Today is Edi Gathegi’s Birthday. Edi will be playing Laurent in the upcoming Twilight movie. We’d like to thank Edi for giving us an extensive interview that he found the time to do despite it being his birthday weekend and having an incredibly busy schedule.  The interview will be posted tomorrow.

In what is probably the worst kept secret in Hollywood since J-Lo’s and Angelina’s pregnancies, it was confirmed today that Taylor Lautner will be playing Jacob Black.

With Taylor’s experience he should be a great young Jacob Black, the "cute kid" that Bella remembers from her childhood. He’ll then have the opportunity to mature into the role should other movies be made down the line.

Talk about this with other members over at our message baords.

Currently the comments are turned off due to people or in this case one person pretending to be multiple people, spamming our boards.  I need to clean up the mess so it may be a while before comments are back on.

~BME

OK Comments are back on.  Please remember to be respectful.

Apparently Mike Welch is not the only cast member with a sense of humor. The Shock Till You Drop site managed to get a picture of  various doubles Jackson Rathbone (in yellow hat) goofing around with friends on the set of Twilight.  Thanks to Paradise Seeker for the heads up.

We have just created a forum for book release parties.  Here are some tips for getting a book release party to happen in your area.

1. Talk to the events manager at the store. There are regular managers and events managers. The events manager is more likely to be on your side.
2. First try an independent bookseller they are more likely to get on board than a big chain.
3. Point out that right now the the Twilight Saga Books are consistently in the top 100 in the Borders, Amazon, and Barnes and Nobel lists.
4. Point out that the first book to knock Harry Potter off the number one spot was Eclipse and it is still selling in the number one position on the New York Times Bestseller list over Harry Potter.
5. Point out that Stephenie’s signings have drawn 1,000’s of fans. Ask them to check with their management to confirm this.
6. Point out the websites like ours dedicated to the book. Our site alone gets 30,000 unique visitors a week.
7. Point out that the movie of Twilight releases in December and people are dying for this book.
8. Organize a letter writing campaign. If a store manager is resistant get everyone you know to write a polite letter to the manager explaining how much business they are going to do by having this event . Don’t make it a petition, make it individual letter. A huge pile of letters on the manager’s desk is much more impressive than one petition.  Stores also have district managers, if the manager is resistant find out the district manager’s name and write to them.

Mike Welch, who will play Mike Newton in the Twilight movie, sent us a message. Actually he sent it as when the site was going up and down as we were going through server hell and we only just recovered the message now. In any case, his quirky, off-beat humor and enthusiasm really comes through, which will be a plus in portraying the ever persistent Mike. Thanks to Silly Bella for being our roving reporter. We look forward to a Q&A with Mike when his schedule permits.

Helloooooo Twi-hards!! Mike Welch/Newton here. I’m leaving LA tomorrow February 27, 2008 to begin a road trip, which will eventually lead me to Oregon, where I will finally
begin work on TWILIGHT!!! It’s going to beoff the chiZane. And if yall show up on openingweekend, I’ll get to do it again and again! Oh what am I saying, of course you will. You’re Twi-hards!! You have to make sure we present your baby properly, and serve justice to the Twilight franchise. Iunderstand.

Michael Welch

I have to give credit to the Germans. They certainly provided an unforgettable experience:

From vampire dancers

To getting a bull award

The other day we confirmed that Breaking Dawn will release August 2, 2008 in both the USA and Canada.  Today, thanks to a little digging by Irishgirl, we can confirm that Breaking Dawn will release in August only slightly later: August 4 or 5. I’m not quite sure why the date discrepancy as they seem to refer to both hard cover and paperback version.

Stephenie is now wrapping up her Germany tour. Vienna was at the event in Cologne and was kind enough to file a report for us.

When I arrived at the ship (yes,the whole thing took place on a ship, but it didn’t leave the landing) with a friend of mine, there were only like 10 or 15 people waiting. So this was good. I left my friend there to stand in the line while going back to fetch another friend and when I got back there were like…hundreds of people standing in the line. Luckily my friend was still where I left her, so we got in and ended up in the front row. Awesome.

We then had to wait for about 30 minutes until Stephenie came on stage with the translator and a German actress. Stephenie read a part from Eclipse (Unhappy Endings, the part where Rosalie tells Bella her story > videos at the bottom) and I went crazy for the first time because that’s one of my favourite parts in the whole book. The German actress then read a part from the German one (the one where Jacob shows up at Forks High School to deliver his message).

So when the reading was done we were able to ask questions.
I got hold of the microphone first .

