The Fall of the House of Usher (an opera review post)

When you think of operas (assuming you ever think of operas) and you think of all the reasons you don't want to go to an opera (because I know most of you don't want to go to an opera), this is the opera you're thinking of. No, seriously, it is. This opera, both of them, actually, because this was a double bill (two different interpretations of Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher"), is the very epitome of everything that can be wrong in opera.

The one cool thing, even, turned out to be a bad thing by the end of the show. So... At that San Francisco Opera house, they have these big mobile projection screens that can be on the stage. This allows them to project images which allows for greater scenery options. You want your scene to be on a beach, no problem. In the forest, no problem. Whatever, no problem. Thus far in our opera viewing, the screens have been used very minimally. These performances were set up around using the screens to convey movement. For instance, in the first show, the screens are used to convey movement through the house of Usher.

Right at first, it was way cool. Very neat. But... Well, then the actors just stood in place and did their singing thing. Every once in a while, they would switch places on the stage. The background stuff just became these constantly moving pictures that didn't mean anything. It was inane. What could have been something cool became an excuse for a poor performance. It was like going to a movie that's all special effects with poor acting and no story.

I mentioned that the actors just stood and sang, right? Well, that wasn't the worst of it. It gets worse? Why, yes. Yes, it does. The singing, which was in English for the first one, was just sung dialogue, which is a thing sometimes done in opera but still... Sung dialogue to not very good music. There were no actual "songs." It was monotonous and hard to follow. And the music overpowered the performers throughout both pieces so that you couldn't actually hear them anyway.

To top it all off, I picked this one to go see. I mean, heck! It was Poe! I was all, "How cool is that?!" As it turns out, not very.

You know, I don't want to imply anything (okay, so maybe I do), but Usher House (the name of the first of the two operas) was written by a Gordon Getty, a big donater to the San Francisco Opera. "Big" is probably not the right word there. The dude is beyond loaded and considered one of the richest men in the world. Is it possible that someone in charge actually thought his opera was good? I suppose so. However, I'm going to go with the Occam's razor explanation on this one.

[Edit: Because I was rushed for time when I wrote this, I forgot to mention the vampire theme in the Getty opera. The doctor, who appears for about one sentence in the short story, has a vastly expanded role in his opera. He's a pale thing, and it's implied that he's been alive for hundreds of years. The disease that Usher (and his sister) is suffering from has all the symptoms of someone who is being fed on long term by a vampire as in Stoker's Dracula. It also serves as the basis for Roderick's sister to escape her tomb. Having this incorporated into Usher is just stupid. Utterly.]

Goodreads Says I Suck

Goodreads called the other day... Okay, so "they" didn't call; they just sent me an email. Yeah, sure, goodreads sends emails everyday, but this one was different. This one was an update about how many books I'd read in 2013.

Goodreads told me I suck.

I barely read more than a book a month in 2013 and some of those were short! It's not up to my standards at all. At all. And I actually feel quite bad about it.

But figuring out where to squeeze in reading time, lately, has been difficult, to say the least. Especially since school started in the fall. I mean, I started The Casual Vacancy back in, like, March (according to goodreads, which just taunts me with this information), and I haven't finished it yet! It hasn't taken me so long to read a book since I read Dracula back during college (but that was because it was during spring semester, and I had a lot of other reading to do). And it's not like I'm not enjoying it; I am. It's very intricate and interesting, BUT! It's my bedtime book (because I have it as a dictionary-sized hardback, and I don't like to lug those around with me), and, basically, by the time I go to bed these days, the thought of reading isn't even in my head. In fact, there are rarely any coherent thoughts left in my head. [Okay, there's one string of coherent thoughts in my head at bedtime, but they are not polite, and they are all aimed at the cat and what I'm going to do to him if he wakes me up. Which he always does. Every night. More than once. (Does anyone want a pair of cat slippers?)]

