I have a friend named Mariza. We met through Twitter, and because we are both of Filipino heritage, we have come to regard each other as "Twitterpino" brother and sister, and she is in fact a member of the Creative Social Club. If you know Mariza, you will know that (a) in person, she is an incredibly nice and extremely intelligent woman, and (b) online, she is fanatical about the Twilight franchise and particularly obsessed with Alex Meraz's abs. See Mariza and Alex in the photo.

Now, the Twilight franchise is extremely popular, but it is also met with disdain from a lot of people as creatively and intellectually lacking, and "not real horror". Standing in line for a movie this summer, I overheard a patron mock Twilight: Eclipse's "teen glamor vampires". I myself have never seen any of the Twilight movies, but my main beef with this franchise is the use of computer graphics (CG) instead of practical special effects, but this certainly is not an objection which is limited today to the Twilight movies. I thought it would be interesting to debate -- in the friendliest way possible -- the creative and intellectual merits of the Twilight franchise. Mariza is gracious and courageous enough to take on all comers and also provide an education on Twilight fandom, with its curious preoccupations such as "Team Paul" and "Team Jacob", #AlexPorn, and why everybody seems to be down on "Bella". As of this writing, I personally do not know what any of these terms mean, but I am taken with the passion with which Twilight fans identify with the franchise's canon and absorb its material into their daily lives far outside the movie theater.

If you absolutely detest the Twilight franchise, now is your chance to CONGENIALLY debate someone who absolutely loves it and is an expert in it, with the rest of us at the table. Hopefully, fans, haters, and The Silent Majority on this topic will show up and we all can have a great brunch together. As a secondary and related topic, read Newsweek's "The Creativity Crisis". It came from another Twitter friend whom I greatly respect. At first glance, I agreed with the article's premise, but on further thought, I decided that while America might have many problems, a creativity crisis is NOT one of them. I consider this a related topic because one of the reasons the gentleman gave for suggesting we have a creativity crisis on our hands is "the summer movie season", with the implication that summer blockbuster franchises such as Twilight and Transformers are symptomatic of a crisis in this country's creativity. I personally think that there is more diversity in American creativity than ever and more ways to distribute and consume that creativity, and that the summer blockbuster phenomenon is more a function of Hollywood resource allocation strategy and not indicative of the quality of overall creative output, with so many terrific indie films being produced out there. But I would love to hear your opinion.

This brunch salon will be held on Saturday, October 23rd, at The Fountainhead, 1970 West Montrose, beginning at 11 AM.