Leaving Sunnydale High

This week we watched the "Graduation Day" episodes on Buffy, and we had to say goodbye to high school... not just the high school years, but the ACTUAL high school. So, to honour this big moment, I wanted to share with you some photos I took when I actually went to Sunnydale High.

Back in 2003, I was in LA to attend the Posting Board Party. Waaaay back when Buffy was still on the air, there was an online fan forum called The Bronze. It was run off the WB site, and then when Buffy split for UPN in season 6, it spun off into the Bronze Beta, run by the fans. It was a place where Joss Whedon would drop by to say hello, where the writers would ALWAYS post (writers are notorious for turning procrastination into an art form), and where if you were online at a certain time of night, you could say hello to Alyson Hannigan, Amber Benson, Nicholas Brendon, Seth Green, or any number of drive-bys conducted by the actors themselves. How did we know it was real and not an interloper? The VIPS were given a special code that would make their name light up a certain way, and only they knew what it was. That way you knew it wasn't someone masquerading as someone else. (It's like the "verified" Twitter accounts they have today.)

Starting in the show's second season, the fans came up with the idea of having a get-together in LA where fans could all fly in and meet each other, since they'd been spending every night chatting away at the Bronze. Someone stepped up to organize the shindig, and they came up with it being a select party with something like 300 tickets (I'm totally going by memory here), and the fans could buy the ticket that would allow them into a closed party where they could just schmooze with each other.

And then the surprise came. For not only were the fans there, but... Joss, David Boreanaz, Alyson Hannigan, Nicholas Brendon, Anthony Stewart Head... pretty much every single person on the show except for Sarah Michelle Gellar (she never showed up to any of them). From that point on, the Posting Board Parties became legendary, and happened every year, with more and more actors and writers showing up each year to mingle with the fans.

I attended in 2003 as one of the VIPs, and at that time it had really grown into a giant affair. No longer was it the intimate little gathering, but instead thousands of tickets were sold. I was in the VIP area, so I got to meet most of the stars down there before heading upstairs to the fan area. It was fantastic. It was mostly Angel actors that year (and a few Firefly peeps) but James Marsters (Spike) was probably the biggest hit of the party. Eliza Dushku (Faith) was there, as well as Julie Benz (Darla), Danny Strong (Jonathan), Joss Whedon, Alexis Denisof (Wesley), and many, many others (I'm being careful to only name characters that you guys would know at this point in the rewatch).

If you have the 2002 edition of my Bite Me! book, I had an entire chapter with tons of photos from each of the Posting Board Parties. Unfortunately, when it went to the Chosen edition, my editor thought that section could easily go because it was more fanny and less episode guidey. I always mourned the loss of that chapter, because I loved it and it was unique to Buffy. But if you can get your hands on that earlier edition, you'll see some great photos.

Anyway! The day before the party, I went on a tour of Sunnydale (aka Torrance, California) to see Sunnydale High and a few other important landmarks. The tour included major LA spots to see Angel buildings, but my favourite part of the tour was going to the high school. As many of you know, Torrance High was used previously on the 1990s version of 90210, so it's a school that's familiar to audiences. Here's a shot from across the street:



I'm standing on a grass island that separates the school from the main street behind me (remember back at the beginning of S3 when Buffy shows up with a picnic lunch for everyone? She sat on that island). Here's a view of the front lawn of the school:



Look in the foreground for the tree Giles walks into at the end of "Earshot." ;) And here's a closeup of the front doors of the school, where you can see the usual school sign, which was replaced with "Sunnydale High School" whenever it was shown on Buffy.



And here I am (yes, I was in my I-dyed-my-hair-red-to-match-Willow's phase here) sitting on one of the benches out front.



Now, if you walk behind where I'm sitting, away from that bench, you'll eventually turn left to go around to the side of the school, and when I did, I actually gasped aloud when I found this:



You may remember this as the outside corridor where Angel chased Jenny in "Passion," before she re-entered the school and he killed her in the window above the front door.

Now, go back to the front doors of the school and walk in the opposite direction from that outside corridor, and you'll find these stairs off to the far side of the school:



These are the stairs we saw several times (usually in night shots) where, for example, Ford pretended to kill the vampire when he was lying to Buffy in season 2's "Lie to Me." Continue around that corner, et voila, the best part of the school:



SO much happened here, and if you look to the top right of the photo, you'll see that the clock tower where Jonathan was loading his rifle in "Earshot" was actually added in digitally, because it doesn't exist on the school. I stood in that courtyard and just pictured everything... Buffy running up the cement side of the stairs to get Jonathan in "Earshot," the gang hanging out by the fountain, Cordelia's speeches, graduation day... SO much happened here. Now, standing in the spot where I took that photo, if you turn 180 degrees you see this:



This is where the giant fight happened on Graduation Day, where the vamps were standing and where Angel and his crew were behind them. These are the stairs the kids charged down to fight them.

Back over in the courtyard, I went up the stairs (eeeee!) and took this photo looking down. I had chills standing up there. Most scenes were actually filmed at the top of the stairs rather than here (it widens so I imagine they were able to fit more camera equipment there).



And then I went back down the stairs and took a closeup of them, thinking of Jonathan sitting at the bottom of the stairs drinking his Big Gulp, or how many times the gang would be chatting about something while standing there.



When the bus left Sunnydale High, we went down a street that's actually quite close to the high school for a special treat. We weren't allowed to disembark, and they asked us not to take photos (yeah, right) but voila... Buffy's house!!





The house exterior was used throughout the series for long shots, but after season 1, I think, they stopped using the interior of the actual house, and instead rebuilt the entire thing on a closed set so Buffy and her enemies could trash the place a little more easily, without worrying about the current real-world occupants. But apparently what we saw on the show was what the house actually looked like on the inside. Imagine living there? Hm. Maybe that would be a little creepy.

Anyway, those are my pictures of Sunnydale High. I have many memories of that school, not just from being there but from three years of watching it on the show. I'm gonna miss that school... until the next rewatch, that is. ;)

Buffy vs. Edward

I posted this once before, back when it first came out, but it's always worth revisiting, especially in light of our Buffy Rewatch. One of the reasons I started the rewatch was because, despite using this blog to talk about Lost for the past five years, I've constantly referenced Buffy and discovered that many of the Lost fans following this blog hadn't watched the show. I wanted to open them up to this amazing world and let them see for themselves why BtVS is still so close to my heart. But I also wanted to return to the brilliance of Joss Whedon's creation in light of the vamp-mania that's happening right now: suddenly all the vampires are broody (like Angel) or dancing around delighting in their kills (like Angelus) and the irony has been (pardon the pun) sucked right out of everything Joss did. The new vampire shows take themselves WAY too seriously, lacking the sarcasm and punch that BtVS had.

Twilight, of course, is the ultimate example of this. And as I've said many times before, I don't mock it without knowing it. I suffered through the first book, thought Edward was an abusive stalker and Bella needed to grow a spine. (And I don't mean any offense to the many of you who enjoyed the books; some of my closest friends are Twilight fans...) ;) I've seen the movies (I just couldn't read any more of that craptastic writing) and I hated those as much as the first book.

