Ponderance

Joss Whedon's Fray

['Chosen' Spoilers!]

How is it I managed to remain completely oblivious to the fact that Joss's comic book series Fray was about a future slayer? Apparently it's set in a future Manhattan where the Slayer has been all but forgotten since vampires had pretty much disappeared, but are suddenly, now, re-emerging. Whedon commentaries in the past few weeks (well, since 'End of Days', anyway) have commented on the fact that the Scythe Buffy wields to defeat Caleb and the Ubervamps is, in fact, the Scythe that Fray (the Vampire Slayer!) uses. So, Joss not only has entire seasons and series mapped in his head, but also the future history of the Slayer well into the future. It's even consistent with the activation of the Slayers (or at least not contradicted by it) in that Fray is only activated as a Slayer because vampires are re-emerging (after, presumably, been semi-permanently defeated by the multitude of chosen women). There have been seven issues of the comic thus far, and an eighth and final one is expected in late June. For the best Fray website visit here. Perhaps we'll see a Fray movie if it becomes too hard to re-assemble the entire Buffy cast at a later date? Who really knows, but it's encouraging to see the Slayer mythology live on. Now I have to see about finding these comics!


Vidders Say Goodbye

There has been a flurry of activity by Buffy vidders across the globe to commemorate the ending of Buffy. Two particularly amazing vids were completed for the Ain't It Cool News Buffy Final Bash, and can be downloaded here. More are being completed every day (some good and some ... long), so keep an eye on the Buffyverse Music Video Database and vote for your favourites at the Buffinator Awards. Oh, and my fave new vid (not a finale one) about the Potentials is here!

Buffy: Over. *sniff*

From the seriously funny Otter Nonsense.

"All great epics come to an end. The Iliad. The Odyssey. War and Peace. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Just kidding. The Tolstoy book is a ringer. Doesn't belong on this list. Too literal."
- Noel Holston, 'Pulling Up Stakes', Newsday.com, May 18, 2003.


Wisdom equals popular culture: from the mouth of Homer (Simpson).

Reporter: Don't you think it's dangerous to send civilians into space?
Homer: I'll handle this... the only danger in space is if we land on the terrible Planet of the Apes... wait a minute. Statue of Liberty... THAT WAS OUR PLANET! YOU MANIACS! YOU BLEW IT UP! DAMN YOU! DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL! (Starts sobbing uncontrollably)

Lisa: Dad, what's a Muppet?
Homer: Well, it's not quite a mop, it's not quite a puppet, but man... [laughs hysterically] So to answer your question, I don't know.

Homer: So I says, blue M&M, red M&M, they all wind up the same color in the end.

Homer: I saw this in a movie about a bus that had to SPEED around a city, keeping its SPEED over fifty, and if its SPEED dropped, it would explode. I think it was called, "The Bus That Couldn't Slow Down."

[Praying heavenward]
Homer: I'm not normally a religious man, but if you're up there, save me, Superman!

For more Homeric humour visit here.

Flatland: Virtual Reality in 1884??

At a symposium on Distributive Interactive Virtual Environments (DIVEs) today, one of the demonstrations was of a an new architecture called Flatland. This in itself was very impressive, but what really caught my attention was the origin of the name, which was explained by Thomas Caudell of the University of New Mexico. Apparently, in 1884 (no, that's not a typo!), there was a book released called Flatland: A Romance in Many Dimensions. Now, the odd thing is that the author was called "Edwin A. Abbott, a Square". This book was all about people who were polygons! It was an extremely Brave New World-ish hierarchy society, with women (the lowest social rung in that fictional society) who were lines, and the next lowest caste were squares. The more sides, the higher in society someone was. In many ways Flatland sounds exciting just because of its own unique way of staging a social critique underneath the political radar of the 1880s. For today's audience, however, it just oozes with prophetic overtones about virtual reality and how people appear in cyberspace (you guessed it, many are polygons). I suspect, somehow, that Neal Stephenson had this in mind when he wrote Snow Crash which featured a digital society in which the more complex your avatar (digital self in an online environment) was, the more highly you were respected in that world. Flatland isn't actually prophetic, but it sounds like an excellent read. I've found it available at Amazon.com and, for those who can bear staring at the screen long enough, there is a full ebook version online. I haven't read it yet, but if anyone has, please let me know what you thought of it; I'm most curious! There's an email button on the sidebar -->

TWIAAP.

