| Dracula Museum |
| Written by Francis H. Powell | ||||
 There are many unlikely places, a person might end up at on a warm July evening. Take the line three to the last stop, Mairie des Lilas, take a walk down some rather gloomy roads and you will find yourself in the most unusual museum, with a name that in previous times would have sent a message of fear, the museum of “Dracula”. Dracula was the invention of Bram Stoker, whose novel has been brought alive by many film versions. Though Dracula is a work of fiction, Stoker's inspiration was Prince Vlad III Dracula, also known as Vlad Tepes, meaning impaler. Vlad was a fifteenth century prince from the Wallachian province of Romania, bordered to the north by Transylvania and Moldavia, to the east by the Black Sea and to the south by Bulgaria. This man was noted for his inhuman cruelty.
I didn’t stay to the culmination of the soiree, some other friends had bolted earlier. I trudged back to the metro, thinking of this oddball collection of people, in a strange environment in suburban Paris and the enduring story of Dracula.
Francis H. Powell is originally from England and moved to Paris in 1999. In addition to being a writer (articles, songs and poems), he is a painter, DJ and English trainer. For more information, please click here to read his complete bio.
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After some confusion as to the entrance of the museum, we finally hit
upon the museum. The soiree was taking place, where poetry and music
would be the order of the day to a select audience. The museum has a
garden and among other artefacts of significance to the proprietors
, are two graves, (superficial I presume) . Unlike most museums some
of the artefacts are not tended with loving care and the weather in
some cases had done it’s worst, but no matter. Spread about the garden
are objects from previous soirees, goblets left unattended. This place
has been a bit of a hive of activity and creativity. I have only
threadbare information; the event is something to do with a magazine
called Salamander. The program is loose and there is much discussion
(well this is France).
There are two distinctive Gothic woman, think
Morticia of the Addams family, wearing obligatory black, crochet like
spider’s web, with long black hair, the colour of ravens. There is a
man with a walking stick, with a silver skull motif. There was man
wearing a collarless shirt, typical of times of Dracula. The museum
itself is not like a museum more a junk shop or curiosity shop. There
are leather bound books piled up, Dracula masks liberally left about.
The walls are bedecked with paintings or posters of Dracula films,
pictures of the likes of Christopher Lee or other portrayers of
Dracula. There was an old mirror (I thought Dracula had an aversion to
mirrors, but still). Part of the museum is in this dank garden, about
the size of an over-sized garden shed.
The second part of the museum,
you have to enter this basement, with crypt-like ambiance. The
exhibits are crude, imagine blow up dolls that have been re-adorned to
create a Draculaesque scene. The “homemade ness” of this museum, is
perhaps intrinsic to its charms. It has not a cooperate vision, but it
is perhaps a person/peoples utopia/vision of Dracula. There is
certainly a surreal ness about the place and some of the people
occupying it. Even the trees in the garden have distinctiveness, I
often think that branches often mirror human limbs and with these
trees, this is the case, had Dali done some tampering/garden work with
them? The space of the museum has been used, the exterior walls have
been daubed with images, what do the neighbours think, do they stay any
kind of time, or is there a constant flow of change?
The organizers
seem a amicable harmless bunch, but I wonder why people have a
curiosity in the dark side of human nature? They took the
opportunity to drink some wine (naturally red) a wine of their own
making, a wine full of herbs.
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