, while the rest of us putter along. At Marginal Revolution, Tyler Cowen quotes Jane Galt in The Economist:
To the extent that the superrich are pulling away from the rest of us...the most parsimonious explanation seems to be the massive increase in the efficiency, and size, of American capital markets.
Clearly, I don't know anything about getting rich, but, I responded:
"Shouldn't a more efficient financial market mean that the ROI gap on the investments of the rich and non-rich should narrow, not widen? In 1907, it helped to be as rich as J.P. Morgan to profit reliably in the financial markets because the cost of monitoring one's investments to make sure you weren't being ripped off was so great. Now, the friction cost of investments for small investors should be less prohibitive. So, I don't see this as much of an explanation."
For example, why have the giant endowments of Harvard and Yale been generating roughly a 5 percentage point better return on investment for the last decade and a half than the average college's endowment?
James Surowiecki, the New Yorker's business writer, added:
"Steve's right: a more efficient capital market is one in which there should be a smaller, not bigger, role for intermediaries. So it seems peculiar to argue that the greater efficiency of capital markets is responsible for making all these intermediaries incredibly rich."
Some fairly illuminating comments follow from people who know much more about the subject than I do, although I still don't understand how the old efficient markets theory with its glamorization of no load mutual funds can be reconciled with the fashionableness of hedge funds with million dollar minimum investments and huge fees.
Vincent Carroll on Duke
From the Rocky Mountain News:
The most remarkable fact about the Duke lacrosse fiasco is not that it took nearly a year for obviously flimsy charges to be dropped against the players. That's a long time, but it was only in January that the North Carolina attorney general took over the case from the corrupt Durham County district attorney.
Nor is it the fact that District Attorney Mike Nifong would so crudely exploit stereotypes of well-to-do white male athletes in order to entice black votes in a re-election campaign. Race-baiting is a time-honored political tactic, although one deployed more frequently decades ago — and then mostly against blacks, of course.
The most remarkable feature of this legal debacle isn't even the cheerleading for the prosecution that could be found in such major media as The New York Times. As biased and credulous as many reports were, a few were first-rate. For example, the late Ed Bradley of 60 Minutes deftly demolished the prosecution's case in a report last fall.
No, the most astonishing fact, hands down, was and remains the squalid behavior of the community of scholars at Duke itself. For months nearly the entire faculty fell into one of two camps: those who demanded the verdict first and the trial later, and those whose silence enabled their vigilante colleagues to set the tone. (More)
One minor bit of good news is that Duke was one of the few private colleges not to see a big boost in applications this year, falling 1%. The Common Application website has made it so easy to apply to up to 20 private colleges without re-entering facts that most colleges appear to have enjoyed double digit increases in application this year.
"The schools that traditionally have been a little less selective than the most selective schools ... Claremont, Pitzer, Colgate, Hamilton, Skidmore, Trinity, Middlebury ... just went bananas," Reider said. "Colgate is now where Dartmouth was. Dartmouth is where Amherst was. Amherst is where Brown was. Brown is where Stanford was. Stanford is where Harvard was, and Harvard is all by itself, taking 9 percent. ... Things like that are crazy."
Pitzer College, which has about 960 students and is east of Los Angeles, is one of the private campuses that has seen a huge jump in interest from students and subsequently has become much more selective.
Ten years ago, it accepted 65 of every 100 applicants. This year, it took 26 students out of every 100, down from 38 in 100 just last year. Its average SAT score has increased, too, from 1,206 last year to 1,323 this year.
"It is huge," said Pitzer President Laura Trombley. "In a way it is kind of affirming. When you are this selective, people begin to certainly rethink their conception or perception of the institution."
In other words, we must be doing something right here at Pitzer (one of the Claremont Colleges) because more 17 year olds think we're cool. Pitzer is benefiting from the worst house on the block strategy popular among lazy homeowners for prospering from a gentrifying market. It got so hard to get into the other four Claremont Colleges (Pomona, Harvey Mudd, Scripps, and Claremont McKenna) that Pitzer has gotten pulled along in their slipstream.
Come May 2, a lot of colleges will likely find that they had fewer enrollments than they expected based on past experience, and will be desperately dialing their waiting lists. I suspect Duke will lead the list.
Still, as I've pointed out over and over, undergraduate college reputations just don't change much over the decades, no matter how badly the school screws up, so Duke will still be golden. For example, the Claremont Colleges had their own hate hoax in 2004, when a professor tried to frame her white male students in the trashing of her car, which she actually did herself. I described it here in the American Conservative. But applications to Claremont Colleges soared this year.
Retiring Tony Blair unloads unPC bombshell:
Political correctness not helping, says PM · Community leaders react angrily to comments
Patrick Wintour and Vikram Dodd
Tony Blair yesterday claimed the spate of knife and gun murders in London was not being caused by poverty, but a distinctive black culture. His remarks angered community leaders, who accused him of ignorance and failing to provide support for black-led efforts to tackle the problem.
One accused him of misunderstanding the advice he had been given on the issue at a Downing Street summit.=
Black community leaders reacted after Mr Blair said the recent violence should not be treated as part of a general crime wave, but as specific to black youth. He said people had to drop their political correctness and recognise that the violence would not be stopped "by pretending it is not young black kids doing it".
It needed to be addressed by a tailored counter-attack in the same way as football hooliganism was reined in by producing measures aimed at the specific problem, rather than general lawlessness.
Mr Blair's remarks are at odds with those of the Home Office minister Lady Scotland, who told the home affairs select committee last month that the disproportionate number of black youths in the criminal justice system was a function of their disproportionate poverty, and not to do with a distinctive black culture.
Giving the Callaghan lecture in Cardiff, the prime minister admitted he had been "lurching into total frankness" in the final weeks of his premiership. He called on black people to lead the fight against knife crime. He said that "the black community - the vast majority of whom in these communities are decent, law abiding people horrified at what is happening - need to be mobilised in denunciation of this gang culture that is killing innocent young black kids".
Mr Blair said he had been moved to make his controversial remarks after speaking to a black pastor of a London church at a Downing Street knife crime summit, who said: "When are we going to start saying this is a problem amongst a section of the black community and not, for reasons of political correctness, pretend that this is nothing to do with it?" Mr Blair said there needed to be an "intense police focus" on the minority of young black Britons behind the gun and knife attacks. The laws on knife and gun gangs needed to be toughened and the ringleaders "taken out of circulation".
I look forward to the Prime Minister's pilgrimage to the Al Sharpton radio show to beg for absolution.
Kurt Vonnegut, RIP
John Updike aptly wrote of the author of Slaughterhouse Five: "There is in Vonnegut a fine disdain of the merely personal." His works "have a pre-sexual, pre-social freshness; he worries about the sort of things - the future, injustice, science, destiny - that twelve-year old boys worry about."
Updike, who devoted his stupendous literary mastery to memorializing exurban adultery, could have used a little of Vonnegut's boyish disdain for sex. In this, Vonnegut resembled Mark Twain, whose best books -- Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer, and the first half of his memoir Life on the Mississippi -- reflect an innocent youthfulness. While Twain found his one great topic -- the Mississippi -- Vonnegut had his -- Dresden -- thrust upon him.
Duke Lacrosse Hoax Is Finally Over:
From the NYT, which did so much to try to frame the athletes:
Former Duke Players Cleared of All Charges
By DUFF WILSON
RALEIGH, N.C. April 11 — All remaining charges were dropped today against three former Duke University lacrosse players who had been accused of rape more than a year ago, North Carolina's attorney general announced, concluding a three-month investigation of a racially charged case that polarized and outraged many in the state and nation.
An independent investigation "showed clearly that there is insufficient evidence to proceed," Roy A. Cooper, the state attorney general, said at a televised news conference. " We believe these individuals are innocent."
He said the accounts of the events given by the woman who made the accusations were so inconsistent that they were not credible. "She contradicts herself," Mr. Cooper said.
"In this case, the inconsistencies were so significant and so contrary to the evidence that we have no credible evidence that an attack occurred in that house on that night," he said.
The decision brings to an end a 13-month ordeal for the young men, two of whom were dismissed from Duke because of the charges.
And here's my VDARE.com article from April 2006 showing how this frame-up of the Great White Defendants was anticipated 19 years before in Tom Wolfe's famous 1987 novel Bonfire of the Vanities.
I think the Don Imus "scandal" is made up, to distract from the dismissal of the Duke non-rape charges.
Perhaps a tad paranoid, but, still ...
Great moments in the history of counter-insurgency warfare:
Perhaps President Bush could take a lesson from the strategy followed by President Mobutu of Zaire (Congo) in his successful resistance to rebels in the breakaway Shaba (Katanga) province in the "Termite War" of 1977-78. From Time, May 2, 1977:
"Mobutu also unveiled a remarkable secret weapon in the war: pygmy power. Some 150 "expert pygmy bowmen" —as a Zaïrian official described them —were sent to Shaba to infiltrate enemy lines. The diminutive tribesmen (average height under 5 ft.) were praised by one government newspaper as "formidably efficient units who can move silently and well against the enemy." Although they were issued rifles, most pygmies prefer carrying home-made bows that shoot arrows whose tips are coated with a lethal drug (derived from local plants), which kills the monkeys that they hunt for food. Skeptical foreign correspondents could not resist joking that the rebels had suffered "a bay of pygmies," and that the tiny warriors had skewered the enemy from their hiding posts in clumps of crabgrass."
