From: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org (stillpt-digest) To: stillpt-digest@smoe.org Subject: stillpt-digest V2 #136 Reply-To: stillpt@smoe.org Sender: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk stillpt-digest Wednesday, June 14 2000 Volume 02 : Number 136 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: b/deirdre faith ["David S. Bratman" ] b/dharmaupdate2 ["Donald G. Keller" ] b/comments6/13 ["Donald G. Keller" ] m/Orphic rock [Greer Gilman ] Re: b/comments6/13 ["David S. Bratman" ] Re: b/dharmaupdate2 ["David S. Bratman" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 04:49:53 -0400 (EDT) From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: b/deirdre faith This discussion of Faith's name reminds me - sorry if I've mentioned this before - of the discussions we used to have back in Seattle of George R.R. Martin's _Armageddon Rag_, particularly of the name of the character Patrick Henry Hobbins and how he got it. It seemed unlikely that he'd have been named after Patrick Henry, but if he were named Patrick from an Irish and/or Catholic background (I forget whether there was any evidence if he had one), Henry seemed an odd choice for middle name. Has there been much discussion of why Buffy got named that, within the subcreational context? Outside that context, my understanding was that the name was chosen for much the same reason that Effinger named his characters Muffy and Bitsy: because they're stereotypical rich airhead names, thus increasing the amusement value of having a rich airhead, in this case, fighting vampires. But in the show as it's developed, Buffy isn't an airhead, she's Everywoman. And Joyce is hardly an airhead mom (I forget what she's like in the movie). Dropping back within the subcreation, it's surprising that she'd name her daughter Buffy - though perhaps this has been dealt with at some point. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 20:46:14 -0400 (EDT) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: b/dharmaupdate2 Thanks for all your comments on this topic; I fully expected the air of faint annoyance, but I =did= warn you this was the result of middle-of-the-night woolgathering. Let me be a little crisper and clearer about the situation than I was in my meandering previous comments. I've been invited (commissioned, practically) to submit two pieces to the upcoming academic =Buffy= book (and associated projects): the dream analyses, and "The Dharma of Buffy." The dream analyses are no problem: I've got enough text on the six dreams I want to talk about as a unit ("Graduation Day II," "Hush," "Innocence," the Faith dream-trilogy from "This Year's Girl") to fulfil the 3,000-6,000-word limit. (And if I run short I can always talk about "Restless"...) As for "The Dharma of Buffy," again, I've got enough text (speaking of just the three sections Buffy the Kshatriya/Indra the Demonslayer/3 Sins of the Slayers): I've twice presented a version of it at conventions, and I spent some time today going over both versions and reconciling them, plus going through some other files of stuff and carpentering in more material. It comes to about 40K; anybody have a handy algorithm to convert that to wordcount? My print-previewer says it's about 15 pages (single spaced), which is about right; and there's certainly stuff that can be pared away (an entire detachable coda, in fact). So in a sense there's nothing to be =written=; I've got material on hand. It just needs to be shaped and edited--I probably need a weekend (or less) each to revise and smooth them out. (And it's about six weeks before the August 1st deadline.) Just to assure David he was reading right: I was musing =both= about the specific assignment I've just mentioned, and about a longer-range plan for a full-length book, and I wasn't clear about where I drifted from one to another. But here's my dilemma, specifically, with "The Dharma of Buffy." Let's say I start with a sentence like this... "According to the mythological theory of Georges Dumezil, Buffy is an example of the warrior function in Indo-European mythology." ...and go on from there. How many questions does that beg? It seems like there's so much to justify: treating =Buffy= as a mythological text, characterizing Buffy as a "hero," explaining Dumezil, defining Indo-European, and dharma, and kshatriya...and inevitably Jungian terminology (shadows, etc.) is going to creep in...and I just worry that I need =all= of the preceding sections I outlined last night in order to get to the =starting= point of the focused essay I (basically) already have. Am I worrying needlessly? Would a page or so of introduction asserting what it would take many pages to establish do the job? This is what has me vexed. Your attention, as always, is appreciated. