The dish contained something shiny and wobbly and pink with a cherry on it,
and in some strange way it managed to look like something you wouldn't eat even
if it was pushed on to your plate after a week's starvation diet.
"What does it taste of?" said Masklin, after Gurder had chewed a
mouthful.
"Tastes of pink," said Gurder.Terry Pratchett, 'Wings'
Ever since reading that, 'Tastes of pink' has become an inescapable phrase in my life. I'm quite convinced that Gurder is correct; there is such a thing as the taste of pink. Of course, there is a question as to whether what I'm tasting merely associates itself with pink, and if I'd never read the book, I'd never think to call it the taste of pink... but as it stands, the concept that pink is the only colour you can taste without needing synesthesia is lodged in my mind.
I'm sure we can all name a dozen little things that we've picked up over the years, some from utterly bizarre sources. Years after first seeing it, the line "Well... there's this nurse" from 'Shakespeare in Love' is still invariably used as a jokey way to begin a story. The majority of internet memes, most notably "All your base are belong to us", can be traced back to a seemingly innocent remark (or, in that particular case, extremely bad translation of an innocent remark).
So how and why are these little 'cult moments' formed? Certainly we all react to them differently. I'm sure that most of the world, on reading the "Tastes of pink" line merely chuckled and moved on.
Pretty much all of them that I can think of are funny in some way; whether the satirically true consideration of airline food in Pratchett, the the dry humour from 'Shakespeare in Love', or unintentionally hilarious mistranslation, all the examples I've used are somehow amusing. And that, I think, is the core of it. After all, we're all slightly different. Our senses of humour are all distinct. The trick about writing a cult moment, based on that, is that it has to be short, quoteable, and funny. From there, human nature can take up the rest.
The question then arises, is it possible to write something that everyone will quote? I have my doubts, but it's an infinite multiverse...
Now, by request, and since this post is a tad short as it stands, I shall go on to one of my pet peeves. Fluffy vampirism.
Ever since its popularisation by the novel 'Dracula', the vampire mythos has captured the imagination of the world. Vampires are somehow popular. Exactly why we're so fascinated by these creatures of the night is a topic for another time, but the fact is, they are.
Unfortunately, some novelists don't seem to really understand what vampirism means.
What is a vampire? A nocturnal, parasitic, camouflaged superpredator. That's it! That's a vampire in a nutshell! Playing with the various traits of vampires is fine. The rules set down by 'Dracula' are hardly set in stone. But at their heart, something which cannot be changed without taking away the fact of vampirism, is that they are predators.
So in other words, no, they are not mopey, sparkly, pale, emo types that teenage girls with no personality squeal over.
We're vampire food. These are creatures that, in most sources, are faster and stronger than us, have a grab bag full of special powers, and can only survive by drinking human blood. This does not provide a good basis for a love affair.
I'm not pooh-poohing the whole concept of human-vampire relationships. Of course they're possible. What I do doubt is any kind of two-way love. A human can love a vampire, but the vampire will most likely just view the human as a kind of favoured pet.
World of Darkness, True Blood, even Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Anita Blake; they've got it right. Please. Can we have less of the Twilight gibberish? Hell, just give vampires a rest for a while. They've been done to death. They're old news. Let the poor things sleep in their coffins for a few years.
On that note, I must sign off. I trust that this has been an enlightening insight onto my twisted mind.
So, until tomorrow... When I am king, you will be fast against the wall.
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