Sunday, December 28, 2008

True Blood Music Video of the Day



Happy Endings by Mika- thanks ObjectDesire !

Send me your favorite TB Youtube video: truebloodindallas@gmail.com

USA Today Pop-culture IQ test !



















Check out question# 4 (I will post answer in comments )

http://www.usatoday.com/life/2008-12-26-pop-culture-quiz_N.htm

Also Vampires made the list at #2 in the San Diego Union Tribune Pop Quizz

2. Vampires

Vampires were the hands-down No. 1 sex symbol of 2008. Thanks to the making of “Twilight,” a movie based on Stephenie Meyers' young adult vampire series, tweens and their mothers became crazed over all things immortal – specifically Edward Cullen. And for those looking for something sexier than the chaste Cullen clan, HBO delivered Bill Compton from its more mature “True Blood” series.

HERE

Meet the Writers : Charlaine Harris ( with audio interview)


Charlaine Harris



Biography


A native of the Mississippi Delta, Charlaine Harris grew up in a family of avid readers (her father was a teacher; her mother a librarian). She attended Rhodes College in Memphis, TN, graduating in 1973 with a degree in English and Communication Arts. Although she penned poetry and plays in school, her first serious foray into fiction was with two standalone novels, Sweet and Deadly and A Secret Rage, published (effortlessly!) in the early 1980s.

After her early success, Harris released the first installment in a series of lighthearted mysteries starring spunky, small-town Georgia librarian, true crime enthusiast, and amateur sleuth Aurora Teagarden. When Aurora debuted in Real Murders (1990), Publishers Weekly welcomed "a heroine as capable and potentially complex as P. D. James's Cordelia Gray." The book went on to receive an Agatha Award nomination.

Anxious for another challenge, Harris began a second series in 1996. Darker and edgier than the Teagarden novels, these mysteries featured taciturn, 30-something housecleaner Lily Bard, a woman with a complicated past who has moved to the small town of Shakespeare, Arkansas, to find peace and solitude. The first novel, Shakespeare's Landlord, was well-received. BookList raved: "Harris has created an intriguing new character in this solidly plotted story." [Much to the disappointment of her fans, Harris concluded the Lilly Bard sequence in 2001 with Shakespeare's Counselor.]

Although Harris achieved moderate success with these two series (which she laughingly describes as "cozies with teeth"), she would hit the jackpot in 2001 with Dead Until Dark, a sly, spoofy paranormal mystery starring a telepathic Louisiana cocktail waitress named Sookie Stackhouse, who falls in love with a vampire named Bill. The novel, a delightful hybrid of mystery, science fiction, and romance, was an instant hit with critics. ("Harris' Sookie has the potential to attract more readers than Hamilton's Anita Blake," raved the dark fantasy magazine Cemetery Dance.) Readers, too, adored the Southern Vampire Series and have rewarded the author with bestseller after bestseller. (In 2008, the Sookie saga came to HBO in a top-rated television adaptation, True Blood, starring Anna Paquin.)

With 2006's Grave Sight, Harris added yet another fascinating character to her stable -- a young woman named Harper Connelly whose youthful encounter with a lightning bolt has left her with the ability to find corpses and determine how they died. In addition to juggling characters and plots for her popular series, Harris has also contributed short stories and novellas to several anthologies of paranormal fantasy fiction.

Good to Know

In our interview, Harris confesses:

"I'm really a boring person. My family (my husband and three children) is the most important thing in my life. I go to bed early, I get up early. I love to go to the movies with my husband. My favorite things about finally making some money as a writer are (a) I can buy as many books as I want, and (b) I can hire a maid. The first job I had was working in an offset darkroom at a very small newspaper. I stood on a concrete floor all day and made minimum wage -- which then was $1.60 an hour. I hated it, and I learned a lot, though not necessarily about working in a darkroom. So being a writer is much better."

Interview (Audio here )

In the summer of 2005, Charlaine Harris took some time out to answer some of our questions.

What was the book that most influenced your life or your career as a writer?

Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte. This book has everything: mystery, unrequited love, class war, illicit sex, madness, and a woman with an unswerving sense of moral rectitude. Jane is no beauty, she never twittered in her life, and she's devoted to thinking things over carefully before arriving at a rational decision. And yet she's a passionate woman underneath that drab dress that she's decided is suitable for her station. Jane is extremely conventional, and at the same time unconventional; a prime example of still waters running very deep. She rises above adversity every time, and she has a lot of adversity to rise above. Jane Eyre is the basic blueprint for thousands of books that followed.

favorite books (see separate post
)

What are some of your favorite films, and what makes them unforgettable to you?