This GENIUS mash-up of the Twilight film with various scenes from the complete series of BtVS sets up the dichotomy between the two brilliantly. Edward is a useless drip, pining after Buffy; Pattinson's acting is flat and wooden compared to Gellar's in every scene; his words are mindless and boring and obvious while Buffy is quick with the puns; the dialogue is amazing, the camaraderie between her and the others is great, and the film stock just looks better (and yes, yes, I know the Twilight film was washed out to give it MOOD, but good writing can do that, too...)

If the following is what Twilight had REALLY been, it would have been awesome. Sit back, Buffy fans, and cheer and laugh as Buffy turns down his advances with "ew" face, time and again.

The Great Buffy Rewatch

So as I mentioned earlier today on my blog, Warner has announced they are definitely going ahead with their idea of a movie based on Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer... that will not be set in a high school, nor will it have any of the original cast, nor will it have Joss Whedon attached. I'm really hoping it's a ill-timed April Fool's joke. And so today, with all of the Buffaholics walking around in sad stupors and bemoaning how in an age of Twilight and neutered vampires, people are forgetting the show that started it all, I'm here to announce that... WE HAVE TO GO BAAAACK!!!

No, not to the island, but... to Sunnydale! Yes, folks, I'm announcing the Great Buffy Rewatch!!

[Cue fireworks, the brass band, and the Buffy theme.]



OMG, look at young Willow with the long hair! And chubby-cheeked Buffy! And young Giles! And and and... Oh man, I'm giddy already. ;)

While many of you have been bugging me to do a Lost Rewatch in light of the series finale, I think Matt and Justin have been doing an excellent one already (by the way, I'm going to be joining them in a couple of weeks to recap the season 1 finale in light of the end of the series, so keep checking them out!)

In the summer, when people were asking me to do another one, I was thinking I'd rather focus on something else, and I made an off-the-cuff remark about a Buffy rewatch. And then a bunch of people jumped on that idea. "Oh no," I thought. "One hundred and forty-four episodes? Could I do it??"

No. No, I couldn't. But... with a little help from my friends I could! So a few weeks ago I was trying to figure out a way out of my conundrum, and a tiny, dim lightbulb went on over my head and I thought... "Oh my god, I could make spaghetti for dinner! That will solve the problem of us not having any chicken in the house!" And then as I was making spaghetti, a second, brighter lightbulb went on over my head and I thought, "Wait, what if I recruited guests to help me out with the Buffy rewatch?"

And luckily, I know a TON of people who are Buffy fans. So I began sending out notes to the academics and scholars I'd met through Slayage, many of whom have written Buffy books of their own. But, in keeping with the paper I presented at Slayage where I was basically arguing that anything that academics could do, bloggers could do... um... their own way, I decided I needed some other people. So now I've recruited some novelists, poets, pop culture bloggers, other writers of TV companion guides, and even a sports writer to join in the fun.

So here's the sitch: if you're a fan of Buffy, this is for you. If you've ever wanted to watch Buffy, this is for you. I'm giving you lots of time to get that box set (hint: buying the individual seasons is actually cheaper than the entire box set... go figure), go out and get a companion episode guide to all of the seasons (I would HIGHLY recommend this one, or this one, or this one), and start watching, and the Buffy watch fun will continue for the entire calendar year of 2011.

Now, if you watched Buffy live, like I did, then you remember Tuesday nights were Buffy nights (I still think of them that way) so every Tuesday a post will go up that will cover off that week's episodes. It will either be written by me or one of the many guests that I've recruited to join me on this venture (there are just over 20 on board so far). If it's a guest, I'll introduce them at the top of their column, and then let them go. They'll discuss Buffy in their own way, and I might jump in with a few words of my own at the beginning or the end. And many of them have written books, so I hope you check out their work if you like what they've written.

I'm very excited about this, and I hope you are, too!! We'll be starting on the first Tuesday of the year, January 4, and I'll be covering those episodes. I'll be posting a full schedule soon, and please join us.

If you have never watched Buffy, now's the time to do so. You all know how much work, time, and effort I've put into Lost, and yet Buffy still holds the place closest to my heart, even after all these years (and all those Lost books!) So come and find out why with a fantastic group of people who will keep you entertained all year.

UPDATE: I can't believe I forgot to mention this when I posted this last night, but I've been discussing with the contributors the idea of spoiling vs. not spoiling. My thinking is that people will keep the top part of their posts spoiler-free, just focusing on the episode at hand, and if they're going to pull in future episodes, they'll do so at a certain point with a warning in advance. However, I also didn't want to limit the way they approached the episode (for anyone who's seen Restless, for example, it's prescient of many things to come). So if their entire post pulls in things from future episodes, then I'll write my own piece at the top that is spoiler-free so the n00bs will have something to read that won't spoil them. That way if this is a first watch for you, rather than a rewatch, you'll have the option of reading ahead to see what's to come, or holding back and not spoiling yourself. Don't worry... I'll take care of ya. ;)

I'll be posting the full schedule shortly.

Grr... Argh...

SFX Magazine has a Joss Whedon special this month, and to celebrate, on their website they've presented 9 potential incarnations of the only monster that appeared in every episode of Buffy -- the Mutant Enemy guy. For example, at the end of Villains (which, in the article, they incorrectly identify as the episode Seeing Red), he could have looked like this:



LOL!! (Only Buffy fans will get that joke, and I won't spoil it for the rest of you who aren't up to season 6 yet.) Check out the full gallery of little "grr, argh" men here.

Slayage... Is Coming...

And no, I'm not talking about the inevitable death toll that looms on Lost (waaaah... oh PLEASE Darlton, SPARE THEM!) No, I'm talking about SC4, the upcoming Slayage academic conference on the Whedonverses (remember long ago when it was just about Buffy? No more...)! I haven't been this excited since, well, the last Slayage!

This is where academics from around the world descend on the historic town of St. Augustine, Florida, to talk about all things Whedon for three days. Can you even imagine anything more glorious? No. You can't. We've been discussing on this blog the possibility of doing a Buffy rewatch (or, in the case of the unanointed, a Buffy first-watch) with all of us discussing the show as we go, probably starting at some point in August, and if we do that, it would be a great boon for your analytical skills to attend this conference first.

The keynotes will be Janet ("Steve") Halfyard, author of Music, Sound, and Silence in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, delivering a paper entitled "Listening to Buffy: Music, Memory, Meaning, and Moping"; Lorna Jowett, author of Sex and the Slayer, on "Stuffing a Rabbit in It: Character, Narrative, and Time in the Whedonverses"; and Dale Koontz, author of Faith and Choice in the Works of Joss Whedon, whose paper is entitled, "Twelve Steps Forward, One Step Back: Redemption Through Recovery in the Works of Joss Whedon."

The draft of the program of presenters is now available here, and you'll see the wide array of topics and papers, some of which look absolutely divine.

But of course, what you'll REALLY be there to see is the banquet talk, which is where the name of the conference becomes a literal one. Oh yes, folks, for one night only, you can see a steel cage death match between Nikki "The Slayer" Stafford and Matthew "Silly, Silly British Man" Pateman!! In this corner, standing at 5'6" and boasting a black belt in AWESOMENESS, it's the author of Bite Me!! And in this corner, standing at 6'4" (wait, what?) and specializing in tea drinking and Man U hating, it's the author of The Aesthetics of Culture in Buffy the Vampire Slayer!!

We all know who's gonna win this one.

