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Fountains in Kids’ Rooms

August 16th, 2010 by Al

Kaye Castillo asked:




You’ve tried everything- mellow sounds, bedtime stories, white noise generators, and threats even! But you just can’t get your kids to go to bed. You are not alone on this problem, parents the world over have to deal with the same thing every night. Not to worry-help is here.

Fountains. Yep, you have read that right. Fountains right inside your children’s bedrooms. The sound of running water from your indoor fountain is calming and can easily sooth your child’s restlessness. The soothing sound from the fountain can also block out unwanted noise that might wake your child up during the night. During the cold months, where there is low humidity, fountains work as a natural humidifier, thus helping your child feel more comfortable inside his room. Low humidity can dry out your child’s skin and his mucous membranes. Also, it feels colder than it actually is when indoor humidity is extremely low. A fountain inside the bedroom will also clean the air as it attracts dust particles.

All that sounds great and I have not yet mentioned the aesthetic value it will add to your child’s room. Compared to white noise generators or humidifiers, which are bulky and not pleasant to the eyes, water fountains are not only calming to the eyes but soothing to the eyes as well. Choosing a fountain can be a bonding moment for you and your kid. There are a lot of varieties to choose from. When you think about it, the fun begins with choosing.

Tabletop fountains and wall fountains are highly recommended as they can be placed out of reach of your children. There are fountains with foggers and lights that change colors and they are an instant hit with the kids! There are also fountains that come with nature sounds and that will add to the relaxing mood while the water from your wall or tabletop fountain is running.

Cleaning the fountain can also be an activity that you and your kids can do together. What you and your kids can do is replace the water every 3-4 months or so. You explain to them that this is necessary to prevent the growth of algae and bacteria. Anti-white scale water treatments and algae treatments are available in the market. These are highly effective in preventing the growth of algae and bacteria. These are also safe for your kids and your pets. You would also want to check the water level every two weeks or so to make sure that there is enough water. Fountains. Get one for your kids. You might be surprised at their change of attitude towards bedtime-and more.

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5 Tips to Creating Awesome Tooth Fairy Letters For Your Child

August 12th, 2010 by Al

T Holfelder asked:

Creating magical and fun letters and notes for your child does not take a great amount of artistic ability. Your child will love any type of letter or note and will add some very happy magic to your child’s tooth loss. Creating Tooth Fairy letters is not hard. It does not have to be extravagant really. Your child will love even a short note from the tooth fairy. It does not matter if you write a last minute note in the middle of the night or spend time and prepare for this fun and exciting visit. So here are 5 tips to help you get started:

Try to pick paper that your child will not see laying around the house. Kids are smart and they may become suspicious if the letter or note arrive on the same paper that mom writes her grocery list on. You can pick up some stationery for your project at the store for an affordable rate or simply use a blank piece of paper. Try to disguise your handwriting or even use a fun font on your word processing program. You dont want your child to recognize your handwriting. Take advantage of this moment to encourage your child to continue practicing good dental care. If your child knows the Tooth Fairy is watching and noticed good brushing your child is more likely to continue. Enclose some goodies in your Tooth Fairy letters. You can slip a few special stickers, a new tooth brush or any other little item you feel your child would like. Send notes and letters throughout the year when you notice your child is not brushing as they should and remind them that they need to care for their teeth throughout the year.

By sending Tooth Fairy letters to your child during this exciting time will add some magical and fun memories for you and your child. They will also make great keepsakes for albums that can be enjoyed as your child grows. It is not hard to create Tooth Fairy letters for your child. They do not have to be elaborate or fancy for your child to enjoy them. Your child’s toothless grin will prove that when they receive the Tooth Fairy letter in the morning.

