Fwd: ST ch 7 Dracula
Joseph Tracy
coypoet at mailfence.com
Sun May 17 23:04:34 UTC 2026
-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: Re: ST ch 7 Dracula
Date: Sun, 17 May 2026 14:19:47 -0400
From: Joseph Tracy <coypoet at mailfence.com>
Organization: www.brooksideglassworks.com
To: Robin Landseadel <robinlandseadel at comcast.net>
Robin makes a very persuasive argument for the role of the vampire in
P's work. I would also agree that the vampire emerges from the
collective unconscious as a stand-in for the ( potentially) deathless
corporation, whose most powerful and long lasting examples are
extractive: oil, metals, coal, interest on loans, taxation without
representation, slave-labor. Corporate entities have a history of animal
ruthlessness against rivals and victims.
People accept the terror of vampires not because they believe that there
are really human-like beings that suck blood to prolong life
indefinitely, and who can only be killed with silver stakes through the
heart, but because of the experience of vampire-like predation as a
major force of the modern world and felt in their own lives. Vampires
name and give mythic and practical form to the dread fear of having
one's life drained by ego driven predation, or of being recruited by
human desires into serving monsters. They are real to us because they
lurk in the shadows of our cities and subconscious, they grow fat on
lies and blood.
I would argue that vampires are a modern form of war propaganda, and of
police state propaganda. The real predators project others( vampires,
demons, Arabs, Jews, Palestinians, Huns, Russians, drug dealers,
terrorists, China, Irish, women, the revenge of the hotentots…) as
monsters to create the widespread fear needed for war and surveillance,
pushing fear propaganda in movies, newspapers, etc.
Pynchon looks at these corporate entities directly and from their
earliest formal history in Mason & Dixon to their digital incarnation in
Bleeding Edge.
“Go ahead, capitalize the T on technology, deify it if it’ll make you
feel less responsible—but it puts you in with the neutered, brother, in
with the eunuchs keeping the harem of our stolen Earth for the numb and
joyless hardons of human sultans, human elite with no right at all to be
where they are—”
In 1932 an important historic event was taking place in the US involving
2 military leaders, 15,000 veterans of WW1, the great depression and
Herbert Hoover as president. It helped set the stage for FDR. Smedley
Butler, at that point the most decorated Marine officer in US history,
was deeply concerned after WW1 with the neglect of veterans, many
disfigured and with severe PTSD. The depression and graft within the
Veterans administration made things worse, and thousands of vets and
their families gathered in DC in tents and makeshift shacks to call for
financial relief. The very popular Butler met with them and supported
their cause telling them they had as much right to lobby the government
as US Steel. Hoover had no sympathy and called on Douglas MacArthur to
break up the encampment and he armed troops with bayonets and burned
down everything, calling them communists and revolutionaries despite a
complete lack of violence. FDR saw it as the end of the Hoover years and
rode the popular wave of discontent with corporate power to the
Presidency. Butler became a speaker on FDR’s behalf and then an
independent speaker as he renounced his own Marine corps service to
bankers and big corporations. His effectiveness with veterans was
enormous and based on that ability to mobilize hundreds of thousands a
founder of the American Legion, connected with other powerful bankers
and industrialists, heavily funded by Dupont spent years trying to
recruit Butler into a scheme to lead vets to overthrow Roosevelt and set
up military/corporate rule. Butler was revolted but played along and
brought in a respected Philadelphia journalist to bear witness of the
proposals. The first choice of this group was Douglas MacArthur, but he
lacked the popularity and sway of Butler.
In Shadow Ticket’s alternate history the coup succeeds, FDR is
deposed, and MacArthur gains power. Historically Butler exposed the
plot, a Congressional committee found his claims to be true and the
plans came to nothing. Despite Butler’s protests, the major players went
unpunished and were never made to answer to Congress, though FDR found
other ways to punish them.
FDR described MacArthur as an American Mussolini. Before the plot to
ovethrow FDR Smedley Butler was arrested for court martial by Hoover
when he publicly exposed that Mussolini had killed a young girl while
speeding around Italy with a son of Cornelius Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt’s
testimony was key to embarrassing Hoover and getting Smedley Butler out
of the brig. Mussolini was very popular with W R Hearst, who published
articles by him, and with Luce of Time magazine and with the America’s
elite.
