From: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org (stillpt-digest) To: stillpt-digest@smoe.org Subject: stillpt-digest V2 #2 Reply-To: stillpt@smoe.org Sender: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk stillpt-digest Wednesday, January 5 2000 Volume 02 : Number 002 Today's Subjects: ----------------- welcome ["Donald G. Keller" ] b/hushdream ["Donald G. Keller" ] m/new CDs ["Donald G. Keller" ] Re: m/new CDs ["David S. Bratman" ] m/Composer of the Century ["David S. Bratman" ] Re: welcome [Martha Soukup ] Re: welcome [meredith ] b/hushdream2 ["Donald G. Keller" ] Re: b/hushdream2 ["David S. Bratman" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2000 06:24:47 -0500 (EST) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: welcome Welcome to =the still point= e-mail list. It takes its name from the music publication written by Donald G. Keller (hereinafter "I") in various forms since 1981, beginning life as an apa contribution (if you don't know what that means, never mind) and continuing as one issue of a print magazine (still available) and ultimately as a website; but it takes its essence as the continuation of my topic on the GEnie computer bulletin board (if you don't know what =that= means, never mind). The =primary= purpose of this list is in-depth discussion of the TV series =Buffy the Vampire Slayer=, most particularly the mythological analysis I have been occupied with for some time. But I don't promise to limit myself, and music discussion (indie rock and 20th century classical especially) is likely to crop up from time to time. My plan is to code my subject lines (b/ for =Buffy= messages, m/ to designate music, or movies, or "more," other codes as deemed necessary) so that those who are primarily interested in the =Buffy= discussion can follow that thread. Let the discussion begin. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2000 06:31:01 -0500 (EST) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: b/hushdream [All characters, actual dialogue, and visual images hereinafter described are the property of the copyright holders, (c)1999. Intended for Fair Use only.] [SCENE: Psychology class. BUFFY sitting next to WILLOW listens to the lecture.] PROF. WALSH: So this is what it is. Talking about commmunication. Talking about language. Not the same thing. It's about inspiration. Not the idea, but the moment =before= the idea, when it's total, when it blossoms in your mind and connects to everything. It's about the thoughts and experiences that we don't have a word for. A demonstration. Buffy. Summers. Come on down to the front here. [A little embarrassed, BUFFY obeys.] PROF. WALSH [to the class, indicating BUFFY]: A typical college girl, one assumes. [to BUFFY] Lie down on my desk. BUFFY: What? PROF. WALSH: Go ahead, you're perfectly safe. [With some reluctance and bemusement, BUFFY obeys. RILEY in the corner looks uncomfortable.] PROF. WALSH: Riley, if you could oblige...? RILEY: [sourly] The demonstration, right? PROF. WALSH: Be a good boy. [RILEY goes reluctantly to BUFFY, carefully puts his arms around her.] BUFFY: [uncomfortably] This feels very strange... RILEY: [reassuringly] Don't worry. When I kiss you, it'll make the sun go down. [RILEY kisses BUFFY; she responds. The kiss lasts some time; the light gets dimmer. A sound of wind. When they break apart it's dark and the classroom is empty.] RILEY: See? BUFFY: Fortune favors the brave. [A childlike chanting has become audible.] BUFFY: Do you hear that? [BUFFY follows the sound into a dark hall with only a saint's statue illuminated. At the end of the hall a young girl (about ten) stands holding a wooden box. It is her voice we are hearing. When the cut returns to BUFFY observing her, we see a slight resemblance.] GIRL: [singsong] ...can't even shout Can't even cry The Gentlemen are coming by Looking in windows Knocking on doors They need to take seven And they might take yours Can't call to Mom Can't say a word You're gonna die screaming But you won't be heard [RILEY walks up behind BUFFY and puts his hand on her shoulder. But it's a GENTLEMAN, skeletally grinning. BUFFY starts awake, still in psychology class.] PROF. WALSH: ...so I'll see you all Monday for a final review session. WILLOW: Man, that was an exciting class, huh? BUFFY: Oh, yeah. Wow. WILLOW: In the last twenty minutes, it was a revelation! Just laid out everything we need to know for the final. I'd hate to have missed that. (Commentary this evening--DGK) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2000 06:39:22 -0500 (EST) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: m/new CDs Just to roll the other main thread... My first purchases of the new millenium were both classical CDs (only bought about a dozen such last year). One which I'd been keeping my eye on for a cheap copy of was the new Henry Cowell 2-disc set of his string