Donned in the gloom-laden hosiery of the unliving, shiny patent black shoes and the red-lined iconic cloak he is to be buried in years later (despite never issuing specific instructions for his undead corpse to be draped in the well-worn comedic capery that pursued Messrs Abbot and Costello), having recently fled the Transylvanian White Terror that visits the local population after the Lenin Boys are booted back to Moscow by the House of UnAmerican Activities, Béla Blaskó, aka Lugosi, aka Arisztid Olt, 180 pounds, six foot one, technically older than Dracula, 30 (+7) years old (Hollywood age), ex-president of the Hungarian actors' union, communist and vampire to the stars, enters Staatliches Bauhaus, stumbles slightly, a consequence of the phial surreptitiously self-administered outside the building school, then pounds the steps to the office of Walter Gropius in the hope that rehabilitation awaits.
An overwrought introduction to chill the cockles of Northamptonshire's gothic rock community is typical of the man. He's gotten his decades mixed up again. The 1880's or the 1980's? Must be the methedone. Or perhaps the garlic.
- Ah! Herr Blaskó. Please be seated.
- Please to call me Lugosi, Herr Professor. And if the Professor will permit, I should very much like to lie down.
- Why ...er.. of course. The couch?
- I prefer the floor if it disturbs not the good professor.
- Not...not at all. Please Herr Lugosi, feel free.
Out of instinct Walter Gropius admires the architecture of Lugosi's prostrate form before him. The slight asymmetry of his widow's peak (aka McDonald's hairline) only serves to emphasize its underlying symmetrical intent. The zig-zagging of the folds of the cape hint at an aesthetic that presages Elsa Lanchester.
There is an aura of sulphur matches in the room. The architect fancies it is from his assistant's smoking, or those apprentices from the crafts guild using his office to play cards again. Strange. No tobacco smell. The pungent sulphur and musty tanginess of Frau Gropius's famous strong cheese and garlic on rye is of a different order.
The reflection of his visitor's breath in his shiny patent shoes takes Gropius aback. It is only early Weimar Republic. Why so cold? And then the breath... It comes from nowhere. Gropius turns and looks at Lugosi's lips. They have no reflection in the shoes. But then, neither can he see any trace of cold breath emerging from his now sleeping guest's mouth.
- Professor?
Gropius starts.
- Forgive me Herr Professor. From time to time I, how to say, nod. It is a symptom of my condition.
- Condition?
- I am plagued by the gothic. Doomed to typecast. Assailed by self-doubt. Existence is highly contingent for the commercially undead.
Lugosi's heavy burr is lugubrious and hypnotizing. In his mouth anon, Gropius's heart now beats in time with his visitor's mythical rhythm. Slowly Lugosi rises. The weight of demetrification, English, America's psychopathic healthcare, the debt to Sinatra, Béla Jr, the hospital bills, the mass production of horror, kitsch, unemployment, high camp, the defeat of the 1919 Hungarian Workers' State, sciatica, morphine, eternity, the four wives, lifts. Hope, the last one. Hope.
- Is there to be hope Herr Gropius?
- The bats have left the modernist bell tower. There is nothing but hope.
- How is the cure to be administered?
- A process of detoxification is to be recommended. The ornate, the gothic, the romantic, the decorative are to be banished in the machine-age man. Form must follow function. If we need to bolt a head onto your shoulders, then we engineer a virtue out of the bolt. The aesthetic of the functional.
- Karloff.
- Who?
- No matter. I am in need of the cure. I am in your hands Herr Professor.
- The enrolment procedure has already begun. I need only to see you draw.
- Blood?
- No. Herr Lugosi. Ink will suffice...
An overwrought introduction to chill the cockles of Northamptonshire's gothic rock community is typical of the man. He's gotten his decades mixed up again. The 1880's or the 1980's? Must be the methedone. Or perhaps the garlic.
- Ah! Herr Blaskó. Please be seated.
- Please to call me Lugosi, Herr Professor. And if the Professor will permit, I should very much like to lie down.
- Why ...er.. of course. The couch?
- I prefer the floor if it disturbs not the good professor.
- Not...not at all. Please Herr Lugosi, feel free.
Out of instinct Walter Gropius admires the architecture of Lugosi's prostrate form before him. The slight asymmetry of his widow's peak (aka McDonald's hairline) only serves to emphasize its underlying symmetrical intent. The zig-zagging of the folds of the cape hint at an aesthetic that presages Elsa Lanchester.
There is an aura of sulphur matches in the room. The architect fancies it is from his assistant's smoking, or those apprentices from the crafts guild using his office to play cards again. Strange. No tobacco smell. The pungent sulphur and musty tanginess of Frau Gropius's famous strong cheese and garlic on rye is of a different order.
The reflection of his visitor's breath in his shiny patent shoes takes Gropius aback. It is only early Weimar Republic. Why so cold? And then the breath... It comes from nowhere. Gropius turns and looks at Lugosi's lips. They have no reflection in the shoes. But then, neither can he see any trace of cold breath emerging from his now sleeping guest's mouth.
- Professor?
Gropius starts.
- Forgive me Herr Professor. From time to time I, how to say, nod. It is a symptom of my condition.
- Condition?
- I am plagued by the gothic. Doomed to typecast. Assailed by self-doubt. Existence is highly contingent for the commercially undead.
Lugosi's heavy burr is lugubrious and hypnotizing. In his mouth anon, Gropius's heart now beats in time with his visitor's mythical rhythm. Slowly Lugosi rises. The weight of demetrification, English, America's psychopathic healthcare, the debt to Sinatra, Béla Jr, the hospital bills, the mass production of horror, kitsch, unemployment, high camp, the defeat of the 1919 Hungarian Workers' State, sciatica, morphine, eternity, the four wives, lifts. Hope, the last one. Hope.
- Is there to be hope Herr Gropius?
- The bats have left the modernist bell tower. There is nothing but hope.
- How is the cure to be administered?
- A process of detoxification is to be recommended. The ornate, the gothic, the romantic, the decorative are to be banished in the machine-age man. Form must follow function. If we need to bolt a head onto your shoulders, then we engineer a virtue out of the bolt. The aesthetic of the functional.
- Karloff.
- Who?
- No matter. I am in need of the cure. I am in your hands Herr Professor.
- The enrolment procedure has already begun. I need only to see you draw.
- Blood?
- No. Herr Lugosi. Ink will suffice...
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