I read somewhere long ago, probably in The Economist, that this was actually a highly effective psychological weapon. The pygmies probably never even got to the front, but the airport photo op that Mobutu staged with the pygmies and their blow guns apparently scared the rebels no end. Who knows the real story, though ...
The No-Man's Land of the White Comedian
There are two general orthogonal rules about who is allowed to speak about race in contemporary American polite society: blacks and comedians have vastly more freedom to tell it the way it is than whites and serious thinkers. So, there's a grid of acceptability in who is supposed to discuss race, with the most favored corner being black comedians such as Dave Chappelle, who gets a $50 million contract to make fun of blacks and whites. In contrast, a serious, judicious, data-driven thinker like Charles Murray is in the opposite corner. He becomes persona non grata and is subject to horrific slanders.
The ambiguous corners belong to the serious black thinkers such as Thomas Sowell and the white comedians such as this Don Imus radio fellow who is being condemned by Al Sharpton, arbiter of all that is right and holy.
You'll notice that The Simpsons are totally terrified of anything having to say about blacks. The show has a completely stereotypical Asian Indian, Apu, but no continuing characters who act recognizably black. The upper-middle class Dr. Hibbert is a parody of Bill Cosby's Dr. Huxtable character, not of a real black. Meanwhile, the show's creators telegraph to viewers that they are avoiding joking about blacks by creating two black characters who behave indistinguishably from their white partners. There are Homer's co-workers Lenny and Carl; and there are the cops Lou and Eddie. After 15 years of watching, I still have no idea whether it's Lenny who is black, or if it's Carl. The same goes for Lou and Eddie. If there was just one ambiguous duo like this, it might be an accident, but having two pairs indicates the writers are making a joke about their pusillanimity in the face of race.
Imus doesn't show this caution, so, either now or later, he will likely go the way of most such white males as they age and get crotchetier and lose their self-control. Eventually, he'll say something and the Great and Good will turn on him. I was happy that the magnificent Chicago columnist Mike Royko had the good fortune to drop dead of a heart attack at around 65, while still on top. He was a curmudgeon and a drinker, so his eventual humiliation over saying something politically incorrect was inevitable if he had lived long enough.
My son wants to know:
"What happens if Al Sharpton won't forgive you, but Jesse Jackson will?"
Whose sin-forgiving superpowers are stronger?
Advice for single women
Single women should to learn to distinguish between expenditures on looks that help catch a husband and those that merely impress their single women friends. Spending money to snag a good husband can have a huge return on investment, but not all spending on fashion and beauty has equal payoffs.
Women spend a lot of money in attractiveness arms races against other women in areas that men pay little attention to. For example, spending on your nails doesn't have much payoff in attracting a good man. Nails are the kind of thing that other women pay attention to, but most men only subliminally notice.
Similarly, while buying high heels is a good idea because they make women look more curvaceous, buying and lots of lots of shoes is a waste. Men don't really care whether you have the latest fashion in shoes and whether they perfectly match your dress ... well, some men care, but they are generally not the kind of man who will be the father of your children.
You'll notice that most men think that the fact that Imelda Marcos owned 3,000 pairs of shoes condemns her without appeal. Yet, women I've talked to about this find it reasonable once they do the math: two pairs per week for 30 years of public appearances. Seems pretty thrifty to most women! Still, you can see ways to economize.
Of course, once a woman is not single anymore, her husband would prefer she think more about impressing other women than other men ...
Iraq After Four Years: The Death Gap
It's widely assumed that American minority soldiers are suffering a disproportionate number of deaths in the current war. Yet, according to iCasualites, 74,4% of all American fatal casualties in the Iraq war have been suffered by non-Hispanic whites. In 2004, non-Hispanic whites only made up 67% of the total population, and, more relevantly, only 61% of the 25-year-olds, which might be about the representative age of the fatalities.
So, young whites are dying in Iraq at a per capita rate 86% higher than young minorities. If you are wondering about how I calculated that, it's:
(74.41% / 61%) / (25.59% / 39%)
Even among journalists who can divide in their head, few keep in mind that you have to divide the rate for the majority by the rate for the minority. Instead, they tend to divide the rate for the majority by the rate for the national average: "Okay, 74% divided by 61% is, well, not that much greater than 1.00, so there's no story here." Of course, the rate for the majority will generally be fairly close to the national average, but that's not what people are interested in. They want to compare Group X versus Group Y, and so you have to divide by the minority rate, not the national average.
A big reason for the Death Gap is the use of IQ test cutoffs by the military, which used to be at the 30th percentile up through 2004. That disqualified a large fraction of blacks and about half of Hispanics from enlisting. The average IQ of enlistees was above the national average.
Unlocking the barn door after the horse is gone:
One of the little remarked national trends is the economic cleansing of African-Americans from the liberal cities of Blue State America, with many blacks heading toward more Republican areas with cheaper housing and better job growth. San Francisco provides a classic example. From the San Francisco Chronicle:
S.F. moves to stem African American exodus
Critics say effort to reverse longtime trend may be too late
Leslie Fulbright, Chronicle Staff Writer
Joseph Blue has lived in San Francisco for 20 years and toughed out the drastic decline in its black population, a phenomenon that persists despite being recognized for decades as a problem. Neighborhoods that once thrived with African American culture and black-owned businesses have all but disappeared.
Well, I doubt that there were any thriving African-American business districts in San Francisco in 1987 when Mr. Blue arrived. They pretty much disappeared across the country in the 1960s when the coming of integration allowing ambitious blacks to get out (although they have made a slight comeback since the end of the crack era). For an indelible portrait of black neighborhoods in San Francisco in the late 1960s, see Tom Wolfe's Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers.
"San Francisco no longer has a viable black community," said Blue, an African American who lives in the Western Addition. "The middle class is gone, and what we have left is underprivileged, uneducated, poor black folks."
San Francisco officials are now calling the thousands of black people who have moved away "the African American diaspora," and the mayor's office is putting together a task force to figure out what can be done to preserve the remaining black population and cultivate new residents.
San Francisco's black population has dropped from 96,000 -- or 13.4 percent of the city -- in 1970 to an estimated 47,000 in 2005, about 6.5 percent of city residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. African Americans make up about 12.1 percent of the nation's population overall.
"The decline is phenomenal," said Hans Johnson, a demographer with the Public Policy Institute of California. San Francisco is not alone. From 1995 to 2000, Oakland and neighborhoods of Los Angeles lost tens of thousands of black residents. Not one West Coast city made a list of the nation's top cities for African Americans compiled last year by Black Enterprise magazine based on income potential, the cost of living, proximity to employers and housing costs. Most are in the South and most -- coincidentally or not -- have black mayors.
In other words, they tend to be black strongholds in Republican states, most notably Atlanta in Georgia, where the city can live off the surrounding prosperity.
"We don't even have any black leaders," said Blue, who unsuccessfully ran for supervisor in 2004. "When I moved here, there was a vibrant and enthusiastic black culture that brought its own ethnic mix and vitality. Now, the culture and the political influence have evaporated. The population is so low that it is beyond saving."
How did I know the word "vibrant" was going to appear in this article?
But Seattle and San Diego, which have reputations for being predominately white, had higher percentages of African Americans than San Francisco in 2005, according to the Census Bureau's American Community Survey. In recent years, San Francisco's black population has dropped faster than that of any other large city in the United States.
Though San Francisco is still often seen as diverse, it was 53 percent white and 33.5 percent Asian in 2005, with Chinese Americans accounting for about two-thirds of Asian residents.
San Francisco's strict environmental and historical preservation laws have put a tight lid on the housing supply, making San Francisco hideously expensive, driving out blacks and forcing the Hispanic immigrant service workers who replaced them to live elsewhere in the Bay Area and make long commutes. This leaves San Francisco itself as a predominantly white-Asian theme park of Disneyfied Diversity, which is just the way San Francisco liberals, such as the Speaker of the House, like it.
Great moments in the history of counter-insurgency...

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


As the weather starts to turn colder, the risk of fires increases significantly. Nationwide, 457 children ages 14 and under died in 2007 due to unintentional fire- and burn-related injuries, and 96,756 more were injured.
Approximately 80 percent of all fire-related deaths and injuries occur in the home, and young children are at a particularly high risk because they don't perceive danger as readily and can lack the ability to escape a life-threatening fire situation.
Keep matches, gasoline, lighters and all other flammable materials locked away, out of children's reach.
Keep children away from cooking and heating appliances, and never leave the kitchen while you are cooking. Use back burners and turn pot handles to the back of the stove when cooking.
Test all smoke alarms every month and change the batteries once a year, even if they are hard-wired. Smoke alarms are also available with 10-year lithium batteries.
Consider a home sprinkler system. The combination of smoke alarms and sprinklers can reduce your chances of dying in a fire by 82 percent.