Also related to Shadow Ticket, Smedley Butler served several years,
hired by the mayor of Philadelphia, to crack down on the growing
criminality of traffic in alcohol. He was famous for going after the
rich’s alcohol fueled orgies at the Ritz Carlton as well as the lower
end of mob speakeasies.
SMEDLEY BUTLER QUOTES
War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily
the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one
international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are
reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
• War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe,
as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a
small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the
benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.
• From a speech (1933)
• I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing
else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The
trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over
here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then
the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.
• From a speech (1933)
• I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some
lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should
fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of
Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.
• From a speech (1933)
•
• I spent 33 years and 4 months In active service as a member of
our country's most agile military force – the Marine Corps. I served in
all commissioned ranks from a second lieutenant to Major-General. And
during that period I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man
for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the bankers. In short, I was a
racketeer for capitalism. … Thus I helped make Mexico and especially
Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and
Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues
in. … I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of
Brown Brothers in 1909-12. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for
American sugar interests in 1916. … During those years, I had, as the
boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. I was rewarded with
honors, medals, promotion. Looking back on it, I feel I might have given
Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in
three city districts. We Marines operated on three continents.
• Common Sense, Vol. 4, No. 11 (November, 1935)
On 5/16/26 5:11 PM, Robin Landseadel via Pynchon-l wrote:
> I’m hopscotching around Shadow Ticket in presenting these posts, hope you don’t mind.
> This is a big one, strap in.
>
> Dracula strikes me as central to the concerns of the Shadow Ticket, a wormhole into the
> dimly-lit past and an arrow to future consolidation of economic power.
>
> Shadow Ticket’s epigram inclines us towards Bela Lugosi’s best known film portrayal
> —though Plan 9 From Outer Space is a close second—Dracula, the 1931 Universal Pictures
> English language version:
>
> “ . . . a 1931 American Pre-Code vampire film directed and co-produced by Tod Browning
> from a screenplay written by Garrett Fort and starring Bela Lugosi . . .
>
> . . . As a published work from 1931, the film will enter the American public domain on January 1,
> 2027. . .”
>
> Dracula (1931 English-language film) - Wikipediahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracula_(1931_English-language_film)
>
> The movie was re-released in 1998 with a new musical score by Philip Glass, performed by the
> Kronos Quartet:
>
> Dracula (album) - Wikipediahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracula_(album)
>
> A scene from the movie with Glass’ PoMo score:
>
> https://youtu.be/1YfXRqKhciM?si=aS_fGqK9tcG3vCKH
>
> Shadow Ticket has two scenes situated inside movie theaters, both have extended riffs on
> the hidden or implied aspects of the respective films. I’ll be spilling off tangents here,
> tendrils if you will, as these things constitute the context from which these movies
> emerged.
>
> Dracula is Lebowski’s Rug, to coin a neologism, in this novel, the singular element that ties
> everything together. This scene begins on page 46. April Randazzo is Hicks’ Dance
> Partner/friend with benefits. It’s Valentine’s Day, 1932, Milwaukee. Dracula, the Bela Lugosi
> movie, came out on Valentine’s Day the previous year, April wants to go to Chicago to see it,
> Hicks is nervous on account of what went down on Valentine’s Day in Chicago, 1929.
>
> Saint Valentine's Day Massacre - Wikipediahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Valentine%27s_Day_Massacre
>
> Chicago in the 1930s - Wikipediahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_in_the_1930s
>
> Also knowing it’s a real scary movie, which it turns out to be:
>
> “Hmm, well, OK, but this picture is supposed to be kind of terrifying, so promise if you get
> scared you’ll come sit in my lap.”
>
> So they rode into Chicago, and were spared any Outfit-related violence, but what there was
> was Count Dracula, big as a movie screen, once or twice during who activities it was Hicks
> who considered jumping into April’s lap. By the time it was over she’d eaten six cubic feet of
> popcorn and was using his tie to wipe the butter off his fingers with.”
