With this afternoon’s loss to the Blue Jays the Tigers record in day games now stands at a remarkable 0-10. A quick check of the splits reveals that the Tigers have been outscored 57 to 18 in day games. Yes, the offense has mustered less than 2 runs a game before the sun sets.

After dusk the Tigers are 6-3 and have scored 59 runs while allowing 60. So the pitching has been pretty inadequate no matter what time it is. The differences in offense however are dramatic to say the least. The following numbers aren’t inclusive of the Sunday tilt:

And if you look at the individuals, it is the biggest of the boppers (Ordonez/Cabrera) that have the biggest trouble during the day and the most success at night. Guillen has just been good regardless. But for the other two, and you can throw Renteria in there as well, this isn’t reflective of career trends. They’re typically just as good no matter what time it is.

And what makes this even weirder is to think back to the Tigers big rallies:

• April 9th @Boston: 4 runs in the 4th, 2 runs in the 8th, 1 in the 9th
• April 10th @Boston: 2 runs in the 4th, 1 run in the 7th, 3 runs in the 8th
• April 14th Minnesota: 11 runs in the 6th through 8th innings
• April 15th Minnesota: 5 runs in 6th through 8th innings
• April 16th @Cleveland: 11 runs 5th through 9th innings
• April 18th @Toronto: 7 runs in 6th through 9th innings

So by my rough count, 49 of the 59 runs they’ve plated in night games have come after the 3rd inning. That’s about an hour into the game which coincides with sunset. Coincidence?

Try as I might, I don’t have an explanation for this at all. Still, as the days continue to get longer this doesn’t bode well for the next several months. Of course if it has something to do with biorythms maybe it can be solved with a trip to the West Coast.

Some possible theories:

1. This is simply a coincidence. The Tigers have faced better pitchers during the day. It will work itself out.
2. The Tigers batting practice schedule gets thrown off for a day game and they don’t get as much early work in.
3. There is too much glare during the day this time of year and they don’t see the ball well with natural light. The Tigers played 3 day games under overcast conditions and scored 4 runs in one and 5 in another (they were shut out in the 3rd). So in the other 7 sunnny games the team scored 9 runs. Three of the four shut outs came on sunny afternoons.
4. They need an earlier curfew because they are just too sleepy during the day games.
5. Now this last one is a tad far fetched but stick with me: Clete Thomas is a carrier for vampire traits.
   • The players, both those on the Tigers and new comers like Renteria and Cabrera, have never had these types of splits before.
   • Clete is the only position player injected into the clubhouse without a track record we can check
   • Carlos Guillen always wears a cross and he hasn’t been effected
   • He could have infected Curtis Granderson first, dulling his reactions leading to the HBP. The ensuing DL stint is how Thomas made the roster in the first place.
   • Has anyone ever seen Clete eating garlic? I didn’t think so.
   • This would support items 3 and 4 as well.

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The following review has been written by guest blogger, 7th grade Regie Cruz who attends the American School of Bombay:

Eclipse is truly an amazing book. It’s the sequel to New Moon which is the sequel to Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. This time, Bella and Edward are back together and happy…until Victoria comes back. But this time, Victoria has help from other newborn vampires. This could cause a war in Forks and expose the vampires’ and werewolves’ identities. The Cullens can’t handle her and her ‘army’ alone, so they ask for help from the werewolf pack. The only reason the pack is helping is because of Jacob. For Jacob and Edward, this is a war for Bella’s safety and a war for her heart.

Authored by Dear Librarian. Hosted by Edublogs.

To celebrate St. Patricks’ Day I filmed a performance on the elevated train this weekend with the help of young Chicago filmmaker Liz Hood. The resulting video is a companion piece to Horror Make-up from 2006. I’ve been thinking about this performance for over a year, and can’t believe it took me this long to execute. I guess I’ve been busy.

Horror Stories, my new show at ThreeWalls in Chicago, opened on Friday. The Sparkling, an interactive video installation, is the highlight - shown above and below. The haunted chandelier gets eerier as visitors approach, a reference to chandeliers in films like The Amityville Horror, and also non-horror films like The War of the Roses. Thanks to the wonderful artists and administrators at ThreeWalls for all their support, especially Shannon, Lucy, Elizabeth, Andy, and Liz. Also to Josh Rose and Cesar Cornejo who helped me in New York with programming and putting together the chandelier.

