From: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org (stillpt-digest) To: stillpt-digest@smoe.org Subject: stillpt-digest V2 #144 Reply-To: stillpt@smoe.org Sender: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk stillpt-digest Saturday, July 8 2000 Volume 02 : Number 144 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: b/comments7/4 ["David S. Bratman" ] b/misc. ["David S. Bratman" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 8 Jul 2000 01:49:10 -0400 (EDT) From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: b/comments7/4 I have assorted small comments to make, so I'm combining them into one post. Donald wrote: >I've presented =Buffy= material at conventions twice; both times I >introduced it with a confession, basically saying I'd been a media >snob for years, and now I'd had my comeuppance, because I'd never >been as caught up in a TV show as I am with =Buffy=. After which I >moved on to the idea that everything I read reminded me of the show, >for example Dumezil... > >...but I don't think this informal approach, which worked in that >setting, is appropriate for an academic essay. I'm leaning now toward a >short introduction asserting (without demonstrating) the basic assumptions >I'm working under (=Buffy= is a myth and responds to that approach; she is >a hero as well as a superhero; Jung's archetypes, especially the shadow, >are appropriate; and let's move on to Dumezil). Actually, as long as it's not too whimsical, an opening like that could be fine. Just, whatever you do, don't get too stiff and formal. It's the abiding danger of most semi-academic papers by people not used to writing them (and even by some who are). I do most of my best work by writing informally at first, e.g. for apas, and then cleaning it up, so it becomes more cogent without losing its flow. My article on Peretti in NYRSF was written that way, for instance. >(What's the Maslovian hierarchy, by the way?) I don't remember the context in which I brought this up, but it's the one with food, shelter, health, etc. at the bottom, love (in various forms) next, work and such things higher up, and "self-actualization" at the top. The point is that you can't devote much attention to the higher levels unless the lower ones are stable: it's hard to concentrate on work if you have a toothache, for instance. >We've mentioned =The Prisoner= in passing once or twice here, and it's >still my opinion that it was the best TV series I ever saw. It is still my all-time favorite show. >what I found interesting this time around >was that it owes much less to the various 60s spy series and movies >(though it certainly is based on them as well) as on such more >"experimental" works like French New Wave film (=Last Prisoner at >Marienbad= as it were). The late 60s was a very fertile artistic time (in >rock music and science fiction as well), and =The Prisoner= is a prime >example thereof. I'm gradually going to watch the rest of the series and >make some more comments then. (I do remember, as do you, that some of the >episodes were kind of dumb.) Only a couple are really dumb. I don't think I've ever seen any of this New Wave cinema, and I'm not sure if I'd like it. The strength of _The Prisoner_ was the combination of the psychology, Kafka, and experimental film style on the one hand with a spy adventure story on the other. Without both it would have been unbalanced. It's a bit like how _Buffy_ is, or began as, a combination of horror and high school. I was interested in your and Gayle's comments about episode structure and acts. Most of what I know about TV writing comes from reading David Gerrold's books about _Star Trek_. So I know about the act structure, but Gerrold makes it sound as if act length is rigid. Either he oversimplified or things have changed since the 60s. >It does give me another angle for what is starting to look like =another= >very busy, big section of my =Buffy= material, which as I said I'm calling >"The Scooby Quaternio," wherein I intend to explore why the four main >characters form such a strong and complete unit, using mythological >material and (so it seems now) other symbology. Was it five characters when Cordelia was present, or was she usually out of it? The impression I had was that she was pretty clearly part of the gang, despite her annoying behavior. >You're in a bookstore. Displayed among the new books is one with a >pale pastel impressionistic cover. Near the top of the cover is a >line of medium-sized cover type: > >Lucy Church Amiably > >And further down, in larger cover-type: > >GERTRUDE STEIN > >Now, the question I asked myself was, when this happened to me (and >ask yourself before you scroll down): was this a work by Gertrude >Stein, or a study of Gertrude Stein by a woman with an unusual name? >Couldn't make up my mind. The semiotics seemed pretty balanced. >(What the pomo guys call "undecidable," I guess.) I have this problem virtually every time I see a pop music album by an unfamiliar group. Which is the name of the group, and which is the title of the album? Clues about