Hey Garth, I saw Frank's page on amazombie too and thought those previous pubs of his could put a few more curls into our own beloved Count Petofi's wiglet!

The comments regarding the content of same, in fact, were of a tone that reminded me of none other than ... the *original* Garth Blackwood!  Holy Hecate!

Still, it's all part of life's rich tapestry, eh?  (yes, I *am* going to Ontario soon)

Oh, as to time travel via the I Ching--it had nothing to do with physics, but everything to do with mysticism and eclectic 1920s occult explorations--I found the source for the notion in a book about Aleister Crowley (one of the inspirations for the Count Petofi character, btw) and some experiments he did with the I Ching and a form of "time travel" that was more like past-life regression.

cheers! GotheeeeEEEK

I have to confess that I adore that "insane chartreuse caftan thing" with the utterly weird rolled collar that Liz wore periodically from 1966 to 1971.  I really wonder why they made her wear it again in hoDS.  Was DC trying to scrimp and save that heavily on the wardrobe budget for the movie?  She looks like Lady Bird Johnson in that thing...  During 1968, I kept hoping for a scene where Cassandra was wearing the demented purple butterfly housedress while Liz was stalking around in the chartreuse caftan.  But as Sandor said so eloquently in 1897, "What might have been ... will never be!"

And yeah, Laura vs. Angelique has to be the most compulsively watchable catfight on DS because both ladies were so evenly matched.  With Julia's epic slap in the face to Cass, you felt that Julia could have left Cass a trashed, sobbing wreck had she chosen to do so ... but she, unlike the Witch Bitch, was too much of a lady to take things to that level.  I love how Julia smirks ever so slightly as she walks away and Cass vows vengeance...

G.

Hmmm, Mysterioso Darling ... I keep seeing the words "hard" and "head" ... I just can't IMAGINE what the significance of all of it could be!  *bats eyelashes*

And, if you believe that, I've got some PRIME real estate on the Brooklyn Bridge to offer you...

winking, blinking and nodding

G.

Fans,

many of us who grew up loving Dark Shadows also grew up watching some of the fabulous films of Amicus studios either in the movie theatre or at home on afternoon and late-night showings.  Now the legendary Hammer film fanzine, The Little Shoppe of Horrors, is publishing a book-length history of Amicus as their 2008 issue:

http://www.littleshoppeofhorrors.com/

Some of Amicus' more celebrated productions include Dr. Terror's House of Horrors, the film version of Dr. Who and the Daleks starring Peter Cushing, Torture Garden, The Skull, the House that Dripped Blood, and many others.

I ordered some zines through the website earlier this year and the service was prompt and efficient.

G.

Fans,

Most of us prefer not to think of DS in the "soap opera" category; yet, historically,this was the format under which it was produced and the lens through which its home network of ABC viewed it.  (Two of the most entertaining clips on the DVDs are interviews with a gentleman who was put in charge of publicity for ABC's daytime schedule during the mid to late 1960s. His story about what happened when a couple of board members insisted on watching an episode of DS and were subsequently baffled by "Uncle Barnaby's" teeth is hysterical.)   

One of the mainstays of the soap opera format is the Bitch character that audiences love to hate.  I believe the most celebrated of these women in the entire genre was played by an actress (probably retired now) who is famous for having been nominated for an Emmy 20 times but never winning.  If memory serves, this actress had to go mano a mano with Sarah-Michelle Gellar when SMG was a deceptively innocent-appearing young actress on the soap. 

I was thinking about Angelique (known to a certain circle of my friends as "the WB," short for "Witch Bitch") and how she does, and does not, conform to the soap opera stereotype of the Bitch.  Probably the original portrayal of Angelique in 1795 comes the closest to the archetypal Bitch although in a more literary way than I think is common on soaps.  Ang doesn't just want Barnabas; she also wants the entitlement, privileges and status enjoyed by her mistress--"all the pretty things I have been denied" (there's a wonderful scene with Ben Stokes where she goes on about how she's going to have it ALL).   Her occult powers add an extra edge to her role as the conniving villainess, but initially, the character is a wronged woman who has been stepped on (if only in her own mind) by others and is determined to get revenge.

Cassandra upgraded the bitch elements an extra knotch.  She wore clothes that were more chic and fashionable than even Joan Bennett's, manipulated her husband outrageously, was two-faced and duplicitous. and went through some turn-on-a-dime mood swings.  When she crashed and burned, she ravaged the scenery brilliantly.

Probably the most classic soap bitch of all the Angelique characters was the PT1970 version.  A friend who's a huge Angelique fan actually refers to this one as "certifiably insane."  The whole Angelexis business allows for even more blatant instances of duplicitous, equivocating, manipulative behavior.  Manoeuvring Maggie into wearing the same dress she herself had worn at last year's ball was a classic Bitch sequence. 

The thing I find compulsively watchable with how DS handled the "bitch" stereotype is that the writing and acting always gives insights into why these women behave this way.  So, they never degenerate into cardboard cutout stereotypes.  With other "bitches" on the show such as Laura Collins, Minerva Trask, Samantha Collins, and the superbly unforgettable Suki Forbes, we've always understood that each woman had her own take on what had happened to her and a good reason (even if only in her own mind) for acting the way she did.  I think it's one of the aspects that sets DS apart from other soaps. of that day or any other.

cheers, G.

Thanks for the link, MB.  Ugh, what an abomination.  I really feel for the fans of those shows.  Soap played an important role in the history of gay men's representation in the media, too, from what I can recall--I was never able to watch the series.  It was what launched Billy Crystal's career, wasn't it?

G.

Hi JS,

The Hand was in the box when Magda first showed it to Barnabas, upon her return from her trip to Boston in 1897.

G.