OK, maybe it won't quite be a steel cage death match. Possibly more like poking each other annoyingly. Or a re-enactment of the Harmony/Xander slap fight. But, you know, I think there will be roast beef. So... yay?

There's still time to register to come and listen. Seriously, this conference is SO much fun, I can't recommend it enough. Hope to see some of you there!

While You Wait for Lost...

Thanks to Joshua for sending this one to me. I love these opening credit mash-ups, and now to take my two favourite shows and put them together?? AWESOME.

"Every single night, the same arrangement..."

Ha! You've got that song in your head now, don't you? ;)

This one's for the Buffy fans. Toronto is hosting its annual Fringe Festival right now, featuring the best of avant garde theatre around the city all week long. And one of the troupes, "The Silver Stage," has carved out their own little unique niche in the festival: shadowcasts. You've probably seen them (or at least heard of them) before. Shadowcasts were made famous with the Rocky Horror Picture Show, where a group of actors would set up a giant movie screen at the back of the stage that played the movie while they simultaneously acted it out on the stage in front. Audiences love the interactive notion of it, and typically play right along, like they're also on that stage.

Well, Buffy fans... The Silver Stage is presenting, at the Fringe Festival, the shadowcast of BtVS's "Once More With Feeling"! That's right: for three nights over the festival, you can watch Buffy and her friends belt out their innermost thoughts ("I think this line's mostly filler") while they act it out on the stage in front, and you in the audience get to play along.

You can find more information about the Toronto Fringe Festival at their site, here, and you can go to Silver Stage's site to find out more about them here (besides Buffy, they're doing Blue Velvet -- what?! -- and, wait for it... Jurassic Park).

The "Once More With Feeling" shows will be held at the Bloor Cinema at 9:30 p.m. tonight (July 2), Sunday July 5, and Friday July 10. I've already got my tickets to the show on the 10th (because with any luck my book will be done by then!), and hope to see you there! Tickets are $10, and you can buy them in advance here (scroll down to The Silver Stage and choose either the July 2, 5, or 10 options).

Buffy vs. Edward

Oh. My. God. I can't remember the last time I laughed this hard at a clip on YouTube. This is SO bloody brilliant I don't even know where to start. Y'all remember what my new favourite T-Shirt said? Well... this is that dream come true. I have never loved Buffy's sarcasm the way I have in this clip. Make sure you're alone: if you're a Buffy fan (and not particularly a fan of Twilight), you will ADORE this and be laughing (and in my case, cheering and clapping) so loudly, you won't really want other people around. :) Enjoy!! (And thanks to Jeremy and Robbie for the link!)

Jossless Buffy = INSANITY

So there's lot's more hatred out there for the new Jossless Buffy idea. You probably all read the one about Joss Whedon being asked for a comment, in which he said, "I hope it's cool." The end. And then hung up his cellphone, threw it against a wall, ran to the closest wooden chair, ripped off one of the legs and staked himself in the heart with it. OK, maybe that last part didn't happen, but I know I certainly felt like doing that to MYSELF. GRR... ARGH.

This comic made me laugh LOTS. Especially because of my love for Twilight (see profile pic for proof of that love). :)



You can read the illustrator's thoughts at his site here.

I hope the Kuzuis hear the outcry of the enraged fans and media. I've yet to see a SINGLE article that says, "You know what? This could be a really good idea." Because it's not. And everyone except the money-hungry Kuzuis knows that. Part of me hopes they do it, that they sink $100 million into it and lose every penny. But then the movie would still be out there. And then, needing more money, they'd probably sell the Buffy rights to Michael Jackson or something.

We need to keep opposing this. No Jossless Buffy! No Jossless Buffy!

Help me out here. What would a Jossless Buffy be like? How about:
• Lost without Darlton
• A car without a steering wheel
• The Fellowship without Gandalf
• Bohemian Rhapsody sung by Screech from Saved by the Bell
• Macaroni without cheese
• Galactica without Adama
• Opus without Berke Breathed
• Alice in Wonderland written by Bobcat Goldthwait
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer without JOSS frickin’ WHEDON

This. Isn't. Happening.

One of my readers sent me this horrific news story today, saying she knew it would freak me out (thanks for the link, Ashlie!). Yes. Freaking out. So it would appear the Buffy movie is become a more serious possibility. Which should be cause for a big YAY, right?

Wrong. Turns out Joss Whedon AIN'T ATTACHED TO THE PROJECT.

Let's take a little trip down memory lane, shall we? It's 1992, and 20th Century Fox thought it would be an awesome idea to take a serious, dramatic film with comic overtones and turn it into a stupid teen sex comedy called Buffy the Vampire Slayer, starring Kristy Swanson. Throw in a little Rutger Hauer and Luke Perry, and wham, movie. The only funny thing in the entire film was Pee Wee Herman's death scene, which still makes me chuckle. But even IT wasn't in the spirit of what Joss intended.

Fast-forward to 1996, where Joss was given a second chance, something that NEVER happens in Hollywood. He took back his original script and fashioned a groundbreaking television series out of it, creating a pop culture icon along the way and virtually erasing from our memories any trace of that earlier movie.

Sigh. Have they learned NOTHING? As the writer says, "sometimes it's as if Hollywood sets out with 'failure' plugged right into the GPS."

This is an early news bulletin, so it could be the media screeching about something that's not even close to development. Let's all breathe together, and pray. I don't think this will happen. It can't. IT JUST CAN'T.

The Battle of the Cakes!

So after my previous post about Jazzygirl's awesome Lost cake, I got another email from Erin, one of my readers, whose enterprising husband put together his own Lost cake for her birthday a few months ago. This one involves the whole island, and thought it was hysterically brilliant:



This is a cake designed by a true fan. Erin's husband has crashed the plane into the beach (another close-up she sent me shows that he's written "Oceanic" on the side of the plane with a Sharpie), and stuck the tail section on the other beach (HA!!) There's the lid of those garbage pail candies near the fuselage beach, representing the hatch; the smoke monster is looming near the tail section beach (those are small black pompoms) and he's even included the sonic fence, made of Cadbury's chocolate fingers. Here's another angle:



And come on... The Black Rock is even there. I love this cake. Who knew there were such enterprising husbands and co-workers out there?!

When I posted on the first cake, though, one of my readers left a comment with this cake, from Cake Nouveau, instead. Oh, how I love you, Lost, but this cake is my new most-wanted thing. :)

The Buffster Procreates!

Yes, folks, after years of inane speculation by gossip rags over invisible baby bumps and "why haven't they yet?", news came out this morning that Sarah Michelle Gellar is pregnant with her first child with Freddie Prinze Jr.

And if it's a boy, maybe we can finally put all this Bangel and Spuffy stuff to rest when we hear which one she'll name the kid after.

I say they split the different and name the kid Joss. Regardless of gender.

My New Favourite T-Shirt

This is what I wish the last two sentences of Twilight had been.




Interested in your own? You can buy them here. :)

BtVS: The Animated Series - What Could Have Been

While I was away last week, someone posted the teaser that Joss and Co. had put together a few years ago when Whedon was pitching Buffy: The Animated Series to the network heads. Unfortunately, the show was never picked up, and with the gang split up, the chances of pulling them together for the voice work is near impossible now. (If I remember correctly, that's someone who sounds a lot like SMG, but it isn't actually her, am I right?) At first, I thought the animation was a little too Scooby-Doo for me, but after a minute or so, I really started to like it. Now it's sad to see what could have been, and will never be.

