Archives for 2010

This is one we would never have predicted. It’s a fascinating read.

“Tom Barrack is one of the biggest real-estate deal-makers in the world. His investment firm, Colony Capital LLC, has raised $16 billion from pension plans and other big investors to buy properties like gaming company Station Casinos Inc., Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch, and possibly even Walt Disney Co.’s Miramax movie studio.

But recently, it turns out, Mr. Barrack has also been doing some soul-searching—thanks to Stephenie Meyer’s popular vampire-novel series, “Twilight.”

In a July 2 memo encouraging his employees to consider outside points of view—you can read it in full at the end of this post—Mr. Barrack describes a lonely evening on a yacht in Turkey after a cancelled business meeting. In the yacht, Mr. Barrack writes, he came upon a book on which “were written the words that strike terror in the hearts of every macho, red-blooded male…TWILIGHT.” He goes on:

As I sat there with nothing to do the book kept taunting me. I began to think that there must be something I don’t understand. What could it be? What is it all about? Women don’t just read these books, they live them. They become each paragraph. I picked it up, but then immediately dropped it like a hot coal. What if someone saw me reading this? My macho reputation would be finished! I would be kicked out of the bench press section of the gym. My polo compadres would send me packing to the pony rides and my surfing buddies would exile me to the kiddie pool.

But it was a long night and there was absolutely nothing, and I mean NOTHING else to do. Long story short—not only did I read Twilight, I read the other two as well!! I was fascinated, captivated even. However, what intrigued me was not the same thing that hooked the millions of women whose lives and had been changed by this series, but something else entirely.

Mr. Barrack argues that the “anticipation” in the romantic relationship between a teenage girl and a vampire has made the “Twilight” series compelling to millions of women.

Men, however, are all about the destination, the result, the speed and the outcome. The journey is merely penance to get to the destination. Which is why despite the vampires and werewolves, this book is kryptonite to most men.”

See more on the Wall Street Journal. It’s some of the best in depth Twilight discussion from a guy who “gets it”.