a tribute to Vincent and Catherine's anniversary

April 12, 2014

Welcome to BatBland. I don’t know if you stumbled upon this page by chance, or you purposely came to see what BatBland did, like in the past years, to celebrate this date, April 12th, anniversary of the fictional day when Vincent and Catherine met. Either way, I need to start saying that this website, BatBland, has two owners. One is me, Italian – and I’m saying this to justify the wobbling English you are reading, as I'm putting these pages together at the very last minute as I usually do, and I don't think I'll have time to have them corrected. The other owner is Je, short for J’écris, a nickname for a lovely lady from Minnesota, USA, who this year happens to be the chair of the annual USA Beauty and the Beast convention.

I have been thinking if to do the BatBland April 12th celebration this year: when I started to celebrate the dates of the BB year on BatBland, several years ago, they were hardly remembered and definitely not celebrated. BatBland was created in on April 12, 2007 precisely with that main purpose in mind. Now, celebrations are popping up all over the place, and the idea of having several dates marking the B&B calendar is stimulating creativity and sharing... it feels good, and it might be time to move on to another project... but my thoughts kept going to the beautiful theme of my co-owner's convention: “The creature there has never been – the possibility of being”. Je chose two lines from a poem of Rainer Maria Rilke as the title of her convention. That poem is not quoted in the episodes, like other works from this German-language poet, while it’s included in the Of Love and Hope collection recorded by Ron Perlman in Vincent’s voice.

But especially, it’s a recurring theme for the whole series, beautifully pointed out through the literary choices quoted in the episodes: Oscar Wilde’s Bluebird singing of beautiful and impossible things, Rilke’s Dragons waiting to be seen as princesses, Margery Williams’ Velveteen Rabbit becoming real for the child’s love…

The whole Beauty and the Beast show is about “the possibility of being”. Vincent, and then Vincent and Catherine together, and then ourselves, who along the years fell in love with this beautiful retelling of an eternal truth… we all are “creatures that there have never been”. And we all, recognizing such eternal truth in the new incarnation of our beloved TV show, drew inspiration to become such unique creature, to nurture “the possibility of being”... of being something more.

Thank you, Je, for this inspiring theme you chose for your convention.

Oh, one last thing. Above I said that these dates are being celebrated in fandom now, and in fact, someone pointed me to an essay written in celebration of this day, April 12th. Since it's such a rare thing to do, and since I dearly love essays, I obtained the permission to link it here (thank you!). "You, too, could be something that has never been, and never will be"... it perfectly fits!

Happy Anniversary, Vincent and Catherine, thank you for being real.

S