From: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org (stillpt-digest) To: stillpt-digest@smoe.org Subject: stillpt-digest V2 #170 Reply-To: stillpt@smoe.org Sender: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk stillpt-digest Thursday, August 3 2000 Volume 02 : Number 170 Today's Subjects: ----------------- comments8/2 ["Donald G. Keller" ] Re: comments8/2 [meredith ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 22:08:21 -0400 (EDT) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: comments8/2 Well, I'm finally done. Yesterday I finished both of my essays for the =Buffy= book and e-mailed them off. So I'll be waiting to hear. This evening I sent copies to Meredith, and she'll announce a way for list members to go read the essays if they'd like to. (Rather than dumping them onto the list: the dharma-essay is 27K, the dream-essay 34K.) Of course I left them until the last minute, and of course I was fibbing to myself about how much work was left: I thought it was more like a graveled highway that just had to be cemented over, but it was more like a freeway collapsed in an earthquake: all the pieces were there, but it had to be completely reconstructed and =then= smoothed over. Soon, but not tonight, I'm going to start with some new stuff that I've been sitting on my hands not letting myself work on. (Including the fact that I did find that book =The Alchemy of Discourse=...) Very briefly for now. A general comment. We all write at a pretty high level here; and speaking only for myself, I'm =always= afraid that whatever I'm trying to say isn't being conveyed well enough (worrying about my essays, certainly!), and frequently I'll read things here that I find simply puzzling. I'm always willing to explain, or ask for an explanation. One person's "plain statement" is another person's "What the hell does that mean?" What one person takes for granted another hasn't thought of and needs to have explained. (That was my reaction to that other analysis of "Restless.") And there's no such thing as "transparent prose": journalese is just as much an artificial and achieved style as academese. Trivialities. What amuses me about Britney Spears and SMG being friends is that when SMG was on =Saturday Night Live= the first time she played Britney Spears in a sketch that was quite mean-spirited. But it's possible, I suppose, that Ms. Spears has a sense of humor about herself. I can't imagine Joss Whedon letting =anyone= (even SMG) do "whatever she wants." But I could see some amusement value in, say, making Little Miss Muffett (Dawn, that's her name, right?) a Britney Spears fan. I can't believe Fox would be =stupid= enough to put James Cameron's new =Dark Angel= opposite =Angel=. I mean, I had thought I'd give the show a try, but this way it'll insure I never watch the show. Oh, one more substantial comment. David: I have to agree with Gayle that it's nearly impossible to get the full emotional impact of "Becoming" if you haven't seen "Surprise"/"Innocence." In fact, I'd argue that you can't really get the full impact without the earlier Buffy/Angel scenes in the 2nd season (scattered over of the first half of the season, in several cases the only really good scenes in weak episodes); and in fact, it sure helps to know the buildup from the first season (and not just the episode "Angel") as well. Buffy & Angel is a full-blown romance with many emotioal nuances that took them 34 episodes to tell, ending with "Becoming." (3rd season is really all aftermath.) Which is like saying you can't get the full effect of "The Scouring of the Shire" if you've only read =The Return of the King=. I can understand that it's frustrating if you only have access to a few pre-3rd season episodes, but =Buffy= really is (as I said differently in one of my essays) more like an epic poem published in fascicles than like a "tinkertoy" TV series. And I can't see that as a flaw. (Of course, I have all the episodes on tape.) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 02 Aug 2000 23:35:02 -0400 From: meredith Subject: Re: comments8/2 Hi! Don reported: >This evening I sent copies to Meredith, and she'll announce a way for list >members to go read the essays if they'd like to. (Rather than dumping them >onto the list: the dharma-essay is 27K, the dream-essay 34K.) That I will. For _The Dharma Of Buffy_, point your browser to: http://www.smoe.org/dgk/dharma.html For _Spirit Guides And Shadow Selves_, point your browser to: http://www.smoe.org/dgk/dreams.html Enjoy! +==========================================================================+ | 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 #170 *****************************