Also on view are:

TV = Evil which juxtaposes little girls and TVs from Poltergeist and The Ring. Playing on a TV in a room all alone, it’s creepy.

Vamp it Up, a companion piece to Horror Make-up, filmed on the Chicago elevated train. More info about this work in my Performance section. Special thanks to Beckley Roberts and Liz Hood who secretly filmed these performances, and to Elizabeth for driving me half way around town in search of fangs, size XS.

Everyone Will Suffer, an animation featuring taglines recited from popular horror films and a low-fi animated country sunset.

Vampires Are Forever (Argeneau Vampires, Book by Lynsay Sands is another installment in the saga of the Argeneau family vampires, or, immortals, as they prefer.

Inez Urso is a confident professional woman who somehow managed to become a vice president of the European division of Argeneau Enterprises without finding out the family secret. Of course, she is the one selected to meet the charming Thomas Argeneau.

They do not start off on the right foot. Thomas did not know Bastien had sent her for him and she, of course, is rather upset to have been snubbed.

Both Inez and Thomas are to investigate the disappearance of the Argeneau matriarch, Marguerite. She, and her business partner, Tiny, have disappeared somewhere in Europe while investigating a case. What has happened? And, why is it so important to prevent them from finding Marguerite?

Ms. Sands is making us wait for the next installment,
Vampire, Interrupted (Argeneau Vampires, Book 9), which I am waiting for with baited breath!

I love this series and cannot recommend these books more highly if you enjoy paranormal romance!

Lil Marchette is a born vampire on a mission - to hook up every eligible creature in New York. Of course, in order to do this she has to avoid the hunky Made Vampire, Ty, but finds herself hearing him suffer through their shared blood tie. Where has he gotten to? And who is this gorgeous, unreadable male that is trying to find him through her? Of course, her mother continues to try and set up her with every unattached Born Vampire she can find.

Complicating matters, her brother is about to marry a human woman who has roped her into being a part of the wedding preparations - as a bridesmaid. She has also found herself in the running as a contestant in a The Bachelor rip-off.

This book is just fun. No brains needed to enjoy - and that is something we all need sometimes.

Nach der Pfingstpause letzte Woche geht’s wieder weiter mit der Sexy-Beasts-Reihe – allerdings anders als geplant: anstatt dem vorgesehenen Film „Ten Rillington Place“, der nicht rechtzeitig eingetroffen ist, gabs den Hammer-Klassiker „Dracula“ von 1958 mit Christopher Lee und Peter Cushing. Ich fass mich hier nur ganz kurz, wer eine ausführlichere und vor allem fundiertere Kritik möchte kann ja warten, bis Oliver mit seiner „Dracula vs Frankenstein“-Reihe weitermacht, diese Verfilmung dürfte dort als nächstes dran kommen (ahja, jetzt ist sie da).

Regisseur: Terence Fisher
Musik: James Bernard
Darsteller: Peter Cushing, Cristopher Lee, Michael Gough
Crew: Jimmy Sangster (screenplay)
Erscheinungsjahr: 1958

STORY
Jonathan Harker (John Van Eyssen) bewirbt sich als Bibliothekar bei Graf Dracula (Christopher Lee) – in Wirklichkeit will er aber den Vampir töten. Er schafft es auch eine Geliebte Draculas aus dem Weg zu räumen, doch Dracula tötet ihn und flieht selbst in die Stadt, wo er sich an Harkers Verlobten rächen will. Vampirforscher Dr Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) setzt alles daran, Draculas Terror ein Ende zu setzen.

REVIEW
Diese Dracula-Verfilmung hat mich weniger beeindruckt, als man bei so einem Klassiker eigentlich erwarten könnte – andererseits bin ich auch wirklich nicht die Person, die man bei Dracula-Filmen um ihre Meinung fragen sollte, bei „Vampir“ denk ich als allererstes an „Tanz der Vampire“ (Musical und Film) und „From Dusk Till Dawn“ und dann „Interview with a Vampire“ und dann vielleicht auch mal an Dracula.