As a total aside, I think a pair of cat slippers with the head of the cat at the front of the slipper would be exceedingly cute. Of course, you'd need two cats for that. The other option is that one foot would have the head of the cat and the other would have the... well... the place I want to kick the cat every night when he wakes me up.

No, I'm not bitter at all.

Anyway...

I'm not one to make New Year's resolutions. At all. I hate that whole thing (and I'm pretty sure I posted about that before, so I'm not going into it again). However, I do have the intention of figuring out how to work in more consistent reading time into my schedule, because what I've been doing just isn't cutting it. Specifically, I want to read at least one indie book a month. Even at one a month I won't be reading them as fast as I add them, but I need to start making progress into the... oh, my... triple digit library on my Kindle app. I don't think I'd realized I had that many until I checked. And that's just the indie books, because I do still read traditionally published books, too.

And that's about as close to a resolution as I'm going to get. We'll see how it goes.

Vampires: Day 5 -- Vampire Slaying

Assuming you haven't used the information from earlier this week to become a vampire or have plans to become a vampire, you may want and/or need to know how to get rid of a vampire(s) should you ever have a vampire infestation. If possible, call on a professional vampire slayer. Yes, these exist. Okay, mostly, they exist in Europe, but, still, there are people that go around and slay vampires. For a fee.

Unlike with Buffy

or Van Helsing,

"actual" vampire slayers do most of their work with bodies that need to be dug up rather than engaging in property-damaging combat. Fortunately, for you, this is the more appropriate way to go about things. Usually.

But! If you ever do get stuck facing a "living" vampire, here are some thins to know:

1. According to many legends, vampires cannot cross running water, so, if you steal the vampire's hat (no, don't ask me how to go about doing that and, yes, vampires are just assumed to be wearing hats, I guess) and throw it out into a river or stream or whatever, and taunt him about the hat, he will be unable to help himself and go after the hat. Yeah, vampires have some behavior issues beyond just the biting thing. Attempting to cross into the running water to retrieve the hat will cause the vampire to drown.
2. Staking a vampire will not kill a vampire. This is not a Buffy thing where the vampire turns to dust or, even, just dies. The staking only incapacitates the vampire, effectively paralyzing it. Once that's accomplished, other things which can actually destroy the vampire can be done. [On an interesting note, Joss Whedon wanted to do something like this in Buffy but decided that having the characters always having to deal with paralyzed vampire corpses would become too cumbersome so decided on the "dusting" as a way to deal with that.]
3. Vampires are not killed (or even hurt) by sunlight. Potentially, it may make them less strong and fast, but it's not going to cause them to burst into flame. If you will note (and you will need to have read Dracula), Dracula had no issue moving around in sunlight. [The idea that vampires can't go about in daylight seems to stem from early 20th century movies. In actuality, vampires don't cast shadows (which is related to the whole reflection thing), so filming at night was the only way to get around that.]
4. Vampires, actually, can be "killed" through physical means just like a person can. Of course, going hand-to-hand with a vampire is not the best way to accomplish that since they are faster and stronger than humans. However, a vampire is just as susceptible to swords, arrows, and bullets as anything else. The problem is in getting the vampire to stay "killed."

And this is why vampire slayers mostly work with bodies that are already in the ground. If you really want to "kill" a vampire, that's the place to do it. So...

