Month: June 2007

Buffy/Angel hiatus

On June 25, 2007

The Buffyverse Watching Project is going on hold for a while.

My sister’s boyfriend is a comedy writer (sequitur coming soon…), or at least he’s been an aspiring comedy writer. He graduated from Harvard and worked on the Lampoon there, so he knows a lot of people in the biz, but has been trying unsuccessfully to break in himself for a couple of years. Then, last month, he learned he’d gotten a job as a writer for The Office!

This is super exciting, not only because I’m very happy he’s landed a job, but because it seems to be one of the best things on TV right now. I haven’t been watching it, but (and here comes that sequitur I promised) I’m going to start this fall, so my summer project is to get caught up on the seasons I missed. I have several friends who watch it, and I’m looking forward to being able to participate in their conversations.

Angel Season 3

By paulobrian

On June 24, 2007

In Uncategorized

Amid the depressing degeneration that characterized season 6 of Buffy, it was a pleasure to watch season 3 of Angel. It didn’t grip me the way that some previous seasons of Buffy have, but it was solid, enjoyable television, with lots of good surprises and dramatic twisty turns. Strangely, though, it wasn’t the main plot that I found most compelling, but rather the thematic unity that draws together some of the season’s most important events aside from the main plot.

*** Spoilers below for season 3 of Angel ***

>SUPERVERBOSE

By paulobrian

On June 17, 2007

In Uncategorized

Since I started posting to this blog in 2004, it had no real title — its name was what LJ gave it by default, which was my username. I could never think of any name that I really wanted it to have… until now. As of today, this blog is officially rechristened >SUPERVERBOSE.

As some of you may know, my IF page is called >VERBOSE, since that’s both my writing style and one of the first commands I tend to type in an IF game. The old Infocom games had three levels of verbosity: VERBOSE, BRIEF, and SUPERBRIEF. These commands would control how much of a room description you’d see when traveling through the game world.

Wouldn’t it be cool, though, if there was a SUPERVERBOSE? Not only would you get to see the full room description every time, you’d also get lengthy explanations of where the game objects came from, discursive asides about NPC histories, extensive screeds about the game author’s political views… well, maybe it wouldn’t be so cool after all.

Instead, look no further for your superverbosity fix. Since the majority of posts on this blog are in my verbose writing style, and they tend to be about superheroics, >SUPERVERBOSE it is.

Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer

By paulobrian

On June 16, 2007

In Uncategorized

I wasn’t a fan of the first Fantastic Four movie, so I went into this one with trepidation. I suppose a more rational person just wouldn’t go at all, but I am not that person. I’m a big fan of the FF, and the last movie did provide some things I liked, so I’m not going to just stay home. I went hoping to find some enjoyable moments, and I did. I found some enjoyable moments, surrounded by a sea of suck.

The Police in Denver, 6/9/07

By paulobrian

On June 10, 2007

In Uncategorized

I’m not what you’d call a hardcore Police fan, but I have all their albums and enjoy them quite a bit. I followed Sting’s solo career for a while too, but hopped off the train around the Brand New Day album, as the music had finally passed my boredom threshold. When I heard that the band was getting back together, I was excited. Could it be that the long-gone rock & roll Sting was returning at last? I was just a shade too young to see them back in their 80s heyday, so this could be my chance to see one of the few bands I really like and haven’t yet seen in concert.

I hoped the tour would come to Denver. And it did! With the top tickets going for TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS. Two hundred and twenty-five freaking dollars. Probably more like $245 after Ticketmaster finishes extracting its pound of flesh. I got depressed when I heard this. Sure, I’d love to see The Police, but I am not in a place in my life where I have $250 to drop for them. I decided that I couldn’t see them after all, but I did not feel at peace with the decision. As the show date got closer, I got more and more bummed, feeling like I was going to miss the opportunity to do something I really wanted to do through circumstances I couldn’t control.

Then, somehow, something broke the spell. I think it was partly having a fantastic time seeing Stevie Nicks at Red Rocks on May 28th, partly balancing my checkbook, partly taking some steps to lift myself from the minor funk I’d been in. Anyway, I decided I was being ridiculous. No, I’m not going to spend $250 to see The Police, but I could still go! I’d gotten so used to sitting in good seats that I’d somehow forgotten it was possible to enjoy a concert from anywhere else.

So I determined that I could buy one of the $90 or $50 tickets and be perfectly happy. First, though, I thought I’d check out eBay and see if I could get a good deal there. Happily, the band chose to play 2 shows here, which attenuated the demand enough to make it a buyer’s market for secondhand tickets. I ended up paying $75.60 for one of the $250 seats! And that’s including shipping! Huzzah!

So I went, and had a great time. There was reason to be a bit wary. Not only had Sting veered well into dullness (for me), but the last thing The Police recorded was the wretched “Don’t Stand So Close To Me ’86”, which took a good song and vampirically sucked all the life out of it. The possibility existed that the entire show would be slow, jazz-inflected reinterpretations of Police hits. Happily, this was not the case. It was a rock & roll band on the stage last night, and I’m so glad I got out of my own way so I could see them.

Song letter meme

By paulobrian

On June 7, 2007

In Uncategorized

Via nothings, choose your favorite songs beginning with a given letter of the alphabet. Sean chose “F” for me.

Standard disclaimer about “favorite songs” lists: These are my favorites as of this moment in time. I can’t possibly construct anything like an “all-time favorites” list with something as emotional as music. Also, F seems to be a particularly strong letter for certain artists (for me, it was Liz Phair, Jackson Browne, and Simon & Garfunkel), so I’ve arbitrarily decided to limit the list slots to one per artist.

That said, here is the list:

Aimee Mann – “Fifty Years After The Fair” (It hurts to even think of those days / The damage we do by the hopes that we raise)
Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young – “Find The Cost Of Freedom” (All the brave soldiers that cannot get older been askin’ after you)
Jean Sibelius & Lloyd Stone – “Finlandia Hymn” (This is my song, oh god of all the nations / A song of peace for lands afar and mine)
Led Zeppelin – “Fool In The Rain” (Well there’s a light in your eye that keeps shining / Like a star that can’t wait for the night)
Simon & Garfunkel – “For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her” (And when you ran to me, your cheeks flushed with the night / We walked on frosted fields of juniper and lamplight)
The Beatles – “For No One” (Your day breaks / Your mind aches)
Jackson Browne – “Fountain Of Sorrow” (But when you see through love’s illusions, there lies the danger / And your perfect lover just looks like a perfect fool)
Buckingham Nicks – “Frozen Love” (You may not be as strong as me / And I may not care to teach you)
Liz Phair – “Fuck And Run” (I woke up alarmed / I didn’t know where I was at first / Just that I woke up in your arms / And almost immediately, I felt sorry)
Elton John – “Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding” (The roses in the window box have tilted to one side / Everything about this house was born to grow and die)

Following Sean’s example, I’ve included a lyric snippet for those who don’t know the song, don’t remember titles well, or just like lyric snippets. Also copycatting, further explanations are behind the cut:

Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 6

By paulobrian

On June 4, 2007

In Uncategorized

And now, season six of Buffy, in which the characters I’ve come to know and love begin to morph into weird, unpleasant versions of themselves, or else disappear altogether. This unsettling trend was somewhat remedied by the end of the season, but once that end had come, enough bad things had happened that the Buffyverse appeals to me less than it did when the season began. Still, even if the season was a net loss, there were still plenty of wonderful moments to be had. In particular, there was one shining episode which joins the all-time hall of fame.

*** The usual spoilery list of details below ***