>
> Shadow Ticket, pgs. 46/47
>
> There’s still more massive overconsumption of popcorn when Bruno and Daphne watch a
> Squeezita Thickly movie In Budapest, much later in the novel. But I digress, as per usual.
>
> After watching Dracula, April sez she’s going to swoon over Bela, this after previous swooning
> over William Powell and Jimmy Cagney.
>
> — William Powell:
>
> “ . . . Powell portrayed a vengeful film director in the silent movie The Last Command
> (1928). His first starring role was Philo Vance in The Canary Murder Case (1929). He played
> Vance at Paramount Pictures four times. His strong stage-developed voice became a
> powerful asset when talking pictures were introduced. He went on to star opposite Kay
> Francis in seven pre-Code films, starting with "Street of Chance" (1930) and including
> "Jewel Robbery" (1932), in which he plays a thief who proffers marijuana cigarettes to his
> victims.
>
> Powell appeared as Nick Charles in six Thin Man films, beginning with The Thin Man in
> 1934, based upon Dashiell Hammett’s novel. This movie provided Powell with his first
> Academy Award nomination, in 1935
>
> William Powell - Wikipediahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Powell
>
> His first starring role, Philo Vance in ‘The Canary Murder Case’:
>
> The Canary Murder Case (film) - Wikipediahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Canary_Murder_Case_(film)
>
> In the history of the talkies, this is an interesting film in numerous ways. It’s from 1929, a
> very early entry in the history of talkies. The film revolves around Vance's investigation into
> the murder of a conniving showgirl, the “Canary” of the title. The Canary Murder Case was
> initially intended to be a silent film. As it turned out, Powell had the perfect voice for early
> sound films, very clear and clearly trained for the stage. On the other hand, Louise Brooks,
> famous silent film star, effectively ends her film career here with her refusal to participate
> in dubbing this film. The dubbing was performed by Margaret Livingston, the Wiki post says
> she is remembered today as "the Woman from the City" in F. W. Murnau’s 1927 film
> Sunrise, a Song of Two Humans.
>
> Margaret Livingston - Wikipediahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Livingston
>
> A fine looking print on You Tube of the entire movie:
>
> https://youtu.be/O4VtgBtHdhE?si=b1vuABb6X6tdJoAo
>
> In turn, Sunrise, a Song of Two Humans, featuring Margaret Livingston, was the first movie
> released using the Movietone sound on film system. While the film has no audible dialogue, it
> was released with a synchronized musical score and sound effects using the
> Movietone sound-on-film process.
>
> “ . . . Murnau chose to use the then new Fox Movietone sound-on-film system,
> making Sunrise one of the first feature films with a synchronized musical score and sound
> effects soundtrack. The film incorporated Charles Gounod’s 1872 composition Funeral
> March of a Marionette, which inspired its use as the theme for the television series Alfred
> Hitchcock Presents (1955–1965) . . . “
>
> Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans - Wikipediahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunrise:_A_Song_of_Two_Humans
>
> https://youtu.be/1CVLz1_MrCk?si=6x0-QK4TCWCvW6Ud
>
> The story behind the story is how the major Hollywood studios were battling it out for
> market dominance of sound-on-film technology. As of 1927, William Fox had the upper
> hand. Then the stock market went crazy the following year, and Fox had a major car
> accident the year after that:
>
> “ . . . Following the 1927 death of Marcus Loew, head of Loews Incorporated, the parent
> company of rival studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, control of MGM passed to his longtime
> associate, Nicholas Schenck. Fox saw an opportunity to expand his empire, and in 1929,
> with Schenck's assent, bought the Loew family's MGM holdings, unbeknownst to MGM
> studio bosses Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg. Mayer and Thalberg were outraged;
> despite their high posts at MGM, they were not shareholders. Mayer used his strong
> political connections to persuade the Justice Department to sue Fox for violating federal
> antitrust laws. In July 1929, Fox was severely injured in an automobile accident. By the time
> he recovered, the stock market crash in October 1929 had wiped out virtually his entire
> fortune, ending any chance of the Loews-Fox merger going through even if the Justice
> Department had approved it.