Set your water heater thermostat to 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Consider installing water faucets and shower heads containing anti-scald technology.
For more information visit www.firepreventionweek.org or www.safekids.org.
Sylvia Scholl is WakeMed's Trauma Program Director.


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Jeff Tweedy and Son Charm The Majestic Theatre
By	Emily Roller on June 24th, 2014
photo: shawn roller photography
Wilco fans were not disappointed Sunday night at The Majestic. Frontman Jeff Tweedy gave a performance unlike anything Dallas has seen from him before, accompanied by a new tour band including his son Spencer on drums. Tweedy and son are expected to release their collaborative album Sukierae this September. Sunday night's show kicked off with a full hour of new songs, which Tweedy noted as a "historic" way of doing things. Concert goers were even invited to a sing along of Tweedy's not yet released tune Slow Love towards the end of the first set.
"Feel like doing some singing along in a cultish way to a song you don't know?"
Playing an entire album's worth of new material for the first hour would seem to be a risky move for anyone other than Jeff Tweedy, who's devoted fans appeared to soak up every note. It helped that the new music was very much in the classic Wilco style, with strong references to both Sky Blue Sky and A Ghost is Born.
Halfway through the night, Tweedy introduces and simultaneously dismisses the band, including guitarists Jim Elkington and Liam Cunningham and bassist Darin Gray. The stage was blackened, and with a single spotlight on Tweedy and his acoustic guitar, fans were treated to broken down renditions of Wilco favorites such as Passenger Side and I'm the Man who Loves you as well as an array of Uncle Tupelo, Loose Fur, and Golden Smog tunes.
Tweedy kept listeners on the edge of their seats as he stammered that he was just "trying to remember what songs he knows" while he fiddled around with the opening chords to Someday Some Morning Sometime. The relaxed, unstructured feel to this portion of the concert leant itself to more (drunken) audience outbursts and song requests which Tweedy handled with ease. He told a story about having discovered two other men named Jeff Tweedy- a guitar tech in Austin and one that designs clothes for P. Diddy. Tweedy joked that both must have criminal records because he has some trouble every time he tries to cross the border into Texas.
"That's the trouble with being famous, having to remind people who you are".
The full band rejoined Tweedy for the encore performances including their first tour run of You Are Not Alone, the title track from Mavis Staples' Grammy-winning album which was written and produced by Jeff Tweedy. Spencer Tweedy leant his dad some background vocals on the Staples cover as well as a cover of Doug Sahm's Give Back the Key to My Heart, before which Tweedy confirmed that the audience was "thoroughly Texan, right?".
Sukierae is set to be released September 16th on dBpm records. Tweedy the band will be touring North America through the end of July.
Down from Above
Diamond Light
Hazel (live debut)
Summer Noon
Honey Combed
Desert Bell
World Away
Fake Fur Coat
High As Hello
Slow Love
Nobody Dies Anymore
New Madrid [Uncle Tupelo]
Someday Some Morning Sometime
Laminated Cat [Loose Fur]
Passenger Side
Ruling Class [Loose Fur]
Born Alone
Please Tell My Brother [Golden Smog]
Jesus, Etc.
I'm the Man Who Loves You
You are Not Alone [Mavis Staples] (live debut)
Give Back the Key to My Heart [Doug Sahm]
California Stars
The Majestic Theatre- map
Categories: Art, Music, People
Tags: dallas, golden smog, jeff tweedy, live, loose fur, spencer tweedy, the majestic, uncle tupelo, wilco
Wilco's "Wilco The Album" Release Party at Good Records
Sigur Ros | New album out June 23
Wilco Comes to Dallas October 9 at Palladium Ballroom
Broken Gears Project Theatre caps off strong season with 'The Hand'
Emotions Abound in Undermain Theatre's "Ages of the Moon"
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This is the best rock album of all time, according to critics
By Joni Sweet of Stacker |
< PREVIOUS SLIDE SLIDE 1 of 101 NEXT SLIDE >
100 best rock albums of all time, according to critics
Driven by the success of the Byrds and the Beatles, the mid-1960s saw rock-and-roll evolve from mere dance music for youth to a bona fide form of art, according to Simon C. W. Reynolds, author of "Blissed Out: The Raptures of Rock." The development of the genre not only helped it to be taken more seriously by music fans—it created the opportunity for critics to share their opinions on albums with the world. Enter the birth of rock criticism. Magazines like Crawdaddy! and Rolling Stone elevated rock singers to the status of "seers and sages" who capture the zeitgeist in their lyrics and melodies.
Life's too short to spend time listening to bad music, and rock critics help listeners discover the best of the best. They act as gatekeepers, influencing what gets played on the radio (and nowadays, downloaded from streaming services), while simultaneously solidifying a musician's "place in music history," writes Kembrew McLeod in "One and a Half Stars: A Critique of Rock Criticism in North America." And while critics might not always agree about a particular album, their aggregated reviews can give you a pretty good sense of the cream of the crop when it comes to music. It's an ideal place to start if you're looking for, say, fantastic rock albums from the last half-century.
Stacker did just that when we compiled data from Metacritic on the best rock albums of all time, ranked by Metascore. Only albums with seven or more reviews were eligible. EPs, box sets, and compilations were not considered. Due to the availability of music review data, the list is skewed toward but not limited to the last three decades. Stacker also looked at reviews and musician interviews from Rolling Stone, Spin, Drowned in Sound, Pitchfork, The Guardian, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The A.V. Club, PopMatters, and Now Toronto to learn more about the albums.
Did your favorite album make the cut? Click through to see the 100 best rock albums of all time, according to the critics.
You may also like: 50 binge-worthy podcasts
© Michael Ochs Archives // Getty Images
More from Stacker
These baby names are plummeting in popularity right now


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The "Second" Debut of the Woodill Wildfire: (Motor Trend, August 1953)
Posted on February 27, 2011 by Geoff HackerMay 26, 2020
Here's The First Publication Showing The Newly Designed Woodill Wildfire – Motor World, July 17th, 1953. The Car Was So New – and Exciting – That It Ran Only On The Cover. No Story Or Information Appeared In The Magazine On The Wildfire – It Was Probably Still Too New.
Hi Gang…
The first Woodill Wildfire debuted during the November 1952 Peterson Motorama in Los Angeles. It was based on a Glasspar G2 body with 3-4 modifications which included an extended front hood scoop, double-hump dashboard, and tail fins to boot – that's what differentiated the first Woodills from their Glasspar body and not much more.
By the way, much of this first car was Willys-based such as the drivetrain, front grille, and tailights. This was to reinforce the possibility that Willys would choose the Woodill Wildfire as their first sports car – which never happened. But that story's for another day…
The fact that the first Wildfire was based on a Glasspar body should make sense – Bill Tritt designed it for B. R. "Woody" Woodill and the "need for speed" in getting the car done necessitated making modifications to an existing Glasspar G2 body and adding what would be distinctive Woodill styling – as quickly as possible.
Most likely, Woody was under the gun to get his car in the November 1952 Petersen Motorama where just a year earlier, fiberglass sports cars debuted to thunderous approval for the first time in automotive history. If he could do this (which he did), no doubt significant publicity would follow (which it did).
Tritt even brought in his trusted friend Harold "Shorty" Post to design and build frames for these early Woodills (now known as Series 1 Woodill Wildfires). Shorty Post was the perfect choice – he was producing frames for Glasspar cars too, and would continue doing so through March of 1953 when Ted Mangles and Ed Martindale from MAMECO took over and Glasspar started using their frames.
These first Woodill Wildfires (Series 1) were produced in low numbers (approximately 3 were built), and formed the basis of styling which would ultimately lead to a fully fleshed out, newly designed car, and a mid-year 1953 release of what we now know as the Series 2 "Woodill Wildfire." In fact, the debut photo of the newly designed Series 2 Woodill Wildfire was on the cover of the July 17th 1953 issue of Motor World. No earlier picture or mention has been found to date (but research continues).
Today's story is about the first full article on the newly designed Woodill Wildfire. This article appeared in the August 1953 issue of Motor Trend – just 2 weeks after the debut of the new Woodill Wildfire in Motor World, so this Motor Trend article represents the "birth" of what all of us vintage fiberglass sports car guys know as the Series 2 Woodill Wildfire sports car.
Let's take a look at the article.
Motor Trend: August 1953
The Wildfire (By Jim Potter)
It's Interesting That Motor Trend Decided To Feature The Back Of The Car On Their Cover. Perhaps It Was Because The Wildfire Had Just Appeared – Front Side Forward – On The Cover of Motor World.
Woody Woodill has combined a continental flair with dependable domestic production parts in America's newest Sports Car
One of the most interesting developments in the American-built sports car scene is the newly designed Fiberglass automobile shown on our cover and on these pages. B. R. "Woody" Woodill, ex Dodge dealer turned sports car manufacturer, has plunged into a project unique in its conception in that stock Detroit parts are combined with a clean, brand-new sports car body.