Marti Noxon: Executive Producer or Hair Fetishist?

The other day, during my extended phase of denial-that-Buffy-has-finished-forever, I was watching the double episode Bargaining on DVD with the commentary by Marti Noxon (who wrote part I) and David Fury (part II). Now, you've got to ask yourself, how many times can hair be mentioned in one commentary? Marti Noxon manages to exceed 10! We being with the huge trauma that Emma Caufield (Anya) returned from the season hiatus with hair that looked exactly like Sarah Michelle Gellar's (Buffy's) from behind: a big no, no since audiences might get confused. Then, somehow, it looked too much like Amber Benson's (Tara's). Then we saw Buffy climb from the grave and have nice straight combed hair with only a token leaf in it to signify her clawing out of the grave (actually, I can see why this one is an issue, but seriously, I suspect Marti has a real hair thing!!). Then the numbers shirts ... in Bargaining, we see Willow wearing an 11 shirt, Xander a 13 shirt and Dawn a 7 shirt and all this signifies .... NOTHING. But we hear a great deal about it anyway. Marti also, sarcastically, drops the line "ooohh, hot lesbian action" every time Alyson Hannigan and Amber are in the same shot. The corker, though, was the revelation that Joss Whedon is big ... REALLY BIG (Marti and David apparently were "instructed" to mention his sexual prowess). So, next time you're thinking of playing a Buffy: The Vampire Slayer drinking game, you know which commentary to listen to: sip every time Marti mentions hair, sip every time David mentions number clothing, chug when Marti gets excited by "hot lesbian action" and finish your drink every time we here that JOSS IS BIG!


Phone Booth

Go an see this film. Ninety minutes of Colin Farrell talking sounds insane, but is pulled off brilliantly. Anyway, directed by the same guy who did The Lost Boys, so it must be great. Grant aka 'The Angriest Video Store Clerk in the World' has a good review of it here (I say good mainly because I completely agree with it, of course!).

Some amazing photos.

The NYTimes ran an article on photoblogs today, and led me to some amazing pictures. The entire slower.net site has amazing work, but this one really appealed to me: what's inside your head, it seems to be asking! The article mentions a Neon Porky Pig shot that's pretty cool, too! Another cool site is called dirtdirt and features shots from a mobile phone taken by someone living in Brooklyn. Very everyday-existencey and reminded me of the idea of the gargoyles in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, where certain people wear cameras all day long with constant feeds! One of the silliest, but oddly engrossing, is called Chow Down! which features regularly photos of what the person running the fotoblog is eating!
TWIAAP (The World is an Amazing Place!)

Which OS are you?

A quiz.
The result:

Which OS are You?
I swear, I was AmigaOS last time I took this test. My personality must be mutating!
Yes, I am procrastinating something terrible when I should be writing my chapter!

I can't believe I'm not ... evil??

Well, someone thought I should find out whether I was evil.
So i took the test and ...

How evil are you?
Very disappointed. Neutral. Hmph.

The Star Wars Kid Strikes Back

Have you been following the Star Wars Kid saga? On April 29th, Waxy.org released some very, very funny footage of a young guy practicing his dual lightsaber skills in front of a home video camera. This footage had apparently been released online by one of his "friends" and after a day online, a new version was released with the actual lightsaber effects added (looks well cool!). On May13th, after an impressive search the Star Wars Kid was found. In a truly wonderful gesture, Andy Baio and Jish Mukerji launched a fundraiser to buy the newly discovered Kid an iPod as a thankyou for the laughs he (unintentionally) shared with geeks everywhere. Some wonderful people banded together and at last count, over $US4000 had been raised, so I suspect the unintentional stardom of the Star Wars Kid will be one of those mythical fannish moments that will be talked about for years to come. (Other reporting includes a typically banal Wired report, a cool article in the National Post with enhanced screenshots and a bittersweet yet detached item in the New York Times [you need to register to view the article]). To download the videos, visit Waxy.org.

And so, it begins ...

Welcome to the very first whiz-bang, "all new, all different, here we go again ..." post for Tama's new blog. Here you'll find, well, whatever I think of writing here. Feeling annoyed already? Then perhaps you need the sure-fire stress relief of killing Care Bears, but don't worry there are EVIL Care Bears!