Obwohl der Film nicht lang ist (82 Minuten) weist er die meiste Zeit ein eher gemächliches Tempo auf. Eine gruselig-düstere Atmosphäre wird zwar ganz ordentlich aufgebaut, so richtige Spannung kommt aber nicht auf, erst zum Finale kommt dann eine Ladung Schwung in die Sache. Das Finale trumpft dazu auch noch mit ziemlich schicken Effekten auf, so dass man doch ziemlich zufrieden aus dem Film geht.

Wenig überzeugen konnte mich die Musik von Hammer-Hauskomponist James Bernard – die war einfach zu übertrieben. Ich versteh ja, dass die Vorstellungen von Filmmusik damals anders waren als heute, und vielleicht hätte es schon geholfen, wenn der Ton im Hörsaal besser gewesen wäre – aber wenn jede Horrorszene mit aufgedrehter, dramatischer Musik erstickt wird, kann da kein Grusel aufkommen. Aber es scheint damals gut angekommen zu sein, sonst hätte Bernard nicht für den Rest seines Lebens weiter Scores zu Horrorfilmen geschrieben.

Ein großer Pluspunkt des Films sind dagegen die Schauspieler, denen man wirklich gerne zusieht. Peter Cushing trägt den Film spielend mit seinem charismatisch-strengen Van Helsing und Christopher Lee ist ein großartiger Dracula, wird allerdings für meinen Geschmack viel zu wenig eingesetzt – man hätte dem großen Schreckensfürsten hier wirklich mehr Szenen geben können und ihn nicht nur ein paar Mal drohend in irgendwelchen Türen stehen lassen. Michael Gough gibt sympathischen und kraftvollen Support, während John Van Eyssen zwar nicht lang dabei ist, aber recht schnuffig (auch wenn seine Tagebuch-Voiceovers eher billig wirken). Ein paar Frauen sind natürlich auch dabei, aber die müssen hauptsächlich kreischen oder Dracula mit großen Augen anstarren.
[btw: mir ist hier mal wieder aufgefallen, wie stark in meinem Kopf Peter Cushing mit Star Wars verknüpft ist – ich mach mir deswegen jetzt etwas Sorgen für den Fall, dass ich mal die Doctor-Who-Filme mit Cushing sehe. Da droht dann das Fangirl-Zentrum in meinem Hirn zu implodieren…]

Nun, für Dracula-Fans und Freunde der Hammer Horror Filme ist dieser Dracula sicher sehr lohnend, für Leute wie mich eher weniger. Mehr Dracula gibt’s in meiner Sexy-Beasts-Reihe übrigens am 9.06., da wird Francis Ford Coppolas “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” gezeigt, ich denke, dass diese Verfilmung dann eher meinen Sehgewohnheiten entspricht.

Looks like we’re going to see a flood of new movies based on Naruto, Bleach, Death Note and more.

From AWN News:

Japanese manga and graphic novel publisher VIZ Media is starting a production company to create films from their catalogue, including NARUTO, BLEACH and DEATH NOTE, per VARIETY.

Jason Hoffs, former production exec at Amblin and DreamWorks, will head up the company, based in Hollywood.

Japanese publishing houses Shogakukan, Shueisha and Hakusensha are the parent companies. Those three publish almost half of all manga that comes to the U.S.

Hoffs will be a mediator between the creative licensors in Japan and Hollywood, with VIZ Prods. to develop some titles in house.

“Properties like NARUTO, BLEACH, DEATH NOTE, VAMPIRE KNIGHT and MONSTER are just a few properties that show the massive appeal of manga to many different demographics, and we have an almost endless pool of titles to draw from,” Hoffs said to VARIETY.

VIZ is just one of many publishing companies taking the Japanese example and setting up production pipelines for their own content. Newspaper giant THE NEW YORK TIMES and videogame company Capcom have also recently announced film projects.

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By way of buildup to next Monday’s (miss it and you’ll die crying) John Polidori Vampyre-fest, I hereby present a post on a strangely neglected topic. Namely, “Mathematics and the Undead”.