quartets (three numbered ones) and a bunch of related pieces. I've had his Quartet Euphometric and Quartet Romantic on tape for what seems like decades, and I'm glad to have such a big chunk of his work all in one place. I know that David is a big fan of Cowell, though if I remember correctly it's more for his orchestral works (which tend to be fairly consonant, yes?). These pieces show him very close to his colleagues Ruth Crawford [Seeger], Conlon Nancarrow, Carl Ruggles, and Charles Ives in dissonance and rhythmic innovation. The other disc is piano music by John Adams (including the much-recorded =Phrygian Gates=) and Terry Riley, which is strong but unproblematical minimalism. I particularly like Riley's album of just-intonation piano music =The Harp of New Albion=, and his previously-unrecorded piece =The Heaven Ladder= is much in that vein, especially his individual vein of ragtime. (I wish his fandango had sounded more Spanish, however.) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2000 11:03:50 -0500 (EST) From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: m/new CDs Don - You remember correctly that I like Henry Cowell, though it's not so much that it's for his orchestral music (I like everybody for their orchestral music, not being that big a chamber music or vocal music fan) as it is for his mid-to-late period, much more conservative than the radical stuff he's best known for. I realize this is rather like preferring Auden's later poetry to his earlier work, and in fact I do that also. Not long ago I listened to the Quartet Romantic, as it happens -- this is a work in which the lines are in such total rhythmic independence that it can only be performed by players wearing headphones and listening to a click track instead of each other -- and found its total absence of a recognizable rhythm made it a more painful experience to hear than many a more dissonant work. While we're here, I want to mention that I read the New Yorker article on Richard Strauss. It's a good analysis, and fortunately does not spend too much time trying to justify the silly title claim that he was "the Composer of the Century": the author's only serious sally in that direction is the observation that, of the major landmarks on the road to musical Modernism, Strauss's _Salome_ was the first to premiere actually _in_ the 20th century. But that doesn't make it more important than Tristan, or Prelude l'apres-midi d'un faune, or Le Sacre. In any case the century to claim that Strauss was the composer of wasn't the 20th, but a century that's part 19th, part 20th: 1857-1957 would bracket his life neatly. More anon. David Bratman ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2000 11:18:03 -0500 (EST) From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: m/Composer of the Century So who was _the_ Composer of the 20th Century, then? Depends what one seeks in the job, I guess: influence or sheer quality. The two composers generally deemed tops of the 19c combine both (Beethoven and Wagner: I'll go along with Beethoven's quality but demur on Wagner's: imho, after studying Beethoven's developments, Wagner's use of leitmotifs sounds infantile), but the generally-considered greatest of the 18c (Bach and Mozart) were certainly not the most influential (Handel and Haydn, maybe Gluck). For 20c, I see 3 choices, all S's: Schoenberg, not of the really outstanding quality the position demands, but massively influential, even if his role in modern music was similar to that of Marx in modern politics: i.e. diagnosed a problem accurately, but the cure was worse than the disease. Stravinsky, whose influence was probably even greater than Schoenberg's, and who was certainly a greater composer, though not consistently so. And my choice, Shostakovich, who was not quite so influential (though his influence remains very broad, particularly on just about every composer to have emerged from the Soviet empire and its successors), but who kept up a remarkably consistent string of great works for fifty years covering the entire middle half of the century. (Yes, he wrote a lot of trash, but he had no weak _periods_.) Bartok? An honourable runner-up. David Bratman ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2000 14:15:51 -0800 (PST) From: Martha Soukup Subject: Re: welcome Hi. Is there going to be any way to get this list in digest form? I hope I hope I hope? Martha ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 04 Jan 2000 19:08:31 -0500 From: meredith Subject: Re: welcome Hi! Martha inquired: >Hi. Is there going to be any way to get this list in digest form? I hope I >hope I hope? Oh yes, of course. We added everyone who had provided their e-dress to Don to the loose-mail form as a default. Changing this is very simple. Send a note to "majordomo@smoe.org" and paste the following into the message body: unsubscribe stillpt subscribe