Total destruction to your mind!

[andrew_jorgensen]

I've been begatten, or begot, or something. Thanks, Masq! It only took a little grovelling . . . I grovel so well.

I'm not quite sure what this will turn out to be: it may turn out that LiveJournal is not the place for someone who deals with as much writer's block as I do. This may turn out more bloggish than LJ; most of my online reading is in the blogosphere rather than in LiveJournals. Someone once commented that blogs tend to be a male domain while LJ tends to be dominated by women. Of course, someone else tried to make a sociobiological point about this: men "hunt" links, while women "gather" together into communities. Of course, there are plenty of female bloggers (though I only have one bookmarked; my favorites folder is as disturbingly sexually segregated as my CD collection). There are probably lots of male LJers too -- I just don't know any. (In any case, I reject simplistic notions of sociobiology, such as the straw man [my straw is pretty sexually segregated too] I set up a few sentences above. Yes, I strongly oppose the caricatures of arguments I draw myself!)

I should talk about "Touched," being somewhat known as someone who talks about Buffy (the Rosicrucians cited me! take that Ded!), but I have yet to figure out the cut-tag, so no spoilers yet. All in all though, I was pretty underwhelmed. "Underwhelmed" has been my Buffy-theme since "Smashed." Over on ATPo there's a kerfluffle over whether Angel or Spike is Buffy's true love. (I'm considering reviving my saga of the Sha'i-Pir Wars.) At this point, the only relationship I really want to see Buffy indulge in is with a large bottle of Prozac.

After reading about it in The Major Lift, The Minor Fall, I had to go out and get the Oxford American Annual Southern Music Issue. I already have the Swamp Dogg (but you don't, and you should), but I didn't have Little Milton's version of "Grits Ain't Groceries," which rocks righteous! Plus, the Blind Boys of Alabama! Esther Phillips! R.L. Burnside! A bunch of people I've never heard of! A whole bunch of great blues, rockabilly, soul, gospel and hillbilly at that point where they all come together and genre (color?) doesn't mean a damn. The Marilyn Monroe/Jane Russell track from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes seems a bit out of place, but what do you want to bet rahael loves it?

In other music news, cjl demands that we all go buy the new reissue of Live At Leeds. I (for once in my life) am showing sales resistance. I've already bought the damn thing twice: first, in its original six-track configuration (which the AMG claims runs for 19:14 -- if they're correct it may be the shortest major album ever released); second, in its 1995 18-track configuration. I just don't see much reason to buy it a third time; I don't even like The Who that much anymore, and I think endlessly mutating permutations of Live at Leeds may be part of the reason.

Anyway, welcome to my nightmare. Hope you enjoy it!

Comments

Re: You have local friends in LJ?

[cwx.livejournal.com]

All my local LJ friends (and RL friends, for that matter :P) are basically the people I knew from my freshman year in the Yes, in the dorm we all sat around IMing each other instead of speaking face to face. Now we read each other's LJs and continue to IM each other! So maybe it's better if one's RL friends are technophobes.

As for Buffy, rest assured that all my friends are haters. Actually my parents are still big fans (more my mom I guess) and my best friend from high school (and his family) used to love it, but I always make fun of him b/c S1 is his favorite and he hates "Restless" and "The Body"! Yeesh! So I've kinda realized I'm better off talking about Buffy online anyway!

Re: You have local friends in LJ?

[masqthephlsphr.livejournal.com]

I guess I just wish sometimes that some of my local friends even realized how good "Buffy" is. Whenver I meet someone new, on a date, or a new acquaintance, or whatever, they get the same befuddled look on their face when I say I watch/like "Buffy". No one watches it, and they all share the same assumptions about its intended audience and the quality of the shows.

I had one friend recently tell me she finally happened to see an episode while flipping channels. Turns out she actually caught an episode of "Charmed". I thought *why do I bother*?? These are all intelligent, TV-watching women, you'd think ONE of them would want a little Grrl Power in their life!

And I learned along time ago not to give a new acquaintance the URL to my website. Rather than enlighten them about the quality of BtVS and Angel, it usually puts a damper on any future conversation with said person.

*Alas*, that's why I love my internet pals!

Buffy vs. the World

[cwx.livejournal.com]

My roommates, and some other ex-dorm friends have been forced to acknowledge the quality of Buffy because they've been exposed to it for 3 years thanks to me! Trust me though, the only thing worse than disdain is when people make a casual attempt to watch with you, which means they blab over the episode, maybe even asking insufferable questions like "who's this Anya?" and "what, Willow's gay?!"

