Tuesday, May 24, 2011

In the Twilight of our Lives

This is the 4th in a series of 12 groups on vampires.Stephen would like to find the Twilight books in the public library so he can read them. Tegwedd suggested that he ask his daughter if he can borrow them from her. Which is your favorite movie of the so far trilogy? Because of his computer problems, He still has not seen “Eclipse.” Do you prefer the books or the movies? Tegwedd prefers the movies because she couldn’t get through even one chapter of “Twilight”, the first book. It was so jejune. Not everyone prefers the movies; they feel that the movies aren’t faithful enough to the books. Stephen doesn’t understand the concept of “Team Edward” and “Team Jacob.” What’s that about? Stephen wants to know. If he did understand it, he’d go with “Team Edward,” definitely. Which team do you adhere to?

What does anyone know about the author of the books? We’d like to know. We have a task for you. Do research and see if she’s at least Pagan-friendly. How many of you love the soundtracks of the 3 movies? If you’re like Stephen, the soundtrack can make or break a movie for him. This may be a good place to announce that in the next couple months, we’ll be creating a new group called Music Magick for Pagans. This will be the sister group to Abbott’s Inn Bardic Circle. The new group will appear somewhere around Stephen’s birthday when he turns 61 on July 6th.

He personally likes the 3 movies, how the characters are developed. The character development makes you love or hate the characters, depending upon what they’re doing. He puts the character development of these 3 films right under that of our beloved True Blood, which starts its 3rd season late next month (June, it’s May when this is being written and posted). Another vampire series which never made it onto the big screen, but which was an award winning TV series was “Forever Knight.” We plan to do a group about it after doing the Dark Shadows group. Like the music, character development is crucial to Stephen’s interest. He has to be able to care about the characters. He also enjoys it when a series or movie goes to other countries, and doesn’t stay in just one place. Stephen thinks we have a new trend towards a more youthful demographic. Case in point: this Twilight, and the Vampire Diaries, another series that Stephen enjoys. Can you think of any other series or movies that fits this demographic? “The Youngest Vampire” by Disney comes to mind. We both liked it, for all it was a G-rated film. Stephen enjoys this youthful trend, and finds it satisfying. Stephen wants to know if there is going to be a 4th film in the series to finish it up. Tegwedd believes that it is being shot now, or it just finished shooting, and is in post-production, which is when they add all the special effects. Megan brought her father kicking and screaming into this series. It really disturbed the other patrons.

To sum up, Twilight is a very popular series of films based upon the popular tetralogy of Twilight novels. This post has mainly been about the films because neither Stephen nor Tegwedd has read the books. Our next group will be Dark Shadows for Pagans, (which Stephen calls “Dark Shadnoses” because he’s crazy and and into noses like the Firesign Theatre, which is one of our groups). If you want to discover the inner teachings of this “nose-tic” philosophy, come join the Firesign Theatre for Pagans group. It was the Firesign Theatre which got Stephen into “noseticism”. This group is coming in right after Lycanthropy for Pagans and Monsters of the Big and Small Screens for Pagans. We’re going to lighten up things a bit. It’ll be connected to Firesign Theatre for Pagans and the Order of Humor Magick, of which it’ll be a sister group. Only those who have a sense of humor need apply.

Even the President has a sense of humor. What he said about Trump and the other birthers just cracked us up. Trump doesn’t have a sense of humor, however. If you contribute $32 to Obama’s campaign, you’ll get a tee shirt with the legend “Made in the USA” under a picture of Obama on the front, and on the back is Obama’s long form birth certificate, and a matching coffee mug. The Republicans are furious, and they hate it. Stephen knows why they’re furious; They didn’t think of it first.

In Isaac Bonewits’ present condition, his humor is rather deadpan. Go to http://abbottsinn.com/
or http://abbottsinninternational.com and call 1-888-611-7982 for a reading, class or research.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Can't Wait for True Blood

This group is for all of you Pagans who love the HBO show True Blood, which has Pagan elements embedded within it. The new series begins in June. In this season, they’ll be expanding the importance of the Wiccan coven. They’ll also explore Sookie as a faerie and the faeries. Tey’ll also have the usual plots concerning the rivalry between vampires and lycanthropes/shapeshifters, as well as a few other mythological beasties thrown in for extra flavor. As you can tell Stephen and I are rabid fans of this series. It’s so rare wen a sow of this quality and scope honors some Pagan motifs. We’re sure many of you also are also fascinated by the series, and hope it lasts a long time.