And "The harder they what?" is now officially my favourite Xander line ever.

Slayage Conference: Some Fave Moments

And now, some of my favourite moments I forgot to mention earlier (I can hear you out there, by the way, "Oh my GOD, Nik, do you KNOW how to write briefly?) The short answer: No. (Hey, check me out... I gave a short answer!!)

After the initial keynote packed the house in the smaller seminar room (Sue and I were sitting on the stairs along with dozens of other people) they moved the morning keynote speeches to an amphitheatre, complete with spotty sound system and microphone. (I, on the other hand, delivered mine behind coconut cream pie... personally, I like my setup better!) When we walked out of the amphitheatre the first day, we walked down the halls, which had Greek flags hanging from the ceiling for all the sorority girls and frat boys. (Yes... the irony of discussing anti-frat boy Buffy eps like "Reptile Boy" and "Selfless" in an institution that was glorifying them was not lost on me.) In Canada, sororities and fraternities aren't celebrated in quite the same way. They exist, sort of, but they don't have their own houses. I still remember the first time I went to Georgia and we drove around to see the gorgeous mansions with the big Greek signs on the front lawns, and that was when I understood WHY people want to get into them. But anyway... my favourite moment in the hallway at Henderson was finding the pictures of "Miss HSU." I have no idea if a pageant is involved (I SO hope it is) but in these pictures the gals all have gigantic hair with tiaras glued in there, and big shiny dresses and the wide-eyed fake smiles that make the photos absolutely perfect. Sue and I snapped some photos (sadly, the photos were on her camera, and I don't have copies, so I can't post them yet... but I will).

I went into the smallish bookstore on campuses (at the universities I went to, the bookstores were the size of department stores). There were probably 15 or 20 people in the store, and you could tell where the Buffy books were because they were all crowded around one small area. It was a thrill to see my books in amongst the more scholarly ones (and people actually looking at -- and buying -- my book... bonus!) Because I couldn't get anywhere near the display, I instead went over to the fiction books and found this one, called Attack of the Theatre People. This was the back cover copy:

It is 1986, and aspiring actor Edward Zanni has been kicked out of drama school for being “too jazz hands for Juilliard.” Mortified, Edward heads out into the urban jungle of eighties New York City and finally lands a job as a “party motivator” who gets thirteen-year-olds to dance at bar mitzvahs and charms businesspeople as a “stealth guest” at corporate events. When he accidentally gets caught up in insider trading with a handsome stockbroker named Chad, only the help of his crew from How I Paid for College can rescue him from a stretch in Club Fed.

I so wanted it, but if it's a sequel to another book, I want to read the other book first.

Outside of the building, there were two women standing on the pavement looking at something and poking it with their foot. Sue and I are instantly drawn to people poking things with their foot, and we wandered over. It was one of those awful palmetto roaches... thankfully, dead. Now we got to see up close something we just wanted to be far away from us when it was alive. We described these horrible things to the women standing there, and I think we gave them the heebie jeebies.

On the night of day 3, Sue was determined to get a photo of these things. We went out onto the veranda for our hang-out session with the others staying at the B&B, and a dozen of the bugs came swarming out from under the table. Sue ran in the other direction, I stood and shuddered and lifted one foot after another, freaking out completely. I hated being the little fraidy girl, but I can't help it. If a snake slithered out in front me, I'd glance at it and go back to what I was saying. And yet the tiniest bug moving quickly can reduce me to a maniacal mess. I HATE bugs.

As we left the veranda, we saw one of the creatures sitting on a post, and Sue got out the camera. Someone quickly mentioned we needed perspective, and sat his bottle of Bud Light beside it, and she took the shot. It was awesome (as soon as the flash went off, the bug ran away. More squeals). David Lavery had told us the first night that he once was vacationing in a motor home of some kind, and he went out during the day and left all the windows (no screens) wide open. He got back, opened the door, and hundreds of these palmetto roaches descended from the ceiling. I think, quite honestly, I would have just passed out from sheer panic.

Other favourite moments: A line Sue and I repeated often throughout the weekend: "What happens in Arkadelphia STAYS in Arkadelphia." What possibly embarrassing thing(s) could have happened to have made us repeat this over and over? Wouldn't YOU like to know.

During one dinner chat, Ian asked us if we'd seen the crazy Brenda Dickson videos on YouTube. Sue asked if Brenda Dickson was the actress from Y&R. Ian looked stunned, and said he'd never met anyone who actually knew who this woman was outside the videos (one thing you must know about Sue... she knows the real names of every actor on every soap... I could watch a soap for 20 years and not know the name of the person, but not Sue: she makes it her mission) so that was funny to begin with, but then he began doing his impression of these Welcome to My Home videos, and they sounded brilliant and crazy. He said there were a bunch of parody videos, and I asked why anyone would have to parody them if they were self-parodies to begin with, and he said you just have to watch them. So I did, and I couldn't stop laughing. You can watch them on Ian's blog here. I think "vajine" is my new favourite word. I wish Ian would do a video himself, because a lot of my laughter was remembering his impersonation of them, which was deadpan and hilarious.

The first day of the conference, we were desperate for a place to have lunch. We'd heard about Sonic, which is apparently a chain of drive-in burger restaurants, and we'd been told the waitresses roller-skate out to your car. We were also told if you didn't have a car, you couldn't go in. The guy who took us to our room at the B&B, this adorable kid named Chad ("kid," she said... man, I'm getting old) told us the Sonic was the closest place, and said, "Nah, y'all can go there if you don't have a car!" so off we went. On the way we were bitten by some cactus that was hanging out onto the sidewalk, and as we came down the hill, there was Sonic.... and Ian and Ryan sitting there! So we sat down and went over to the speaker and it was so weird giving our order without sitting in a car. I must report that contrary to what I'd been told, the waitresses did NOT wear roller skates. Wah. We all began discussing this interesting building across the street that was called "God's House." The worst part? It was empty. Eep.

At the banquet where I gave my keynote, we were told that of the 8 metal hot pans of food, the first one had the vegetarian dish in half of it. I leaned over to Ian and Ryan and joked, "And the other half is meat!" And guess what... the other half was meat! Seven other trays and they couldn't have put the mashed potatoes on the other side of the vegetarian tray? Sigh...

After the dinner and my speech, Rhonda and David passed out lyrics to Once More With Feeling, and we sang the entire thing as a massive group. It was AWESOME. I've been to some Buffy singalongs before, but this one was so much fun (and I belted it out a little too much; I was hoarse for the rest of the weekend). My favourite part (and the moment I knew this was a group of Buffy fans I was deeply in love with) was when we got to the part where Dawn says (as I've mentioned already in another post): "The hardest thing in this world is to live in it" and as I've always done since the first time I watched that episode, I muttered, "Shut UP, Dawn." Much to my surprise, half the room said it at exactly the same time!!

Happiness...

Oh, and in another funny moment at the banquet, Matthew Pateman was awarded the Mr. Pointy Award, and was told ahead of time he couldn't make any obscene jokes about what it looked like. He simply took it, stood there for a moment, and said, "I'd like to thank my father," and sat back down. Ha!

In David Lavery's talk on Joss Whedon's work in film, he gave a great quote from Joss: "Just because you're a script doctor doesn't mean every patient lives."

