In this strange complex of time and space anything can happen

Two weeks ago, I attended IVFAF, a vampire festival combining an academic conference, a creative congress (i.e. authors talking about their work), a film festival, a number of theatrical performances, a Bram Stoker walk, a cabaret and a ball all into one glorious five-day event. I've been following their activities on Twitter / FB for a while, but their last three events had been in Romania and at times of year when I already had a lot on. This one, though, came to the Highgate area of London, and I decided it was worth devoting a week of summer holiday time to going along.

Back in April, I went to a different two-day conference marking the bicentenary of John Polidori's 'The Vampyre', which also took place in Highgate (though at a different main venue). I never wrote it up here, though I did upload an album of pictures intending to use them as the basis for a never-written entry, mainly of our visit to Highgate cemetery complete with a few screencaps from Taste the Blood of Dracula, which used it as a location. I went along to that conference purely out of interest as a listener, but by the end of it I'd realised that specialists in Gothic literature aren't always in the best position to unpick 'The Vampyre's engagement with Classical antiquity, and indeed that that engagement was considerably deeper and richer than I'd previously realised.

IVFAF 2019 also took the bicentenary of 'The Vampyre' as one of its themes (along with the Highgate Vampire craze and Hammer's vampire films), and I registered for it from my academic email address, which prompted the organiser to ask whether I was planning to offer a paper. Fresh from the recent Polidori conference, I said yes, I probably would, and indeed re-read both Polidori's story and Byron's related Fragment and made some notes on them. But then as the abstract deadline drew closer I looked more soberly at the other tasks I had to do during the same period, and realised that it probably wouldn't actually be a very good idea, so I didn't submit one. I decided I would just go along in the same spirit as I had to the Polidori conference, to enjoy other people's papers and the films, shows, walks and partying around them. Except that then, about three weeks before the conference, I got another slightly plaintive note from the organiser saying that he was holding a slot for me on the programme, and could I send in my abstract? And it turned out I couldn't resist this, so I had yet another look at my calendar, identified three days I could claw out to write the paper after all, and knocked an abstract together. So that is how I turned what was supposed to be a week's holiday into three days of intensive paper preparation followed by travelling down to London and delivering it.

It was fine, though. I had been right in the first place that there was a good paper's worth of things to say about how both Byron and Polidori's stories engaged with Classical antiquity, was able to compile it into a perfectly respectable paper in three days, and indeed managed to identify some quite specific source material for each of them which I don't think has been fully explored before. So it was all in the bag by the end of the Monday, leaving plenty of time for me to relax, travel down to London and settle into my aparthotel on the Tuesday. I even found time that evening (equipped with advice from a few FB friends) to get my nails done in suitably vampiric style in a local nail bar, ready for the week ahead.


My paper was scheduled for the first day, which was nice as it meant I could get the worky bit over and done with and then enjoy the rest of the festival. I made sure to attire myself appropriately, and ( did my thing )

The ( other papers were good to listen to too )

I didn't spend so much time in the creative congress, which was largely scheduled in parallel with the academic conference, but I mean you might as well sit and listen to Kim Newman being interview by Stephen Jones (editor of The Mammoth Book of Vampire Stories in which Kim's first Anno Dracula story appeared) if you've got no other pressing commitments.


The Bram Stoker walk ( was another highlight )

DracSoc chair Julia also attended the academic conference, while additional members Adrian and Pat joined us at various points in the evenings for dinners, shows and films. We saw two productions by the Don't Go In The Cellar theatre company: 'Sherlock Holmes versus The Sussex Vampire' (which also included versions of The Creeping Man and The Devil's Foot) and 'Dracula's Ghost', in which a very pale-faced lawyer named Mr Leech (whose true identity I'm sure you can guess) periodically visits the widowed Mrs Bram Stoker, interspersed with relating the story of his life. The first was done as a one-man show (as are most DGITC productions), with the audience cast as criminals in Sherlock's memory palace, and worked pretty well, but we felt that Sherlock as a character did struggle a bit without other characters to be clever at. The second was an absolute cracker, though. The inclusion of a second actor on stage playing Mrs Stoker probably helped, but it was basically a whirlwind tour through more or less every possible vampire and Dracula-related story you can think of, all incorporated into and referenced within Mr Leech's life story. My favourite moments were a mention of D.D. Denham (Dracula's alias in The Satanic Rites of Dracula) and a scene in which he meets and speaks with Kali - partly because this references one of the very unmade Hammer Dracula films we'd heard Kieran talking about the previous day, but also because it was just done so effectively, by the actor who'd also been playing Mrs Stoker putting masks on both her face and the back of her head, and undulating her arms in a very divine and otherworldly manner.

