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Robin
Unregistered User
(11/15/01 1:52:50 pm)
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Too funny...
From www.bloodyawfulpoet.com
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"This episode explored love from various angles and was gratifyingly complex, given that the primary storyline focused on the exploits of a lovesick sexbot."
This site is pure comedy, Tara! What a great line!
(My apologies for my efforts in driving this thread irretrievably off topic...)
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Terri
Registered User
(11/16/01 5:47:28 am)
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with apologies to Tolkien...
Tara, Robin: Thomas Canty (who is yet another Buffy fan) has discoved
a site with *all* the song lyrics: www.soulwax.co.uk/buffy/OnceMoreWithFeeling.html.
And I've learned that the young singer this week was Michelle Branch.
PS: The Bloody Awful Poet site is a hoot. It must be a kick for Joss Whedon to have created characters who inspire so much discussion, argument, and passion.
Edited by: Terri at: 11/16/01 5:51:10
am
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Robin
Unregistered User
(11/16/01 1:30:09 pm)
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Buffy fans
It's interesting to me that so many intelligent and creative people are big fans of the show. Makes it a bit less of a guilty pleasure for me, anyway. (I get such flak from my boyfriend when I want to watch it...this from a guy who can actually sit through "The Missing Link"...oh sorry, that's "The WEAKEST Link"!)
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Terri
Registered User
(11/17/01 5:43:47 am)
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Re: Buffy fans
Robin, I know what you mean. At Wiscon last year (the feminist genre fiction conference), I discovered that two writers I admire enormously -- Karen Joy Fowler and Kelly Link -- are also major Buffy fans--as well as Midori (which I already knew!), and the smart-as-a-whip feminist literary critic Justine Larbalestier. I thought: Hmm, if I'm in the company of so many sharp, talented women on this, then I must not be completely crazy to think that the writing on this show truly is something unique. The difficulty is that it's almost impossible to turn other people on to Buffy by having them watch an episode or two. Unless you start at the begining, or at least close to the beginning, so that you understand the character nuances, it just looks like a monster-of-the-week story. Starting in the middle of the series is like starting a novel in the middle. I heard Joss Whedon interviewed on NPR's All Things Considered a year or two ago, and he said that Dickens was a strong influence on him -- and you can see it in the way he plots his story, with each episode being the equivalent of Dicken's magazine installments. My one regret about the show is that he doesn't seem to have anyone in his writing staff with a strong background in fairy tales (as far as I can tell) -- myth, perhaps, but not fairy tales. There's so much delicious symbology they could use from fairy tales and folklore, and don't. The few times they've drawn from fairy tales, it was interesting, but not done in a way that shows any deep knowledge of the material. This isn't a criticism; there's no reason why he *should* if this isn't an area of interest -- just my own opinion that it would not only be interesting, but would give the show even more mythic resonance if these motifs were used more consciously, subtley woven into each show. It could be so easily done...
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Robin
Unregistered User
(11/19/01 12:13:18 pm)
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re: Buffy
Wow...that Dickensian influence is something I'll have to watch for (Victorian literature and martial arts...together at last!!!). I've only been able to catch the show sporadically, but I've enjoyed it nonetheless.
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Terri
Registered User
(11/20/01 6:38:54 am)
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Re: re: Buffy
Buffy:When Dickens first published his novels in magazine seriel form, people used to gather together after every installment to discuss what had happened with the same passion as if it had happened to friends. In this regard, Whedon is following in Dicken's footsteps. Part of the fascination of Buffy for me is deconstructing each episode afterwards with Tom Canty and other friends. Other than Buffy, I'm not a big television watcher, or even much of a film fan. But Buffy is so novelistic ... which is why you can't just watch one show and understand it. You have to start from page one...
Tolkien: I finally got my author's copy of Mediations on Middle-Earth (but still no contract or payment), and I have to say I'm disappointed in it. There are a few good essays (Le Guin, of course, and Michael Swanwick among them), but some are, well, embarrassing. And what's with John Howe being touted as "the current acknowledged master of Tolkien art"? Hello, what happened to Alan Lee? I don't know, maybe it's just me--feeling grumpy because my editorial experience on this book has been so bad. Heidi, what was your opinion of it?
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Heidi
Anne Heiner
ezOP
(11/20/01 11:58:57 pm)
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Re: re: Buffy
To be honest, Terri, I haven't picked it up since I started this thread. I only completely finished your essay, Card's and most of Friesner's. I liked Card's perspective of Sam as the true hero although Card's tone can be abrasive (in this essay and others I have read). I can say that because every time I see the movie trailer, I think of Sam and his relationship to the ring and Frodo.
I won't probably pick it up for another few days since Thanksgiving has overrun my life for a week or so. My parents are in town visiting and I have been taking my mother on a whirlwind tour of art museums in LA. Closest I came to fairy tales all day was a portrait of a little girl dressed as Little Red Riding Hood at the Huntington. Lords, ladies, and Little Red Riding Hood. Unfortunately, there wasn't a postcard or image available. I knew I should have written down the artist's name!
And I haven't watched Buffy although all of you are enticing me to it. It premiered when I was in grad school and I never got started on it since I had a class or TA duties that night for the first season and a half. My husband and I have been watching "Smallville" with some interest thanks to a lifelong interest in superheroes and Superman, so I am also seeing the Buffy commercials on the WB. Perhaps someday I will catch up.....
Heidi
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Carrie
Unregistered User
(11/21/01 3:12:51 pm)
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essay
I came across an essay written in the UK on Tolkien and thought it interesting -- although I'm not exactly sure why. Just thought I'd post the link.
Carrie
www.lrb.co.uk/v23/n22/turn2322.htm
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