Hello, readers.
It’s Tuesday. And that means it is time for some things.1
Thing one.
The Magicians has, according to Vox, in its second season reached “Buffy heights.”
So. Maybe I should watch that, then?
Possibly probably.
Thing two.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the seriously amazing tv show with the ridiculously on-purpose ridiculous name, debuted some twenty years ago on March 10th, 1997.
Here are some things about that.2
For one, this A.V. Club interview with Joss Whedon from 2001. In the past, a particularly anxious young man printed out this entire interview and taped particularly resonant quotes to the walls of above his desk. It worked. More or less.
For two, this archive of Joss Whedon’s comments on the messageboard, The Bronze, on which he, along with many of Buffy’s writers often conversed with fans of his show. I am having a moment right now, readers. I am remembering things.
For three, this article from The Atlantic which argues for “The Body” as the best episode of Buffy and one emblematic of the show’s radical empathy. Inside of this article there is this:
“There’s things,” Tara tells Buffy about her own mother dying when she was 17. “Thoughts and reactions I had that I couldn’t understand. Or even try to explain to anybody else.” The power of Buffy is that it understands those thoughts, and does try to explain them, all in the guise of being a teen drama about vampires.”
More than any other show Buffy led me into conversation with the monsters that attend my heart and the hearts of others. It affirmed and engaged with the terrible wonder of being.
That’s really all I ask for in a tv show.
Thing three.
There’s a new episode of Storyological!
This often happens. Which is cool. It’s nice to make things and then tell people about them. There’s a whole podcast about that very thing in fact. E.G. quite enjoys that podcast. I’ve yet to listen. There are so many things to listen to, after all. Storyological, for example. The latest episode is called
THE WINDMILL WAS INSIDE OF YOU ALL ALONG.
It marks the first time we’ve discussed Don Quixote. It does not mark the first time we’ve discussed an episode of Babylon 5.
We discussed these two stories:
“The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees” by E. Lily Yu, a parable both delicate and brutal, which conjectures at the nature of colonialism through, among other things, the philosophical attitudes of bees and wasps. Come for the theory, stay for the stained glass windows made from the wings of executed bee ambassadors. Read it in Clarkesworld.
“The Janitor in Space” by Amber Sparks, a small tale of much wonder and pain concerning a janitor going about her day on a space station orbiting Earth. Come for the epiphany, stay for the mysterious intimacy of the infinite. Read it in American Short Fiction.
This is, perhaps, enough things for today. See you in the future, readers.
ttfn.
- Every day, really, along with every time, is a perfectly good time for things. I mean, metaphysically speaking, time is itself a thing. I mean, I don’t really know that. I mean, I am just making things up. I haven’t figured out yet how to make things down. ↩
- Things inside of things! It’s like something out of science fiction. ↩
the magnelephant review 