1. The stake. The stake is used to immobilize the vampire. Ash and hawthorn have been very popular and, also, oak to a lesser extent. Most legends say the stake should go through the heart, but some say the stomach and some say the mouth. Theoretically, burying a staked vampire will prevent the vampire from ever rising, although it won't destroy it.
2. Beheading. Beheading is a much better way to kill a vampire but, still, not a sure thing. Just cutting off the vampire's head isn't enough to make sure it will stay dead. Some legends say it needs to be buried between the vampire's feet or "behind" the buttocks (I'm not quite sure what "behind" the buttocks means in this context). Others say the head needs to be carried off and buried somewhere else entirely.
3. Garlic. Garlic could be used to keep a vampire in its grave. Stuffing it in the mouth was common, but some sources say it had to be stuffed  in all orifices. I'm not sure if it means all when it says all, but, if it does, ew!
4. Boiling water. Once a vampire was in the ground, pouring boiling water over the grave would keep it there.
5. Dismemberment. Sometimes, vampires were persistent. In those cases, the body was dismembered and buried in separate locations.
6. Cannibalism. In some cases, the vampire was even more persistent. In such extreme cases, after the dismemberment, the body was fed to the family of the deceased, whom it was usually "haunting." The "victims" generally died anyway.
7. Cremation. Ah, burning. Burning  the body has long been viewed as the most effective way of destroying a vampire, yet, throughout history, it has often been the last resort. Why? I can't really answer that question, but, almost always, other methods for banishing the vampire were tried, first, before the body was finally burned.

Oh, of course, you could always appeal to the vampire's arithmomania by placing the irresistible bag of rice or sand in the coffin, which would keep the vampire occupied all night with the need to count every grain. No, the vampire's not destroyed, but, man, that sounds like a lot of fun. I wonder, if a vampire came at you, if you could throw rice at it and cause it to stop and count the grains. That sounds like the best way to deal with any vampire attack in my book.

And thus ends vampire week. I didn't cover everything, but there's been a lot of information over the course of the week, and I hope you've enjoyed it. There may even be some vampire lore worth turning into stories. The one thing I'm quite certain of, though, is that nowhere in anything I read was there any mention of vampires and sparkling. Not once. And, now, I'm scared that in 100 years people will think that vampires do sparkle just like we think vampires can't go out in the sun. What a horrible thought...
Now that is frightening!

But here are some things that are not:

1. The "Oh, How I Miss You" blogfest is coming up. Go here to read about it and sign up.
2. There's a big serial giveaway and rafflecopter thing happening, right now. Go here to find out about that. You can also find out about it at the following sites:
Susan Kaye Quinn
E.J. Wesley, Author
RaShelle Workman
Confessions of a Watery Tart

Vampires: Day 4 -- Vampire Serial Killers and Killer Serials

In the landscape of legends, vampires are relatively new additions. At least, the idea of vampires as we think of vampires is relatively new. Only a few hundred years. Which is not to say that legends of blood-drinking demons don't go back millennia, but the whole cross-fearing, no-reflection-casting (and there's more to that), oversexed, broody minions of the night is fairly recent. And, yeah, it's mostly due to Bram Stoker and Dracula, but you know those Victorians... (okay, so maybe, you don't, but I'm not getting into that, right now)

Of course, legends always get fuel by actual events that people can blame on the supernatural, and vampires have been good targets for that. If nothing else, they have been blamed for consumption, due to the wasting away caused by the disease. Wasting ailments have frequently been blamed on vampires.

One of the best and earliest documented cases of vampire murders happened in Serbia in 1725. After the death of Peter Plogojowitz (at the age of 62?), an unnatural string of deaths occurred in his village. Within eight days, nine villagers became ill and died generally within a day of becoming sick. Each of the "victims," before dying (of course), reported that Plogojowitz had come to their beds in the night and throttled. It is also possible that Plogojowitz brutally murdered his son for not "feeding" him. Plogojowitz's wife fled to another village after reporting that Peter had visited her looking for his shoes.

The authorities were called in and, unable to quell the furor, the body of Plogojowitz was exhumed and signs of vampirism found to be present. This is on official record, you have to understand, and all of this examination was done under protest, so the administrators performing all of this were not part of the frenzy of the village. The body was staked and, then, burned. Frombald, the guy in charge who had been trying to calm the villagers into waiting for more proper authorities, sent in a request with his report of the incident that the villagers not be punished because they had been "beside themselves with fear."

Another Serbian case claimed that a vampire was living in an watermill and killing people when they came to mill their grain. That mill served as a tourist attraction until just recently, 2012, when the mill finally collapsed of age. I suppose the vampire has had to move on.