stillpt-digest end If by chance you should ever miss something, every digest will be archived at . Another administrative note, while I'm here: please make sure you're subscribed using the *exact* address from which you plan to post. Otherwise everything you post will be bounced to me for approval first. That should cover everything for now. :) Enjoy! P.S. Martha, I've already taken care of you. :) +==========================================================================+ | Meredith Tarr meth@smoe.org | | New Haven, CT USA http://www.smoe.org/~meth | +==========================================================================+ | "things are more beautiful when they're obscure" -- veda hille | | *** TRAJECTORY, the Veda Hille mailing list: *** | | *** http://www.smoe.org/meth/trajectory.html *** | +==========================================================================+ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2000 22:58:59 -0500 (EST) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: b/hushdream2 [Some Preliminary Remarks Towards an Essay Entitled "Buffy's Dreams," Fragment 2] (Before I proceed to talking about the opening dream from "Hush," let me issue a corrective to my previous comments on the Faith & Buffy dream from "Graduation Day"--and by the way anyone new to this discussion who wants to see that previous set of comments, e-mail me privately and I'll send it to you. (I made two pretty categorical statements in the course of those comments: 1) that we have no evidence that significant dreams are a Slayer characteristic--since we have no other evidence of such from Kendra or Faith 2) that, apart from the exception of Angel in "Amends"--and don't forget the wedding dream in "The Prom"--we don't witness the dreams of any other characters. (Neither of these statements is true. (Though I had remembered that we are introduced to Buffy both in the TV show and in the original movie through her nightmares, I had forgotten that those dreams served as an identifying mark--Buffy is convinced, in the movie, that Merrick is telling the truth that she is the Slayer because he knows the content of her nightmares, and Giles in "Welcome to the Hellmouth" stops Buffy dead in her tracks with his ironic "It's not like you're having the nightmares..." In both cases it's a corroboration that leads Buffy to resign herself to her dharma. (And I'd completely forgotten about Giles' dreams about Eyghon in "The Dark Age." They're short and very fragmentary--much like Buffy's in "Welcome to the Hellmouth"--but near the end they inform him of Buffy's danger--Ethan Rayne having tatooed her with the Mark of Eyghon--and wakes him so he can attempt a rescue.) 1. In contrast to the Buffy & Faith dream, which I knew immediately was a dream, I did =not= realize the opening of "Hush" was a dream until Buffy wakes up in class. Deirdre (my daughter) in contrast knew it was a dream upon Riley's statement "When I kiss you, it'll make the sun go down." Which makes sense in retrospect; so why didn't I realize it? The only explanation I have is to point to the nature of the show: it's a fantasy, and a fantasy through and through (not a realistic show laminated to a fantasy, as some mainstream critics seem to assume), and therefore =anything= can possibly happen. Given past events on the show, given later events in the same episode, is it so unlikely that Riley has some unexpected supernatural power, that a mysterious young oracle should show up, etc.? Doesn't seem so to me. 2. I am sometimes of the opinion that first-rate art teaches us how to "read" it (though I have my doubts about =Last Year at Marienbad=, which I just saw for the first time), especially when the artist in question is Joss Whedon; this is a point that Gayle has made before me. I bring this up because I noticed, upon watching the rerun of "Beer Bad" last week (I was out the night it was first broadcast and had a poor tape that needed to be replaced), that the teaser of that episode makes a very strong parallel with its counterpart in "Hush." This is the scene where Buffy is daydreaming about Parker in class, and Prof. Walsh's lecture is about the pleasure principle and the id. After which Buffy reruns her daydream with only slight variation. (But note that it is broadly prophetic of what happens at the end!) "Hush" shows a very similar structure, but its sandwich is inside-out: "Beer Bad" has the lecture in the middle with daydream iterations either side of it, while "Hush" has Prof. Walsh's lecture at the beginning and Willow's "exposition" at the end, with the longer and more complex dream in between. I pointed out before that Willow's statement at the end--everything they needed for the final(e)--directly addresses the content of the dream; I think we can assume on the model we've been offered that Prof. Walsh's does as well. Language and communication not the same thing, check; much communication without spoken language happens later on. What about inspiration connecting to everything, experiences we don't have words (no words! hah!) for? One likely explanation: it describes the nature of Buffy's significant dreaming. 