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The ‘Good Vampire’ Archetype – A Brief Incursion Into the Origins of Vampire Stories

August 10th, 2010 by Al

Jo Hedesan asked:

There is a new vampire movie in town called Twilight. Twilight is built on a best-selling novel featuring a forbidden love between a mortal girl, Bella, and an immortal vampire, Edward (1). Like Angel in the series of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the vampire-boy Edward is haunted by his own immortality and ‘stuck between two worlds’. Edward is the newest (and perhaps cleanest) of the breed that I would call the ‘good vampires’: he is an innocent as he has inherited his vampirism from his parents and, to top it all, avoids drinking human blood at all costs. His image made me think of the tendency in today’s pop culture to portray romantic, good vampires. Coppola’s Dracula, vampire Louis in Interview with the Vampire or Buffy’s Angel immediately spring to mind. This led me to wonder: what is the prototype of the ‘good vampire’? To find out, I thought to go back to the source of modern vampire stories. At the end of the line I re-discovered one legendary summer night back in 1816.

On a dark and stormy night in Switzerland, a few illustrious friends met at Lord Byron’s Villa Dorati (2). Amongst the invitees the most well known were Percy Shelley and his wife Mary Shelley; a less famous character was Dr. Polidori. Lord Byron came up with the idea of a contest: each should write their own supernatural tale. Out of this competition originated Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Yet, there was a second book that today is almost forgotten: Dr. Polidori’s The Vampyre. It is ironic that one rainy night could spawn two major twentieth century pop myths: Frankenstein and the Vampire (later called Dracula).

It might be worth to add that the two characters are quite morally opposite. Where Shelley’s Dr Frankenstein is a well-intended, if misguided, man whose thirst for knowledge ends up creating a monster, Polidori’s vampire is a monster that hides behind the image of a well-intended man. Is it perhaps that the ‘good vampire’ myth comes from Shelley’s Frankenstein? There are connections between the figures, but the vampire is not a Frankenstein-like man of science: he is usually portrayed as an aristocrat. Perhaps I should go deeper in analyzing Polidori’s vampire.

The Vampyre’s villain, Lord Ruthven, just as the later Count Dracula, is a refined, magnetic gentleman who mesmerizes everyone in his presence (3). Underneath this polished appearance, however, rests a predatory vampire that feeds on the living.

This now classical image of the vampire appears as a strange combination of folklore and culture. In folklore the vampire is little more than a monster, who comes back from the grave to suck the blood of the living (4). Yet Polidori’s vampire is something totally different: a sophisticated aristocrat that only incidentally sleeps in a grave. How did such a mutation come about?

Many suggest that the prototype of Lord Ruthven is Lord Byron himself (5). At the same time, we should not forget that Polidori was writing his work in an era when the concept of the Immortal had been introduced in literature by the seminal book of William Godwin (Mary Shelley’s father), St. Leon.

The novel features a charismatic nobleman, St Leon, who acquires the alchemical elixir of life from a mysterious man, Zampieri. St Leon is a benevolent gentleman whose ultimate motive is to aid mankind, but ends up being tortured by the curse of immortal life (6). It is the idea of obsessing with immortality that Godwin condemns, not St Leon himself. Yet, in writing his novel, Godwin establishes the literary image of the ‘cursed immortal’, the wanderer who can find no peace. The prototype was almost immediately taken up by Percy Shelley, Godwin’s son-in-law, who published an almost copycat version called St Irvyne or the Rosicrucian (7). Here, again, we have the noble gentleman, Wolfstein, that is offered promise of eternal life by a mysterious Italian called Ginotti. Yet Shelley’s version is conspicuously darker: Ginotti obtains the elixir from the Devil himself, and in a dramatic ending, the noble Wolfstein is burned to ashes while Ginotti loses his mind.