The Wildfire, in limited production now for over a year, takes on a saucy continental flair in its second design (for design number one, see December '52 Motor Trend). The new car features a smooth contoured front air scoop, a simple grille using Willys parts, and high rear fenders.
Woodill, at a time when most people would have been satisfied with the mounting pile of orders for his original car, shut down his production line and gambled on his new body design. Original in every respect, the new Wildfire has caught the imagination of the American taste, causing considerable excitement in automotive circles, so Woody's gamble seems to have been worth the effort.
The new Wildfire frame, designed by Bill Tritt of the Glasspar organization, is constructed of sturdy rectangular steel tubing. At present, the Wildfire frame is designed to take stock '39 to '41 Ford parts without changes as well as stock Willys running gear. And this brings us up to how you can go about buying this new sports car.
The Wildfire Was Hardly Finished Before An Early Car Was Sent To France For The Paris Auto Show in 1953. That Car Was Recently Found Through The Research Efforts Of Ted and Greg Griffin.
Three distribution methods are in effect at the present time to fill various demands. The car may be purchased complete from a local dealer or directly from the factory; or it may be purchased in two different kits for home construction.
1: The completed car, equipped with the Willys F-head or Ford V8 engine, sells for $3260, F.O.B. Downey, California
2: The basic kit, selling for $855, includes the factory-assembled body and all parts needed for installation on the automobile frame. The under-assembly kit ($125) should be purchased when a Wildfire frame is used.
3: Complete kit including frame, body, under-assembly, and windshield brackets costs $1300
Is there a market for such a sports car, using stock Detroit running gear? To be honest, we don't know, but from the bona fide orders Woodill has stockpiled in his busy plant at Downey, we do believe that the fever has begun, and only time will give the answer to this energetic "independent."
Building a Woodill Wildfire in Just 4 Hours:
The date of the article in today's story was August 1953, and Woody was still promoting his product in July 1955 when the spot on the TV show "You Asked For It" appeared. For those of you interested, here's the video again for your review.
[vsw id="AIGAooBGSUw" source="youtube" width="425″ height="344″ autoplay="no"]
In the past few years, Woodill Wildfire historians Bill Tritt and others have identified that about 100 cars and kits were sold from December 1952 thru 1956 when Woodill operations, for all intents and purposes, ceased. That's not a bad production run, but that's approximately 30 cars being sold each full year (1953, 1954 and 1955). Most likely, sales were greatest early on, but the time span of 3 years and a total run of 100 bodies/cars gives you a feel for the size of their effort.
I look forward to posting more information, brochures, pictures, and articles about Woodill Wildfire cars in the near future, but the "buck" starts here with this article gang.
Hope you enjoyed the story, and until next time…
Glass on gang…
Click on the Images Below to View Larger Pictures
It's Interesting That Motor Trend Decided To Feature The Back Of The Car Their Cover. Perhaps It Was Because The Wildfire Had Just Appeared – Front Side Forward – On The Cover of Motor World.
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The "Second" Debut of the Woodill Wildfire: (Motor Trend, August 1953) — 1 Comment
ken tilly on February 27, 2014 at 1:15 am said:
Why would Richard Rawlings, of Gas Monkey Garage fame, take a 100% genuine Woodill Wildfire sporstcar and strip off the Continental style spare wheel and bumper, cut and lower the windshield, re cover the seats, and spray the hood black before selling it on to car collector, Dennis Collins, as an ORIGINAL car? Seems like a dumb ass way of preserving your American automotive heritage to me.
Just after filming of the movie "Johnny Dark" was completed in 1953, Tony Curtis shared his thoughts as follows: "All the cars in the border-to-border race are of special design, turned out by some of the foremost sports car men in the country. The designs are futuristic in conception, and I think they're impressive enough to make a change in the type of cars tomorrow's automobile buyers will want."
— Tony Curtis, Toledo Blade Newspaper, November 22nd, 1953.


The main span of current cable-stayed bridges can reach 800m or more (Normandy bridge, France), and future projects are expected to exceed 1000m. These structures are vulnerable to wind induced vibrations and flutter. The situation can be improved by increasing the damping in the system. Other applications to large space structures are also considered.
The key feature of our control strategy is the use of a decentralized control system with collocated actuator/sensor pairs (displacement actuator and force sensor). For this configuration, the Integral Force Feedback (IFF) leads to guaranteed stability. An approximate root locus technique has been developed, which allows to predict the closed-loop poles when the set of active cables has been selected.


The second last day of FLIBS, we were cordially invited for breakfast at the offices and workshop for Quantum Marine Engineering...full fry-up!!!
We have posted before about these guys so it was great to see where they design and make their systems. Their capacity is about 300 units per year, which is excellent. They obviously make the zero speed stabilizer for the mega-yacht, but are also making them for the more humble size (±30m).
Their hydraulic units come as a complete package, ready to install, either for the new build, or for the refit.
Thanks John Allen for the hospitality, and to 'Kiwi' for the invite!
MUMBAI YACHT CLUB is sure to make many a wild Dreams Come True!..
There are infinite possibilities of experiences & Points to Explore lined-up for you to decide upon… Take Family or Friends on a Sunrise or Sunset Cruise… just drop anchor on high seas & encourage your Kids to Befriend the Dolphins!.. Seal an important Deal over cool silent Sips on the sea! Train your kids to the Hook-line Rod, then lend your wife a hand to Cook the Sea-fresh Catch & together Taste Home on the highseas Lunch or Dinner!
Enjoy thrilling Dives, have a sunbath on the deck or treat your eyes to a favorite Title/Volume in Cosy cabin.
It is a nice blog. Yes you have written good things here regarding boats. I dont know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
There are some other general but important aspects that you must consider too when you want the best tax attorney.
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How many boutique cycling studios does Chicago need?
The popularity of boutique cycling classes shows no signs of slowing in Chicago.
As expensive boutique workouts continue to invade Chicago and its suburbs, some in the industry wonder if the exercise bubble will soon burst. But that's not preventing more players from entering the market.
To wit: Cincinnati-based CycleBar says it has inked deals to open more than 100 franchises across the country, including at least a few in Chicago. CycleBar says it's the first boutique cycling franchising company in the nation.
"We are really focused on offering a luxury boutique fitness concept at an affordable price," says President Heather Harris, a former New York fashion executive who most recently was vice president of Donna Karan Intimates. The company's goal, she says, is to create a "turnkey," or fully developed, ready-to-open spin studio to entrepreneurs in various markets.
SoulCycle, the privately held brand that ignited the trend in New York, debuts its second Chicago location, in the Loop, today. It opened its first Chicago studio in April in Old Town and recently finalized a third lease, in Lakeview. That location will be ready early next year.
Flywheel Sports, the other New York-based elder statesman of pricy spin classes that also is corporate-owned, has operated a River North studio for four years and opened a second studio in Old Town last fall.
Other spin studios in the city include Full Psycle, which began in Southern California and opened a Lincoln Park location last year; GoCycle in Old Town; Real Ryder Revolution in River North; and PowerSculpt Fitness in Lakeview.
Audie Beeson, 64, purchased the rights to open a CycleBar in the western suburbs and says he aims to open his studio in the Oak Brook area by January.
Beeson, a former sales executive in health care and financial services, says he's working to recruit top instructors and will pay a competitive rate that's around $100 per 50-minute class. He says classes will cost somewhere between $15 and $20 each, with discounts for purchasing larger packages. A single class at SoulCycle, by comparison, goes for $30, while one at Flywheel sells for $25.
Beeson, who says he started getting interested in exercise after retiring a couple of years ago, says the suburbs are still getting used to the idea of attending specific classes at studios instead of going to "big box" gyms.
The CycleBar brand was founded as Spynergy in 2004 in the Boston suburbs by brother-and-sister team Bill Pryor and Alex Klemmer. Another sister owns a separate spin studio, also called Spynergy, in Winnetka.
Pryor and Klemmer bought the name CycleBar from a now-defunct Brooklyn cycling studio and teamed with Cincinnati-based franchise developer St. Gregory Development Group last year. Right now, CycleBar runs studios in Wellesley, Mass.; Royal Oak, Mich.; and Cincinnati.
CycleBar is close behind Orange Theory, an interval-based workout opening dozens of franchises in the city and suburbs.
As franchising ramps up, mainstream gyms are fighting back by improving their group-fitness options. Equinox, an upscale gym with four Chicago-area locations, introduced spinning classes last spring called the Pursuit, which project riders' statistics onto a larger screen at the front of the room, much like Flywheel.


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Forgotten Stallone: DAYLIGHT
It's a disaster! (But the movie is okay.)
By Evan Saathoff May. 22, 2020
Stuck between ASSASSINS, which is fun but not very good, and COP LAND, which absolutely rules, there is DAYLIGHT, Stallone's big disaster film. Directed by the usually serviceable but rarely exciting Rob Cohen, DAYLIGHT does exactly what it supposed to do with the disaster film template. There just isn't a whole lot of urgency to it. A bunch of people get stuck in the Holland Tunnel and only Stallone can get them out. Well, most of them out. It's not aliens or asteroids or global warming, sticking instead to a more grounded and believable threat.