I didn't make it to any of the new shorts and feature films which were screened during the days, again because of clashes with the academic conference and Stoker walk, but I did get to ( three evening showings of vampire classics )

Finally (though not chronologically as it took place on the Friday - but the grand climax of the festival anyway), there was the ( combined cabaret night and ball at the Birdcage in Camden, some of which was NSFW )

Plans are afoot already for next year's IVFAF, quite possibly to be in Santa Cruz with a Lost Boys theme. I'm not sure I'll make that, but having the chance to go this year was definitely a good thing, and now I even have another Classical vampires paper to maybe think about writing up properly some time soon. Dracula first, though...

Last night, I went out to Intrusion wearing chunky boots and clothes decorated with unnecessary pieces of metalwork, and danced like a fiend amidst flashing lights and smoke machines to loud and rebellious electronically-amplified music.

Tonight, I'm going out to see The Messiah in a theatre designed by Sir Christopher Wren, wearing a Chinese top and an Indian skirt, in the company of several of the same people who were out at Intrusion last night. And still with the chipped black varnish on my finger-nails.

Though I am sufficiently culturally aware to see that these are two very different events, there is no sense of contradiction or even abnormality here. Both are equally valid and rewarding activities in my eyes, both draw on strongly-felt interests and both are relatively common occurrences for me. I'm so glad I have such a wealth of human expression and achievement available for me to play with.

( Intrusion )

( Corrective eyewear and Christmas shopping )

( Iestyn Davies )

Oh, and I have now bought my ticket for B-Movie, so that's my definite plan for New Year's Eve now. Looking forward to seeing those of you who are going!

Saturday night in Oxford saw a bunch of us heading for Chicks with Decks, a sort of Indie / Punk / 80s night at the Cellar Bar: the same low-ceilinged venue as for Intrusion. redkitty23 and secutatrix sadly couldn't make it, and were sorely missed, but we did have edling, Cat, aef, violetdisregard, Spiky Neil, Jenny and even Hugh and Zara up from London.

( Oxford nights )

So, all in all, a decent enough night, but I must say the texts I got from damien_mocata when I got home, describing the crazy antics of the Belfast crowd, made me rather wish I'd spent the evening there instead...

( An easy solution to this problem )

In other news, I'm on a big Tom Lehrer kick at the moment. I've had the whole of 'In Concert' for ages, ripped very kindly from mr_flay, but decided that a good way to celebrate getting my net connection back would be to download some of his other particular gems which don't happen to be on that album. So I have been, and I leave you now with my current Tom Lehrer top five, as represented by couplets from their lyrics: ( A few seconds wasted with Tom Lehrer ) It's also worth noting that I found a flash animation of his song, The Elements while checking I had those lyrics right. Anyone who has ever grappled with the Periodic Table should click on it, now! *tootles off to watch it again*

I'd intended not to do too much dancing last night at Cornucopia, after boogieing round half of Belfast in the hot sun yesterday at the Pride Parade. But who am I to resist a dance floor and a beat? In the end I danced copiously, whilst also enjoying watching a certain young lady get friendlier and friendlier with a handsome gentleman nearby. Her night ended up with snogging outside the venue door and a big grin in the taxi home. Bless! :)

It was a great night, and a great follow-on from the Pride Parade. The absence of people like captainlucy, davesangel and finthecat, who are all abroad, was felt, but the music was excellent, the dancing superb, and of course we did have the addition of the lovely kuro_ryoushi for her first Cornie as a Belfast resident. I must have looked pretty fine, too, because about ten people told me so over the course of the evening - some of them complete strangers who'd come over for the express purpose of doing so.

Yet it was sad night also, because for me it was my last Cornie as a Belfast resident. I may only have made about four out of the twelve Cornucopias (or Cornucopiae, strictly speaking) which have been on while I've been here, but it isn't just the night itself, is it? It's what it represents - a focal hub for a group of people I've come to know and love, in a city I've come to know and love, where I can do things I love to do (viz. dressing up and dancing). I spent quite a lot of time towards the end of the evening sitting watching Underworld which was being projected, silently, on a big screen, and feeling all pre-emptively achy with the wrench of having to leave.

Anyone who chose to consult my livejournal archive for around this time last year would find a series of increasingly maudlin and nostalgic posts, prompted by the imminent prospect of having to leave Oxford. Posts like this one, for instance. I remember feeling the same thing when I left Bristol after doing my degree there, too. And now it's starting here, and the fact that I'll be leaving Belfast to return to last year's object of pining and regret doesn't seem to be doing anything to ease the pain. It doesn't matter - I've invested emotionally in Belfast now, so wherever I was going on to, it would hurt to leave.

Heu, I really hope this coming academic year turns out to be the last one for which I'm working on a short-term contract with an uncertain future. There are only so many times I can go through this. :(