From: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org (stillpt-digest) To: stillpt-digest@smoe.org Subject: stillpt-digest V2 #151 Reply-To: stillpt@smoe.org Sender: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk stillpt-digest Saturday, July 15 2000 Volume 02 : Number 151 Today's Subjects: ----------------- b/faithnet ["Donald G. Keller" ] b/commedia2 ["Donald G. Keller" ] Re: b/commedia2 ["Berni Phillips" ] o/X-Men [meredith ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2000 19:26:06 -0400 (EDT) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: b/faithnet During a slow night last night I got a rare opportunity to surf the net and discovered some interesting items. One of them was a site with the curious url of i.am/5by5 (try it, it works), which as you might guess is all about Faith (and Eliza Dushku). It's one of several sites that might be described as "we love Faith/we hate Buffy" (an attitude my daughter Deirdre shares to some degree; and by the way she is one year and three days older than Eliza Dushku), with lots of biographical details and photos and a bunch of fanfiction (including some Buffy/Faith slash fiction!); some of this was pretty interesting (though its literary value is doubtful): one sequence of very short stories explores the idea of what would have happened if Buffy had never come back to Sunnydale as the third season began, and Faith had arrived as she did. How much of the sequence of events would have followed? Caught up on some of what Eliza Dushku has done and is doing. There's a film called =Bring It On= where she and Kirsten Dunst (who has been excellent in the several things I've seen her in) play cheerleaders; judging from the swatch of photos on one of these sites, they're not only major characters but good buddies. Could be good. Also Dushku has a supporting role in a thriller called =Soul Survivor=. Both films are out this fall. Did you know that Eliza Dushku and Amber Benson (who plays Tara) made a movie together a couple years ago? (Didn't happen to note the title, however.) Also, I got a look at the website for =Slayage=, the online journal, and the =Fighting the Forces= book. If you check out the following url: www.mtsu.edu/~dlavery/ffembtvsabstracts1.html and then change "abstracts1" to "abstracts2," you can have a look at the abstracts/proposals for the whole book (including my very short paragraph; some of them are a couple screens long). It's a lot of material, and they can't possibly be using all of them in the book. Several essays touch on religious subjects; several more on the Gothic and vampire literature; I was intrigued by the fact that at least three essays center on "Superstar," and two more on Adam! A tremendous amount of variety, and nobody seems to be taking anything close to my own comparative mythology angle. Should be an entertaining book. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2000 19:30:51 -0400 (EDT) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: b/commedia2 David: Your question about how many characters constitute the core of =Buffy= can be answered by the quote itself, from that book about Blake and Goethe. You might remember (or might not; I have no sense of how carefully, or at all, people read all the stuff I throw on here) that the author says "each Quaternal [is] ready to accept a creative counterpart of the opposite sex, an anima or animus." Similarly on =Buffy=, where doubles and shadows and counterparts exfoliate out the the existing characters at a mad rate. Here's another bit that seems to fit in here, from Dean A. Miller's =The Epic Hero= (which I'm still busy reading): "The full or efficient complement for a typical quest ought to be reducible to four players: hero, heroic helper, the sovereign and the woman" (p. 167); on p. 169 he adds helpfully that the woman, among a number of other possible roles, can be a sorceress. Rearranged into the Dumezilian schema and applied to the Scooby gang, this gives us 1) sovereign (Giles) 2) hero/warrior (Buffy) 3) fecundity/helpers (Xander/Willow). Xander and Willow correspond to the Divine Twins (insert =long= explanation here later); one curious characteristic being, though twinned in most ways, they also have separate, adjunct functions, one to the first function (Willow = sorceress --> Giles) and one to the second function (Xander = heroic helper --> Buffy). I have left out a great deal of supporting detail. So my argument is that these four are the core members (as "Restless" affirms), and that any other "gang members" are anima/animus counterparts, according to that =commedia= pattern: for Buffy, Angel and now Riley; for Willow, Oz and now Tara; for Xander, Cordelia and now Anya; for Giles, Jenny Calendar and now Olivia. (Note that several of these joined the "gang" before there was an official love relationship.) And other important characters are not so much counterparts as simply doubles: Kendra and Faith of Buffy, Wesley and Quentin Travers of Giles. (Note how the pattern replicates itself in =Angel= as well: Angel = hero, Wesley = heroic helper, Cordelia = "sorceress"/keeper of vision, with the Powers that Be as absentee First Function; though in a different sense Kate fills that role.) So in the end I'm sticking to the idea that there are only four positions in the schema. (This is obviously notes toward an essay I shouldn't be writing yet.) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2000 18:02:20 -0700 From: "Berni Phillips" Subject: Re: b/commedia2 >From: "Donald G. Keller" >Rearranged into the Dumezilian schema and applied to the Scooby gang, this >gives us 1) sovereign (Giles) 2) hero/warrior (Buffy) 3) fecundity/helpers >(Xander/Willow). > >Xander and Willow correspond to the Divine Twins (insert =long= >explanation here later); one curious characteristic being, though twinned >in most ways, they also have separate, adjunct functions, one to the first >function (Willow = sorceress --> Giles) and one to the second function >(Xander = heroic helper --> Buffy). And, to tie into Harry Pottermania, Harry = Buffy, Hermione = Willow, and Ron = Xander. And perhaps Dumbledore is Giles. Berni ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2000 00:08:07 -0400 From: meredith Subject: o/X-Men Hi! Just got back from seeing _X-Men_. I think the last movie I saw on opening night was _Return Of The Jedi_. And the last movie that gave me a chill when the opening titles started to roll was _Episode I_. This movie kicked the ass of both of them. The advance reviews are right: it is more concerned with telling a story then showing off the FX budget. Sure, the FX are cool, but they help tell the story, instead of being the story. The script is well done, with some really great one-liners, including one (with an accompanying sight gag) that had everyone in the (full) theater rolling for the rest of the scene and beyond. Hugh Jackman (who?!) is a revelation as Wolverine. This is *his* movie, and he carries it admirably. And Anna Paquin is perfect as Rogue. (She's growing up *very* nicely!) Fox is clearly aiming to start a franchise here. There are lots of bits and pieces dropped throughout the film that could easily be picked up for feature-length plots down the line, only fleeting glimpses of some of my favorite mutants (in particular Kitty Pryde/Shadowcat), and no mention whatever of some of my other favorites (Colossus, Beast, Nightcrawler). I dearly hope the numbers are right for them to do many, many more X-Men films. But they have to do them soon: Patrick Stewart isn't getting any younger, and there will never be another who can play Professor Xavier. So yeah, I highly recommend this one. It's the best adaptation of a comic I've seen yet. (And keep an eye open for Stan Lee's cameo... :) +==========================================================================+ | 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 *** | +==========================================================================+ ------------------------------ End of stillpt-digest V2 #151 *****************************