Working on the 'Eurydice' video today got me to thinking of how Orphaeus got his name. Originally his name was Cygnet, oddly named because Jack Skellington always put me in mind of a Gothic swan.
I had heard Danny Elfman sing before, but never like he did as Jack Skellington. His natural vibrato shining through on some of the loveliest songs ever composed finally pulled me over to The Elfmeister's way of thinking, so much so that a new Vampire was born in my head, belonging totally to Elfman in appearance and in talent. I named him Cygnet, because of my affiliating Jack Skellington with swans, and went to mapping down his origins and alignments. He was originally a party animal kind of Vampire, who also just happened to be one of the greatest singers and performance artists to have ever been born. He was of Austrian origins, being an opera singer in Vienna when he was turned. In modern times, he ran a cabaret in San Francisco and was a "family man," who just happened to have a big crazy party every single night of the week, welcoming both Vampires and humans.
Not long after
A Nightmare of Christmas, Oingo Boingo released what was apparently their final studio album. This album boasted the song "Pedestrian Wolves," which would forever alter not only Cygnet, but also the entire Vampire Great Hive. "Pedestrian Wolves" created The Hive of the Beast, a sect within the Great Hive that was responsible for the legends of werewolves. These Vampires were masters at
anubis, or shapeshifting, most usually shifting into wolves. They were the origins of the vicious Eastern European
vrakshatha, who engaged in the rending and consumption of the flesh of their victims, as well as bathing in the blood they did not drink. Suddenly Cygnet was not as innocent as he had once been. The name of the Vampire was also suddenly quite precious.
So I set to rename the newly-crowned Prince of Beasts, but I wanted to keep him aligned with my beloved "Skellington Swan." It was then that the idea dawned on me that I could rename the character after the greatest musician of all time, Orpheus, whose constellation was Cygnus the Swan. It was perfect, since Cygnet was already a legendary singer. So I altered the spelling of the name a tad and Cygnet became Orphaeus Cygnus.
I so enjoyed writing this character, I found myself ignoring all the others, even Cadmus Pariah. I enjoyed the rest of 1994 and most of 1995 writing about my favourite party animal, and how he and his little family held fetes at their cabaret, and dined on one or two of their guests each night. It was during this time that Orphaeus adopted the serial killer's proclivity for taking souvenirs from his victims. To this day, the Swan still treasures his little leather bag of finger bones he has collected from his victims over the centuries. The two defining songs for Orphaeus became "Pedestrian Wolves" (of course) and the Oingo Boingo party anthem "No One Lives Forever." These allowed Orphaeus to be a monster, yet maintain a mischievous lovability despite his bestial nature.
But somewhere along the line, my demon child Cadmus began clamouring for my attention again, and I found the characters at odds with one another in my mind. Part of me wanted to stay in San Fran and party with the monsters, but the other bigger part of me was compelled to acquiesce to the dark demands of that singular monster who had upstaged all the other Vampires in my immortal pantheon. And so it was that the Pariah and the Swan became enemies. When the characters began battling for my attention, even though I wanted Orphaeus to win out, it was Cadmus who rose victorious. The battle for attention culminated in the scalping of Orphaeus, a vile act that became one of those sublime moments of Vampire legend in my head. It was only years later that the story of that scalping was ever properly told. The legend proper made it into the first book of
The Vampire Relics.
Seven years after the birth of Cygnet, while I was still seeking out fellow Shriekback fans on the Internet, I was pointed in the direction of a website run by someone purportedly of interest to Shriekback fans. On the site was a link to another website called 'The Head of Orpheus,' which turned out to be a/the Russell Hoban fan site. Russell Hoban's works, particularly
Riddley Walker, have been referred to by Barry Andrews as "Shriekback-required reading." The website I'd been directed to turned out to be a veil behind which Barry Andrews was hiding. He had been the one to link visitors to his site to The Head of Orpheus.
The irony of all that wasn't lost on me, given my characters' histories with their inspirations and one another. Of course, it was all just a little too strange for me too. Either way, it's what got me intrigued with Russell Hoban's works, not because the members of Shriekback suggested his writing, but because of the excerpts from the author's books found on The Head of Orpheus, especially from
Pilgermann and
The Medusa Frequency (which I quoted in the 'Eurydice' video, a quote using the voice of Eurydice, talking to her beloved Orpheus. It was that writing style I unabashedly tried to emulate when I began writing 'Sui Generis' about a year and a half later.
What's so funny is, Orphaeus Cygnus has never and will never
anubis into a swan. That would just be too tame and serious for the likes of him. Cadmus would be more likely to shift into a swan, since he prefers birds (particularly the nighthawk) as his primary species into which to transform when he needs to employ
anubis.
Ah, but Orphaeus possesses the ethereal beauty of the swan in his soul. When I look at his Cygnus alignment, I never fail to see Jack Skellington walking slowly up the curly hill, his thin, graceful form illuminated by the giant moon behind him. He will forever be my Gothic Swan, my Cygnet.
And here's what triggered my tip-toe down Memory Lane.
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