In Ian's speech on fandom, Tanya Cochran, who is the co-editor with Rhonda Wilcox of a new Firefly/Serenity book that I picked up while I was there (definitely worth it: it contains essays by many of the people at the conference), began talking about a YouTube series of videos that parody Angel, and they're called "Cherub: The Vampire with Bunny Slippers." You can check out the trailer here, and it looks pretty funny.

Sue and I drove back to the airport with Matthew, who generously offered us a ride in his rental car. Afterwards I said to Sue maybe we should give him some money, since he had to pay for the rental and gas and all, but then we realized we only had American or Canadian, and he wouldn't have much use for either. So, next time I see him, I'll buy him a couple of beers. Unless the conference is in a dry county again. In which case, I'll spring for some gigantic onion rings.

I'm not sure if I mentioned Kevin Durand yet... he was the organizer and the guy who hosted it at his college, and he was aces, as I told Rhonda. I can't believe how smoothly the whole weekend went. The poor guy was run off his feet; every time I saw him he was rushing from one place to the next with a cellphone attached to his ear, and I'm not sure he got to see any of the papers. (I hope he did.) I kidded him in the beginning that he had the same name as an actor on Lost, and as Keamy became more important to the storyline, it became an onrunning joke. Between organizing this conference and flying between Arkansas and Hawaii, Kevin's had his hands full for sure. Thank you so much to Kevin and his army of amazing volunteers, especially Jeremey and Brent, who I probably chatted with more than any of them. They were all incredible.

I must say the Little Rock airport boasts the nicest airport security I've EVER met. Usually airport security people absolutely ooze with hatred for everyone passing through, but the guy who put my luggage through to cargo couldn't have been kinder, and the woman who scanned my passport with her UV thingie asked how I'yall was doing, and told us to have a nice trip. The man who gave us our boarding passes saw we were from Ontario, looked again to see that we were going to Detroit, and said, "So what will y'all be doing in Detroit, walking across the border??" and he laughed. Sue replied, "Nah, we'll probably jog."

Our plane got in early, and then proceeded to sit on the tarmac for over an hour. Argh. I've never had that happen before, and to make matters worse, it was during a freakishly close lightning storm (by close I mean we saw a bolt hit a couple of runways away, and I undid my seatbelt and pulled my arms close, not wanting to touch any metal of any kind.

Once we were inside the airport, we went straight to luggage, where our luggage was right there, grabbed it, and were heading to the parking lot when I said to Sue, “Man, if that damn plane hadn’t sat on the runway for that long, we’d have been halfway home by now!” I’d written down where our car was parked, and we got off the elevator, went straight there, et voila, car! I hit the keyless open button on my key… nothing. Hit it again. Nothing. Tried the trunk. Nothing. CRAP. I’m thinking that maybe the x-ray had desensitized my key, and it’s the only key I’ve got, how the hell will I get back home?? I call my husband, and ask him if he thinks the alarm will go off if I try to open it with the key (usually if you lock it with the keychain, it won’t open without the alarm going off). He said he didn’t think so, so I tried it. It didn’t go off. And that’s when I noticed the interior lights didn’t come on either... battery was dead. ARGH.

The irony? The battery died because I left an interior light on... a light I’d turned on so I could write down where the car was parked so we WOULDN’T BE STUCK IN THE PARKING LOT. I was SO angry with myself, but it took less than 10 minutes for a guy in a golf cart to show up, give us a jump, and we were on our way.

Silly silly silly. So, my week away at the conference ended with a bit of a burp, but hey, no one knows I did it, right? This is just between you and me.

I got home and sneaked into the house, and into my son’s room. (Here is a picture of the little cherub… when I was 6 months pregnant with him, my daughter began calling him Pickle, and the name has, sadly, stuck. My dear friend Crissy – and fellow Buffy fanatic – made this shirt for him.) He was curled up in one corner of his crib, looking like an angel. My daughter, with her mop of curly hair, was equally perfect. The next morning I awoke to little arms being thrown around my neck and her kissing my face and saying, “Mommy! I missed you! I love you!” over and over. Ah... it’s so nice to have something like that to come home to.

Interestingly, the morning after my keynote, one of the attendees approached me and asked if I could send him my paper, and he explained that unlike me, the high school thing in Buffy didn't appeal to him, and when I listed off all of the moments that had deep meaning for me, they didn't have the same meaning to him. He added that perhaps it's because he's older, and I said to him that since having kids, I've watched all shows in a completely different way. I've been accused of being unfair to Joyce in my books, and I always have to explain that my point is that Joyce comes off a certain way; she's not necessarily a bad mother, but we are supposed to see her from Buffy's point of view, and that's the brilliance of that character. She's marginal, and interfering, just as a teenager would see her, and as Buffy matures, Joyce seems to be a more interesting character. I wonder if on my next viewing I'll see Joyce differently from the start?

So here endeth my Slayage 2008 reminiscences. Thanks for reading! Well, actually, no. I'm lying. I think I'll post one more post that will be about the critical reaction to the conference that I've seen on a couple of forums, and how much that infuriates me. Prepare for my soapbox, it's coming soon.

But until then... back to Lost!

Slayage Conference: Day Three

Mmm... Wesley.

Sorry, where was I?

Day Three. I've already given you the opening of it, with Jeanine Basinger's fantastic talk. From her keynote we went to see Stacey Abbott, who was a featured speaker and author of several Buffy-related tomes, including Reading Angel (long discussion on how it was supposed to be Investigating Angel, but her publishers wanted to attach it to their "Reading..." series). Her paper:

"'I don't know what kind of man I am anymore': The Damaged Man in Angel and post-Angel Cult Television"

Her talk was about an hour long (and she was the master of power-point and audio-visual clips) and she focused on Wesley and Gunn as examples of damaged men in Angel. She had the honour of having Jeanine Basinger in her audience, which was the only session where I saw her (which must have been daunting, but Stacey certainly didn't act like it was), and it was a fantastic paper. And, for me, depressing. Matthew Pateman, in his keynote, mentioned that Wesley is his favourite character of either show, and he got a smattering of applause and cheers for saying that. One of the applauders was me. I heart Willow more than words could say, but Wesley was the richest character, and one of the most remarkable examples of character development I've ever encountered (and I'm counting books, TV, and movies in there). He begins as a sputtering Hugh Grant-type with the hots for Cordelia, and you roll your eyes and hope he lasts a couple of episodes before being eviscerated. I'll admit when he showed up in episode 10 of Angel after Doyle had died, I just stared at my television in horror thinking, "You're going to replace Doyle with HIM?!" Yet by the end of season 1, he was already intriguing. By the end of season 2, I loved him. And by season 3, he was the main reason I was glued to my set week after week. Never has a character been more put upon (Erica Kane? Puh-leeze... Wesley WISHES her life were as easy as hers!) and as such, become dark. Wesley changed SO much throughout the development of his character, and just when you thought maybe, just maybe, he might be happy, something else happened. (SPOILER ALERT for season 5): When he dies in the final episode, I was bawling my head off, and it took days for me to recover my senses, and yet, at the same time, his death was a welcome one, as if only in death might Wesley find just a small bit of peace.