I don’t know that Polidori had read Godwin and Shelley, but I think this is very likely. Roberts has also briefly pointed out the association between Polidori’s Vampire and the immortal plot (8). In any case, the figure of the lone and aristocratic immortal, who wanders around the earth because of his cursed immortality, has definite affinities with Lord Ruthven and Count Dracula. Yet in Polidori’s work the lone aristocrat is combined with the evil figure of the ‘mystery stranger’ (Zampieri or Ginotti) and hence becomes a two-faced villain. By comparison, both Godwin and Shelley seem to regard the noble figure with certain sympathy: St Leon, after all, only errs on the side of our humanity, who is obsessed with youth and immortality. There is, in fact, strange actuality to St Leon and Wolfstein’s conundrum, which prompts the question: if someone offered you the gift of eternal life, wouldn’t you take it?

It is this sympathetic image of the immortal to which, I think, we can compare the current ‘good vampire’ motif, rather than Polidori’s and Stoker’s vilification. Polidori, of course, provided the vampire prototype; but Coppola’s Dracula, Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Angel and Twilight’s Edward are more akin to Godwin’s unfortunate St Leon than to the evil Lord Ruthven. They are all ‘cursed immortals’ that pay the price of their immortality.

Since I am at it, I would like to further explore how Godwin’s St Leon inspired itself in the ambiguous image of the alchemist and particularly in the image of the mysterious Count of St Germain. Next.

References:

(1) Lady N1. (2008). Plot Summary for Twilight. Online. Available at: imdb.com/title/tt1099212/plotsummary. Accessed on 14 December 2008.
(2) Wikipedia. (2008). The Vampyre. Online. Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vampyre. Accessed on 14 December 2008.
(3) Polidori, J.W. (1819). The Vampyre. Online. Available at: books.google.com/books/p/pub-4297897631756504?id=k1VY81IOnpUC&dq=isbn:1605065692. Accessed on 14 December 2008.
(4) For instance, Murgoci, A. (1926). The Vampire in Romania. Folklore 7 (4), pp. 320-349.
(5) Switzer, R. (1955). Lord Ruthven and Vampires. The French Review 29 (2), pp. 107-112.
(6) Godwin, W. (1799). St Leon. London: Spottiswoode.
(7) Shelley, P.B. (1811). St Irvyne or the Rosicrucian. Kessinger.
(8) Roberts, M. (1990). Gothic Immortals. London: Routledge.

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The Truth About Vampires

August 4th, 2010 by Al

David Slone asked:




The mere mention of the word Vampire brings up an image of a pale white man with sharp teeth drinking blood. Or it may also remind you of a beautiful woman who in an instant would turn into a blood-sucking ghost. While much of this has been fed into our mind by the Vampire movies, there are certain realities as to why they have been pictured like this. Let us now look into the true story behind Vampires that led to all this.

Ancient Vampire Beliefs

The Vampire stories were around long before Vlad the Impaler. Few ancient societies believed in blood thirsty Gods and worshipped them. Some societies, like the Africans were afraid of vampires while others like the Egyptians worshipped them. During the Roman Empire, the Vampire cults flourished. The infertile females believed that drinking the blood of fertile females would make them fertile. Even the males thought that drinking blood would make them more potent. These rumors were spread by the captives and slaves whom the Roman soldiers caught during wars. But this blood drinking practice lead to the spreading of blood related diseases. The Roman emperor then banned this practice and hired assassins to execute those who followed this ritual. The assassins used small daggers which closely resembled the crucifix. Later on, this became the basis of killing a Vampire with a crucifix.

Vlad The Impaler

Vlad the Impaler, also know as Vlad Dracul which meant ‘the devil’, was a tyrant who ruled Transylvania around the 15th century. During this time period, the stories of vampires were quite popular. He was called ‘the Impaler’ because he loved to impale his enemies. He would thrust a long wooden spear into his enemies and watch them die a gruesome death. He hated non-Christians and used this technique against them. So the non-Christians feared him and put crosses in front of their homes to keep Dracula away from them.

Strigoi

The Transylvanians also believed in Strigoi (the undead) who walked on earth because they were either not properly buried or lived an evil life. To stop them people thrust a stake across their chest and placed them in coffin. The stake was driven through the coffin and into the ground to keep them from coming out.

