Outsight Book Reader Diary

Friday, March 20, 2026

Review: Linked: The New Science of Networks

Linked: The New Science of Networks by Albert-László Barabási
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

View all my reviews

Review: Bloodlust: Conversations with Real Vampires

Bloodlust: Conversations with Real Vampires by Carol Page
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

The exploration of "real vampires" seems to mostly uncover sad basket cases shifting from trauma to bloodsucking to high camp like Dracula Live from Transylvania (TV Movie, 1989). The author attended the production of this sad thing and also went to England to meet with the Highgate self-serving fraudster Sean Manchester. Maybe a bit closer to the mark and more authentic was Vlad whose band The Dark Theater produced Matters Of Life And Undeath while Vlad lived a donor-seeking vampire's life.

More fan than fang was rocker Paul Barrett. The author met Barrett in Whitby, England at a "Hunt-a-vampire weekend" celebrating the location Bram Stoker chose to write some of his famous tale.

Paul and Lincoln Barrett then joined me. Paul urged me to include a chapter on rock and roll and vampires in this book, and was delighted to learn I planned to do so. He told me about the song "Dinner with Drac," by John Zachalee, which was in the American Top 20 in 1958 and was then released in London, only to be banned in England by the BBC because of the lyrics, which seems ridiculous now. He sent me a tape of the song, along with some of his other favorite oldies. A passage from the song runs, "A dinner was served for three / at Dracula's house by the sea. /The hors d'oeuvres were fine, but I choked on my wine / when I learned that the main course was me."

Obviously vampires and music as an aesthetic and lifestyle makes me think of extreme goth and that gets referenced too:

They can be found in certain Boston clubs, such as the Rathskeller or the Channel, when certain bands are playing. The music is punk, new wave, or hard core, not heavy metal. Shannon doesn't like the devil-worship subject matter of some of the heavy metal bands. Curtain Society and Sleep Chamber are two Boston-area bands that draw the vampires out to dance. Some of their fans are rumored to practice self-mutilation. In the band Requiem in White, the lead singer dresses like Dracula. Requiem in White has as many as one hundred vampires in their crowd; other bands have perhaps forty mixed in their audiences.

This refers to a 1980s Boston goth/vampire subculture as depicted in Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles—specifically in novels like The Tale of the Body Thief (1992)—where vampires mingle with punk/new wave crowds. Bands like Requiem in White, Sleep Chamber, and Curtain Society are associated with the era and scene building on and including rumors of extreme behaviors among devoted fans.

Of the sad, would-be vampires I feel the most insight is gained from James Riva II, known here as "Gabriel" and in the press as the "Vampire Killer," a Massachusetts man who shot his 74-year-old grandmother, Carmen Lopez, in 1980, believing her a vampire. Riva used gold-painted bullets, stabbed her in the heart, drank her blood, and attempted to burn the house down. In 1981, Riva was convicted of second-degree murder and arson, receiving a life sentence with the possibility of parole. Riva claimed he was instructed to commit the crime. Defense lawyers argued he was insane and had a long history of mental illness, but this was rejected. As of 2025, Riva has been denied parole multiple times, with the board citing continued paranoia, lack of remorse, and danger to society. The author met and interviewed him while he was incarcerated for the 1980 murder. In the extensive quotes from that interview is, I feel, the most accurate analysis of the motivations of these souls seeking blood sustenance:

These people call themselves vampires, but they are just sick puppies who think that they're going to get power. See, most people start this nonsense because they're unhappy with what they are, and they think that by getting into Satan worshipping, they're going to be enhanced some-how, that they're going to be popular, they're going to get powers. I mean, you have vampires in the movies, they always have total control over their lovers. They manage to do whatever they like with impunity it seems, until the end of the movie. That seems attractive to some people, and they want it.

View all my reviews

Thursday, March 19, 2026

Review: Ulysses

Ulysses by James Joyce
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Back cover

The complete and unabridged text, as corrected and entirely reset in 1961.

Like the first American edition, published by Random House in 1934, this new edition contains the original foreword by the author, the historic decision by Judge John M. Woolsey whereby the Federal ban on Ulysses was finally removed, and the foreword by Morris Ernst on the importance of Judge Woolsey's decision.

Ulysses is now available for the first time in paperback

Woolsey read the entire book and included in the decision his review:

Joyce has attempted-it seems to me, with astonishing success

-to show how the screen of consciousness with its ever-shifting kaleidoscopic impressions carries, as it were on a plastic palimpsest, not only what is in the focus of each man's observation of the actual things about him, but also in a penumbral zone residua of past impressions, some recent and some drawn up by association from the domain of the subconscious. He shows how each of these impressions affects the life and behavior of the character which he is describing.

...

I hold that "Ulysses" is a sincere and honest book and I think that the criticisms of it are entirely disposed of by its rationale.

V. Furthermore, "Ulysses" is an amazing tour de force when one considers the success which has been in the main achieved with such a difficult objective as Joyce set for himself. As I have stated, "Ulysses" is not an easy book to read. It is brilliant and dull, intelligible and obscure by turns. In many places it seems to me to be disgusting, but although it contains, as I have mentioned above, many words usually considered dirty, I have not found anything that I consider to be dirt for dirt's sake. Each word of the book contributes like a bit of mosaic to the detail of the picture which Joyce is seeking to construct for his readers.

If one does not wish to associate with such folk as Joyce describes, that is one's own choice. In order to avoid indirect contact with them one may not wish to read "Ulysses"; that is quite understandable. But when such a real artist in words, as Joyce undoubtedly is, seeks to draw a true picture of the lower middle class in a European city, ought it to be impossible for the American public legally to see that picture?

To answer this question it is not sufficient merely to find, as I have found above, that Joyce did not write "Ulysses" with what is commonly called pornographic intent, I must endeavor to apply a more objective standard to his book in order to determine its effect in the result, irrespective of the intent with which it was written

From the annotated decision on JSTOR:

Judge John Woolsey of the Southern District of New York issued what would become one of the most widely published (and perhaps even read) legal decisions in US history. The case, United States v. One Book Called “Ulysses,” began in 1932 when lawyer Morris Ernst and Random House co-founder Bennett Cerf arranged to have a copy of the novel written by James Joyce imported and seized by US Customs.

Woolsey’s decision, which found Ulysses to not be obscene, was appealed to the US Circuit Court and upheld, allowing Random House to begin publishing the novel in the US. The first American edition included Woolsey’s decision and an introduction by Ernst, who went on to become a leader of the ACLU (while acting behind the scenes as advocate and information source for the FBI and J. Edgar Hoover.)

Many of the parties involved in the lengthy journey of Ulysses—into print, and to the States—went on to become major figures in modernism, publishing, jurisprudence, and/or LGBTQ+ history (with Sylvia Beach covering multiple categories.) JSTOR offers substantial research on these topics, as well as on Joyce’s works, legacy, and heirs.

---------------------
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...
https://biblioklept.org/2020/06/16/ca...
https://www.stephens-workshop.com/joy...
and recreation https://eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.ed...

View all my reviews