Saturday, March 25, 2006

Sir Askalot said...

if vampires have no reflection, how come they always look so neat?

posted by hughevans at 5:21 AM

1 Comments:

Blogger hughevans said...

Sir Askalot said...

if vampires have no reflection, how come they always look so neat?

An esteemed question indeed from an esteemed visitor. A real-life knight in my humble little blog. What an honour, Sir!

Welcome to Hugh Evans Investigates. This question would get even the most educated of horror connoisseurs in a flap(!)

I began this investigation with a trip to Transylvania, Romania: The home of vampires - hence my absence from posting over the past few days (please accept my apologies).

I arrived off the plane to be greeted by Albericht Lestat, my vampire collaborator for the whole of Europe. His first words to me were “Marius Dirge,” (he gives all his friends their own Vampire name), “you here to condaact your inveeesteeegatiunnns yeeesss?”

I replied “yes, a gentleman by the name of Sir Askalot posed me the question, if vampires have no reflection, how come they always look so neat?”.

This was just about all I needed to do, for Albericht told me that he had already looked into the matter. We went to our favourite haunt, the ‘Bloody Fang Café’. We both ordered the ‘bloody stakes and chips’, and settled down to collaborate on our findings:

Here are the things we know about vampires that are of relevance to this enquiry:

• Vampires have "Eisoptrophobia" the fear of mirrors, or seeing oneself in a mirror.
• It was commonly held that when a werewolf died he was most likely to return as a vampire.
• A vampire can turn into a bat

Although Eisoptrophobia counselling can and has helped to cure such a disposition, it has only been around for the past 25 years or so. A vampire doesn’t particularly benefit from this sort of treatment anyway, as their thirst for blood will not allow them to be in the presence of human doctors for long enough to be cured.

Interestingly, a werewolf will do its own grooming, by day. The vampires did not inherit such habits from their pre-incarnations. And without going near mirrors, their efforts would be rather futile anyway - especially if they were to uphold their gleaming reputation of exact style and perfect aesthetic faculties.

Indeed un-groomed vampires did not last long in the horror world. Often being murdered by their more handsome counterparts. So by matter of evolution, the 'ectoparasite' came into being.

Not heard of an ectoparasite? It also commonly referred to as a ‘Bat Fly’. Bat flies originated in Belize and are the founders of vampire grooming. When in bat form, the ectoparasite is attracted to the vampire and gets to work on its trademark duties of eyebrow-plucking, fang-whitening, and laying out an immaculate head of hair in a variety of styles, though favouring the centre parting.

Where this is not possible, vampire bats, as in nature, will group together and perform the gruelling task of grooming one another. Of course, there is something in it for each of them. As a previous post mentions, you get nothing for free in this world!

See this description for more information:

“When a Common Vampire Bats rerturn to the roost, they often meet face-to-face and groom one another. A bat that fails to feed uses this face-to-face contact to beg blood from a roostmate. The successful bat may then regurgitate some blood to the unsuccessful one. The cost of the doner is relatively small, particularly since before the month is out it will need a donation itself. The benefit to the receiver is high, for it is survival.”

(Fenton, Brock M. Bats. Oxford and NY: Facts on File, 1992. pp.149-55)


There is a more modern method in the early stages of being worked on by Mark Ganek (http://media.orkut.com/articles/r0314.html), a budding vampire hairdresser and pioneering inventor:

“The basic shape is roughly hemi-spherical, and it would fit over the vampire's head in a helmet-like fashion. Inside "The VampTM" are a series of combs that run on individually adjustable tracks. These combs are connected to knobs on the outside of the helmet, allowing each to run through its particular course, insuring perfect hair. The sketches are preliminary, but the concept seems sound. They laughed at the Wright brothers too, you know.”

I hope this answers your question, Sir Akalot. If your name is anything to go by I feel I may be hearing from you again.

By the way, the flight back was an ideal time for me to plan for the many more of the cases I have been assigned. All will be answered be assured.

Please watch this space!

Hugh Evans PI

5:26 AM  

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