It's a good idea, and I think DAYLIGHT would have been a bigger deal had it come out a few years earlier. In 1996, it had a feeling of "been there, done that" about it. Revisiting it in 2020, however, there is a lot more to appreciate, especially when it comes to its practical effects. There are some really fun explosions in this one.
In keeping with disaster film protocol, we start the film by meeting a group of people from all walks of life who will later count on each other to survive. I'd say the best of the group, even including Stallone, is Viggo Mortensen's X Games CEO type guy Roy Nord. It's a very non-Viggo role. Though he's cool and calm, that comes from ego and false confidence rather than real skill. You can tell because he has bad hair and a suit two sizes too big. It's safe to assume he's either going to be a villain or the first person to die. He ends up being the first person to die. DAYLIGHT doesn't have any villains besides maybe a little bureaucracy.
We also have an old couple with a cute dog, and a family reunited after a bad affair situation that is supposed to inject them with more character than they probably need. We have a truck full of convicts (one played by Sage Stallone), a cop who is about to propose to his girlfriend (not a lot of people die in this film, but this guy is marked from his first minute), and our kind of love interest Maddy, played by Amy Brenneman. Maddy's one of those characters whose life is a disaster. You're supposed to feel bad for her, but they go real overboard with it and you end up thinking she's just super dumb instead.
All these folks end up under the Holland Tunnel just as a group of thugs straight out of DEATH WISH 3 hijack a car and drive it into a bunch of toxic waste disposal trucks. They all explode in a truly remarkable cinematic firestorm and our movie gets going. While the firestorm is great looking, it's also a bit confusing because it engulfs all the cars in the tunnel but manages to not kill our survivors. I guess because they had their windows up. Or maybe they were all driving Volvos, I forgot to look.
Stallone's Kit Latura is not in the tunnel. He finds himself just outside of it and immediately starts saving days all over the place. We learn he used to be - and hold your breath for this one - the New York City Emergency Medical Services Chief, but a scandal lost him his job so now he's just a cabbie. Of course, once he starts showing real leadership among fools, they reinstate him. It goes like this - Stallone to cop: "Where's the chief?" Awestruck cop to Stallone: "Standing right in front of me, as far as I'm concerned." Later, when Kit gears up, his vest even has his last name on it.
Dan Hedaya and his crew of idiots want to do some drastic shit to the tunnel, but Stallone thinks there might be survivors and won't give up on them. Which means someone has to into the tunnel to help them. They all compare muscles, and of course Stallone wins.
His entrance counts as a set piece but the film really goes out of its way to make it dramatic. Stallone has limited time to get through one big fan, then down through three smaller fans. Once stopped they will all start up again quickly and chop him to bits. He really just has to slip through the blades and has plenty of time, but each fan is a problem for him to arbitrarily raise tension.
Eventually he gets in there with the survivors and… has no real plan. I guess his idea is to check things out and hope some genius idea will come to him, which they do over and over again but only at the last possible second. It goes like that until the film ends.
Not everyone makes it to the end, however. DAYLIGHT has a real unwillingness to kill characters. Viggo gets it for hubris, so we don't feel bad for him. The cop, however, suffers a broken back. Everyone bands together to save him and it's very inspiring. But later, when their next step requires an underwater passage, they just dump his ass. It is a very strange move. I mean, it's kind of believable but it's not the sort of thing movies usually show us. We don't even see him die. He's just abandoned and forgotten about. The film's next death takes an older lady who literally dies while sitting up, killed by sadness. She just gives up and dies. It's wild.
DAYLIGHT is a little too weak for me in term of being a disaster film, but it's suddenly Shakespeare through the lens of a Stallone film. He's great in this. Obviously, there is no traditional action and all his muscle flexing is reserved for dangling and lifting things. His main contribution is looking sad while getting yelled at and offering motivation to people who are yelling at him. He's not quite an everyman, he's way too strong and noble for that (he even saves the dog!), but the situation forces him to at least look like an everyman, albeit one who understands the situation better than anyone else because of a terrorism simulation he ran two years before. But they don't go too far with that either. Yes, it's strange in terms of Hollywood filmmaking, but Stallone getting into that tunnel with no real plan to save himself or the survivors helps make his character truly feel in over his head.
The film wasn't a huge bomb, but it wasn't a massive success either and for a guy like Stallone, that's still a failure. His leading man decline was already in force here. It would get worse before it got better, and when it got better Stallone was playing an old man in 2006's ROCKY BALBOA. Of all the '80s muscle-heads, Stallone was the best actor, but he also ran away from the films that would best utilize that. I like those films a lot, but I also wonder if it was worth it. I don't think Arnold or Dolph Lundgren or JCVD could actually act until they got much older. Stallone could have been doing it the whole time, and it's a bummer he didn't.
forgotten stallone
Evan Saathoff Editor-in-Chief
Evan has been smartassing-up the Internet since 2008. His passions include dumb action movies, not-dumb action movies, Shakespeare, and Tyler Perry. While he claims to understand that people don't always get what they want, he nevertheless believes it would be "cool" if he could become more like Danny DeVito with age.
Forgotten Stallone: NIGHTHAWKS
On Netflix now and totally worth remembering.
Forgotten Stallone: THE SPECIALIST
This film is a total blast. Not just because of the bombs.
Forgotten Stallone: LOCK UP
Stallone defeats prison with the power of positive thinking. And an electric chair.


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You are here: Home / Comics Guides / Best of Lists / Sink Your Teeth into the Best Vampire Comics of All Time
Sink Your Teeth into the Best Vampire Comics of All Time
October 19, 2019 by John Galati Leave a Comment
Every culture on Earth seems to have its own vampire myth:
The Lilitu of Ancient Mesopotamia
The Mandurug of the Philippine Islands
The Cihuateteo of the Aztecs
The Asanbosam of the Ashanti people of Africa
The Strega of Italy
Heck, the most recent creation of a vampire myth comes as late as post-Civil War America! In 1892, Mercy Brown was blamed posthumously for the outbreak of "consumption" in Rhode Island. The family exhumed her body. A doctor examined her lack of decay. And then her heart was removed and burnt to ash on church grounds.
Roughly ten years later, the Wright brothers were in Kitty Hawk and the modern age began. Vampirism is that close.
And this is the power of myth. Nosferatu are classic yet infinitely adaptable. In this way, vampires feel both ancient and hyper-modern at the same time. All of this makes them powerful. And so it's no wonder comics succumb to the allure of this monster, from vampire killing manuals that predate the printing press all the way up to today.
But with so much to read, how do you find the right book to bite you? We're here to help… with a little musical accompaniment.
Marv Wolfman, Gerry Conway, Archie Goodin, Don Heck, et al
In the 1950s, The Comics Code Authority did away with all of the old world monsters. Frankenstein, zombies, and the wolfman were all victims of the CCA's ongoing culture war. But no one more than Dracula. Ol' Vlad was bad enough with his violence. Add to that his history of seducing and corrupting women, which only made things worse (that he occasionally did the same to men was truly horrifying to 1950s America.) But what was truly unacceptable in the eys of the CCA was the fact that Dracula was from the part of Europe which was simply too scary for a Cold War audience.
So Dracula was permanently off the table.
Then, in the 1970s, Marvel said: "screw it." Marv Wolfman and the rest of Marvel's misfits decided to push back against the CCA and began putting out monster magazines again. And I think their entire strategy was "make these things so good that no one would dare stop us." They picked up Archie Goodwin and Don Heck, both of whom had their own enormous problems with the Comics Code, and set them to work making a smart, moody horror book for the ages.
This book was an act of bravery when it came out. The CCA tried to drown them in censorship, and yet this fantastic book prevails. And personally, I think it reignited the horror craze of the late 70s / Early 80s.
I… Vampire
J.M. Dematteis and Thomas Sutton
This is DC's answer to Tomb of Dracula. Studied the fun, sometimes campy formula of Marvel's horror line, and went completely in the opposite direction.
If Tomb of Dracula is Universal Monsters, all safe and familiar, then I… Dracula is a Hammer film, all violence, and unflinching nihilism.
The book follows Lord Andrew Bennett, who has become cursed with vampirism. Unable to live an eternity without the love of his life, Mary Seward, he turns her. But when she's corrupted by this new immortality and power, Bennett is forced to hunt her down and end her un-life.
I… Vampire is arresting and tragic; a tale of doomed love that spans 24-issues and 400 years.
Spirits of Vengeance: Rise of the Midnight Sons
Howard Mackie, Len Kaminski, Andy & Adam Kubert, et al.
This book is a fantastic example of how adaptable the vampire myth can be.
Blade came out of Wolfman's Tomb of Dracula. And while the plots to some of those comics are good, the character himself can't quite shake the awkwardness of Marvel's 1970s diversity push. Meaning, 1970s Blade can feel a lot like a white dude saying "jive turkey."
And Morbius was even worse. Whereas Blade existed off in the horror universe, Morbius was meant to take that winning formula and apply it Spider-Man. And his weird, disco-Vampire sorta shambled around for two issues of Spider-Man before being downgraded to two issues of Marvel Team-Up. After that, Morbius rode the pine in the horror mags. Aside from a few John Byrne Fantastic Four books, he was cursed to be a c-rate "guest appearance."