So when Stacey began talking about Wesley as a damaged man, showing clips of some of his darker moments, I felt a lump rising in my throat. The clips were painful to watch (and I mean that as a compliment), and while other papers made me want to explore a few episodes, Stacey's made me want to watch the series in its entirety once again... or maybe just seasons 2-5 (skipping part of 4) and focusing on Wesley. She showed that incredible scene (filmed by Whedon, of course) of Gunn and Wesley squaring off in "Spin the Bottle," where Gunn looks at him squarely after Wesley shows very little emotion or remorse for anything, and says, "What happened to you, man?" And Wesley, in a moment so perfectly delivered by Alexis Denisof, says, emotionless, "I had my throat cut and all my friends abandoned me."

Talk about the line that can stop a conversation.

It's one of my favourite moments in the series, and I was thrilled she showed it. Even if it made me want to crawl into a fetal position and not move for a couple of days.

She also talked about Gunn, but even his damaged self usually feeds back to Wesley. When Gunn makes the pact that eventually kills Fred, it's Wesley who must face Illyria and force himself to become her Watcher, so to speak. When I was working on my Once Bitten book and interviewed Alexis Denisof, I was very lucky in that he was gracious enough -- and eloquent enough -- to give me as long as I wanted, and he eagerly went through Wesley's entire character development with me, helping me map it out and giving me his thoughts along the way. It's the reason why, out of all the actor interviews I did for the book, his is the only one that I just ran verbatim as its own chapter. I hope at the next Slayage conference there's a panel devoted to Wesley. Or how about a day? A weekend? I'll be there. :)

Just as a side note, Stacey also mentioned other damaged men in genre television, and noticed the prevalence of damaged men named Jack: Jack Bristow (Alias), Jack Shephard (Lost), Jack Bauer (24), Captain Jack Harkness (Torchwood)... as well as the Pie Maker (Pushing Daisies) and Logan Echols (Veronica Mars).

After Stacey it was lunch time. Sue and I wanted to take pics with Ian and Ryan, our two lovely friends, and we pulled someone out of the lineup for shuttles so she could take our pictures (staking each other with the Slayage Registration sign) and then when we turned, the shuttles were gone. D'oh. Luckily we found one more and we all went to Subway. After that we headed over to the B&B to sit on the veranda (during the day = less bugness) and chat about what we'd seen so far and what we'd missed. One of the scholars, David Kociemba, had been in a few sessions and he always had some of the most insightful comments (he was the one who suggested Willow's addiction is more like Overeaters Anonymous and not Narcotics -- at that same panel, when someone commented that Nikki Wood was a bad mother because she took her son Robin slaying with her at night, David retorted, "Hey, good daycare is hard to find!" hahahahahahaha!!). I'd missed his paper on "The Spoiler Virgin Project," but it sounds fascinating. I've asked him to email it to me and I can't wait to read it! Basically, he teaches an entire course on Buffy (how much do I wish I was in his class?!) and he said he's got three different kinds of students: those who haven't seen Buffy and think it's an easy course, those who have seen it all and are well-versed in it, and those who say they haven't watched it, but it turns out they have. So his big conundrum has been spoilers: How do you teach a class on seasons one and two without giving anything away, especially if you assign reading and the paper you assign them to read refers to events a few seasons away? So he started the spoiler virgin project, where he has gone through all the academic papers and worked out which ones are safe for what episode. As someone who DESPISES spoilers, I loved it. This is a man after my own spoiler-free heart. So that began a long discussion on spoilers and non-spoilers and why people want them, etc.

The next panel was a "Dynamic Duo" session, where two key speakers who have made names for themselves in the academic Buffyverse give papers. The first was Janet Halfyard, whose paper, "Hero's Journey, Heroine's Return: Buffy, Eurydice, and the Orpheus Myth" was another one of my favourites. In fact, when I had to vote for my fave paper for the Mr. Pointy Award (more on that later), I was torn between this one and Rhonda's. The genesis of Halfyard's paper was an intereseting one: at a 400th anniversary session of Monteverdi's Orfeo, she was called up and asked if the Orpheus myth plays any role in Buffy, and if so, could she talk about it. She thought about it, and decided yes, she could. So she used clips from Prophecy Girl, for example, to show how Buffy plays the role of Orpheus, descending into the underworld of the Master's domain with her black leather jacket over her prom dress, holding her crossbow like the lute that Orpheus is usually depicted holding, and as such she becomes the hero. But when she is overcome by the Master, he removes the black jacket, and she is now the damsel, or heroine, as Halfyard contended, and she becomes Eurydice, held forever in the underworld. As such, she becomes both the hero, and the girl the hero is trying to save.

She next talked about Angel's return, and that Buffy is able to bring him back from the underworld by doing the very thing Orpheus couldn't do -- she lays the ring on the ground, and walks away, and does NOT look back. And that's how Angel returns. Brilliant!! She pulled up a clip from Once More With Feeling where Buffy casts herself as Orpheus, descending into Sweet's underworld to save Eurydice (Dawn). The scenery is very much like the original production of Monteverdi's Orfeo (Halfyard pronounced this with absolute delight, which I loved), and when she begins to dance herself to death, Spike becomes her anti-Orpheus, saving her (she played the clip up to the point where Spike sings, "So one of us is living" and then stopped it, saying, "I can't bear to listen to Dawn's terrible line there" Hahahahahahaha!) And she said ultimately, Spike, the anti-Orpheus is the one left behind in hell in Chosen.

What a paper!

Next up was Dale Koontz, whose paper was entitled, "The One That Almost Got Away: Doyle and the Fish Story." Koontz's book is about issues of faith in the Whedonverse, and in her terrific paper, delivered in her exquisite southern accent (I could have listened to her talk all day), she talked about Doyle's short journey, and compared it to various biblical stories, particularly the story of Jonah. She said the name Doyle translates to "Dark foreigner" and that his visions, where he says he feels like his skull is on fire, are like Moses talking to God in the form of a burning bush. In "Hero," where Doyle sacrifices himself to save the group, it's like Jonah jumping off the side of the boat and being swallowed by a giant fish. It was nice to see someone bringing in faith issues in an academic paper, which is usually more of a secular realm, and I loved her analogies. (And the fact it was another paper on Angel!)

And now we were down to the penultimate session... over so soon? I wish this conference had gone on for weeks. Well, okay, I was missing my children terribly, and the few conversations I'd had with my 3-year-old on the phone, where she began crying in one and begging me to either come home or let her come and be with me where I was, were heartbreaking... but if this conference could just come my way at some point so I can see the kids every day, I'd be in heaven.

The final paper of the day for me was "Myth, Metaphor, Morality and Monsters: How BtVS and Other Works by Joss Whedon Changed Ethical Thought Forever." It was written by J. Michael Richardson and J. Douglas Rabb. Rabb couldn't be there, so another person helped deliver the paper with Richardson. The profs were from Lakehead University in Thunder Bay (more Canucks!) I was very intrigued by the title, and unfortunately I arrived a few moments into the paper (it was the only one I was late to) so I missed the opening. I'm thinking that's what went wrong for me -- I didn't hear the thesis, so when the paper moved into a hour-long discussion on biomedical ethics, I was lost. And not in a good way, on a desert island with Sawyer and Desmond and..... okay, I'm back. There were very few moments where it was brought back to Whedon's work, so it was difficult for me to ground it in something tangible for my mind. I'm sure the paper was absolutely brilliant, but biomedical ethics are way beyond my realm of understanding, so it was tough for me. He was speaking English, but no matter how many times I tried my hardest to focus, I just couldn't. I really wanted to be able to report back to y'all on this one, but I can't. There was one point they made that I grasped onto and it made sense (because it was brought back to Whedon) where they talked about Sartres' Jean Genet, and the idea of Bad Faith: Like Jean Genet, Faith becomes bad because that's the label that's been put on her. She became the object of another person's narrative, and lost her own. What that had to do with the rest of the paper, I couldn't tell ya, but it was a wonderful concept.

