From: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org (chakram-refugees-digest) To: chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Subject: chakram-refugees-digest V2 #104 Reply-To: chakram-refugees@smoe.org Sender: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk chakram-refugees-digest Tuesday, April 23 2002 Volume 02 : Number 104 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [chakram-refugees] Radio Tribute To The Music Of Kevin Smith, April 22 2002 [NZJester ] Re: [chakram-refugees] Radio Tribute To The Music Of Kevin Smith, April 22 2002 [Meredith Tarr > [] Re: [chakram-refugees] <> [IfeRae@aol.com] [chakram-refugees] New York Times Article About Oxygen ["bookdaft" > [meredith ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2002 19:19:01 +1200 From: NZJester Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] Radio Tribute To The Music Of Kevin Smith, April 22 2002 At 11:04 PM 21/04/02 -0500, Daniel T. Miller wrote: >Just checked their web page and the good news >is this wonderful crazy station, archives almost >everything! So, I don't have to stay home or drive >myself crazy trying to hook up doodads to record this. > >I just had a test run with John Allen's last show on the >15th. It worked fine. > >I'm using Real player 8 Basic >and Windows 95. > >I have yet figure out yet how to record it >on the hard drive, so I don't have to >be on the net to hear it again. But >you can't everything. What you need is a Video card for you computer that also has a TV Out option then you can plug it into your video recorder and record the Real player file onto a standard video tape for playback Catch ya later Jester My Home Page http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~nzjester/index.html New Xenaland http://www.angelfire.com/tv2/newxenaland/ ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2002 04:16:22 EDT From: Sekhmet209@aol.com Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] Radio Tribute To The Music Of Kevin Smith, April 22 2002 In a message dated 4/22/02 12:04:54 AM, d.t.miller@juno.com writes: >I have yet figure out yet how to record it >on the hard drive, so I don't have to >be on the net to hear it again. But >you can't everything. If all else fails, try running a cable from the speaker plugin on the back of your computer to the microphone plugin on your tape deck or stereo receiver (or from the "line out" on the computer to the "line in" on the stereo, if they possess those), and record the RealPlayer output on audiotape (I've tried it; it works). You might have to poke around in Radio Shack to get the right kind of cables and/or adapters to do this, but they're worth having on hand for audio "emergencies". :) - --Sekhmet ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2002 11:18:18 -0500 From: "Daniel T. Miller" Subject: [chakram-refugees] Xena ferns! Well, I thought I was going to get to sleep late but I woke very early in the morning with so much bubbling energy (without the use of caffeine) that if I was New Age person, I would swear it came from an outside source and the Universe was trying to tell me something. After fiddling around with useful things, decided the Universe wants me to catch up the backlog of e-mail (still haven't finished KT's con review) and to start writing frivolous Xena related posts. (Whew!) ** Right before I had to leave early Saturday morning I caught a few minutes of "Ground Force," a gardening/landscaping show on BBC America. A British lawn is getting a make over. The camera shows two huge leafy familiar ferns that I associate with ancient Greece. ;~) It was so strange to see only two, and not to see Lucy or Ren or anyone in Xena garb next to the them. The host delivers this enthusiastic monologue. I was actually sleepy that day, and didn't catch everything he said - --some stuff about how the ferns are imported out of New Zealand and how to care for them -- but I know he did end his description by saying the species are one the sexiest plants in the world! ** I'm not into plants and I like this show. Never have time to see more than bits and pieces of it. The show not only goes all over the U.K. but even flies to X-British countries. I saw the last 1/2 of an episode in Christchurch (Is almost every home there on a river? :~) and I caught the last 5 minutes of when they went to South Africa to do Mandela's backyard! ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/web/. ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2002 10:39:25 -0700 (PDT) From: Meredith Tarr Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] Radio Tribute To The Music Of Kevin Smith, April 22 2002 Hi, - --- "Daniel T. Miller" wrote: > Just checked their web page and the good news > is this wonderful crazy station, archives almost > everything! So, I don't have to stay home or drive > myself crazy trying to hook up doodads to record > this. :) Yeah, they're pretty good about the whole net.thing. They were one of the first non-commercial stations to start streaming over the Net. > I have yet figure out yet how to record it > on the hard drive, so I don't have to > be on the net to hear it again. But > you can't everything. So far WFMU (deliberately) hasn't employed any security measures to prevent one from saving the stream to one's hard drive. My roomie is currently capturing the 128-bit MP3 stream for me on his PC at home using FreeAmp. (For RealPlayer and Windows Media streams, he uses a utility called Streambox VCR. A Google search will easily find places to download these things.) Doing it on the PC is infinitely easier than hooking up a stereo or VCR to your computer. :) Plus, you keep it all digital that way -- porting it to outside analog equipment inevitably causes signal degradation. Meredith meth@smoe.org Yahoo! Games - play chess, backgammon, pool and more http://games.yahoo.com/ ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2002 13:48:00 -0400 From: Subject: [chakram-refugees] <> # # # # # ## # # # # The Debt 1 & 2 is for my money the best Xena episodes of the series. It introduces the characters Borias, Xena's upwardly mobile Hun lover, played with a lot of enthuisiam by Marton Csokas, and young Xena. Lawless's Young Xena can be regard as a separate character from our regular Xena. This Xena is feral, cruel, sometimes not terrible bright and oddly vulnerable. It is a testment to LL lack of ego that she could portray such an unlikable character - the scene where she spits the wine at young Ming Tien is still shocking to me. I think a lot of stars would have tried to temper the unlikability of their character while Lucy seems to relish it. Oley Sasson my favorite Xena director is in rare form here. The opening shot of Boria's and Xena's chase of Ming Tsu's troops across the plain is thrilling and something you don't ofter see on a TV series. Then you have great moments that really pushed the television's envelope. Borias and Xena having sex on the horse, Xena stoned on opium, Xena being referred to as a whore at least twice, and the sheer brutality of mounted heads and walling a child up in a wall must have given the censors some pause. Sasson also did an interesting job with the child playing Ming Tien. The actor is silent through the whole show. Great round eyes soaking up everything. He never cries and hardly ever has any expression. You can only wonder what he is thinking. The adult Ming Tien says Xena made him - taught him how to use terror. To be frank I don't think Ming Tien would have turned out to be a benevolent ruler with Ming Tsu as a mentor. Ming Tsu certainly was an example of cruelity and arogance. What I do think Xena taught him was a comtempt for his father. Xena kidnaps young Ming right from his father's house, escapes his clutches, then serves his father dinner without the father noticing the Chinese serving woman is 6 feet tall with blue eyes, and finally plays him for a fool before killing him. I think by destroying his image of his father Ming Tien needs a new hero and the one he choses is young Xena, his father's destroyer. He could have chosen Lo Mao as a new mentor, after all she saves his life but Ming Tien has been taught from birth that power is cruel and brutal so it is natural for him emulate Xena. I think Ming Tsu made him the man he was but Xena certainly was responsible for refining the final creation. The other major charcter is Lo Mao played wonderfully by Jaclyn Kim. Kim plays Loa Mao with great dignity and gentlness but a gentleness that is combined with steely resolve and a touch of ruthlessness. There are wonderful scenes between Lucy and her. Lo Mao treats Xena almost like a mother - amused affection when Xena is trying to break the bottle and stern discipline when she has Xena serve Ming Tsu. Lo Mao tries here best to heal Xena - she manages to heal her body but fails at healing Xena's soul. Why does Lo Mao fail? Certainly Xena loves Lo Mao and was eager to please her. Xena tells Gabrielle that she wasn't ready yet to understand what Lo Mao was teaching her. This is perhaps true but it also true that Lo Mao fails because she makes a fatal mistake. Lo Mao had a serious flaw - she was ambitious. She wanted to rule Chin and she wanted to use Ming, Xena, and Boria to do it. She moved too quickly bringing Borias and Xena togther before Xena had a chance to get Borias out of her blood and then