> William Fox (producer) - Wikipediahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Fox_(producer)
>
> Allow me to underscore this:
>
> . . . Mayer used his strong political connections to persuade the Justice Department to sue
> Fox for violating federal antitrust laws . . .
>
> Setting in motion the series of unfortunate events that led to the fall of Pynchon and
> Company. Enemy action, in this case, coming from the Federal government.
>
> Ah, but I digress.
>
> F. W. Murnau’s Nosferatu is probably that director’s most famous film today, an unlicensed
> ‘adaptation’ of Bram Stoker’s Dracula:
>
> “ . . . Even with several details altered, Stoker's widow, Florence, sued over the
> adaptation's copyright violation, and a court ruling ordered all copies of the film to be
> destroyed. However, several prints of Nosferatu survived, and the film came to be regarded
> as an influential masterpiece of cinema and the horror genre. Critic and historian Kime
> Newman declared it as a film that set the template for the genre of horror film. The film
> entered the public domain worldwide in 2019. . . “
>
> Nosferatu - Wikipediahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosferatu
>
> https://youtu.be/Ydxl9Gi2jIM?si=5bxgTyvQTsaw9hgwJames “Jimmy” Cagney:
>
> “ . . . Cagney is remembered for playing multifaceted tough guys in films such as The Public
> Enemy (1931), Taxi! (1932), Angels With Dirty Faces (1938), The Roaring Twenties
> (1939), City for Conquest (1940) and White Heat (1949), finding himself typecast in the
> early years of his career. He was able to negotiate dancing opportunities in his films and
> ended up winning the Academy Award for his role of George M. Cohan in the musical
> Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942). In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him eighth on its
> list of greatest male stars of the Golden Ahe of Hollywood. Orson Welles described him as
> maybe the greatest actor who ever appeared in front of a camera".
>
> James Cagney - Wikipediahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Cagney
>
> A few pages before going to Chicago to see Dracula, on page 24:
>
> . . . By the time Hicks understands he should’ve been paying closer attention to what’s
> going on, the moment has arrived when April is using the movies as an alibi for her
> whereabouts, a regression to high school Hicks would never have expected.
>
> “The Public Enemy again? It’s three in the morning.”
>
> “They’ve started running it all night, round the clock, young American womanhood, you
> know, we can’t get enough of that Jimmy, knocked all gaga in fact, plenty there to swoon
> over, case I haven’t drooled enough about him to you already.”
>
> “Only part I remember’s that grapefruit really . . . don’t spoze you’d happen to have one
> around . . .
>
> https://youtu.be/k4R5wZs8cxI?si=VC-imJ1i_jUhTE2g
>
> Two tough guys of the screen, circa 1932, but Bela’s got that “X” factor:
>
> . . . “Hicks, you need more culture, a more Continental approach to life and love. At least
> find out what Bela’s putting on his hair” and so forth.
>
> William Powell, James Cagney, now this. Hicks figures he’s in for weeks of sighing, movie
> magazines in uneasy stacks, and whispers of “Oh Bela!” in her sleep . . .
>
> My guess is that Hicks finds out what Bela’s putting on his hair about a year too late to
> impress April.
>
> Hicks still wanted to go to the Villa Venice, his hoped for Valentine’s Day evening
> destination. But before that can happen, Hicks is informed that April Randazzo is about
> to marry Don Peppino Infernacci, a person of some respect in Chicago’s “Outfit” and
> a someone of considerable influence in such social circles.
>
> It is at this juncture of the novel that one sincerely wonders if Hicks can see what is clearly
> in front of him. This is not the first premonition of what is about to come—that’s on the first
> page, with the first explosion. But there’s Thessalie informing Hicks about apports and asports
> on pg. 40, setting us up for weird things in the general region of Transylvania some
> number of pages later. I guess that Thessalie’s useful information comes in handy further
> into the future than whatever future Angie “Vumvum” Voltaggio”s can offer, though it seems
> Hicks still hasn’t got the message by Xmas time.
>
> Back to Dracula. It’s the movie that made Bela Lugosi a star, also the role that typecast him
> for life. The man first appears in Against the Day on page 913 as Béla Blaskó:
>
> . . . “For young English újházaspár,” loudly announced Miklós the desk clerk, ignoring all the
> agricultural smudges and handing over a pair of tickets, “compliments of this Hotel!