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 20:47:21 -0400 (EDT) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: b/comments6/13 David: That Dunsany trade paperback sounds really swell. Lots of really good stuff in there (I know all those books pretty well). Definitely better than having the old Adult Fantasy paperbacks. Is it available in the States? You're right, of course, that if a fight comes to Buffy, =however= she may feel about Slaying that week, she won't back away from it; and if friends are in danger she'll even go =to= the fight. And that's exactly what she did in "Restless," as you say. But you say she fought the 1st Slayer both asleep and awake. Not so: the 1st Slayer =never= manifests in the waking world. I'm going to assume (until contradicted) that you're taking that scene where Buffy wakes up on the floor of the living room, and is attacked again by the 1st Slayer, as waking world. In fact, Buffy is still asleep at that point: she doesn't wake up until that brilliant sharp cut in the middle of her "haircare" speech. That whole last scene of Buffy's dream, like the first scene of Xander's, is ambiguous because it takes place in the living room where they're sleeping. But it's still the dream. It does seem, the first time through "Restless," that the dreams run parallel and could run in any order; but the fact that they fit together like a puzzle according to the archetypal =Buffy= plot skeleton works against that idea. (Watching the "Hush" rebroadcast. Yep, still great.) (Off to work soon...) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 22:52:39 -0400 (EDT) From: Greer Gilman Subject: m/Orphic rock Just saw a review in the TLS of a book for Don (if he hasn't already read it): Ruth Padel's _I'm a Man : sex, gods, and rock'n'roll_ (Faber). Her thesis is that "pop song is sung myth"; she seems to draw on Campbell and Jung. The reviewer notes "rhapsodic passages, along with spasms of rant." Might be worth glancing at. Greer ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 00:18:38 -0400 (EDT) From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: b/comments6/13 On Tue, 13 Jun 2000, Donald G. Keller wrote: > David: That Dunsany trade paperback sounds really swell. Lots of > really good stuff in there (I know all those books pretty well). > Definitely better than having the old Adult Fantasy paperbacks. Is > it available in the States? It's not in print here, but there are many UK online booksellers eager to take your money. I bought mine from amazon.co.uk; Doug Anderson, who told me about it, got his from WHSmith, his vendor of choice. Wishing to minimize shipping costs, I bought Peter Winnington's new biography of Peake at the same time. I have the Newcastle edition of _51 Tales_ (and if you, or anyone else here, doesn't have one and wants it, I know where they may be had from), and I suppose I should plump for the Owlswick edition of _Tales of 3 Hemispheres_, because then I'd have all the canonical early Dunsany short fiction in book form in the original order. > But you say she fought the 1st Slayer both asleep and awake. Not so: > the 1st Slayer =never= manifests in the waking world. I'm going to > assume (until contradicted) that you're taking that scene where > Buffy wakes up on the floor of the living room, and is attacked > again by the 1st Slayer, as waking world. In fact, Buffy is still > asleep at that point: she doesn't wake up until that brilliant sharp > cut in the middle of her "haircare" speech. That whole last scene of > Buffy's dream, like the first scene of Xander's, is ambiguous > because it takes place in the living room where they're sleeping. > But it's still the dream. Argh! I'll have to watch it _again_. Intricacy alone doesn't equal quality, but it certainly can help. Yep, best episode since "Hush", I admit it. > It does seem, the first time through "Restless," that the dreams run > parallel and could run in any order; but the fact that they fit > together like a puzzle according to the archetypal =Buffy= plot > skeleton works against that idea. There's more connection than that, too, which might also be missed: Xander bleeding on Giles's couch is only the most obvious instance of succession between dreams. The gradual evolving understanding of the nature of the threat is another. You pointed some of these out. By the way, did anyone mention that the First Slayer's very first manifestation is as the kitten? Yes, at the end of the first dream scene with Willow and Tara, where Willow opens the drapes and sees the bright desert, there's a shot of the kitten walking towards us in slow motion with heavy Foley footfalls. Gotta be it. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 00:25:25 -0400 (EDT) From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: b/dharmaupdate2 On Tue, 13 Jun 2000, Donald G. Keller wrote: > But here's my dilemma, specifically, with "The Dharma of Buffy." Let's say > I start with a sentence like this... > > "According to the mythological theory of Georges Dumezil, Buffy is an > example of the warrior function in Indo-European mythology." > > ...and go on from there. How many questions does that beg? ... > > Am I worrying needlessly? Would a page or so of introduction asserting > what it would take many pages to establish do the job? This is what has me > vexed. Several thoughts that may be helpful: 1) What do you say when you're presenting this stuff at a convention? 2) It's very hard for the author to know how long an introduction to make, if you go that route, and it'll almost certainly be too long. You could write the introduction, and let the editors decide whether and how much to cut it. 3) Or, you could follow the fiction writer's dictum, "If you get stuck near the beginning of a story, you're beginning it in the wrong place, and almost certainly too soon," and cut it down yourself. 4) Or, you could explain things in bits and pieces as you go along. Your example sentence would make an arresting beginning, and _then_ you could go on in the same paragraph to explain the three functions, who Dumezil is, and what (if anything) needs to be identified about "Indo-European mythology." ------------------------------ End of stillpt-digest V2 #136 *****************************