sundries

[rm]

Okay, Team Internet, here's another one: snufflesdbear has a friend who just lost their house in a fire. I've seen the news stories on this and have additional information I've been asked not to share, that compels me to post this. Take a look at the post and see if you have any help you can offer in the area.

The nomination period for a new award for authors' blogs is open. Anyone can nominate. vua reannon.

Coming Out -- The Epic. Yes. This. Totally. Cab drivers. Shop clerks. Can I be gay and still get what I want? And the way it can get tied up in our other -isms at the end of the piece -- I wish the writing had been a little more deft there, but I think it's a true thing that I often see where I have to work on my own biases because of who I'm concerned about outing myself to. via andrewducker.

The Washington Post is defending its front page publication of a photo of a gay couple kissing as equal marriage rights come to DC.

Also in the region, the new attorney general of Virginia has been aggressively working to remove the limited protections LGBTQ peopel currently have in that state. Scary stuff.

Forgot who I found this through, but Australia allows issuance of identity papers with N instead of M or F gender identity.

A badly written article about a sex study that perpetuates the belief that women don't really like or want sex, at least not as much as men do. Many of the quoted individuals try to explain reasons for the results regarding female sexuality including culture bias and training, so that's good. But the whole thrust of the piece still ticked me off.

Alexander McQueen's final collection has a lot of amazing stuff in it.

OMG, Corey Haim has died.

So last night, having watched the first episode of Buffy, season 4, we started watching Angel season 1. Now the first two episodes of Angel aren't great, but it was disturbing how much the show felt more comfortable to me. I've been loving the hell out of Buffy but even in its sucky first episodes and featuring a main character I don't even like Angel suits me so much better it's a little bizarre. Also, underground lair? broods on rooftops? really? That was a little funny.

That said, I've gotten to the point with both Angel and Buffy where I just look over at Patty sometimes and say "rapetastic plotline #873."

Last night we also, after going to one of our favorite restaurants, stopped in at New York's newest gluten-free bakery, Tu-Lu's. Go. Go there now. The cupcakes are about a billion times better than at Babycakes and since they use sugar instead of agave nectar, the icing is the texture you expect -- which is to say red velvet cupcake with cream cheese icing = heaven. NOW NOW NOW, people. SO GOOD.

Patty heads back to Ohio for about ten days as of tomorrow. And I will be lonely, but we're booking London tonight and it will be well and truly spring when she returns.

Comments

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

I can see Angel being more your style, aesthetically, but be warned: it fails spectacularly on gender.

And yes, when I saw the first episode of Torchwood, I made this icon. The similarities were quite obvious. (:

[rm.livejournal.com]

Jack's coat is sooooooooooooooooo much better.

But yeah... I mean, Patty says Angel is about reinventing noir. It's pretty hard to have noir without epic gender!fail of which I feel like I've already seen plenty in just two episodes.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

S1 of Angel is pretty terrible in that regard, yes; initially when it aired I bailed after ep 2 because of all the helpless-woman-saving and didn't come back until the second season after my friends were all "But! But...but!"

And it can be a very rewarding show. But honestly? The noir-ish stuff kind of goes away after a while, so don't make that what you stay for.

Me, I was all about Cordelia and Wesley. And then Lorne. And there are excellent vids, when you're ready for them.

No arguments about Jack's coat. (:

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm not actually a fan of noir in general, so I'm surprised that this is working for me as much as it is.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

Many people also argued that Angel was the more mature show -- that it dealt with more sophisticated issues in a more sophisticated manner. Again, we see the parallels between BtVS/AtS and DW/TW (except with TW it means "sex! teh ghey! swears! HOMG!" and with AtS it means "bring on the existential man-pain!").

I can buy that the characters on Angel were older than on Buffy and often dealing therefore with more grown-up issues, but I actually don't think the show is more adult or nuanced than Buffy, especially when you factor in Buffy's later seasons.

I also noticed that most of the people who argued that Angel is a better show than Buffy were men.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Wow, I haven't heard anyone claiming Angel was a more mature or deeper show. At it's best, it was brilliant comedy, & it was often quite fun, but Buffy (especially seasons 3-5) often tackled serious issues, and Angel really never did. I'm reminded of a comment a friend of mine made where he claimed that Smile Time was not merely the best Angel episode ever, it was the best Angel episode possible. I'm rather inclined to agree.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

I certainly prefer David Boreanaz's work when he's being funny, but I would never think to describe the show as a comedy, Smile Time notwithstanding.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

I agree, but I also think that it was at its best when it was comedy. I also think that it generally fell pretty flat when trying to be serious.

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

I think it is a disservice to Buffy to say Angel is more mature if you're considering mature as a value judgement, since Buffy is by no means unsophisicated and it is what it is very intentionally and successfully. But I do think Angel reflects a more grown up outlook, thematically - it's sort of post-heroism in a lot of ways, I think, whereas Buffy is always essentially a story about the good guys winning. Buffy as a character is naturally heroic; Angel as a character has to practise his heroism, and it's not always clear, at the end of an episode, who's won or even who should have won. I think Angel engages with its own moral ambiguities in a way Buffy never really did.

I admit I'm a bit bemused you think Angel never really tackled serious issues; I think it did plenty of that, and very successfully, though I grant it didn't do Very Special Episodes on Issues of the Week in quite the way Buffy did. It was more content to be a fantasy show and explore its own internal complexities rather than finding allegories with real life, but I don't think it was any less serious for that in its themes. I do agree it could be very funny, but I don't think being funny negates it being serious; things can be both.

[missdeanna.livejournal.com]

I think it can be difficult to compare the two shows, myself. I felt like they both dealt with some serious issues, but had very different themes. Buffy was largely about growing up and dealing with responsibility, which is why I was able to relate to it so well when I first started watching it. I think there was some moral ambiguity, especially in the later seasons, but yeah, the horror/supernatural parts were pretty clear-cut for the most part.

As for Angel, I think post-heroism is a good way to put it. It more explored what heroism is.

I think one of the strengths of both shows is that they were able to balance seriousness with humor, not just in terms of the occasional light-hearted episode but in terms of banter between characters and whatnot.

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'd agree it's difficult to make direct comparisons, and as I said, I don't think it's fair to make a comparison into a value judgment, because Buffy wasn't trying to do what Angel did and vice versa. I guess it's no surprise that people who like one don't automatically like the other, because they are very different.

As for Angel, I think post-heroism is a good way to put it. It more explored what heroism is.

Nodnod. I think the nature of heroism is sort of taken as a given in Buffy whereas Angel addresses what that means more head on. One of the things I love about Angel's team (why don't they have a cool name like the Scoobies?) is that they're all people who've failed at heroism before, and they're working under the knowledge that they could fail - and not just because of external factors, but because of themselves.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Seasons 3-4 looked fairly good to me, and wasn't bad in season 2. Of course, seasons 1 was fairly dodgy wrt gender, and 5 was amazingly offensive.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

S2 is definitely my favorite, but I won't spoil rm as to why. (: