From: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org (stillpt-digest) To: stillpt-digest@smoe.org Subject: stillpt-digest V2 #148 Reply-To: stillpt@smoe.org Sender: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk stillpt-digest Wednesday, July 12 2000 Volume 02 : Number 148 Today's Subjects: ----------------- "Dawn" has apparently been cast [Todd Huff ] Xena controveresy ["Jennifer Stevenson" ] Gender Bias? Nah! [klh@technologist.com] b/faith redux ["Donald G. Keller" ] b/redemption ["Donald G. Keller" ] b/sappho2 ["Donald G. Keller" ] Re: Xena question [GHighPine@aol.com] Forever Knight (was Re: b/redemption) [GHighPine@aol.com] Re: b/faith redux [Todd Huff ] Re: b/sappho2 [GHighPine@aol.com] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 07:59:15 -0700 (PDT) From: Todd Huff Subject: "Dawn" has apparently been cast http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000711/en/television-trachtenberg_1.html Did anybody see "Harriet the Spy"? Can Michelle Trachtenberg act? __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get Yahoo! Mail – Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 11:35:38 -0500 From: "Jennifer Stevenson" Subject: Xena controveresy Do I detect a basic gender split on this? Hmmmm... Jennifer ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 14:10:05 -0400 (EDT) From: klh@technologist.com Subject: Gender Bias? Nah! Jennifer, There's no gender bias there; everyone said the same thing (except, as usual, David, whose response explains a lot of what was said). The Xena peaks are as high as the Buffy peaks--the Solstice episode a few seasons ago was a comic masterpiece--but there are not so many of them. The lows are lower--but most of those have come recently, and Xena's been going a few seasons longer. (I'll be nice and not point out that Berni's point about last season is pretty much exactly what Charlie Oberndorf and I agreed about Buffy [in arguing whether the third season {he} or the current one {me} sucked more]--at the end of Season Two you killed your lover to save the world, where do you go from there?) David's grousing about the anhistoric nature of the show is accurate, but its Buffy parallel (the aptly-monickered "deLint factor," the well-we-should-be-commuting issue, the well-we-can-kill-multitudes-but-no-one-will-notice-unless-Jane-Epperson-wants-to-write-a-script-about-it issue, etc. ad mauseam) is casually dismissed because (choose one) a) well, it's television b) well, it's high school/college the way we wish it had been c) well, we just get off on SMG [choose other as wish] d) well, we just get off on SMG's acting ability e) well, it's not about HISTORY, so it's not important f) some combination of the above and other factors Are you missing something important in not watching every episode of Xena? Probably not. Are you missing something important in not watching Buffy after Season Two? See previous answer. - --------------------------------------------------- Get free personalized email at http://iaf.iname.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 18:09:02 -0400 (EDT) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: b/faith redux A minor annoyance of dealing with the "Faith Tetralogy" has been, due to the way I taped the season (=Buffy= then =Angel=, three pairs per tape), by chance those four episodes are on =three different= tapes: each two-parter split across a tape break, meaning that the two on the same tape are at the very beginning and very end of that tape. About as awkward as it's possible to be. The thought struck me, when the reruns started, that it would be nice to have an extra tape with the four episodes in one go, so that one could peruse it as one four-hour (OK, three-hour) drama. Well, now's my chance. Tonight's =Buffy= rerun is "This Year's Girl" (=Angel= is running the "actress episode"), and I just discovered from the following week's =TV Guide= that they're running "Who Are You" back-to-back with "Five by Five" (second half of the =Buffy= chunk and first half of the =Angel= portion); presumably (or at least it is to be hoped) they'll rerun "Sanctuary" the following week. This four-part arc was one of the highlights of both series' seasons, and has already proved to be of enduring, absorbing interest in previous re-watchings (there's still a lot I haven't figured out about it), so I'm looking forward to a unitary copy. Speaking of reruns...I re-taped "Superstar" the other week (I'd lost the first minute when it was initially broadcast), and I have to say it's improved in my estimation. I =liked= it at first, but thought it a bit "light" (as I usually find the funny/alternative episodes). I kick it up a half-grade or so now; it's done =so= cleverly that I can't really find fault with it. Important trivium: the CO we see coming in to take over the Initiative is a character who doesn't seem to exist in the "real" world: he certainly isn't the colonel who was in command on site in the last handful of episodes, and I'm pretty sure he also isn't the higher-up we see the colonel talking to and also presiding over the demise of the Initiative in "Primeval." On the other hand, the information Jonathan presented about Adam's power source turned out to be true. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 18:11:40 -0400 (EDT) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: b/redemption I've been desultorily collecting the =Buffy= novelizations and original novels (a few behnd now), but I haven't started picking up the new series of =Angel= books (the =Buffy= titles are monthly; the =Angel= ones seem to be bimonthly or more seldom). The third one (=Redemption= by Mel Odom) was released last month, and I picked it up and looked at the blurb on the back (headed "Even if it takes an eternity, he will make amends..." which seems to be the series motto): "Whitney Tyler is a beautiful, widely adored actress who plays a vampire on a popular television series. Trouble is, a cult of viewers think she's a =real= vampire, and has made attempts on her life.... "...when Angel lays eyes on Whitney, he's astounded--she's the spitting image of a young woman warrior whom he encountered during his early days as the scourge of Europe." Caught your attention? It did mine. So I bought a copy, and while I was at work that night scarfed the whole 300 pages in about two and a half hours during slow time. (That's about twice my normal reading speed; must be large type.) It's a passable entertainment; a mystery that plays fair, several flashback chapters to when Angel and Darla were pirates(!!), woven- in tropes from several different =Buffy= and =Angel= episodes, a surprising but satisfying resolution, and some good Angel/Cordelia/Doyle (this is from before Wesley's return) interplay. My favorite passage: "Cordelia counted languages off on her fingers. 'French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and Russian; those are the five romance languages.'" Cracked me up. It's part of a long exchange about language and romance. Later on, in passing, Angel correctly identifies the fifth romance language as not Russian, but Romanian. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 18:13:13 -0400 (EDT) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: b/sappho2 I came across a quite different translation of Sappho's "Hymn to Aphrodite" in a book of translations by Guy Davenport called =7 Greeks=. Davenport is a distinguised translater, essayist, and short-story writer (much admired by Samuel R. Delany in the latter capacity). There didn't seem to be any notes to explain his sometimes much-diverging translations of some phrases: Aphrodita dressed in an embroidery of flowers Never to die, the daughter of God, Untangle from longing and perplexities O Lady, my heart. But come down to me, as you came before, For if ever I cried, and you heard and came Come now, of all times, leaving Your father's golden house. As a reminder, here again David A. Campbell's Loeb Classics prose translation, likely to be quite literal: Ornate-throned immortal Aphrodite, wile-weaving daughter of Zeus, I entreat you: do not overpower my heart, mistress, with ache and anguish, but come here, if ever in the past you heard my voice from afar and acquiesced and came, leaving your father's golden house. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 20:49:20 EDT From: GHighPine@aol.com Subject: Re: Xena question I could tell that the Xena eps I saw were intended to be tongue-in-cheek. The central joke seemed to be that the main characters are so contemporary in the way that they act, contemporary people set in a mixed-up and literal mythological world. (A bit like the central joke of the series "Brisco County," a series set in the Old West full of deliberate humorous anachronisms in the way that people act -- for example, a stranded character stands next to a wagon train rut with his thumb stuck out.) It was amusing in its novelty, but the novelty, entertaining and clever as it is, has not been enough to hook me. Maybe I haven't given it enough time, but I have never felt compelled by the characters. The eps that I saw didn't make me feel that these were real people that I cared about. Do Xena addicts have this feeling that the characters are "real"? The way that Buffy fans can feel? Do Xena fans get truly emotionally caught up in the story? Now, I don't read Xena fan boards, so I'm basing all this on bits and pieces of Xena discussion I run across here and there, but the discussion I see of Xena all seems to center on whether Xena's and Gabrielle are lovers or not, and on the sneaky hints that seem scattered throughout the show that they are. This seems to be a great source of fun. I can understand that. But I have almost never seen in-depth discussions about the quality of their relationship, what is really going on between them at an emotional and spiritual level, as unique individuals. Let me ask the Xena fans: suppose that up front lesbian relationships (a la Willow & Tara) were commonplace on the tube. So there was no novelty to the idea that Xena and Gabrielle might be lovers, any more than if they were of the opposite sex. Would there be enough in their relationship, as individuals, to sustain the interest of the fans who are so interested in their relationship now? I'm afraid that (based on the three or four episodes that I have seen) the sense of emotional "reality" of the characters