Barackula!

~I just finished the novel Fledgling, by the late Octavia Butler, which is one of the books assigned in my Popular Materials class for the Spring semester. Fledgling is a science-fiction story about modern vampires (known as Ina), and in particular, one young vampire who has lost her memory and must discover who is hunting her and her family.

While it was initially enjoyable, I felt that it jumped the shark when I realized, about halfway through the book, that it was all about racism. See, the main vampire character is black as a genetic experiment allowing her to resist sunlight, but some racist vampires don't like her being black!! Seriously, I like my metaphors a bit less obvious. Also, there was entirely too much weird sex going on with human "symbionts" bonded to the vampires; for example, the main character is 57 years old, but appears to be only 10...you can probably guess where that's going.

Speaking of vampires, I recently stumbled across the website for the musical Barackula, and...well, here's the description from the website:

"Barackula is a short political horror rock musical about young Barack Obama having to stave off a secret society of vampires at Harvard when he was inducted into presidency at the Harvard Law Review in 1990. Obama (Justin Sherman) finds that he must convince the vampire society that opposing political philosophies can coexist or else the society may transform Obama to the dark side. Reminiscent to Michael Jackson's Thriller and a slight infusion of Jesus Christ Superstar and The Rocky Horror Picture Show."

Of course, some people feel that Barack is already on the dark side (*coughmomcough*), but from the above description, how can you not watch Barackula? Besides, the film manages to take potshots at both the Clintons and Mrs. Obama. If you have a few minutes and need a laugh, it's well worth watching. You can see the whole thing online (it's about 12 minutes long). If nothing else, it shows how much fun we're going to have making jokes from the new President's endlessly-adaptable first and last names.