More recently, there was "The Vampire of Sacramento." In 1978, Richard Chase killed at least six victims within a one-month time frame. He was known to drink their blood and eat pieces of their flesh. He had previously been known as "Dracula" while serving time in a mental institution because of his tendency to catch rabbits and other small animals and drink their blood. He died of a drug overdose in 1980 while in jail.

I'm sure I could go on (quite sure, since I just closed my research pages on two other cases), but I need to move on from vampire serial killers to killer serials, none of which are about vampires (at least, I don't think they are). Any of you that have been hanging around my blog for the last year will know that I had been serializing my last book. Now that that is all over, I'm collecting up the parts to make it easier for people to buy. But, aside from that, since I first started serializing Shadow Spinner over a year ago,

many other people have started their own serializations. Some of us got together to have this great KILLER SERIAL giveaway just for Halloween! The promo is below which will be followed by a raffle thingy.

Some Killer Serials you should consider sampling

Andrew Leon: The Shadow Spinner Series (34 parts, 40ish pages each) Tiberius has always thought of himself as a normal 10-year-old boy, at least until the day his mother finally decides to tell him about his father, and she tells him things that convince him that one of them is crazy, and he's pretty sure it's not him. That is until the Man with No Eyes shows up and his father falls out of the sky.

Susan Kaye Quinn: The Debt Collector Series (9 Volumes, 50ish pages each, all complete, (for you risk-averse readers) first one free) What's your life worth on the open market? A debt collector can tell you precisely.

EJ Wesley: Moonsong Series (5th coming in December (no end point necessarily planned, but they are coming in 3-book clusters (6th in January) for satisfying individual story arcs; link to the first one FREE) Jenny Moonsong recently inherited the title of "monster hunter" and an ancient tribal journal/how-to manual passed down by her Apache ancestors. The Moonsongs books follow her adventures as she battles the dark supernatural denizens of the world in a series of action-packed, urban fantasy novelettes.   

RaShelle Workman: The Cindy Chronicles (4 published of 6 volumes) From a seemingly insignificant word comes the greatest of fairytales... Cinderella is a witch and she's been asked to save a world she never knew existed. 

Hart Johnson: A Shot in the Light Series (10 episodes, 100 pages each, 4th available today and the first is free) Deadliest virus in a century, or a social experiment gone awry? Sidney Knight begins to notice inconsistencies in what people are being told and what's going on as half the population dies of the flu... or is it the vaccine?








a Rafflecopter giveaway Good luck!

Vampires: Day 3 -- How To Be... a Vampire

Back in April, as part of the A to Z challenge, I did a post on how to be a werewolf; that post has gone on to be my most viewed post ever. The post was almost about how to be a vampire, but I figured that was just too done and, then, there's the whole thing where I'm not such a huge vampire fan and all, so I decided on werewolves. However, now, six months later, as a follow up to A to Z, here's how to be... a vampire!

Vampires and werewolves have a lot of associated legends and mythologies. In fact, in some places the name for the two things used to be the same. This is not as odd as it sounds as one of the best ways to become a vampire is to start out being a werewolf. Wait, what? No, seriously. According to many legends, if you die as a werewolf (which can be more difficult than it sounds, since it's relatively easy (in some legends) to change someone back to human (sometimes accomplished just by saying the person's name (see the post))) and are not disposed of properly, you will come back as an undead that needs blood to survive, so a vampire. However, you would retain your ability to change into a wolf, which is related to so many of the legends dealing with the associations between wolves and vampires.

Interestingly enough, all of the vampire legends begin with blood-drinking demons. These go back thousands of years, and, sorry, but I don't think there's anything you can do to become a demon. The earliest vampire legends, which don't even go back 1000 years, all have to do with demonic possession, usually after you were dead. For instance, if you had a wound that was not cleansed with boiling water and you died, you could come back as a vampire. In fact, for a while, people thought just about anything could cause your corpse to become possessed by a blood-drinking demonic spirit and come back and ravage the local village. Corpses were often buried face down because of this. That way, when they tried to dig to the surface, they'd go the wrong way. Crafty, huh?