hooking up Xena and Ming Tsu. She should have known Ming Tsu was too arrogant to accept Xena as a partner and Xena was still filled with hate for Ming. In the end Lo Mao overestimated her ability to control Xena and events. She like so many others tried to use Xena for her own purposes and thus lost Xena. Lets not forget Gabrielle. ROC has a tough job here. Gabrielle the trusty sidekick suddenly has to betray her best friend. ROC must make this betrayal believable and not lose the audiences sympathy. She pulls it off. You see Gabby go from disapproval as Xena tells her of her Chin adventure, to sorrow and anger at the news that Xena will turn to murder once again and finally you see her guilt and true remorse at the results of her betrayal. ROC brings a nice sense of despiration to her scene where she confronts Xena in front of Ming. In the dungeon scene you can really feel her relief when Xena forgives her. Last but not least lets not forget Xena. As the present day Xena, LL did a great job of demonstrating her ambiguity over what she feels she must do to stop Ming Tien. The scene where she is sneaking through the castle you can tell she is really torn about throwing away all she has worked for. The reconciliation scene in the dungeon is wonderful as she forgives Gabrielle with humor and a silly request for a nose scratching. In the final confrontation with Ming Tirn we see Xena revulsion as she discovers that Ming knowingly tortured and killed his own mother. I often wondered if Xena realized she had killed Ming or if whe is so horrified that she kills him in reflex. As my final word here I often wondered what Xena meant when the guards taudted her when the said she betrayed by a friend and she relies "No, not a friend" Did she mean Gabrielle was no longer a friend or that Gbarielle was more than a friend? Long post - sorry but it was a great two episodes. CherylA ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2002 20:20:11 EDT From: IfeRae@aol.com Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] <> In a message dated 04/22/2002 12:48:46 PM Central Daylight Time, cande@sunlink.net writes: @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ << As my final word here I often wondered what Xena meant when the guards taudted her when the said she betrayed by a friend and she relies "No, not a friend" Did she mean Gabrielle was no longer a friend or that Gbarielle was more than a friend? >> Yes, I wondered about that too. She could've meant a friend wouldn't have done that. But I also thought she might've been protecting Gabrielle, by making sure they didn't think Gabrielle had anything to do with Xena's assassination attempt and that she was no threat to anyone but Xena. - -- Ife ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2002 22:15:06 -0400 From: "bookdaft" Subject: [chakram-refugees] New York Times Article About Oxygen This article was in Monday's New York Times. As of now it doesn't appear Oxygen's future is terribly promising. And they have the exclusive rights to Xena for 5 years. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>> This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by bookdaft@voyager.net. \----------------------------------------------------------/ Oxygen Struggling for Ratings April 22, 2002 By JIM RUTENBERG Executives at Oxygen, the cable network that promised to revolutionize television for women when it made its debut two years ago, have taken issue with smart-alecky assessments that it is "gasping for air." But the network - whose founders include the Nickelodeon pioneer Geraldine Laybourne and Oprah Winfrey - does seem to be gasping for ratings. And if the revolution is indeed being televised, very few people are watching. Monthly data available from Nielsen Media Research for the first time in Oxygen's history show results far below what its executives - and industry analysts - expected when the network began in early 2000. According to March Nielsen figures, Oxygen is watched each day in an average of only 26,000 households, less than 0.1 percent of the nearly 40 million households that receive it nationwide. In the evenings, its ratings are slightly better, and an average of 52,000 households tune in. But Oxygen still ranks among the lowest of the regularly monitored television networks, far below cable outlets like the Travel Channel and Country Music Television. Oxygen's troubled start has by now been fairly well documented. Its initial program schedule, which included an amateurish "Pajama Party" talk show and an au courant (some said forced) afternoon show for teenagers, "Trackers," was widely panned. Getting distribution on cable systems took longer than