3. But here's a wrinkle. Did Prof. Walsh even deliver that lecture? One of the necessary decipherments in this scene is: when did Buffy fall asleep? Was she asleep when the episode opened? That seems the most likely interpretation; there's no obvious seam, no point before which she's surely awake and after which she's asleep. But =if= she's asleep...is the opening paragraph of lecture something Buffy's own mind came up with (as an explanation for its own functioning)? Or can we postulate that Buffy has nodded off but is still awake enough to hear that paragraph? 4. I think we can safely assume that the demonstration never took place. (Too bad; the irony of that "A typical college girl--one assumes" is delicious.) But what does it mean in Buffy's dream language? It dramatizes Buffy's anxiety about, and wish for, her first kiss with Riley (which we see not happen, again, afterwards); but his reluctance is puzzling. In the context of the dream, it represents =her= reluctance, I think--having moved too fast with Parker--projected onto Riley; does it also represent her fear of being manipulated against her will? And does the slightly adversarial relationship between Riley and Prof. Walsh represent Buffy's perception of their classroom interaction, or (here's a new thought) her subconscious perception of their clandestine interaction? Or--even more interesting--is it broadly prophetic of what is to come? 5. Riley's statement--"When I kiss you, it'll make the sun go down"--sent the hair prickling up the back of my neck; it's deeply resonant, though what it means, and why and how it forms the linking motif between the classroom and the prophecy, I have no clue. (Is this the incomprehensible knot from the Freud quote I mentioned last discussion? The equivalent of "Little Miss Muffet counting down from 730"?). 6. "Fortune favors the brave" is less mysterious (but hardly less resonant); whatever its general applicability, it specifically refers to Buffy & Riley's apprehension about kissing. Note that Buffy echoes it when they fail to kiss at the end of the teaser. (It's a quote from Virgil; maybe Greer, who identified it, can give us some context for it.) 7. And as happens before, Buffy's dream gives her information she needs to solve the episode's conundrum, information she could not have gotten from anywhere else. And as ever previous, no clue as to how or whence the information comes to her. And how eerily presented! And the perfect kickout from the dream, with Riley turning into a Gentleman. (This is not an unprecedented device, but this is already too long and I'm not going to deal with it tonight.) That's more than enough to say about the dream, at least for starters. Comments are invited. (Also, any critique of my transcription would be welcome; I'm not at all sure, for example, that I've punctuated Prof. Walsh's opening speech correctly.) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2000 00:42:27 -0500 (EST) From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: b/hushdream2 I knew _something_ was wrong after Riley embraces Buffy, and that was because of its implausibility. I probably read the show more like Deirdre does than as you do: even in a thorough fantasy, some things can't or won't happen, until demonstrated otherwise. No, it's not unlikely that Riley has some powers (or should I capitalize it, and if I say Powers should I go look for a copy of _Earthquake Weather_ in his room?), but it is unlikely that he'd be asked to demonstrate them in class like that. Willow's comment about "everything we need for the final" was (clearly, I think) intended by her as a joke to needle Buffy for falling asleep. But this being "Buffy", it surely has more relevance than that, and probably it's a key to alert us to the significance of what Walsh had said, regardless of whether she "really" said it or not (and it's impossible to say: but on _this_ level it doesn't matter: her remarks have their significance regardless of their source). I agree in part that Riley's reluctance in the dream represents Buffy's own reluctance, but it also reflects that Riley, unlike Parker, is not a forward and pushy guy. This is something already put in to Riley's character and surely noted by Buffy. But I agree that it's dangerous to interpret the dream-language too literally. The appearance of the Gentleman in the dream is very significant, but Riley turning into him is probably not significant: it merely a) serves as a shock (for the viewer) and b) warns of the Gentlemen's pervasiveness. ------------------------------ End of stillpt-digest V2 #2 ***************************