Then the 90s came along, and somebody over there got real into Ministry and Nine Inch Nails real bad. Suddenly, in this new dark age of grunge, industrial, and rap, vampires just made sense. A team was pulled together with all of Marvel's goth-iest heroes, starting with both Ghost Riders and following up with a revamped version of Blade and Morbius. Blade got an awesome punk-modded leather jacket. Morbius had this sorta Blackie Lawless meets Nivek Ogre thing going on.
Even with all these 1970s throwbacks, the book feels perfectly of its time. It's both tense and fun. Moody, but energetic.
Howard Chaykin, David Tischman
I disagree with Chaykin on a great many things. But when he's good, there's nobody like him.
And in Bite Club, he's real good.
At it's staked heart, Bite Club is a crime drama and a clever and brilliant one at that. Chaykin has a deep history of working on genre titles, and that familiarity with structure allows him to do some really clever things here. By using vampires as a lense, Chaykin delivers a fresh take on classic crime drama subjects like racial injustice and police harassment. This isn't a crime drama hoping to cash in on True Blood, but a book that becomes smarter for its use of vampires.
Best of all, Chaykin uses these characters — and his famous love of pulp noir — to deliver a story with no true heroes and no clear villains. Everyone feels desperate, hungry, and trapped in a cycle of violence. One that's as garish as the Tischman's masterful backdrop of Miami nightlife. Tischman has sense of mixing all these different definitions of "sexy," ranging from the comedic pinup of classic pulp to the power that female characters were beginning to find in the comics of 2004. Which only makes sense when dealing with an immortal, Latina vampire and fearless heir to a criminal empire.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8
Joss Whedon, Brian K. Vaughan, Georges Jeanty, et al.
It's not often that a television series gets as popular as Buffy. And it's even more peculiar to see that tv series end in comics.
But series creator Joss Whedon teamed to create this canonical closer to the fan-favorite. And by using comics, the two push the limits well beyond what television censors would ever allow. In a way, this makes it something of an homage to Tomb of Dracula. And, on those merits alone, the series should be praised.
Unfortunately, I was never a huge fan of Whedon, so I'm taking a lot of this on faith. This is clearly one for the fans. However many are left after Whedon's enormous 2017 flameout.
Vampirella Master Series
Grant Morrison, et al.
It's easy to roll your eyes at Vampirella. She began life as the last sex-symbol of Planet Drakulon. And, for much of her publication history, she was nothing more than a dangerous woman in the world's most impractical red swimsuit.
But there's another side to that coin. One that's strange and wonderful.
Because of Vampirella's, uh, obvious marketing potential, the book was virtually guaranteed a certain amount of sales. This made it possible to use the book as a testbed for young talent. This means that virtually any creator you or I can think of has probably, unbeknownst to us, had a run on this "shlock" mag. Before Warren Ellis wrote Planetary, he wrote for her. Jeph Loeb turned in a script before creating Hush. Same for Mark Milar. Frank Frazetta, Mike Mignola, Jae Lee, and David Mack all drew her.
The ongoing Vampirella Master Series collects some of the best from these contributors, demonstrating that maybe we've got this character all wrong. However, you'll probably have to get them on Comixology, as the print versions sell out fast.
Batman: Vampire
Doug Moench, Kelley Jones, et al.
Batman was spun out of vampire lore. His costume and motif. The fact he works at night. How every terrified criminal describes him as a giant bat or a vampire, spreading myths that he is supernatural, that he bites people.
This series suggests that Batman fears becoming some monster of the night as well. The classic fear we all have that whispers "what if I am what other people say I am?" This fear has kept Batman on the straight and narrow. The trilogy of Batman/Dracula: Red Rain, Batman: Bloodstorm, and Batman: Crimson Mist transform the metaphor into reality by bringing the forces of darkness to Gotham City. First, Batman is hunted by his own dark reflection, a vampire. Then Batman finally succumbs to the night and becomes the monster.
Doug Moench (Knightfall) turns in a perfectly paced gothic horror. Kelley Jones (Swamp Thing) turns it into a perfectly staged horror play filled with Edwardian gravitas. Together, these two created perhaps the best Elseworlds story ever. One that uses the looser setting to create something revelatory about the character.
30 Days of Night
Steve Niles, Ben Templesmith
This was the vampire book that restarted the craze. A clever tale about a town above the article circle that experiences total darkness for 30 days each winter. An endless night that's just perfect for a vampire story.
So I'm including this book because it is important. And, I suppose, because it can be an easy read for some (I have a few friends who cite this book as their introduction to the comic book medium.) And I genuinely, whole-heartedly believe that it deserves our respect base on these merits.
That said, I don't think has aged well. Niles' writing is good with hints of greatness (especially the finale) But at other points, the script feels unrefined. For me, Savage Membrane remains the better work by him. One that I strongly suggest you check out in the original novelization with occasional art by Ashley Wood.
Speaking of Ashley Wood… Ben Templesmith. Ben's mixed media work gave this book an iconic feel and it built a lot of excitement for it. But I personally think that now, on sober reflection, Templesmith is the weakest part of this book. Speaking not as a member of Comic Book Herald, I think the Templesmith of this era is trying to be a poor imitation of Ashley Wood.
I have always felt that Ben used digital mixed media to cover for the fact that he wasn't a very good artist. I think that if you strip away the splattery, digital artifice of the book and look at just Ben's illustrations, you'll find an awkward, inconsistent mess. One with indistinct characters, ragdoll action, and bad fundamentals. In time, Templesmith cultivated his crude renderings into a sort of outsider art style which, I think, can work for him. I was genuinely happy to see that. But I think the Ben Templesmith of 30 Days of Night tried to use Photoshop and photography to cover for sub-indie comic level illustrations.
That's me. Others may like the book. But all I can see is a title that needed an art editor.
Scott Snyder, Stephen King, Rafael Albuquerque, et al.
I love Batman New 52. It is a creative achievement and a sales juggernaut. Maybe even a genre-defining work.
But for my money, American Vampire is Scott Snyder's masterpiece. Up above, I mentioned how the latest vampire incarnation was in 19th century America. But the truth is, it's everywhere in this country. Synder's tale tracks that bloody trail all across American history and geography and creates a new mythology for the nation. Characters like the old west outlaw Skinner Sweet and fame-hungry Pearl Jones will convince you of the stories of vampire's hypnotic charms. And when America goes global, we meet the vampires of other myths… and suddenly, an entire cultural dynamic opens. And we learn what, if any, connection there is between the vampires we learn about and any country of origin.
Amazingly, Stephen King is in this book (along with Jason Aaron and a number of other people). If you like King's work post-Dark Tower, then rest assured that this is more of the same. His Skinner Sweet has that Old West, swaggering brutality that King loves so dearly. And as ever, the man knows how to grind to characters together until they make sparks on the page. I wouldn't say his contributions are a revolution, but they're solid and good.
Last but certainly not least, illustrator Rafael Albuquerque and colorist Dave McCaig turn in some truly stunning pages. Their work together feels rich with atmosphere, filled characters that truly feel alive at times, and all of it hit with broad, hard lighting that pulls these monsters out of that shadows and into center stage.
B.P.R.D. 1947
Mike Mignola, Fábio Moon, Gabriel Bá
Mignola is the modern master of supernatural horror. A fact he's proved time an again as he built out the unique Hellboy mythos. But, interestingly enough, the series had little if any vampires in it until this book. A curious absence… until you read this story.
Moon and Bá do an incredible job throughout this book by taking Mignola's iconic style and pushing it to feel dreamy and almost insubstantial (in a good way). The colors feel rich to the point of hypnotic and their shadow work is utterly masterful.
Mignola uses this to their skills to full advantage by delivering on a story that works on those feelings. The tale unveils tantalizing glimpses of the full, deep history of the B.P.R.D.'s interactions with vampires. The way it flirts between "classified intel" and "unspeakable mythology" is interesting. The whole thing feels tantalizing yet somehow unreliable. That said, I genuinely think B.P.R.D. 1947 borrows… something… from the next book on this list. Some ineffable quality. And if that's true, it's not remotely a bad thing. (Inspiration is almost always good!) And yet the borrowing haunts me, somehow. Likely because I am weird. But hopefully, you're now all cursed to read both books.
Blood A Tale
J.M. DeMatteis, Kent Williams
Hands down, my favorite book on this list. Blood A Tale is a wild fever dream. A challenging, story that switches between pannels and prose as it spins in epicycles. Kent William's watercolors are beautiful and horrifying, and truly make this book unique. Even as he's delivering NSFW work, it feels arresting.
But the story by J.M. DeMatteis (his second appearance on the list) is almost indescribable. To explain it strips it of the surreal dream-logic of it. And it's simply impossible to express its takes on love and lust. For these reasons, I truly suggest you go in blind and simply experience it.