Lawrence of Arabia -- Peter O'Toole is just great in this beautiful film about an incredibly complex man.

The Last of the Mohicans -- The music, the scenery, a good script, and Daniel Day-Lewis. You can't go wrong with this much-changed version of the James Fenimore Cooper book.

The Pink Panther -- I always laugh, no matter how many times I've seen it. All the Peter Sellers Panther movies are funny, and I love to laugh.

Blazing Saddles -- This is just a funny movie, and it set the pattern for many to follow. "The Piano" A feminist fable with an awful lesson.

Saving Private Ryan -- A heartstopping depiction of war and the test it lays on men

The Birds -- Way to be scared!

What types of music do you like? Is there any particular kind you like to listen to when you're writing?

I love to listen to Yo Yo Ma playing anything. Mostly, I listen to movie soundtracks and bagpipe music, and Annie Lennox.

What are your favorite kinds of books to give -- and get -- as gifts?

I think the book has to match the giftee. If I don't know exactly what the person wants, I'd give them a gift card to a bookstore. But it's always fun to get someone to read a book he/she might not otherwise have read.

Do you have any special writing rituals? For example, what do you have on your desk when you're writing?
Some stuffed or ceramic vampires that people have given me as gifts; piles of papers, some quite irrelevant; a stack of CDs; a big glass of water; some dried flowers, one arrangement from the banquet where I won the Anthony, and one sent by a friend when I made the New York Times bestseller list; a mug full of pencils; and copies of the past Sookie books, for easy reference.

Many writers are hardly "overnight success" stories. How long did it take for you to get where you are today? Any rejection-slip horror stories or inspirational anecdotes?

It took me 25 years. That proves that success doesn't always come easily, or when you're young, but it can sure sneak up on you.

What tips or advice do you have for writers still looking to be discovered?

Read, read, read and then write, write, write. Persevere.

Read on and listen here
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/writers/writer.asp?cid=1021786

Dead Until Dark...... Book 1 in the Southern Vampires series

From April at Walking on the Dark Side - we are hearing from so many True Blood fans (yes, even the ones that said they'd never read the books ) that are now reading the books and loving them

Just in case you couldn't tell from looking at my blog, I am a True Blood fan. Season 2 can't come fast enough for me.

Up until this point, I hadn't read any of the Sookie Stackhouse books. That all changed yesterday. Let's just say I couldn't put the book down.

Dead Until Dark is book 1 in the series. It's written by Charlaine Harris. I wanted to start at the beginning and read it in the order they were written.
I can also tell from reading this book that season 1 of True Blood was based on it.

This book was great. A lot of season 1 of True Blood was really and truly based on the book. I can see that the producer made an effort to really not change it. The changes he made are phenomenal though.

In Dead Until Dark, Lafayette really didn't have much of a role. He was mentioned in the book as the cook. It was mentioned that he painted his fingernails (or something like that) and that he dressed brightly. Basically none of his wild and crazy scenes in True Blood were in the book.

Alan Ball did an amazing job developing LaFayette's character from the book.

I really think it's an act of fate that this show was even made. I was reading an interview tonight with Alan Ball about True Blood. You can read the interview here. Anyhow when asked, "How did you discover these books and decide they'd make a great HBO series?", his response was; "I was early for a dentist appointment, and I had some time to kill. I went into Barnes and Noble, and I just bought this book on impulse. It was just a little paperback, and on the cover, the tagline said, ''Maybe having a vampire for a boyfriend wasn't such a good idea.'' I thought it was kind of funny. I started reading it that night, and I couldn't put it down. And the minute I was done with it, I wanted to read the next one. And I really got addicted."

All I can say is I'm very glad he decided to check this book out.

I've already been checking Ebay out tonight in attempts of getting affordable copies of the rest of the series. I can't wait to read them. I'm sure the next one I get will be received and read all in one day.

http://walkingonthedarkside.blogspot.com/2008/12/dead-until-dark-book-1-in-s
outhern.html

Vampire Bill (Stephen Moyer) and sweet waitress Sookie (Anna Paquin) became the new Romeo and Juliet


From mySan Antonio ( here in the Kingdom of Texas) from their Best of TV 2008 list

"True Blood" and "In Treatment" (HBO): Leave it to HBO to give us not one but two of the year's most addictive and innovative new dramas. In the biting and stylishly executed "Blood," vampire Bill (Stephen Moyer) and sweet waitress Sookie (Anna Paquin) became the new Romeo and Juliet. Creator Alan Ball cleverly made the vampire's entrance into human society a metaphor for racism, gay-bashing and, in general, a world eaten up by hatred for those who were different.

http://www.mysanantonio.com/entertainment/36799559.html