> Wonderful show tonight at the Varosi Színház! The incomparable Béla Blaskó, our famous
> actor from Lugos, singing and dancing in a new operetta straight from Vienna! If only you
> had been here last week to see Béla as Romeo”—producing a local newspaper and
> opening it to the theater review—“look, they said ‘fiery… passionately loving …’ but—no
> need to tell you two, eh?” “Well,” Kit demurred. “Oh, c’mon,” Dally said mischievously, “it’ll
> be fun.” As it turned out, it was a pretty good show, though they didn’t quite catch the whole
> thing . . .
>
> The show is “The Burgher King.”
>
> “. . . The Operetta, all the rage in Vienna at the moment, was called The Burgher King, in
> which the ruler of a fictional country in Central Europe, feeling disconnected from his
> people, decides to go out among them disguised as a member of the urban middle class.
>
> The first act closed with young Béla Blaskó, playing the Burgher King, wearing a silk hat at a
> rakish angle and twirling a cane, in front of a corps of dancers and . . .
>
> (Singing a stupid song. Maybe’s there’s some kabbablaistic code in there somewhere, but
> let’s move on while the groat-cakes are still hot.)
>
> . . . Which by the first-act curtain had Dally mesmerized into some peculiar wide-eyed
> state.
>
> “Ain’t like I never saw a charming leading man before, seen ’em come and go, but this lad is
> the goods, I tell you—and Hungarian, too!”
>
> Kit guessed so. “But what’s with that piece of business where he bites old Heidi’s neck,
> what was that all about?”
>
> “Something they do in these parts? You’re the one with the college education.” Her look
> just short of what you’d call innocent.
>
> Kit peered back, trying to resist the nitwit smile that was about to take over his face. “Well,
> hard to say, you know, my Hungarian being a little rusty and all, but… didn’t it look to you
> like that she was, sort of … going for it?”
>
>
> “What. Having her neck bitten.” Slipping she was sure she didn’t know why into her
> country-weekend mode of English accent.
>
> “Well here, let’s just—
>
> 916
>
> Whatever’s going on here, it’s making Kit and Dally very hot, getting back to
> their room, getting busy with Dally experiencing a Paprika flashback afterwards.
>
> But now that you mention it, Kit:
>
> “But what’s with that piece of business where he bites old Heidi’s neck, what was that al
> l about?”
>
> We’ll have to come back to that later, first note Pierce Inverarity's phone call to Oedipa from
> Pierce Inverarity very early on in The Crying of Lot 49:
>
> . . . It took her till the middle of Huntley and Brinkley to remember that last year at three or so
> one morning there had come this long-distance call, from where she would never know (unless
> now he'd left a diary) by a voice beginning in heavy Slavic tones as second secretary at the
> Transylvanian Consulate, looking for an escaped bat . . .
>
> 2/3
>
> Hmmm . . . wonder who this is supposed to be. . . Oh, that's right, he's that "Anarchist Miracle":
>
> "You know what a miracle is. Not what Bakunin said. But another world's intrusion into this one.
> Most of the time we coexist peacefully, but when we do touch there's cataclysm. Like the church
> we hate, anarchists also believe in another world. Where revolutions break out spontaneous
> and leaderless, and the soul's talent for consensus allows the masses to work together without
> effort, automatic as the body itself. And yet, sena, if any of it should ever really happen that
> perfectly, I would also have to cry miracle. An anarchist miracle. Like your friend. He is too
> exactly and without flaw the thing we fight. In Mexico the privilegiado is always, to a finite
> percentage, redeemed one of the people. Unmiraculous. But your friend, unless he's joking, is
> as terrifying to me as a Virgin appearing to an Indian." . . .
>
> 105/106
>
> In Vineland we witness Mucho Maas’ transformation into Count Drugula:
>
> . . . Mucho Maas, originally a disk jockey, had decided around 1967, after a divorce
> remarkable even in that more innocent time for its geniality, to go into record producing.