And, as an aside, many (unrelated) cultures believed these undead had a thing for counting. The Chinese would bury the dead with a bag of rice so that when the vampire awoke, it would compulsively count the grains before attempting to rise. Other cultures used sand. That whole Count von Count thing?

Totally true.
Anyway...

Most of our modern views of vampires didn't come about until the 19th century. And most of those grew out of one book: Dracula by Bram Stoker.

The conversion to a vampire, as soon by Stoker, happened by being fed upon over time. Dracula feeds on Lucy over a sustained period until she dies and, then, comes back as a vampire. The same was happening to Mina and, even, Harker. The idea of needing to share the vampire's blood was not actually part of the transformation process; however, it did allow the vampire telepathic control over the victim. We've incorporated both of those ideas into our modern view of vampires.

The sustained feeding idea has also given rise to the idea of it being a pathology. A disease that you catch. So we have three basic views on vampirism: spiritual, mystical, and physical, which give rise to different variations on how to become a vampire based upon which view you hold.

In short, you have three options:
1. You have no control. Your dead body becomes possessed by a blood-sucking demon. Possibly, you can help that to happen by having uncleaned wounds that you die of, but it's no guarantee.
2. You have some control. Become a werewolf. Try to make sure that you die while still a werewolf and hope that no one disposes of your body in a way as to keep you from returning as the undead.
3. You might have some control. First, you have to meet a vampire. This could be difficult as they don't go around handing out business cards. If you find a vampire, convince him/her to turn you into one, too. Mostly, this is going to involve the vampire biting you. You will just have to trust the vampire to do whatever needs to be done to make you into one.

Also, you could learn the special math formula from Briane Pagel's excellent novelette, "Augurs of Distant Shadow," currently found exclusively in "Shadow Spinner: Collection 2: The Man with No Eyes (Parts 6 - 12)."

Oh, no, wait; I deleted the formulas so that no one else could become a vampire, but you should still read the story! And Shadow Spinner, too!

Vampires: Day 2 -- "Locked In"

Beyond "Choose Your Own Adventure" books, second person perspective isn't used much in fiction. There's good reason for this. If it goes on for any length, it bogs itself down and becomes repetitive. When the only personal pronoun you really have access to is "you," it gets more than a bit tiresome. There have been only a few novels of any note written in second person -- like Bright Lights, Big City, which was also adapted as a film -- but I do think the format can work well in certain short story settings. A couple of years ago, I had my creative writing class play around with the format (you can find their 2nd person stories in Charter Shorts), but, although I got some good results from it, I decided I'd leave that alone for the foreseeable future and just get them proficient with third person. Some of them are quite proficient with first and third but enough are not that it's better not to muddy the waters by trying to have them write in second.

Anyway... I did my own story along with them (because I often do that), so I'm going to share that with you today. I have, actually, shared it before, but it's been a couple of years, and my blog readership has changed quite a bit since then, so most of you probably haven't seen  this before. I hope you like it.

Locked In

You wake up slowly. But not gradually. Not smoothly. You wake up in fits and starts realizing that hunger gnaws at you. It is with annoyance that you realize that you’ve slept longer than you had intended. A lot longer if the hunger pangs are any indication. Your previous exertions must have taken more out of you than you had thought.

You climb out of what passes for your bed, grimacing at the stiffness in your limbs. Yes, you have, indeed, slept longer than you had intended, and your body cries out for sustenance. Idly, you wonder what the date is. Not that it really matters. Dates don’t mean anything to you.