in Xena is simply invisible to me. Don't know if it's just me, or what. Gayle ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 20:49:06 EDT From: GHighPine@aol.com Subject: Forever Knight (was Re: b/redemption) In a message dated 7/11/00 3:16:10 PM Pacific Daylight Time, dgk@panix.com writes: << "Whitney Tyler is a beautiful, widely adored actress who plays a vampire on a popular television series. Trouble is, a cult of viewers think she's a =real= vampire, and has made attempts on her life.... >> That plotline sounds vaguely familiar... was there a plot of a Forever Knight episode something like that? Maybe the FK experts here can confirm or deny. (I only saw FK in reruns on the Sci-Fi Channel, and haven't even seen all the episodes, and most of those I have seen I saw only once.) "...when Angel lays eyes on Whitney, he's astounded--she's the spitting image of a young woman warrior whom he encountered during his early days as the scourge of Europe." >> That sounds like the plot (or plot starting point) of a =lot= of FK episodes. (One thing about FK -- the lead character was IIRC about 800 to Angel's 200, so there was a lot more past, both personal and historical, to play with.) Comparisons and contrasts between Angel and FK: In FK, the vampires are amoral predators, like tigers; in Angel, they are actively evil. IN FK, the vampires have an organized underground society and culture of their own, with their own laws and their own ways of enforcing them. In Angel, it's every vampire for himself. Angel's world is infested by demons of many kinds and species, most of whom seem to have contempt for vampires. There are no other demons in FK. FK's main character was a cop, and the cases he worked on tended to be closer to conventional cop show cases, just with a vampire twist. Angel's cases are more varied and unconventional (mainly due to the variety of demons in his world). Angel clearly wins this category, IMO. Supporting characters are different, of course -- each ensemble entertaining in its own way. But FK IMO clearly surpassed Angel in the effectiveness of its central portrayal of a conscience-ridden vampire seeking redemption. (The lead actor in FK really could =act=, and David Boreanaz... um... ) FK also was frankly darker and less hesitant about going into dark recesses of the soul. Gayle ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 18:16:53 -0700 (PDT) From: Todd Huff Subject: Re: b/faith redux > > Well, now's my chance. Tonight's =Buffy= rerun is > "This Year's Girl" > (=Angel= is running the "actress episode"), and I > just discovered > from the following week's =TV Guide= that they're > running "Who Are > You" back-to-back with "Five by Five" (second half > of the =Buffy= > chunk and first half of the =Angel= portion); > presumably (or at least it > is to be hoped) they'll rerun "Sanctuary" the > following week. > 7/25 episodes are scheduled to be "Pangs" and "I Will Remember You". __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get Yahoo! Mail – Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 23:27:37 EDT From: GHighPine@aol.com Subject: Re: b/sappho2 Very interesting. Apparently the same phrase is translated "ornate-throned" and "dressed in an embroidery of flowers." I would guess that the word for "ornate" derives from a word for "flowers," so it is a matter of judgment whether one uses an older and more literal translation or not. And possibly the same word can be interpreted as either "throned" or dressed." "Wile-weaving" or its equivalent is absent from the first version. "Untangle from longings and perplexities, O Lady, my heart" and "Do not overpower my heart, mistress, with ache and anguish" are interesting in that one is a positive request (do something) and one a negative request (don't do something). But "Mistress" / "O Lady" and "longings and perplexities" / "ache and anguish" are easy to see as equivalents. My guess would be that for most of the poem the first rendering is the more literal of the two, for several reasons, including the fact that the syntax is less like English syntax; but I would guess the second is more literal when it gets to "come here, if ever in the past you heard my voice from afar and acquiesced and came." Totally off the subject, but I forgot to turn the channel to Buffy (didn't forget, actually, but the TV in my computer room doesn't get WB) and right now there is a Fox special about the X-Men movie that makes me think that this movie could actually be good. It actually has ideas in it! The clips used aren't emphasizing super special effects but centering around Senate hearings debating the ethical implications of the genetic engineering that created the X-Men mutants. People having thought-filled discussions of whether the mutants can legitimately be considered God's creation or aberrations of God's plan, whether proposals to contain the mutants are the equivalent of the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII, etc. I can't believe it -- a big-screen, big budget, big studio comic book movie that appears to be literate and contain actual ideas and thought. Gayle ------------------------------ End of stillpt-digest V2 #148 *****************************