Saturday, June 2, 2012

Black Holes?

Either today's blog is about another thing missing from my education,or it could be about my attention not being riveted on the subject at hand. I was often bored in school,which was partly the teachers fault for so closely following the material they were given to teach (which is often repetitive), instead of doing a little work on their own to make the lessons a bit more lively. It could also be the product of failing memory.
Most people know the story of how Mary Shelley wrote "Frankenstein". It was at a gathering of friends that became bored with being trapped inside because of the weather and began reading ghost stories to entertain each other. They took turns reading from a collection of German ghost stories called "Fantasmagoriana". Lord Byron didn't like the book and said they could all write a better horror story. Out of their efforts John Polidori produced "The Vampyre" from which a century later "Dracula" was born. Mary Shelley had a dream which would become "Frankenstein".
I had never know (or else forgotten) the name or exact location where these friends had gathered. It was Villa Diodati, a manor in Colongy close to Lake Geneva. The villa was originally called Villa Belle Rive, Lord Byron named it Villa Diodati after the family that owned it. An American businessman bought the Villa in 2000. I wonder who?

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