You climb the stairs leading up from the cellar into the darkened interior of the house you make your dwelling place. How lucky you were to have found it flits into your head, but you correct yourself. Fortunate, not lucky. You don’t believe in luck. And you did pay the agent handsomely to find a house that suited your needs. Yes, you were fortunate to have found such a perfect house. The sheet-draped furniture looks ghostly in the darkness, vaguely reflecting the dim light sifting in from outside. The twinge of a smile hints about your lips, but it is not related to the décor. Tonight, you have no time for ambiance. Tonight, you feel the need only for the hunt.

You feel the setting of the sun, and you step outside, pulling the door closed behind you. You don’t bother to lock it. Few are foolhardy enough that they would try to enter your sanctum, and you would welcome them if they did. Welcome them in the way that a spider welcomes a fly that enters its web. There are children still at play outside. They freeze at the sight of you, sensing your presence in the same way a hare senses the hawk above as its shadow passes overhead. Although they are wise to fear you, they have no reason for that fear. You know better than to hunt where you live. Not that they aren’t… tempting.

As you move slowly down the steps of the house that everyone tries to avoid looking at, the children relocate to the front porch of a house at the other end of the street. You move in that direction for no other reason than that it brings you pleasure to see them squirm. Squirm like vermin in the dirt when a stone is moved or like termites when a rotting log is suddenly split open. This time, the smile is not fleeting.

It’s been too long since you’ve had a young one, but the desire is alive in you, tonight, thanks to those children. If the humans didn’t get so worked up over their missing young, you’d partake more often, but you have to be more than careful to not be discovered when you go after the young. Still, every so often, you can get away with it, and tonight will be one of those nights.

You move through the city, all of your senses alert in a way that no human’s ever can be. You are as much a part of the night as the darkness and the wind. And, like the wind, you flow from place to place being felt but not seen, leaving a quiet shudder in those you pass by, the angel of death, and they never know of their good fortune on this night. How magnanimous you feel, allowing them to go their way, keep their petty, fleeting lives.

Finally, you find what you are looking for, a gathering of young ones. And in a church, which makes it so much better. They will probably think that their faith, that the church itself, will protect them, and, once, long ago, it would have, but so very, very few people have faith anymore. It’s the ones that think they do that you enjoy the most. It makes it so much more… fun.

There are a couple of dozen people inside the little church. A matronly woman and a few of the teenagers in a small kitchen. A young man hardly older than a child himself in an office with another of them. The rest are in the chapel watching a movie. Two of them, thinking themselves clever, have sequestered themselves back in the pews to make out. Young lovers in a church locked up tighter than a drum. You wonder if it could possibly get any better. Of course, you will kill them all.

The locked building is of no hindrance to you, and, reveling in your power, you decide to play the part of the cat and toy with your food, first, before you feast. After all, you have no idea how long it will be before another opportunity like this one will present itself, so you should make the absolute most of it.

You creep along the ceiling allowing a hint of your presence to wash over the pitiful humans below. You smile as they grow restless and uneasy for no reason that they can understand. When their fear reaches ripeness, you drop down amongst them bestowing panic upon them like a benediction. You exalt in the chaos and screams and reach for one of them, the one with long, flowing blond hair.

You bare your fangs at her, preparing to sink them into her smooth, warm flesh that pulses with life, but she passes out in your hands. With a growl, you fling her aside. There is no pleasure without the struggle; you’ll come back for her when you have finished with the others. You reach for another, but you are suddenly and unexpectedly pierced with pain.

You can’t figure out what is happening. The pain is incomprehensible, piercing through your back into your heart. Slowly, and with full awareness, you fall to the floor, sprawled out on your face. You hear one of them, “Is it dead?” And another, “Why doesn’t it turn to dust?” And, “This isn’t Buffy, stupid.”

“Go get my copy of Dracula from my office, Tom.”

You feel confident that is the young man. You can now feel his faith, true faith, washing over you in revolting waves, sickening you. But you can’t move. You lie frozen on the floor, helpless, and you find yourself wishing that you had some deity to pray to. You begin to hope fervently that they believe the stake has finished you off. You have a chance if they just toss you out like this.

