From: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org (stillpt-digest) To: stillpt-digest@smoe.org Subject: stillpt-digest V3 #172 Reply-To: stillpt@smoe.org Sender: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk stillpt-digest Monday, November 5 2001 Volume 03 : Number 172 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: m/Vega to Tormis [meredith ] Willow & Tara [GHighPine@aol.com] Re: m/Vega to Tormis ["David S. Bratman" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2001 11:31:52 -0500 From: meredith Subject: Re: m/Vega to Tormis Hi, Even though this was addressed to Don, I'm going to respond anyway. :) David commented: >I'm not sure if you're still listening to either Tori Amos or Suzanne >Vega, but I note that both of them have new albums out. Don accompanied us to one of Tori's recent shows in NY last month. I'll let him post a review, as I've been waiting for one anyway... >Amos expired for me somewhere between her second and third albums, but I'm >still following Vega, so I bought =Songs in Red and Gray=, as it's >called. Vega was recently divorced from Mitchell Froom, her keyboardist >and producer who may have been responsible for her previous two albums >being somewhat sub-par - certainly I liked this one better. The tunes >struck me on first hearing to be a little drab (that may change on further >acquaintance), but the arrangements are really fine. So are the lyrics, >and I like the sting in this one: "Consider me a widow, boys, and I will >tell you why / It's not the man, but the marriage, that was drowned." Ooh. I think it's her best album since _Days Of Open Hand_, which would certainly add to the "Froom made her music suck" theory. It's definitely her "divorce album", and lyrically she's in top form. I saw her perform in NY a couple weeks ago and it was an amazing show. I was floored by how much of her older stuff she did, but she balanced it with most of the songs from the new album and the new stood up to the old just fine. It didn't really occur to me until that night, but Suzanne Vega is the soundtrack of my life. I discovered her first album when I was at the most impressionable age in high school, and her albums have coincided with various momentous events (the day I first saw her perform, at the end of the _Solitude Standing_ tour was the same day I bought my very first Kate Bush album; _Days_ came out when I was on exchange in Germany, and seeing her perform in Munich on that tour was one of the highlights of that year, etc.). She performs so rarely that it's an Event when it happens, too. I've not been disappointed with her shows so far. ======================================= Meredith Tarr New Haven, CT USA mailto:meth@smoe.org http://www.smoe.org/meth "an eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind" -- mahatma gandhi ======================================= Live At The House O'Muzak House Concert Series http://www.smoe.org/meth/muzak.html ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2001 17:01:55 EST From: GHighPine@aol.com Subject: Willow & Tara Apropos Willow & Tara discussion, I came across these comments today in Portland's local gay newspaper JUST OUT. It was in an article about gay characters on TV this season, and is interesting both for one gay writer's take on the relationship and for an exclusive (!) interview comments from Marni Noxon. "...the series has shown both women in sleeping together in the same bed multiple times, and their physical affection is constant and realistic... Marni Noxon tells JUST OUT the relationship came organically from the characters. 'We didn't really plan for Willow to have a love affair with a woman, but we knew that she was going to have a relationship with a girl that was based around magic and that they'd be really drawn to each other and it was going to be a really intense friendship. And then it sort of happened organically. When we saw the kind of chemistry they had, it just felt very real. It felty like something that would happen among friends, especially when people are young and going to school and finding out who they are. We felt it was an honest experience younger people seem to be having, which is that the sexuality of their partner is less important than who that person is. There seems to more comfort with falling in love with the person and not the sex.' "Noxon's mother is gay, and she grew up with two moms, but she notes the Willow/Tara relationship is not part of an agenda. 'If anything, it does reflect maybe Joss and my upbringing in southern California, where being gay was really OK. For us, it's a very natural thing and part of our life," she explains. "A desire to not have the relationship be seen as a ratings stunt colored its development. 'That was really the only place where we had an agenda. Like, if we''re goingto do this, we're going to show two people who are in love with each other who also happen to be both of the same sex." "... As to where the young witches will go in the future, Noxon is careful not to reveal any secrets, but says, VERY VERY VERY MILD TINY SLIGHT SPOILERS THAT YOU COULD HAVE GUESSED ANYWAY AND PROBABLY AREN'T REALLY SPOILERS WARNING = = = = 'The one thing we've always said is that no romance in Sunnydale is going to go well in the long run. That's just the nature of living on the Hellmouth and the nature of being a 20-year-old. There are going to be some rocky times for Willow and Tara. The fact that Willow is starting to go to a heavier place with her magic is going to have an impact on their relationship.' Still, Noxon cautions that 'most relationships in the BUFFY universe have their ups and downs, but there are definitely some highs coming as well. Their relationship is going to remain a core theme of the entire season.' " ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2001 15:08:59 -0800 From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: m/Vega to Tormis At 08:31 AM 11/4/2001 , Meredith wrote: >Even though this was addressed to Don, I'm going to respond anyway. :) That's quite OK. If it'd been a private comment, I wouldn't have put it on the list, which I did on the off-chance someone else might be interested. I'm pleased that you were. I still addressed it to Don in the second person because writing in the third would have sounded awkward. >I think it's her best album since _Days Of Open Hand_, which would certainly >add to the "Froom made her music suck" theory. I still think "Days" was her masterpiece. It's an amazing album and - it has Philip Glass! The two Froom albums sound like experiments - respectively in being excessively hot and excessively cool, and neither of them seems quite to work. >It's definitely her "divorce >album", and lyrically she's in top form. Obviously I agree with that. >I saw her perform in NY a couple >weeks ago and it was an amazing show. I was floored by how much of her >older stuff she did, but she balanced it with most of the songs from the new >album and the new stood up to the old just fine. I have never seen Vega perform and am sorry I've not had the chance. But I've never been anxious to attend the kind of venues where people like her perform, and I probably never will do so again now. In my limited experience of such things, the performers usually perform the entirety of their current album, mixed with an equal number of songs from their back catalog. >It didn't really occur to me until that night, but Suzanne Vega is the >soundtrack of my life. I discovered her first album when I was at the most >impressionable age in high school, and her albums have coincided with >various momentous events I'm two years older than Vega herself, which is one reason I have a different perspective on her. I first heard of her by reading a review of her first album which compared her with the Roches. I'd listen to ANYTHING that was compared with the Roches, so I bought it. The first three songs made me go "uh ...", "uhh ..." and "uhhh ...", but when I hit "Small Blue Thing" I said "That's it! This is the one," and I soon got used to her style and learned to appreciate the rest of the album. She's really the closest thing to a conventional pop musician, who's currently active, whose records I buy, the Roches having split up and gone to ground. ------------------------------ End of stillpt-digest V3 #172 *****************************