The first of Stephenie Meyer’s young-adult vampire series, Twilight, continues to gather cast members on its march to the big screen. Variety reports that Peter Facinelli is now on board, cast as Carlisle, the patriarch of the Cullen Clan. Also on board is Kristen Stewart as Isabella Swan (fresh off this weekend’s Jumper) and Robert Pattinson as the preternaturally pretty Edward Cullen. Lucky for Pattinson. He’s been killed off as Cedric Diggory, so it’s a nice turn of events that he finds himself at the forefront of a fresh franchise.
Or was that too many F’s?
The novel is quick and simple. Meyer’s protagonist, the smitten Isabella Swan, moves from Phoenix to the Olympic Peninsula and quickly learns that thanks to the perpetually gloomy weather, Seattle is where all the beautiful vamps hang out. She immediately falls for Edward Cullen, who, despite having been alive for over a century, still goes to high school, and she spends the rest of the novel trying to catch her breath at the mere sight of him.
Oh, and there’s a chase scene.
The idea of the novel appeals to me. Mercy knows, I love vampires. But its execution was flat and frustrating. I didn’t mind the reckless re-imagining of the Vampire archetype at all; I like to read new interpretations of the myth. But Isabella spends the entire novel swooning over Edward, and when action finally kicks in, it’s entirely external. The Cullen Family springs into action to protect Isabella from a nasty vamp. These fun and games, when they do come, move nicely and with terrific energy, but Isabella merely closes her eyes and hangs on.
Glaringly obvious to me as I read the book was that I’m hardly the demographic for the subject matter. In other words, I’m not a sixteen year old girl. This, in spite of my looks. But I read Scott Westerfield’s “youth-oriented” Uglies Trilogy (now in its forth volume, and certainly the subject of a future post.) I wasn’t a sixteen year old girl then, either. And I gobbled up that series up with a big spoon and a fancy curly straw. Be that as it may, Meyer’s vampire series (also a trilogy) have been wildly popular, so the jump to movies was inevitable.
As much as I’d love to have Melissa Rosenberg’s job adapting the novel, I honestly don’t know what I’d do with it. My instinct would be to kick up the conflict between Bella and Edward somehow and give Bella a bigger role in deciding her own fate rather than merely chain her to the plot. Also? I’d have the vampires drive spaceships and there would be a character named Boris Glensinsky who collects hood ornaments and gives them to his schnauzer.
Or would that be too much?
An oblique reference to Love Psychedelico on my friend Rachael’s MySpace page led me to discover this stunning duo from Japan. Love Psychedelico are Kumi and Naoki, the former on vocals, the latter on guitar. I guess they’re technically J-Pop, which is a genre about which I know very little. in fact, the average Horned Tulip knows more about J-Pop than I do. Wikipedia points out that Kumi’s vocals, which bounce gleefully between Japanese and English, are unusually articulate for the genre. Fair enough. The entry also cites The Beatles and Led Zeppelin as influences. That, I figured out on my own. And the other thing I figured out on my own? I really, really like them.
Sometimes I just want to show you something cool. It’s one of the main reasons I started this blog so long ago. Sometimes I’ll be kicked back in a chair at a coffee house, music on, working on a beat sheet for a script idea when a tune will kick off that is so cool I just want to lean over to the person sitting next to me and hand them the headphones and say, “Hey. Put these on. Listen.” So imagine that this is, indeed, what I’m doing when I post this music stuff. And try not to pick up your stuff and move to a different table. I’m only trying to share.
I know, I know, I just posted about Monade a few weeks ago. Here we go again. Monstre Cosmic is out, and after a few spins, I’ve decided I’m officially enamored with Latitia Sadier’s Stereolab-lite side project. With this album, Monade expands and stretches the warmth and melody of the previous two efforts and gives us ten more tracks suitable for sun-drenched lounging on a Sunday afternoon.
Another surprise tumbles from the weekly flood of new releases. It’s Auditorium, the new one by Radar Bros. These guys are consistently good. Each album is a rolling, melancholy stroll through gentle acoustica and wistful heart-caressing melody. “The River Shade” off their last album was one of my 