expected, particularly in New York. And the pricey gambit of fully integrating its television programming with the Internet all but fizzled when Oxygen was forced to close several sites and backtrack from its ambitious e-commerce goals. But the Nielsen figures provide the first official scorecard of how audiences are taking to its programming. The miniscule audience numbers were surprising to long-time television industry analysts. "Barely a heartbeat - if it was any lower it would be a hash mark," said one; Another said the network's viewership "hardly registers a ripple in the pond." The ratings struggles of Oxygen, they said, underscore the difficulty that new cable networks face in breaking through to audiences - especially without the promotional backing of a major media parent like Viacom or AOL Time Warner. But they also raise questions about whether there is room for another women's cable network in a field dominated by Lifetime, a joint venture of the Walt Disney Company and the Hearst Corporation. Oxygen's wobbly start comes as such a surprise because so much was expected of the network. Promising to offer intelligent and thoughtful programming for professional women, in contrast to the more breathless Lifetime, its parent company, Oxygen Media, attracted financing of a reported $300 million from backers like AOL, Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, and the Carsey-Werner-Mandabach production house. The network went so far as to demand that cable operators pay to carry it, in an industry where most newcomers have to pay for carriage. Oxygen executives acknowledged that they were disappointed with the ratings. "We certainly had hoped we'd do better," said Laura Nelson, a network spokeswoman. But, she said, network executives were not discouraged. "We're absolutely right on track." Ms. Nelson blamed the network's growth spurt in distribution for much of the problem. Oxygen was available in 14 million homes at the beginning of 2001. It now reaches nearly 40 million households, too many to continue without signing up for Nielsen ratings, which it did before the network's promotional campaign had shown results. "There's just a lag time between when you hit someone's dial and when they find you," Ms. Nelson said. In two of the markets that have carried Oxygen the longest, Atlanta and Dallas, it is doing much better, Ms. Nelson said. It was recently added to Time Warner Cable's basic cable lineup in New York and the network hopes that the increased exposure will help increase the network's profile in the media. Ms. Nelson said the network saw no reason to change from its newly revamped programming schedule, which has moved away some from in-studio seemingly Oprah-inspired shows toward more humor and mainstream entertainment in the form of reruns of "Xena, Warrior Princess," and original new programs including a talk show about fashion with the comedian Tracey Ullman as host ("Pajama Party" has been dropped). "I think we're pretty confident in the quality of programming that's on the air," Ms. Nelson. "We're beginning to hit our stride." Oxygen certainly has a way to go. According to the Nielsen data, its household ratings during prime time translate into just 63,000 people, only 19,000 of whom were women 18 to 49, Oxygen's key demographic. Lifetime, on the other hand, was watched in prime time in March by 2.4 million people, 713,000 of them women 18 to 49. Lifetime is a much more established network, available in more than 85 million homes. It ranks No. 1 in prime time among all basic cable networks. Yet Oxygen is not doing quite as well as Disney's SoapNet, which shows reruns of soap operas; it started about the same time as Oxygen. It is available in slightly more than half as many homes as is Oxygen, but is watched in a much higher percentage of them. Still, it did not receive anywhere near the amount of media attention that Oxygen did at its start. Analysts said Oxygen, unlike SoapNet, is trying something much more ambitious by creating its own programming, which takes time. And despite its troubled start, they were not nearly ready to count it out. "I think they're putting pretty good stuff on the air," said Christopher Geraci, director of national television buying for the OMD USA, a media services division of Omnicom. "This is just a testament to how hard it is to get noticed." Mr. Geraci said that while he had expected a higher number of viewers, he believed sponsors would continue to stick with the network. "Most of the folks who have bought them have done so to be there at the beginning, so if it does turn out to be successful they will have laid a base with them," he said. Jack Myers, editor