creation myths
I wonder sometimes (okay, constantly) why I am the way I am. These arguments, as they always do, boil down to nature versus nurture. And I tend to assume the answer's nurture. I mean, what wacky womb-bound chemical imbalance leads to one being born with a sort of sophisticated, gloomy, gothic streak?
And yet, in some ways, I go way back. When I was a kid I never wanted to be something cute or funny for Halloween. Scary was where it was at for me. I can remember my parents making me some great costumes, too. A spider one year, a skeleton...they were super.
My vampire fascination is really old too. Aside from the inevitable Halloween costume, when you're the only kid (sisters aside) in your hometown with a Central European last name, there's not much heritage to claim kinship to besides Dracula. I can remember when I was very small my lower canines were pointy and I would go around with my lower jaw thrust out thinking I was scary. I think the effect was probably more bulldog than night creature, but bless my little heart, I was trying. Favorite muppet: The Count (in a very close race with Oscar the Grouch). Favorite cereal: Count Chocula. Really, if you look for them, the pieces were all there very early on.
I remember when I was in, probably middle school, they used to show reruns of the Addams Family and the Munsters after school, and I quickly decided the dark, urbane, weird Addamses were far more to my liking than boring, suburban Herman and Lily and kin. It was in high school that I discovered Charles Addams, and I had our local library interlibrary loan any collections of his cartoons that it could find.
Maybe the weirdest premonitory thing about me when I was a kid though was my discovery of Spy magazine when I was, oh, in 9th grade or so. I don't recall what did it, probably it was the old annual 100 most annoying people places and things issue...but for whatever reason I'd always seek out Spy when we went anyplace with a bookstore (that is, not my home town. Or the town after that. Or the town after that.) God knows back in the day I didn't know the New Yorker from New York Magazine, and my exposure to popular culture was limited to network TV (and this was when there were 3 networks, kids). But something about being cleverer than the rich and famous, and spiteful about it, ah, it spoke to me from across all the thousands of miles between Manhattan and Middle of Nowhere, Hawai'i. That I might someday move to New York wasn't even a glimmer of a dream then--I didn't even think about Columbia until the summer before my senior year of high school. And yet, again, the child is father to the somewhat immature man, and really, maybe how I turned out isn't all that surprising after all.
And yet, in some ways, I go way back. When I was a kid I never wanted to be something cute or funny for Halloween. Scary was where it was at for me. I can remember my parents making me some great costumes, too. A spider one year, a skeleton...they were super.
My vampire fascination is really old too. Aside from the inevitable Halloween costume, when you're the only kid (sisters aside) in your hometown with a Central European last name, there's not much heritage to claim kinship to besides Dracula. I can remember when I was very small my lower canines were pointy and I would go around with my lower jaw thrust out thinking I was scary. I think the effect was probably more bulldog than night creature, but bless my little heart, I was trying. Favorite muppet: The Count (in a very close race with Oscar the Grouch). Favorite cereal: Count Chocula. Really, if you look for them, the pieces were all there very early on.
I remember when I was in, probably middle school, they used to show reruns of the Addams Family and the Munsters after school, and I quickly decided the dark, urbane, weird Addamses were far more to my liking than boring, suburban Herman and Lily and kin. It was in high school that I discovered Charles Addams, and I had our local library interlibrary loan any collections of his cartoons that it could find.
Maybe the weirdest premonitory thing about me when I was a kid though was my discovery of Spy magazine when I was, oh, in 9th grade or so. I don't recall what did it, probably it was the old annual 100 most annoying people places and things issue...but for whatever reason I'd always seek out Spy when we went anyplace with a bookstore (that is, not my home town. Or the town after that. Or the town after that.) God knows back in the day I didn't know the New Yorker from New York Magazine, and my exposure to popular culture was limited to network TV (and this was when there were 3 networks, kids). But something about being cleverer than the rich and famous, and spiteful about it, ah, it spoke to me from across all the thousands of miles between Manhattan and Middle of Nowhere, Hawai'i. That I might someday move to New York wasn't even a glimmer of a dream then--I didn't even think about Columbia until the summer before my senior year of high school. And yet, again, the child is father to the somewhat immature man, and really, maybe how I turned out isn't all that surprising after all.
posted by gloomyjoe at 11:48 PM
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