If someone else reading this right now was at that paper and made sense of it, please post and let me (and my readers) know what it was about, so I can do some justice to the paper. I can say it was presented with enthusiasm and charisma, and the presenters really enjoyed their topic.

The final final session of the day was called "Buffy Bookers" and it was a collection of everyone who's written a book on Buffy. I saw my name on the list and worried momentarily... like I had just run a marathon and was suddenly told, "You do remember the swimming leg of the race, right?" Uh... I'm sorry, what? But David quickly reassured me that it's really not much more than sitting there and talking about how we got published and what our books are about and sharing experiences -- good and bad -- about the publishing experience. Because I work on both sides -- I'm a writer, but also an editor and I acquire books -- I could provide some extra insight for the listeners, but I also was fascinated by some of the stories on the panel. Not being paid anything for the books? Having to pay your publisher to publish the book?! Not being edited at all when you hand it in?? The wrong version of the book going to press? Wow. I was stunned by some of the stories. As I told the people in the room, I'm interested in publishing academic pop culture volumes along the lines of what people in the room have done, but what I failed to mention was that in trade publishing, the bottom line is the sales. So if they can show me how there might be a chance for sales -- and I could convince the publisher to expect lower sales on these ones -- we might have a chance to start such a thing!

I got two pitches right after the panel. :)

At the panel, by the way, they presented the Mr. Pointy Award for best paper to Cynthea Masson, who'd delivered a paper I sadly missed on the Angel episode "The Girl in Question." Here's a photo of Mary Alice Money and Rhonda Wilcox holding a previous incarnation of the handmade award. We all joked about how much fun she'd have bringing that one onto the plane.

It was now off to dinner, and about 25 of us piled into several shuttles to head off to the Hamburger Barn (we were raving about its poshness) but when we got there? Closed. Apparently some things actually close on Sundays in Arkadelphia. Luckily, in that same parking lot was a pizza restaurant. So we piled in there instead (you should have seen the looks of horror on the faces of the one waitress and couple of guys making pizzas who had assumed it would be a slow night... Joss could have filmed it for a reaction shot) and had to wait for the buffet to be replenished a bit. Sue and I sat with Ian and Ryan and they regaled us with stories and we were in stitches for most of the dinner. I love those guys. I miss them already.

And then it was a sad goodbye, and back to the B&B where Matthew drove us (after I reminded him to stay on the right side of the road... and then admitted to taking a roundabout THE WRONG WAY AROUND once when I was in England. Gulp). Sue and I turned on our television (I mean, come on, we have our priorities) and it was a heavily censored version of Pulp Fiction, which I posted about because I was so shocked to see it. We watched as Marcellus Wallace called Butch a "cod jam mother-father" when there was a knock on the door and it was Rhonda inviting us out onto the veranda for round two of our discussions, and it was just as much fun as the first night.

I loved the Slayage Conference (can't you tell??) and I'm in full-on withdrawal now. I know I've missed a bunch of stuff (how is that possible?! you may be asking yourself, considering the length of these posts...) so I'll write up a separate post tomorrow morning on the last little bits I might have forgotten about.

Mainly I just wanted to say that this is an amazing group of people, and with about 150 people in attendance, give or take, I know I was meeting only a small number of Buffy academics. I've never felt so at home with a group of Buffy fans, and while I was worried I would be seen as an interloper who doesn't write about Buffy academically, no one ever made me feel that way while I was there. It was brilliant.

Jeanine Basinger said she was going to get Joss to come to the next Slayage conference (big cheer from the crowd, and she stepped out from behind her podium to do a little curtsey, which was hilarious). And while I'd be lying if I didn't say that was exciting, I'm looking forward to it more just to see all these people again.

If this is what academia could be, I'm starting to wish I'd taken my PhD after all.

Slayage Conference: My Keynote

Don’t You Forget About Buffy:
Why Joss Whedon’s Masterpiece Captivates Us Still

I don’t know about you, but I love John Hughes films. When TBS runs one of their Hughes marathons, I’m right there. When I watch The Breakfast Club I’m suddenly 15 again, wishing my school had a Saturday detention that was that freakin’ cool. And I can’t get enough of Sixteen Candles, with its geeks and touchy-feely grandmothers and parental neglect. I’ve seen Ferris Bueller so many times I’ve lost count, and while I thought I identified with Ferris, I’ve recently realized it’s his worried friend Cameron that I sympathize with the most. I’m not a huge fan of Pretty in Pink, but despite Andie’s godawful dress and the fact that Blane was a bore, I still love Ducky.

I know I’m not alone here. Everyone I’ve talked to seems to feel the same – we turn on a John Hughes film, and we’re transported back to high school... it’s like our twenties and thirties never happened, and we’re suddenly teenagers again, experiencing that rollercoaster of emotions, embarrassed about our parents and wanting to be in with the cool crowd. And why is that? Because John Hughes captured a time in our lives that all of us went through, for better or for worse. There are things we did in high school that we’d probably chalk up to being the most embarrassing moments of our lives. And there are moments that we cherish. For every memory we have where we swear we’d give a limb just to go back and relive it one more time, there are probably ten memories that remind us we’d never go back to high school if someone paid us.

Over the years, I’ve been asked the same question countless times: What is it about Buffy that makes people love this show so much? We all have our own answers to this question.

For some, it’s that remarkable dialogue or the story arcs that took monsters and made them metaphors for real life. For others, it’s that extraordinary ensemble cast, made up of mostly unknowns, with the exception of a diva from All My Children and that British guy from the coffee commercials. Most often fans point to the veracity of the show as the reason it was so good: it might have been about werewolves, vampires, and the occasional tiny Gachnar, but it was the most realistic show on television. (Try saying that to a non-Buffy fan.)

But for me, the reason Buffy has had such a major impact on my life, and is something that I will always keep coming back to, is that it was set in the teenage years, and began in high school. At no other time in our lives do our emotions run so high. When you’re a teenager, the tiniest provocation can cause your world to come to an end. We love with so much passion we feel our hearts will split in two, and we hate with that same fervour. So many things are happening for the first time – you meet the guy or girl that you completely obsess over. Sometimes it’s requited, but sometimes it isn’t, in which case you have your first experience with writing suicidal poetry. It’s a time when you meet the people who might be your friends for the rest of your life, and when you’re fighting with them, you hate them more than any person on Earth.