We feel it’s only fair to warn you of some sad news. Your writers have fallen victim to a terrible curse. It’s known by many names, but we call it the Abbott’s Inn Kiss of Death. If it’s a TV sow, it gets cancelled, it a product they stop selling it, if a movie, it only has a short run in the theatres. The curse has affected us as long as we’ve worked together. It was in operation long before Tegwedd moved in here. We can only hope that True Blood has a strong following and general popularity great enough that it can escape the Abbott’s Inn Kiss of Deat curse. Many other shows were not so lucky as to escape it. Case in point: Kindred the Embraced was really short lived, as was Moonlight. Both Stephen and Tegwedd loved those series. Doc gave Tegwedd a set of the Kindred the Embraced DVDS. We loved te series so much that our first vampire group celebrates that series.

Abbott’s Inn International School of Magick is proud to announce that it is planning on bringing out more vampire groups. The next group will be Vampires for Pagans, then Twilight for Pagans, then Dark Shadows for Pagans, and Forever Knight for Pagans. We don’t want the werewolves to be left out, so we’ll have Lycanthropes for Pagans, which will consist of all manner of were creatures and shape shifters such as were cats, werebears, were-boars, and were-tigers. The group after Lycanthropes for Pagans will be Monsters of the Silver Screen for Pagans. We’ll pay homage to the great actors who portrayed monsters such as Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney Sr. and Jr., Claude Rains, and modern monsters such as Vincent Price and Jeff Goldblum as the Fly. All of these actors had interesting jobs before they got into film. For example: Boris Karloff, in real life a very cultured and mild mannered gentleman, drove truck and dug graves.

Now the time has come for feedback. What are your favorite vampires and other monster leegnds of the silver screen? Let us know where you want these posts to go; what you want these posts to cover. Do some posts of your own. Ask questions. What topics do you want us to cover within the boundaries of the subject matter of the group?

As always, go to http://abbottsinninternational.com/ , http://abbottsinn.com/ and http://abbottsinn.ning.com/ or call 1-888-611-7982. . .

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Once Putty Haven, Now Putty Prison

Putty Haven has a new name: Putty Prison. Because of several of the putties making unauthorized furlows, Putty prison is in lockdown. Recently Putty Prison’s security has been lax, but with some of the inmates escaping from the exercise yard, after hours, we have had to take drastic measures. One putty has been gone for three weeks, so we think he’s on the lam. Security forces are on his trail, so it is only a matter of time before he returns home. This missing inmate is very important to the to putty morale. He is the sire of several of the inmates. He is greatly missed. During the putties’ recent kittenhood, he was a paws-on dad.

We have a new warden in town, and he has promised to crack down on putty miscreance with severe discipline. Inky is a trustie who is trying to track down Little Boy the escapee. As I write this, two more escape have occurred; Frakki and Dr. Livingston have flown the coop.

Stephen Abbott, the new warden has said, “These escapes will not be tolerated.”

Breaking news: Dr. Livingston just came in again, to be followed a few minutes later by Frakki. Dr. Livingston was convicted in 2010 of practicing medicine without a license. Ma Bailee, who started this whole thing, practices crossed paws as a means of communication; sign language.

Because of these new draconian laws, the putties have sworn revenge, and the warden and assistant warden fear reprisals. In a recent interview with the press, Warden Abbott was heard to say, “these measures are necessary in order to protect the inmates from false bounty hunters and other collectors of putties.

Like other Republicans, he says, “I feel bad about having to take such extreme measures, but order must be maintained.”

Civil rights groups have activated in defense of the putty inmates.

Warden Abbott says, “Leave it to these bleeding heart liberals to impede progress in the enforcement of law.”

There will be more reports on progress made in the apprehending of these putty miscreants as tey happen. Stay tuned to this cat station and this ccat channel