Meanwhile, I am used to the reaction, and I've suffered various inexplicably hateful remarks from people who learn I love the show. The problem is, you can be in Spanish 1 class and the whole class will laugh when you declare proudly that your favorite TV show is Buffy the Vampire Slayer. However, when you mention it again in small groups (I don't know why "what's your favorite TV show?" is a question in so many diferent exercises!) one woman will admit that she knows it to be quality, the other will admit she loves it too! So a lot of people who know better are just going along with the flow of popular assumption. I tried to get the latter to pick up on Angel next year, btw! ;)

I feel like I'm intruding here . . .

[dherblay.livejournal.com]

. . . but it's my LiveJournal, so there. I really keyed into your sentence, "The problem is, you can be in Spanish 1 class and the whole class will laugh when you declare proudly that your favorite TV show is Buffy the Vampire Slayer." It reminded me of my first day, back in a prior millennium, of Music Hum. (This was not a class in which we learned to hum, unfortunately. The "Hum" was short for "humanities"; we were also required to take "Art Hum" and "Lit Hum." There was some dispute over whether "Lit Hum" was short for "Literature and Humanities" or "Literary Humanities" or what; it was only years later that I learned that my Alma Mater had lifted the name from Oxbridge's most prestigious course of study, the classically named Literae Humaniores. Of course this was a somewhat inappropriate theft, as we studied neither classical languages nor modern philosophy in the class.) Music Hum was taught in two halves: the first half was historical survey taught in a lecture format by a professor in the Music Department (she was quite good); the second half was a listening session taught by a graduate student (she was quite awful). During the first listening session, the grad student went around the class asking the students their names and favorite music. Most of the students were not particularly articulate; many of them had to be coaxed into admitting that they even listened to music at all. A typical interlocution might go:

STUDENT: Um, I'm Paul, and I like, um, stuff.
TEACHER: What sort of stuff?
STUDENT: I dunno. Like, music.
TEACHER: Popular music?
STUDENT: I guess. More rock, though.
TEACHER: So you like rock music?
STUDENT: Yeah, sure.

The class had about 40 students, very few of whom were forthcoming with their preferences. I found this tedious and a little enervating, so when the teacher came to me, I announced, with complete assuredness, "I'm Andrew and my favorite artists are Aaron Copland and The Who." (I had purchased Live At Leeds just once back then.) The entire class burst out laughing. I like to think it had more to do with the contrast between most people's reticence and my assurance rather than that my choices themselves were laughable (though I will admit that I selected the two artists for the unexpected juxtaposition). So perhaps it was not what you said, but the pride with which you said it.

On the other hand, you're probably right, and they're just stupid, stupid people. I remember sometime back around "Nightmares" or "Lie to Me" talking on the phone with my friend Patti, who's pretty plugged into the New York theater scene and at that point was dating Rip Torn's son, and I asked her if she had any connections with Hollywood agents "because I'd really like to get a job writing for Buffy the Vampire Slayer." There was an audible sneer as she responded, "Buffy? Isn't that just camp?" So it was with some trepidation years later that I introduced my college friends to Rah. "Where'd the two of you meet?" was the inevitable question. (They had already established that we had met on the internet, but wanted to know more, damn nosy parkers.) "Um," I said, "on a discussion board for the philosophy of Buffy the Vampire Slayer." (I always emphasize the "philosophy" part of ATPo, which once made my father, who is a fan, though for unphilosophical reasons, to respond, "The philosophy of what? The push-up bra?") The entire table just squealed; my friend Ben started talking about how Season 6 was the best presentation of alienation since Huis Clos, Rebecca admitted to lurking at the Cross & Stake, and Lynn invited us over to watch "Dead Things" that Tuesday. I told them all about the board; I don't know if they've ever dropped by.

If I find out that one of them is aquaman I'll scream.

Re: I feel like I'm intruding here . . .

[cwx.livejournal.com]

When I first saw your subject in my inbox, I feared you were going to chastise me for carying on such an extensive 3rd party discussion on your LJ! I must admit when you keep responding to comments via e-mail it's easy to forget whose LJ it's on at all! ;)

I think your right that the pride and certainty in the declaration contributes to the laughter. I too get tired of people being weenies about merely declaring their preferences. The only thing worse (I'm starting to notice I use this phrase a lot) is when people recieve no negative response when they say that their favorite show is something like Will & Grace (idiotic) or Jackass (rephrensible), but I'm supposed to feel shame about Buffy? Hell no! I used to either be reticent or even premptively defensive about it, but I realize that if you just declare it confidently you feel better no matter how people react. And honestly, it's hard not to laugh at the title Buffy the Vampire Slayer no matter what the context! Sometimes I wish Joss hada been easier on us... :P Yes, I know the point of it.