vampires + davey d.

                                                                               

that's right, people. davy d. the acerbic activist, radio and online journalist is a twish. i'll say that since he was a bit shy to admit it. i ain't! twilight: eclipse was probably the best in the series so far. it had (for twilight) good, cheeky dialogue 'i'm hotter than you,' jacob quips to edward as they hassle over how to keep bella from going into hypothermia (edward of course can not since vampires are cold-blooded). some excellent action scenes and yes the hotness that is jacob, his character is more prominent in eclipse.

you'd be surprised how many of us gen-xery people (over 35) are fans of either the books or the movies. i myself have noticed interesting trends with folks. black girls and women in general are team jacob. white girls and women in general, team edward. we all equally dish passionately about the plot arch or have some degree of disdain for bella's whining.

i also geeked out on the soundtrack. there were several songs that caught my attention. so i did some digging and it listed really cool musicians who actually make good music - florence and the machine, cee lo, sia, bat for lashes and beck. nice! i played this out for days.

what surprised me is that after the first two twilight films i talked a whole bunch of shit. first, the whole sexual abstinence trip edward is on, which is conveniently explained as the moral code of 'his age' (turn of the 19th century or whatever). in fact, stephanie meyer is a mormon, a religious group that has been that toots the chaste until marriage horn. still what makes her a good writer i suppose is making all this non-getting-it-on vampire and human action hot. second, it was mind-numbing to sit through trite teen dialogue obviously written by grown folks. the two first films were also seriously mediocre in direction and editing, new moon being the worst.

i also got over the hysteria real quick. i'm many years older and several generations ahead of today's teen. they could be my own kids! when i was a teen i was way too cool to lose my shit over anyone (nicholas cage, daniel day lewis, luke skywalker, etc). meh. i would work out my fantasies and write horribly earnest short stories of young love set against the backdrop of apartheid south africa or sci-fi wanna-be adventures where i save luke or luke saves me or at least i got to play with a light saber and fight off a stormtrooper. good jedi-type chick.

in my day it was interview with the vampire. i was 20 when a friend gave me the second book, the vampire lestat. i lost my shit. i made drawings of lestat, wrote my own fan fiction, was full of ire when tom cruise was cast as lestat for the film (i have come to humble resignation and acceptnace since). any fan of the vampire chronicles knows that that role should have gone to julian sands, an english actor. sting would have been cool perhaps if he had been younger at the time. daniel day lewis was my first choice for louis. but did hollywood receive my telepathic genius? no!

i've always loved the vampire genre and gothic romanticism. i think this stems from being a romantic nerd. the moody aesthetic of ambient rooms, dark shadows, deep sensuous purples, reds, and black. i've seen countless vampire films from bela lugosi, to nosferatu (a fave is the slient version), the hunger, the 1978 dracula with frank langella, and bram stoker's dracula with gary oldman. one of my favorite vampire films of all time has to be near dark, an obsure early indie directed by kathryn bigelow. after near dark, it would be the swedish film let the right one in. both are absolutely awesome in their originality.

since having seen eclipse i'm more how can i say? down with the whole twilight thing. i'm certainly not writing my own fan fiction or surfing websites, or devouring every bit of trending goss about the cast. i'm more a laid back fan; purely for the fun and fantasy of it. so maybe davey d is a bit reticent to admit it, but he agreed eclipse is the coolest thing yet in the series.

vampire kitty

black hair is....

in recent months the need to switch it up, and razzle my locks with color has been in the back of my mind. i've had locks for 8 years and although i love them, i'm a bit bored. i don't have the desire to cut them (yet) and start a clean headscape. they've grown quite long and i like the feeling of these lovely natty ropes falling around my face, cascading over my shoulder.

i locked in 2002 after thinking about it for ages. i always thought they were beautiful, regal, and exquisite. they convey an embrace of one's natural black hair without pretense or fashion. it says i'm natural and i'm proud. happy and nappy!

i've had a long, fascinating journey with my hair. it's always the first thing i notice when i look at old photos. it was soft, curly, and chaotic as a little kid. by middle school in the early 80s it became more kinky and at one time i had a boyish natural. then i became fascinated with the punk and mod scenes going into 10th grade and my hair, as it was, was not going to cut what i wanted to express in my own personal style.

i used sun-in spray to bleach the top giving me a two-tone (brown and orange really before i learned the magical chemistry of toners). i used a hot iron daily to smooth it out for the day, by the end of which it was a frizz bomb. the process was tedious and damaging. then i discovered the perm. my hair although soft has a zig-zag texture; not kinky, not straight, but somewhere in between. perming tamed it, smoothed it out so that i could spike it.

this went on for years experiementing with various brands: dark & lovely, tcb, until finding african pride, which wasn't as damaging and had ingredients in it that sounded natural (not so much). eventually, in the mid-90s after having survived a few scalp burns and disastrous damaged hair that had to be cut off, i decided to go cold turkey and lay off the perm.

i went in other directions experimenting with weaves, braids, and for a good while modeling for stylists using salon-grade bleach and toner to go high lemon blonde or platinum. that looked very cool, even as my hair got longer, but the touch-up maintenance is serious and without a friend in a salon to hook me up, would have cost a fortune.

platinum out, semi permanent in. i went back to my college days experimenting with my favorite vegetable based semi-permanent dye: tish & snookie's manic panic nyc. the colors are pigment rich and super cool weather you lay them over natural color or bleached hair. one of my favorites is called nightshade, a deep red-purple. even when manic panic color fades it lifts to a more translucent version of its former self.

then i collaborated with a friend who was a stylist swirling in highlights of blonde, caramel, and gold with my natural color. i called this the different world period because cree summer's hair looked like mine. that was a nice phase and i wore it like this for several years.

all this came to an end when i made the commitment to dread. it's always an interesting point of conversation among women. some think i'm an assata-type conscious radical. others marvel at my before dread-, stay so gold-fro hair. i spent a fortune on leave in conditioners, anti-frizz, and pomades to maintain it.

dreads are not easy to maintain either. you have to wash regularly or they can smell like the armpit of a damp cat. i use only natural products, which also cost a bit more. i rinse with vinegar and sometimes lime, which deodorize them. i do hot oil treatments with olive, hemp, or coconut oils. my kitchen has at times turned into a sort of dread lab.

getting new growth tightened up is an on-going process. i'm always on the look-out for a loctician through friends and acquaintances that won't cost a gang of money. these days a student of mine will touch me up for very cheap. she has an amazing hand and twists them super tight. this lasts about a week if i'm diligent about wrapping my locks up at night or sleeping with a cap. those in-between periods i wear a snood or knitted cap when i feel they look a bit ratty and unkempt (diva meter). since my natural texture is soft, new growth hair pops and squiggles out like a cartoon. i can only take so much of that. i like my locks to look smooth and sophisticated, effortless. this is at least part of the illusion and allure of black beauty.

for now though i just think about color - tints and tones, light or dark. decisions, decisions.

star kitty