My first question was on why Edward was always doubting the existence of his soul while he was being able to love Bella the way he does.
Stephenie’s answer: It comes all down to your definition of soul. She then explained how for example Carlisle and Edward have very different opinions on the matter and that Bella could not believe that someone so wonderful as Edward could possibly not have a soul. (by the way, I don’t have the answers on tape, so don’t kill me if something is not perfectly complete. I will try not to write down anything she didn’t say and I dare say that my memory is pretty good yet ^^)

The second thing I asked was whether she thought Bella and Edward were more like Romeo & Juliet, Heathcliff & Cathy or rather Elizabeth Bennet & Mr. Darcy. Stephenie’s answer: Bella and Edward are a couple of there own. She said that at different times she felt like Jane Eyre or Elizabeth Bennet or Cathy, but then she said that they are probably most like Elizabeth & Mr. Darcy (everybody was like ‘awwwww’ and I said ‘Thank you’ because that was what I had been hoping for )

Oh, and I wanted to know whether she had ever read Elizabeth Gaskell’s ‘North and South’. She hasn’t read it yet but said it was on her list of books to read (once she has time to read again )

Of course there were other questions. Again, I’ll try to wrote down what she said as best as I can.

Question: Do the covers have any special meaning to you?
Answer: She said that the first cover they wanted to use for Twilight was horrible and she was like "They can’t do that to my book!" and that she even cried and that they actually listened to her and changed it. She was pretty happy with the apple cover, but said that it involved some problems with something so often associated with Adam and Eve.
She then said that she didn’t get any say on the New Moon cover…and that it didn’t mean anything to her. But they didn’t listen to her when she cried this time.
And then she said that she was very happy with the Eclipse Cover and that the rope kind of presents how there are some things Bella just can’t cut away from her life (like her family, friends and I suppose Jacob especially).

Question: Has the cover for Breaking Dawn been chosen already?
Answer: No, but she hopes to have some nice propositions when she gets home from Germany.

Question: How did Bella and Jacob fit into one sleeping bag? (everybody was laughing)
Answer: They had to be really close! (never thought of that lol)

Question: What do you think about the German cover art?
Answer: She said the German covers where her favourites among the international ones! Haha!

Question: Why did you cast Robert Pattinson as Edward.
Answer: (As we all know) She didn’t get any say into who was cast and said she was lucky they even talked to her. (Sounds familiar.) She said that she thought Rob was perfect now that Henry Caville was too old and that she did get the chance to talk to him and was just stunned and thinks he’s the best Edward they could have cast. I know this is old news to most of us but I think we need to spread the Rob love!

Question: Which is your favourite character?
Answer: Jacob, Edward, and she’d love to go shopping with Alice. (Old news?)

Most of the other questions where just about things that are commonly known amongst those people who know how to use the www lol.

Um yeah, so just let me say that it was a hell lot of fun. We laughed soo much and Stephenie was lovely and honest as usual. The atmosphere was great and…you know…the translator was a lot of fun to listen to. She was a very nice woman, I know that, because I talked to her twice and she said I was very welcome to ask two questions instead of one…but she made a lot of mistakes and was clearly overchallenged.

Then there was the book signing. Stephenie had promised to sign one book for everybody present and my friend and me were actually the LAST ones in the line. It had been said before that Stephenie was only going to sign ONE book and no photos or anything else. Still, there were some people who lined up again to get her to sign photos and god knows what. Anyway the Carlsen people were already rushing her away…we cried out and said that our books had not been signed and she came back, which was really really awesome because the Carlsen peoople really had no time left because they needed the location. So she signed our books and apologized for not having time to take a picture. Sadly, she didn’t read my t-shirt which listed Bella & Edward on my list of Epic Love Favourites like Elizabeth & Mr. Darcy, Heathcliff & Cathy, Natasha Rostova & Andrei Bolkonsky (you know, in reference to my second question)…but I’m taking a lot of comfort from the fact that I was the last fan who talked to her that night.

To sum it all up, I had a wonderful, wonderful day. Stephenie was awesome and it was really cool to see her and to be able to ask her questions and everything. So yay for Stephenie & thank you so much for coming to Germany!

Videos (of Stephenie reading Rosalies story):
The beginning: http://www.megaupload.com/de/?d=S6HY9H36
The end: http://www.megaupload.com/de/?d=EA1RFUPV

In the two weeks that the Lexicon was up and down as it moved from owner-to-owner and server-server-to-server  during a holiday weekend and the biggest Twilight news week ever, we didn’t quite get something done we had intended to. Actually, I’m amazed we escaped with our sanity still intact after all that…but I digress…. I completely thought I had asked Cocoa to ask Cornie and crew over at Vesperarium to make us a banner for Peter Facinelli’s blog where the admin was asking for sites that supported Peter’s casting to send graphics. Apparently, I only had that conversation in my head. Sadly my imaginary conversations are no where near as interesting as Bella’s.

So, with no further ado, here is the Lexicon’s Peter support banner.

Pel~

Summit Entertainment is featuring a new graphic for its Twilight Movie page. There is no word if this is a first run at a poster design.

Also, the Canadian publishers of Breaking Dawn confirmed that August 2, 2008 will be the release date in Canada just like the USA. There is no word yet if the UK publishers will also be on this time frame.

I think this is now officially the busiest news day we have had all year!