But, if you want mild spoilers
The best that I can say is that it's a story of a woman, a man, and their child. A tale about what "hunger" means, what "need" means. And what the mere existence of these emotions turns us into. How they change the meaning of personal, romantic, and sexual identity. Above all, Blood makes the reader question themselves and their ability to interpret this story that can feel as urgent and confused as first lust. And like all good horror stories, I found it both frightening… and comforting.
/mild spoilers
This book is challenging. But in that challenge, I found something rewarding. It's one of those books I walked away from feeling changed.
Filed Under: Best of Lists, Featured Tagged With: dracula, vampires
About John Galati
Editor • Producer • Writer Supreme
Against all medical advice, I'm John Galati. I love Morrison's lofty ideals, Moore's poetry, J.H. William's fluidity, and the way Chaykin makes people get punched a lot. I'm a life-long story junkie, and at this point, it probably disqualifies me from public office.


text:
Court Never Sleeps
Saints and Sinners 7/29/77
By Blackguard,
January 25, 2015 in Court Never Sleeps
At a non-descript house outside of London
Peter was the leader by acclamation. It was ever so.
"Thank you brothers," the older man began. He surveyed the room full of disciples and true sons of the Church.
"War is coming. The Anglicans are becoming more desperate in their persecution, fearing a resurgence of the Mother Church. They speak of war against France hoping to disguise the hollowness of their faith. The mob in London dances to the tune of men damned in the eyes of God. They would martyr innocent brothers and sisters in the name of a church founded on nothing more than the convenience of divorce for a tyrant king.
Their strategy only makes us stronger. Steel is forged in the fire of destruction. Saints will be made this year, bringing damnation to their cause. The Commonwealth was based on religion, yet it crumbled from within. So too will the reign of the Anglican priests. People will tire of this hatred and insanity, looking for new leadership. It is the mob that rules England now. This cannot stand.
Slay the puppet master and the puppets shall fall. The Earl of Shaftesbury is the Apostate, as is the Earl of Danby. They disguise their hatred for each other with action to destroy our people. If we divide the snakes and chop off their heads, the body will die, and the mob with it."
It sounded like a sensible plan to those assembled. Heads were nodding and there were murmurs of "praise God."
"Who might we count as our allies in Whitehall now?" asked Luke.
"The Duke of York has been carefully excluded from our Order. It is he that must be the next king. We cannot risk evidence in any involvement with us, as you know. The Earl of Bristol has left for the Continent. The Earl of Chichester was in the Tower, but has been released. We think he will be likely to support us. The same is true of Stafford and some of the Howards. The King bears us no ill will, though his son Monmouth does. There are few others that will be of assistance."
"What of the Spanish Ambassador?" asked Mark. "He is sympathetic; but, he is not reliable. The foolish man said too much to Lady Jane Digby. She is an enemy, along with Estrada. Ronquillo did nothing but breed traitors," came the reply. "We must support Father John for the title of Hardy."
"And the girl?"
"A Traitor deserves a traitor's death."
NPC Vignettes


text:
College football is here!
Been here too...
A Perfect Storm
Sacred Disorder of the Enigmata
First Family
Rembrandt Homer
Scenes we'd like to see...
Izmir 1929 (photos 6-10)
Perambulating Pinschers
Izmir 1929 (photos 1-5)
In case you were wondering...
Gold - Silver - Bronze
Friday cartoons
Worth1000 fix for the week
Georgia on my mind...
She's a doppelganger!
I've been here!
More Xkcd
Perfect Time for a Breakdown
Bumper Sticker for the Day
I'm always happy when college football season rolls around. Every year, there's some great cinderella teams to follow, and it also means we Phoenicians can start hoping for decent nighttime temperatures. ASU whupped up on Northern Arizona University, 30-13, which proves absolutely squat. But they looked good in doing so, which wasn't true the last time (2 years ago) these two teams met.
It was ditto for my other alma mater, Penn State, who cruised past Coastal Carolina (who??) 66-10.
So let's hear it for patsy week. Down the road, it will be tougher. ASU has to deal with the bullies of USC in a few weeks, while Penn State eventually knocks helmets with Ohio State. And both USC & OSU looked scarily awesome against their designated patsies yesterday.
It was on a business trip, and we stayed through the weekend. Which meant we had Sunday free, and our hosts took us to see this place. Yes, that is a genuine Roman aqueduct in the background.
Last night, we got ripped by a storm like I've never seen before. Everything was calm at 5:00 PM, but 3 hours later, when we took the dogs for a walk, it was lightning like crazy to the east and south. The pic above (no, it wasn't taken by me) gives you an idea of the first wave of the storm. All that light to the east isn't from twilight and isn't from the lights of Phoenix. It's from a gazillion cloud-to-cloud lightning bolts.
The sound was incredible. For more than an hour it sounded like a jet plane landing or a freight train going by. What it really was, was constant thunder. I've never experienced that before. The dogs were naturally freaked.
By 10:30 PM, the electrical storm had pretty much passed. That was followed by one heckuva "normal" monsoon storm, where all the lightning is cloud-to-earth. Once again, the dogs freaked.
Somewhere around 3:00 AM, yet another cell of thunderstorms passed thru. You know how you can "count" to five for every mile away that a lightning strike is? Forget about it. I didn't even get to a-thousand-and-one. By now the jack russell was bouncing off the walls.
Ironically, it turns out we got off relatively light. The brunt of the storm passed to the north of us. There were all sorts of knocked-down trees and flooding as we commuted to work today. We'll close this post with a pic someone took this morning.
For those who are not adept at subliminality, it says, "Eat Your Veggies".
I stumbled across these blokes while googling the word "Enigmatist", which I thought I had perchance invented. No such luck, although anymore, it's a matter of "an infinite number of monkeys typing on an infinite number of typewriters".
They're similar to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which was previously reviewed here. These guys seem place a bit more emphasis on personal zaniness than the CotFSM, who are more about confronting the idiocy of Intelligent Design being presented as Science.
The website of the SDotE is at www.enigmata.com . Be sure to "Meet The Flock" while you're there.
I would be proud, yea verily even honored, to have the Obamas as our next First Family. Their grace and dignity would be a welcome relief from this...
...and this. And no, folks, those images aren't photoshopped.
Something quick tonight while I watch the DNC and work on my next book review.
The other half of the 1929 Izmir pics. Awesome, simply awesome.
Clovas and Garth, the wayward Miniature Pinschers, are missing. Again. The guy still doesn't know where to look, so yesterday he showed up where Liz works to see if she had found them. Again. Today, he called her to see if she had found them yet. We'll keep an eye out for them (at least Liz will), but dude, they aren't homing pigeons.
I don't have a problem with two redneck yahoos in Georgia having too much time on their hand, and concocting a hoax about finding Bigfoot's corpse. Of course they want me to believe Sasquatch moved for some reason from the Pacific Northwest to Georgia, then died, and that the rednecks fortuitously found the body before it decomposed. No, what I have a problem with is MSNBC.com ballyhooing this story for several days in a row, finally concluding today that the yahoos were putting us on. Well, duh, MSNBC. BTW, do you realize that the word "gullible" isn't in the dictionary? If you don't believe me, look it up.
Izmir is a major city in Turkey, lying on the western coast on the Aegean Sea. Its ancient name is Smyrna. I have a friend there who sent me these pictures, which are said to be from around 1929. There's another five to go with these, which I'll post sometime soon.
. She also sent me a link to some pictures taken in Izmir in the 1890's. We'll eventually post those as well. I freely admit it - I love old photographs!
These two images kinda sum up my thoughts on "English only".
Personally, I think every American should be required to become bilingual. When you learn a second language, you learn a second culture. Learn another culture, and you'll have a lot more tolerance for other people. Lord knows, dittoheads can use more tolerance.
I finally bowed to Peer Pressure and watched the Olympics all last night. It wasn't as bad as I had feared - no gymnastics-ballet-dance-interpretation (or whatever they call that) and no Greco-Roman wrestling. I even found some compelling stories - one each involving a gold, silver, and bronze medal. The "Gold" story came in some incredibly long swim contest. There were the usual favroites - USA, Australia, etc. Up in lane 2 was a token "who cares about him?" entrant, a Tunisian named Oussama "Ous" Mellouli. Who we decided to cheer for, since one of my personalities is Carthagenian, and Carthage lies in present-day Tunisia. Lo and behold, Mellouli took the gold, which is Tunisia's only medal so far in the Beijing Olympics. Hamilcar had tears in his eyes, and was also pleased that there was no one representing Imperial Rome (Italy to you modernists) in the race. Congratluations Ous Mellouli! All of Carthage salutes you!! The "Silver" story is the American swimmer, Dara Torres. She's 41 years old, a mother, and someone who embodies the concept of Olympic sportsmanship. She encourages everyone around her, and holds up the start of a race so that a competitor can change a malfunctioning swimsuit (instead of forfeiting). And to those cynics who think that a 41-year-old can only compete via illegal performance-enhancing drugs, she offers to give extra blood and urine samples, in case better detection methods are developed somewhere down the road. The score : Confidence 1, Skepticism 0. Congratulations Dara Torres! You make all of America proud!!