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The Beds Behind Those Bedtime Stories

August 3rd, 2010 by Al

Leigh A. Matelas asked:




Since sleep plays such an important role in our lives it’s not surprising that beds feature prominently in many myths, fairy tales and other works of literature.

When we imagine the bed in a fairytale like Sleeping Beauty, we inevitably conjure up images of a huge palace chamber and an ornate mahogany four-poster bed draped with beautiful silken fabrics.

However, the characters in the ancient tales don’t always sleep in a traditional bed, or even in a bedroom. Morpheus, the Greek god of sleep and dreams, slept in a bed made of ebony in his dimly lit Cave of Sleep. Forest elves make their leafy beds high in the treetops. And a vampire’s resting place of choice is, of course, a coffin. It seems when it comes to beds and sleeping in stories, one size doesn’t suit all…

Beds to fit everyone

If you’ve spent the night tossing and turning on an uncomfortable bed, you’ll know how important it is to have a mattress of the right firmness. Goldilocks certainly appreciated this when she ventured into the house of the Three Bears. After tasting the porridge and sitting on all the chairs, she wandered upstairs to try out the beds. While Father Bear’s bed was too hard and Mother Bear’s bed too soft for her liking, Baby Bear’s was just right and she was able to nod off straightaway.

Even more particular was the fairytale princess who endured a sleepless night because she could feel a pea underneath twenty mattresses and twenty layers of feather quilts. Her extreme sensitivity showed her to be of truly royal blood, and so she passed the Queen Mother’s test and won the hand of the prince. They lived happily ever after, as usual, although you have to wonder how easy she was to share a bed with!

A more gruesome bed-related story can be found in the Greek myth of Procrustes. A sadistic bandit who lived in the hills near Athens, Procrustes would invite unwary travellers to lie down on his iron bed. If the traveller was too tall for the bed, Procrustes would chop his body until it was the right length. Victims who were too short would be stretched out on a rack.

The bed itself was adjustable and Procrustes would alter it as he saw people approaching to make sure it was never a perfect fit. Procrustes’ evil deeds were finally stopped by the hero Theseus, who placed Procrustes on his own bed and cut off his head and feet. Today the expression ‘a Procrustean bed’ means an apparently arbitrary standard to which one is forced to conform.

Falling into an enchanted sleep is common in fairy tales and myths, but sometimes beds themselves can be transformed into magical objects. According to Arthurian legend, the wizard Merlin created an enchanted bed that drove everyone who slept in it out of his or her wits. Only the brave Sir Lancelot could resist the spell. More recently, in Disney’s Bedknobs and Broomsticks, the children travel to London on a bed that can fly, thanks to a magic bedknob.

Sayings and superstitions about beds

Beds are the subject of a number of traditional sayings or expressions. ‘A bed of roses,’ for example, comes from Christopher Marlowe’s 1599 poem, The Passionate Shepherd to his Love, in which he declares, ‘And I will make thee beds of roses/And a thousand fragrant posies/A cap of flowers and a kirtle/Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle.’ While Marlow had real roses in mind, the expression is used these days to refer to an unrealistic expectation of something being pleasant and easy, eg: ‘Marriage isn’t a bed of roses.’ Saying ‘he must have got out on the wrong side of bed’ about someone who’s been grumpy all day dates back to the ancient Romans, who believed that the left side was unlucky and that to get out on the left of your bed would bring you bad luck.

Other old superstitions suggest that it’s bad luck to put a hat on a bed, that a bed facing north or south will bring you misfortune, and that interrupting bed-making results in a restless night’s sleep. You should never place a bed with the bottom facing the door, since this symbolises the way you will be carried out (feet first) after your death. Finally, if you’re single and you start making a bedspread or quilt, make sure you finish it, or according to folklore you’ll never get to share your bed with anyone…

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