of the Jack Myers Report, a television industry newsletter, said Oxygen was headed in the right direction by retooling its programming. And, he said, once it gets better notices it should do fine. He disagreed with assessments that the women's television genre was overcrowded and said there seemed to be room for Lifetime and its spinoffs, the Lifetime Movie Network and Real Women, SoapNet, Rainbow Media Holding's WE Women's Entertainment and Oxygen. "The real issue is going to be once they launch their new season and new schedule in September," he said. If Oxygen's ratings do not improve within a year, he said, "Then there's real concern. But I think that critics need to give them the next year before judgments start being finalized." http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/22/business/media/22TUBE.html?ex=1020484688&e i=1&en=f33c2afd9e2e7aca Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2002 23:29:34 -0400 From: meredith Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] New York Times Article About Oxygen Hi, bookdaft forwarded: >This article was in Monday's New York Times. As of now it doesn't appear >Oxygen's future is terribly promising. And they have the exclusive rights >to Xena for 5 years. Thanks for sending that along. I can count on one hand the number of people I know personally who get Oxygen on their cable or satellite system, and still have a couple fingers left over to flip off the brainiac at Studios USA who thought it would be a good idea to sell them the exclusive rerun rights to X:WP. (I'd have all five fingers free if Time Warner cable in NYC hadn't picked it up a few months ago.) :P :P :P I've met a few of the people who work at Oxygen -- they stop by Xena Night occasionally -- and they're nice people, I wish them well. I just wish their network were available to more than .000001% of American households, dammit! ======================================= Meredith Tarr New Haven, CT USA mailto:meth@smoe.org http://www.smoe.org/meth ======================================= Live At The House O'Muzak House Concert Series http://www.smoe.org/meth/muzak.html ======Next Up: N&K Nields 4/21/02====== ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2002 23:40:59 -0400 From: meredith Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] <> Hi, Cheryl reviewed: >The Debt 1 & 2 is for my money the best Xena episodes of the series. Amen to that. It was RenPics' finest hour (well, two hours :). The Ring trilogy and FIN came close, but no episode before or since was able to match it when it came to the quality of the writing, direction, acting, or sheer cinematic scope. And let's not forget the "ohsh*t" factor!! I was a complete mess during the week between parts 1 and 2 ... the look on Xena's face when she uncovered Gabrielle lying in Ming Tien's bed was burned indelibly in my brain. So much so, in fact, that after watching the episode just before I left for a business trip to Illinois, I stayed up until 2 am that night so I could catch the rerun in the hotel. (Needless to say, I was totally useless in my meeting the next day.) The only other episode to leave me a wreck like that was _Sacrifice II_, and that one was even worse because I had the entire summer to stew. Thank the gods, the wait between installments of _The Debt_ was only one week. To this day, _The Debt_ is the episode I show to people who want to know just why I was so into this silly little show. It never fails to leave jaws on the floor. (Does anyone know what Oley Sassone has been up to lately? I was so impressed by his directing skills on X:WP, I'd love to see something else he's worked on.) >As my final word here I often wondered what Xena meant when the guards >taudted her when the said she betrayed by a friend and she relies "No, not >a friend" Did she mean Gabrielle was no longer a friend or that Gbarielle >was more than a friend? I always took that to mean that Xena no longer considered Gabrielle her friend. We had already seen in _Destiny_ that when someone betrays Xena, she carries the grudge forever. That was the clear statement defining the Rift, I think. I recall thinking at the time that it was going to take something really extraordinary to heal the rift between them. Turns out I was right. :) ======================================= Meredith Tarr New Haven, CT USA mailto:meth@smoe.org http://www.smoe.org/meth ======================================= Live At The House O'Muzak House Concert Series http://www.smoe.org/meth/muzak.html ======Next Up: N&K Nields 4/21/02====== ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ End of chakram-refugees-digest V2 #104 **************************************