Like many parents of glamorous (i.e. brown & damp) 70s Ireland my folks were doorstepped by one of the then ubiquitous (and aggressively persuasive) roving World Book salesmen. The end result of this exchange was a shelf full of sober volumes that told us more than we ever wanted to know about American state capitals and the intricacies of the US political system. Thrilling. The modest spoonful of sugar that helped this medicine go down came in the form of “Childcraft” - World Book’s attempt to edutain and entercate the youth of planet earth.

Volume 13 in the series was Mathemagic, a typically sneaky example of the lengths adult educators often go to in their quest to groovify the ungroovy. Though most of its pages left me searching for “magic” that palpably wasn’t there, a section called “Multiplying Vampires” kept me gripped and appalled.

“To stay alive”, Mathemagic told us “a vampire has to bite about one person a week”. After this (it continued) “the person bitten becomes a vampire too!”. Note the exclamation mark used to punctuate that sinister piece of lore. In the original text it’s a big round jolly one. The kind Enid Blyton might have used to cap a sentence like “Noddy had never tasted such smashing jam!”. I’m looking at it right now. It’s fantastically inappropriate.

Perhaps realising the unsettling oddness of its tone, “Multiplying Vampires” then shifts toward reassurance:

Many people believe there really are such creatures as vampires. But there aren’t, of course. And you can use multiplication to prove to your friends that there’s no such thing as a vampire.

Good ol’ multiplication. There then follows a tedious passage that describes how vamps would create other vamps who would, in turn, create yet more vamps (and so on), before we’re abruptly asked:

Do you see what is happening?

My response to this question, back in 1979, was something along the lines of “Yes I do see what is happening. The world is becoming progressively more well stocked with vampires. I’m scared. Make it stop.”

But it doesn’t stop:

At the end of the fifth week there would be two times sixteen, or thirty-two vampires, and so on. And, as this keeps on, the number of bloodthirsty vampires grows by leaps and bounds.

Waaah! And on we go. Tenth week? 1,024 vampires. Fifteenth week? 32,768 vampires. Twentieth week?

…there would be 1,048,536 vampires. That’s right - more than a million vampires!

The gleeful italics and exclamation mark once again rubbed the stinky turd of fear firmly in our small anxious faces. By week 32 we’re up to 4,294,967,286 vampires and we’ve sobbed ourselves into a hysterical puddle.

But wait a minute!

Go on…

There are only about four billion people in the whole world!1

So that means…

…if there ever had been just one vampire, every person in the world would have been turned into a vampire in just thirty-two weeks! And because you know very well that you and your friends aren’t vampires, you know there never was such a thing as a vampire. See?

The inevitable result of reading the words “because you know very well that you and your friends aren’t vampires” was, of course, to start me suspecting the complete opposite - that all my friends were vampires. Far from offering crumbs of rational comfort, “Multiplying Vampires” ends up reading like juvenile propaganda slipped into the education system by actual vampires keen to keep pesky kids from sticking their grubby noses into their various global plots and schemes.

As if to practically admit to this suspicion the final double-page spread shows hordes of the undead lining up to enter an extravagant Gothic manor. Their HQ, no doubt, for “Operation Suck Childrens’ Faces Off”.

Look at the evil bastards. Laughing and leering it up thanks to the “Mathemagic” that proved they couldn’t exist.

There’s a lesson in there somewhere.

1. Betraying its age here. [back]

On my way into work this morning, as I tried to shake off the dull lethargy that frequently grips me in the hours before noon, I saw a giant version of this on the back of a bus:

Now much as I often find advertising (large or small) vaguely upsetting and oppressive, I still like to think of myself as someone who can “decode” its meaning(s). Actually, this is probably why I find it upsetting and oppressive.

I usually know which buttons it’s attempting to press, which inadequacies it’s trying to prey upon, which longings and lusts it’s pandering to etc. In the case of the above image, however, I’m at something of a loss. What exactly is the (esoteric) National Dairy Council trying to say?

Milk will protect you from (or make you more attractive to) sexy cyborgs from the future? Milk, while undoubtedly natural, may turn your hair pink and render you a drooling zombie? Milk - it’ll rock your world…like a big scary floating head in a void?

Answers please.