> The business was growing unpredictable, and his takeoff was abrupt — soon, styling
> himself Count Drugula, Mucho was showing up at Indolent, down in the back-street
> Hollywood flats south of Sunset and east of Vine, in a chauffeured Bentley, wearing joke-
> store fangs and a black velvet cape from Z & Z, scattering hits of high-quality acid among
> the fans young and old who gathered daily for his arrival. "Count, Count! Lay some dope on
> us!" they'd cry. Indolent Records had rapidly become known for its unusual choices of
> artists and repertoires. Mucho was one of the very first to audition, but not, he was later to
> add hastily, to call back, fledgling musician Charles Manson. He almost signed Wild Man
> Fischer, and Tiny Tim too, but others got to them first . . .
>
> 309
>
> Warner Brothers—the folks what cooked up the Vitaphone system for sound on
> film?—if I recall correctly—via subsidiaries Reprise and Bizarre Records. Of
> course, this was the golden age of drugola/payola. Check out “Hit Men” by Frederick
> Dannen for more:
>
> Hit Men | Penguin Random House Higher Educationhttps://penguinrandomhousehighereducation.com/book/?isbn=9780679730613
>
> Inherent Vice has a very interesting placement of Van Helsing’s name:
>
> “Handsome stone,” Doc said.
>
> Like an actress hitting her mark, she had come to a pause beneath a looming portrait of
> Mickey Wolfmann, shown with a distant stare, as if scanning the L.A. Basin to its farthest
> horizons for buildable lots. She whirled to face Doc and smiled sociably. “Here we are, then.”
>
> Doc noticed a sort of fake chiseled stone frieze above the portrait, which read, ONCE YOU
> GET THAT FIRST STAKE DRIVEN, NOBODY CAN STOP YOU.— ROBERT MOSES.
>
> “A great American, and Michael’s inspiration,” said Sloane. “That’s always been his motto.”
>
> “I thought Dr. Van Helsing said that.”
>
> She’d found and stopped exactly inside a flattering convergence of lights that made her
> look like some contract star of the grand studio era, about to let loose with an emotional
> speech at some less expensive actor. Doc tried not to glance around too obviously to see
> where the light was coming from, but she noticed the flicker off his eyeballs.
>
> “Do you like the lighting? Jimmy Wong Howe did it for us years ago.”
>
> “The D.P. on Body and Soul wasn’t he? Not to mention They Made Me a Criminal, Dust Be
> My Destiny, Saturday’s Children—”
>
> “Those,” quizzically, “are all . . . John Garfield movies. . .”
>
> 58
>
> John Garfield takes up a lot of space in Inherent Vice. HUAC and all that.
>
> There is a completely obscure reference in Bleeding Edge, demonstrating once again how
> Dracula is the rug that ties the whole room together. Really early on, page 12, we have
> Maxine’s “Cruise Ship”, the Hungarian tramp container vessel M/V Aristide Olt, which just
> happens to be a name the future Bela Lugosi used as a younger actor, and it also points to
> the time Hungary still had a port in Fiume:
>
> . . . Returning to Arsztid Olt's film career, eleven Hungarian feature films followed 1917's,
> "Leoni Leo". Two stand-out to English film goers. The actor portrayed "Lord Henry
> Wotton", in director Alfred Deesy's, "Az elet kiralya (The Royal Life)", a Hungarian
> adaption of playwright Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray", released
> in Budapest, on January 21, 1918. . .
>
> THE HOUSE OF FRADKIN-STEIN: Béla Lugosi: Arisztid Olt and Other Children of the Nighthttps://www.bewaretheblog.com/2025/11/bela-lugosi-arisztid-olt-and-other.html
>
> So, again we ask: “But what’s with that piece of business where he bites old Heidi’s neck,
> what was that all about?”
>
> Perhaps the metaphor of Dracula as Old Money/Capital?