It grows quiet. The silence is a torment. The silence of the true grave. Faintly, you hear the turning of pages. There is mumbled talk of beheading and burning, and you wish you could scream. How pitiful… taken by your own prey. They lift your body and begin to drag you to the small graveyard behind the church, and you know that you go to your final resting place.

Note One: "Shadow Spinner: Collection 2: The Man with No Eyes (parts 6 - 12) is just released and many of the parts (about 10) from 13 - 34 are still FREE! today. Pick up the collection and grab the freebies. You can see the list on yesterday's post.

Note Two: Don't forget about the "Oh, How I Miss You" blogfest! Click the link to read about it and get to the sign up list. It will be here soon!

How To Be... a Werewolf

You're probably thinking right about now that the way to become a werewolf is pretty simple. All you need to do is go out and find one and let it bite or scratch you.

That would be incorrect.

Sure, plenty of books and movies depict it that way now, but that has newly been tacked onto the werewolf legend, probably due to its association with vampiric legends due to Dracula. Which is kind of interesting, because Stoker drew on werewolf legends and attached them to the vampire legends. Although it had been believed in Medieval Europe that you had to burn a werewolf corpse to keep it from rising from the dead as a vampire. So if you're looking to one day be a vampire, it appears that being a werewolf is a good start.

But, okay, if you can't become a werewolf from getting bitten, how do you become one? It appears that there are many paths to werewolfdom, and many of them are surprisingly easy to accomplish.

One of the best ways, because you can control it, is to simply wear a belt (or girdle) made of wolf hide. Putting on the belt would cause the transformation to take place, instantly and painlessly. Removing it would revert the wearer to human form. However, some sources said it wasn't quite that simple. Some said the strip of wolf skin, the wolf strap, had to come from the devil. Although you could still control the transformation, because the devil gave it to you, you could never rid yourself of the wolf strap.

Some legends say that you could become any animal at all by drinking rainwater from its footprint. Wereelephant, anyone? Or, you know, maybe find one of those stone dinosaur footprints and drink from that. Weretyrannosaur. One catch, I couldn't find anything that said how long these transformations would last, just that drinking the water would trigger them. I imagine they must wear off; otherwise, no one would have ever known they'd happened to begin with.

Other sources say that you can become a werewolf by sleeping outside in the light of a full summer's moon as long as the light is shining directly on your face. I suppose this must be part of where the full moon part of the transformation legend comes from. The sources implied that transformed human would return to normal at dawn. But these weren't permanent changes; you'd have to do the same thing any time you wanted to become a werewolf.

Still other legends claim that one would need to be cursed by the devil to become a werewolf. Or enter into an allegiance with him. Evidently, there was once a group of sorcerers that craved human flesh, so they entered an agreement with Satan to have wolf forms so that they could fill their craving. They were given straps so that they could control their transformations.

And other sources say that the werewolf has been cursed by God or Angels or, even, saints for committing terrible offenses. I'm not sure what constituted a terrible offense. But, then, still other sources say that werewolves are actually the servants of God in his battle against Satan. They are known as the Hounds of God and go down into Hell to battle demons and witches.

Oh, and some people are just born that way.

There you go. If you want to be a werewolf, you have a lot of options to choose from. Personally, I'd go with the wolf hide belt. Then, again, being a weredinosaur sounds pretty cool, too.

Notes:
1. During the Middle Ages, it was thought that werewolves did not have tails (you know, because people don't have tails), which was how you could tell a real wolf from a werewolf. To keep from being found out, werewolves would run with one of their hind legs extended behind them so that, from a distance, it would look as if they had tails.

2. In his book Fool Moon, Jim Butcher features werewolves. I appreciate that he didn't just go with the modern concept of were-ism being like a contagion. He incorporates many of the various werewolf legends into The Dresden Files, which I find a nice change of pace from most modern renditions.

EDIT:
This post is related to the post, How To Be... a Vampire