likelihood of name don't help, because just about every old rule on how to name bands has gone by the wayside, though not as far as every old rule on how to title albums. >A load of hooey if you ask me. If I say to you "=The Lord of the >Rings=", or "Frodo Baggins," you =don't= think of =the words that >constitute= that novel or that character; what springs to your mind >is an image--possibly visual, but not necessarily. The words that >constitute it are only a =description=. Or so I'd argue. There is a very passionate school of criticism that holds that since literary characters do not physically exist, it is a perceptual error to claim that they do, and one that should be strenuously avoided. I find that to be bizarrely reductionist. All I know of most dead people (or even many living ones) is what I've read in books, so I know them on no better authority than literary characters. Is it a perceptual error to talk about _them_ as if they really exist? And if it's not an error, why can't the illusion of knowing them be extended to fictional characters as well? Berni wrote: >I really don't like the idea either, and I see two problems with >it. If there's a singular possessing demon, how can you have two >slayers simultaneously possessed? Also, I would think that if >Buffy were possessed by a demon, she would not be able to handle >holy water. I think the problems raised by the idea of possession are tiny compared to the ones solved by it. How does the Slayer get so strong without physical training? Why is there under normal circumstances only one, and why is the new one called only when the old one dies? Possession handles these perfectly. As for the second Slayer, the very circumstances in which there came to be two imply a normally overriding reason for usually having but one. The demon, if there was one, would have to be in two places at once when Buffy comes back to life, and I presume demonic fission of some kind occurred. On holy water ... that's a problem, but demons are generally less susceptible to the usual toolbox than vampires are, and there are types and types of possession. Nor is it conflicting for a demon-possessed Slayer to fight demons, for there are types and types of demons, and they're not always allied. Meredith wrote: >What if Lacan were from the opposite extreme? I believe it's possible, >because I find myself more often than not thinking in prose rather than >images. I'll suddenly realize that I'm narrating my life in the third >person as I go through my day, visualizing my thoughts on a printed page >rather than as a movie. I tend to think in words, though not to the extent of narrating my own adventures like a _Cerebus_ character. I got a glimpse, as it were, of how the other way works once: the only time I ever experienced the world as images was for a brief period immediately after watching a documentary film about great cinematographers: their relentlessly visual world carried over a little bit. Dawn wrote: >For what it's worth, for me the words "Frodo Baggins" are a significant >part of the character. The sound, the spelling, the combination of >familiar and unfamiliar elements; there's no image anywhere, visual or >otherwise, that can fully embody the character without invoking the >words. Of course, Frodo was created with words in the first place. But I >don't think fictional characters are the only essences that involve words >as part of their being, not merely a description. So it can be true of real characters, too? You might or might not be surprised to learn how close what you're saying comes to Tolkien's own theories of language. David B. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 8 Jul 2000 01:55:43 -0400 (EDT) From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: b/misc. Don - You might be interested to know that I saw Jim Wallace (you remember him from the Fantasy Association, right?) at the Rauschers' July-4th party, which he and Ginger had come down from Seattle to attend. He told me of his interest in anime shows, not surprising given his long fascination with things Japanese. I told him that I'd broken a nearly 30-year-old habit of not watching TV regularly: when I revealed the name of the show, he almost burst out cheering - he likes _Buffy_ too. I went on to mention, of course, that you were engrossed in study of mythological resonances in the show. "I remember," Jim said, "that Don was always talking about this French writer ..." "Dumezil," I said. "That's the one," he replied. "Yes," I said, "he's busy applying Dumezil's theories to _Buffy_," and I described the book. The writing of portions of the previous message were delayed because Berni wanted to watch our tapes of the 2nd season episodes, some of which I hadn't seen before. It seemed silly to be in here writing about _Buffy_ when I could be out in the living room watching it. At the point in "I Only Have Eyes for You" when the school was covered in buzzing wasps, I said, "Listen! It's Scelsi!" David B. ------------------------------ End of stillpt-digest V2 #144 *****************************