>
> Gravity’s Rainbow is full of references to Dracula, Bela Lugosi, and the concept of Vampires
> in the leftist economic sense, explicitly in this passage:
>
> “ . . . It means this War was never political at all, the politics was all theatre, all just to keep
> the people distracted…secretly, it was being dictated instead by the needs of
> technology…by a conspiracy between human beings and techniques, by something that
> needed the energy-burst of war, crying, “Money be damned, the very life of [insert name of
> Nation] is at stake,” but meaning, most likely, dawn is nearly here, I need my night’s blood,
> my funding, funding, ahh more, more…The real crises were crises of allocation and priority,
> not among firms—it was only staged to look that way—but among the different
> Technologies, Plastics, Electronics, Aircraft, and their needs which are understood only by
> the ruling elite…
>
> Yes but Technology only responds (how often this argument has been iterated, dogged,
> humorless as a Gaussian reduction, among the younger Schwarzkommando especially),
> “All very well to talk about having a monster by the tail, but do you think we’d’ve had the
> Rocket if someone, some specific somebody with a name and a penis hadn’t wanted to
> chuck a ton of Amatol 300 miles and blow up a block full of civilians? Go ahead, capitalize
> the T on technology, deify it if it’ll make you feel less responsible—but it puts you in with the
> neutered, brother, in with the eunuchs keeping the harem of our stolen Earth for the numb
> and joyless hardons of human sultans, human elite with no right at all to be where they
> are—”
>
> 529/530
>
> There are right-wing discussions about Dracula and Capitalism, pointing out that Bram
> Stoker was of the social/Financial elite of England and portrayed the character Dracula
> more as a xenophobic threat, typical right-wing fears of "the other", but it’s the left-wing
> discussions that hold more social currency.
>
> Dracula: A Symbol of Capitalist Fear
>
> . . . Count Dracula is presented in Dracula as a foreboding, aristocratic character whose
> main goal is to feed off of the human characters, such as Lucy and Mina, and gain an
> unquenchable desire for strength – both over the characters as they become dependent on
> him, and strength from the blood he takes from them. Franco Moretti discusses this point,
> describing Dracula as “a metaphor for capital” (433) who “sets out on the irreversible road
> of concentration and monopoly” (433). Dracula’s character represents a motif for
> capitalism, and the struggle to maintain authority over other capitalist societies . . .
>
> Dracula: A Symbol of Capitalist Fear – Late 19th Century British Literature & Culturehttps://blogs.dickinson.edu/britishlit/2016/03/10/dracula-a-symbol-of-capitalist-fear/
>
> Franco Moretti’s “The Dialectic of Fear” represents Left-wing consensus on the subject:
>
> 'Capital is dead labour which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labour, and lives the
> more, the more labour it sucks.' Marx's analogy unravels the vampire metaphor. As
> everyone knows, the vampire is dead and yet not dead: he is an Un-Dead, a 'dead' person
> who yet manages to live thanks to the blood he sucks from the living. Their strength
> becomes his strength. The stronger the vampire becomes, the weaker the living become:
> 'the capitalist gets rich, not, like the miser, in proportion to his personal labour and
> restricted consumption, but at the same rate as he squeezes out labour-power from others,
> and compels the worker to renounce all the enjoyments of life.' Like capital, Dracula is
> impelled towards a continuous growth, an unlimited expansion of his domain:
> accumulation is inherent in his nature. 'This', Harker exclaims, 'was the being I was helping
> to transfer to London, where, perhaps for centuries to come, he might, amongst its teeming
> millions, satiate his lust for circle of semi-demons to batten on blood, and create a new
> and ever widening circle of semi-demons to batten on the helpless.' 'And so the circle goes
> on ever widening', Van Helsing says later on; and Seward describes Dracula as 'the father or
> furtherer of a new order of beings'.
>
> Moretti, "The Dialectic of Fear"https://knarf.english.upenn.edu/Articles/moretti.html
>
> In essence, them that’s got shall have, them that’s not shall lose.
>
> https://youtu.be/mp349H8G0XQ?si=zMotozstbPO8u4Eq
>
> What’s that sucking sound?
>
> Capital in the Twenty-First Centuryhttps://dowbor.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/14Thomas-Piketty.pdf
>
> I will get back to these themes later on in the novel, as Hicks heads east into the center of the
> fascist storm engulfing Europe. But we will rest here and catch our breath.
>
> “There must be a Pony in here somewhere!”
>
> --
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