The "Bronze" story is the American sprinter, Walter Dix. He's at the far-left in the picture below, showing the finals of the 100-meter dash. Yeah, the Jamaican, Usain Bolt, routed everyone else in this race, even coasting and mugging for the cameras the last 15 meters. That is quite an accomplishment, given that the race is over in less than 10 seconds.
But it's Dix that caught my eye. In a sport where wind-resistance is a compulsive obsession, his dreadlocks were a welcome sight. And he wore his sunglasses, even though it was a nighttime event.
Congratulations Walter Dix! All of us who "march to the beat of a different drum" have a new role model!!
Oh yeah, some guy won a bunch of Gold medals in swimming. Michael Phipps, I think. Or maybe his name was Michael Philbin. No wait, I think it was Michael Pheromone. Whatever.
Yessirreebob, we showed them Russkis who's boss.
Oh yeah, you might talk me into watching this one. Then again, probably not.
What were those chuckleheads in Georgia thinking when they "liberated" South Ossetia? Has Putin given the impression of being a wimp? Here's the best analogy I can come up with. Suppose Hawaii decides to break away from the USA. (and given the history of our heavy-handed occupation of Hawaii, they have every moral right to do so). Then let's say there is enough tension there to where the whites and natives tend to migrate into separate neighborhoods, a sort of de facto segregation. Now further imagine the Hawaiian national government opening discussion with the Chinese for a mutual defense pact. And last of all, they move against the white settlers in Hawaii, in a Zimbabwe-type "land liberation" grab. At some point, you just sorta expect the US to give those Hawaiian upstarts a forceful military response in order to show them who's who. So it goes with Georgia deciding to force the issue in South Ossetia. They've whopped the bear across the nose a couple times, and now one very p*ssed-off grizzly is on the rampage. I can sympathize with Georgia's present predicament, but for Pete's sake, what did you expect when you slapped Putin's face?
With Christian Bale and (the late) Heath Ledger. 2½ hours. Rating : ****½ (out of 5*). This Weekend We Saw... Actually, it's been a couple weekends. No need to give background on B:TDK, since everyone and his brother has also seen it. We went the second weekend (at 4:30 Saturday afternoon), and surprisingly, the theater was only half-full. What's To Like... Great action. Great acting. Great city shots of Chicago and Hong Kong. A very dark treatment of Batman, but hey, that was true in the previous film - Batman Begins. The 2½ hours went by very quickly. Oh, and the "wannabee Batmen" were a nice touch. Heath Ledger is superb as the Joker. There's nothing funny about him, as opposed to the way Jack Nicholson and Cesar Romero played him. He steals the spotlight from Bale's Batman, but then again, that's been happening since the TV series. There are some nice twists, such as when the Joker kidnaps both the promising DA and Batman's ex-GF, and puts them in two widely-separated warehouses with (of course) bombs. Batman (seemingly) only has time to save one of them. Guess how this gets resolved. Wrong! Oh yeah, and there's no Robin. That's a plus. What's Not To Like... It was best not to try and make logic out of the plot. The Joker knocks over a mob-run bank, and offs its mob-manager. The ethnically-diverse (yeah right) mobsters meet, only to find some Chinese guy has inexplicably taken all their money to Hong Kong. For equally obscure reasons, Batman takes it upon himself to go there and recover the money and bad guy. The Chinese miscreant is eventually done in by The Joker. The mob forgives the Joker for robbing them, and agrees to give him half their money. Confused yet? Me too. Who wants to think anyway... Okay, see all those plot problems? Forget about them. Nobody goes to a Batman movie to critique its plausibility. B:TDK is great entertainment. I don't think I'm ready to claim it's the best movie of 2008, and I won't automtcially concede the Oscar & Academy Awards (what's the difference between those two anyway?) to Ledger, although his untimely demise certainly improved his already-good chances. Come the end of December, B:TDK will surely be in the Top Five movies of the year, so we'll give it four-and-a-half stars, only cuz I'm mighty stingy with my 5-star ratings.
This is Rounders. Believe it or not, there are some people who think it compares favorably to major league baseball. Hey, that guy in the light blue shirt in the picture above is about to get whacked right in the.... yeah, well, pretty much anywhere he gets hit is gonna hurt.
Stay tuned. Sometime soon we'll discuss Britain's other baseball-wannabee sport - Conkers.
Texas Rangers 15 - Baltimore Orioles 7
Arizona Diamondbacks 6 - Atlanta Braves 1
Philadelphia Phillies 6 - Pittsburgh Pirates 3
Los Angeles Angels 4 - New York Yankees 3
It was a perfect day of baseball for me. My Rangers, Diamondbacks, and Phillies all won; and those dastardly Yankees lost. That's Marlon Byrd in the photo, hitting a double in the Texas victory.
Or maybe they're twins, separated at birth. Alternatively, they're one and the same, since you never see Cruella and Cindy at the same time.
BTW, the author of this cool association is not me. It was originally posted at www.dependablerenegade.com a truly awesome website.
Only once, about 8 years ago. It was night when we visited those towers in the background, and drizzling. I'll let you guess this place. At the bottom of one of the towers is a three-story shopping mall that we wandered about in. At the time, IIRC, the public didn't have access to that walkway you see in the picture below. They opened it about a year later.
This has been me once or twice. See more at www.xkcd.com
Artist : Sharon Little
Album : Perfect Time For A Breakdown (2008)
Genre : Blues (White Girl Blues)
Rating : ***** * (out of 10*)
. This Week I'm Listening To... Sharon Little was the opening act at the recent Robert Plant/Alison Krauss concert. As mentioned in the review for that, Sharon gave a solid performance, albeit nothing that would make Plant/Krauss fear being upstaged. Perfect Time For A Breakdown is her accompanying CD, and you can find all her concert tracks on it. This is her debut album, other than a demo, Drawing Circles, issued in 2006. . YouTube Links... You can hear/see Sharon singing Try, which IMO is her best song, here. And Follow That Sound, another good track from PTfaB, is here. There's another half-dozen or so SL clips out there at YouTube, so you can get quite familiar with her. . What's To Like... PTfaB exists to showcase Ms. Little's singing abilities, and it does a good job at that. All the songs are done in White Girl Blues style, but there's a nice variety of sounds within that sub-genre. . PTfaB can be summed up in two words : "Not Bad". The songwriter is not bad. Sharon's singing is not bad. Her stage-show is not bad. . Her publicist is doing a not-bad job. In addition to the YouTube videos, someone has recently (last couple weeks) added a short entry on her at Wikipedia. 12 of Sharon's family and close friends have posted rave reviews at Amazon.com. OTOH, the RateYourMusic entry is badly out-of-date, and has no entries. . What's Not To Like... Well, PTfaB can also be summed up in three words : Not Bad, But... The fundamental weakness noted at the concert carries over to the album - Sharon shares the spotlight with the rhythm guitarist, Scot ("one-T") Sax. The CD blurb says he co-wrote a lot of the songs with Sharon. And for all I know he might also be her main squeeze. But folks, the last time I saw a rhythm guitarist in the limelight was REO Speedwagon, and there at least he was also one of the lead singers. . Accordingly, the lead guitar is relegated to the shadows, both musically and personally. Sorry, Sharon, you're not bad, but to make it to the top, I honestly think you need to be complemented by a b*tchin' lead guitar. Hey, maybe you can persuade T Bone Burnett to join you. That would be quite the pairing. Perfect Time For A Wannabee... White Girl Blues is not one of my favorite music types, so I polled a multitude of other people who attended the Phoenix concert. I can't tell you their exact number, but both of them agreed with me - there are other artists who do this sort of stuff better. . Personally I felt Sharon was a Melissa Etheridge wannabee. Liz, who knows this genre far better than I, called her a Tracy Chapman wannabee. My co-worker friend suggested she was a Susan Tedeschi wannabee, who in turn has often been called a Bonnie Raitt wannabee. What does it say about you when you can be summed up as a wannabee wannabee? So we'll give PTfaB six "not bad" stars. And check back with her when her next album comes out. Here's hoping there will be a next album.
Gotta get me one of these. BTW, my brother who lives in Los Angeles, for many years had a "Support Your Local Police...State" bumper sticker on his car. I wonder how many times he got pulled over because of that.
This is on Bill Clinton Boulevard, which is in.... well, I'll let you try and guess that. A friend of mine just returned from there and took this picture for me.
Our miniature pinscher saga had a happy resolution this morning. At 7:00 in the cotton-pickin' morning our phone rang. It was the owner of Mimi and Pepe; whose real names are Clovas (sic) and Garth.
He drove over right away to pick them up, and the resultant tail-wagging confirmed that he was indeed their owner. He lives a couple blocks from where Liz found them. When he came home Wednesday afternoon to find them gone, he said he didn't know where to look. So he didn't look. I think someone's a few fries short of a happy meal.
His mom saw Liz's "Found Dog" signs this morning when she was putting up "Yard Sale" signs. That explains the early intrusion on my weekend sleeping. But the guy has a 9-year-old son, who I am sure is overjoyed to have his puppies back.
All's well that ends well. Our three dogs said they won't miss Clovas and Garth one bit.