Lileks on Vampires
31st October 2008
I don’t like vampires. Your classic Dracula is one thing, but all the subsequent Doomed Yet Eternally Glamorous Vampires are tiresome. Even if they do look like Kate Beckinsdale. We wouldn’t be talking about them if they lived on urine or ear wax, but feasting on blood somehow makes them exotic.
And on the future:
The love of chrome-and-glass modern restaurants is probably due to one place, which I’ve mentioned before – the Erie Jr. in Detroit Lakes, MN. It had a counter, a high ceiling, plastic booths in vivid hues, a roof that looked like it space ships could dock in the back, and it had that space-age vibe that shimmered off so many new things when I was very young. We had a keen sense of the future then; we knew the toys we had today would be the tools of the future. You know how you put your hand out the window when you were going fast, and undulated it up and down like a dolphin, riding the oncoming wind? The future felt like that. The future was a chrome-trimmed triangular window in the front of dad’s car, and it had its own knob to open it up. The future was a hamburger under a light fixture that looked like an atom. The future was going to be awesome.