When it comes to the old adage, “Write what you know,” high school is a pretty safe topic for any of us. Joss Whedon is clearly no exception. A connoisseur of teen angst, Whedon has been on the front lines, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the perfect medium through which he could recreate the hell of high school and bring it back to life. Just like watching those John Hughes movies, viewing the first three seasons of Buffy will bring back memories for all of us. You’ll realize that you can take the person out of high school, but you can’t take the high school out of the person, when you think back to how you felt watching certain Buffy moments, such as:

• Dodgeball.
• Buffy and Angel’s first kiss, and what happened after.
• The consummation of Buffy and Angel’s relationship... and what happened after.
• Cordelia teasing Willow that she’s seen the softer side of Sears.
• The prom.
• Buffy explaining to Jonathan that every student – from the mathlete to the cheerleader – is filled with pain.
• The talentless show.
• Buffy’s father not taking her to the ice show on her 18th birthday.
• Willow crying in the girl’s bathroom stall after she finds out Xander, the best friend she’s had a crush on since infancy, would rather be with someone he hates than with her.

By beginning his series firmly ensconced in a high school setting, Joss Whedon managed to pull us in and keep us there, week after week, because he had portrayed high school in such a realistic way. Because those years are so deeply imbedded in each of us, we could relate to the show, and it suddenly became about us.

High school was a huge time in our lives, filled with change and firsts: High school is when we have authority figures surrounding us – whether it’s a teacher, a coach, your boss at your first part-time job, or your parents – but we’re also struggling to gain our independence for the first time. High school is where you first stayed out late, often first lied to your parents about where you were going to be, and tested the boundaries of the rules that you had always followed before.

When we were in high school, our personal lives changed. Parents got divorced, and some of us had to deal with meeting mom or dad’s new “friends.” You may have fallen in love for the first time when you were in high school, and probably suffered through your first breakup. Your hormones were raging, so everything seemed more amazing or depressing than it later would.

In high school, we were pressured with preparing ourselves for the rest of our lives. At 17 or 18, we were making decisions that would affect everything we would do from that point on. It’s like that first section in The Game of Life... if you land your tiny car on Teacher and someone else lands on Doctor, you’re pretty much screwed from the outset.

Whedon created all of these scenarios and more. Buffy’s parents are divorced, and she’s being uprooted at the beginning of the series and moving to a new school and town with her mother. Sunnydale High is full of cool kids versus the nerds. It’s hard watching Xander, Willow, and Joyce gang up on Buffy upon her season three return in “Dead Man’s Party,” either because we identify with Buffy and hate seeing her ganged up on, or we sympathize with the others, and feel their pain of betrayal.

Emotions are running high for these high schoolers: just think of the Willow and Oz romance. Willow is the wallflower who was never supposed to get the cool guy, and when HE actually notices HER, our hearts are a-flutter. Buffy, on the other hand, personifies first true love gone terribly, terribly wrong. She discovers the guy she loves is 240 years old, and after sleeping with her he turns into a soulless vampire. But WAY worse than that... he doesn’t call her the next day.

AH!

We see characters discover changes in their bodies – Willow finds out she’s a witch, Oz is a werewolf. Buffy balances the pressures of schoolwork with a part-time job, or as she calls it, her “calling.” (I know a lot of people who also referred to their part-time jobs as their calling in high school, but after a few months folding shirts at The Gap, they felt differently.) Xander knows he won’t go to university, and the guy who’s always been part of the gang foresees a day when he will be an outcast, that dude with the technical career and not the intellectual one. Faith embodies the high school rebel, that person who puts up a harsh exterior because inside they’re in so much pain they don’t want anyone to find out. Through it all, the gang loves and tolerates Giles, that adult who is a part of the group that they tease one minute, revere the next.

But the most realistic part of all? The high school was on a hellmouth. Did ANY of us go to a high school that was not?

This theory would suggest that Buffy is only good because of the first three years. But that’s not what I’m saying. It was the first three years that managed to pull us in. By the time season 4 began, we were fully in the grip of Joss Whedon’s world, and the pain and horrors that were to follow were as realistic as the high school setting he’d already established. Just as many of us will carry around the emotional scars and happy memories of high school forever, we also remember those complicated years that followed.

After high school, there’s college or the work force. These years opened us up to new worlds. In college the geeks were in the majority, and a person was actually rewarded for working hard – imagine that! But college is often where we were uprooted for the first time, being forced to live on our own away from our parents. Our family became secondary to our friends and schoolwork, and for many of us, disorientation set in. If high school was where we had to think about adulthood, post–high school is where we had to enter it.

The same was true of Buffy. Just as seasons one through three mirrored the emotional turbulence and pleasures and traumas of high school, seasons four through seven perfectly captured the rollercoaster that was to follow. Season four wobbled and didn’t quite work, as if the writers had decided on a shift, realized they’d made a mistake, and scrambled to fix it. Similarly, when we leave high school and enter our lives, we are perplexed, and the familiarity we once knew is gone. Post–high school, we’re all in a transitional phase, following the decisions we’d made in those crucial years and entering the paths we’d laid out for ourselves. For some, they realize they’ve made a big mistake – “Law school?? Why the hell did I ever want to become a LAWYER??” – and they backtrack, desperate to try new things until they can figure out what they really want to do, and get back on the right path. This description pretty much sums up season 4.

By season five, the show had rediscovered its path, and once again, it reminded us of all those things we once went through as young adults. High school first love gives way to complicated relationships. Buffy and Spike. Anya and Xander. Perfect examples of relationships that weren’t easy to explain. Early adulthood is where we might lose a parent, as Buffy does, or where sibling rivalry turns to closeness. In Xander’s case, it was where he was able to move out and leave the abusive home he’d been living in. College is where some people come out of the closet, as Willow does, sometimes to their own surprise. With our newfound independence, we no longer need our parents in the same way, hence Giles’s departure. Perhaps by losing a family member or a friend, our previous feelings of invincibility give way to a fear of mortality. Buffy dies; the rest of the gang loses a friend. Buffy’s return is not exactly like something we’ve ever experienced, but in a way it’s like a friend of ours leaving for a different college wearing Ralph Lauren and returning in the summer wearing a safety pin through their nose and a Sex Pistols shirt.

There are some Buffy fans who say the series would have been better off ending after season 5, but perhaps that reveals an innate resistance to growing up. Just as life after high school was full of confusion for us, we resist Buffy and the gang changing. Perhaps we wanted Willow to be the consummate wallflower, and not the evil veiny Willow of season 6. Maybe we’d rather see Xander remain the class clown, and not the sad contractor who tells Dawn in season 7 that sometimes he feels like the guy who just fixes the windows every time they’re broken. Giles was no longer a librarian, and instead became the owner of a magic shop, constantly at war with Anya. But these are reflections of real life, and while Joss gave us the doses of reality, he couched them in his incomparable storytelling that kept us glued to our sets. Veiny Willow gave way to goddess Willow. Contractor Xander rejoined the good fight, and lost an eye battling alongside the Slayers. Giles went away, but he returned suddenly at the end of season 6, in my number one favourite moment of the series.

I listed off a bunch of moments from the high school years that made us cringe or laugh or cry, always in sympathy because we remember those years. But the last three years of the series boasted even more powerful moments, because we’d seen the events and changes leading up to them. Moments such as:

• Buffy finding her dead mother on the couch.
• Tara and Willow floating above the dance floor, completely in love.
• Anya’s fruit punch speech.
• Giles singing to Buffy that he’s just standing in her way, and it’s time he step aside so she can become the independent woman she was meant to be.
• Xander conquering wicked Willow by telling her how much he loves her.
• Buffy telling Spike that she’d been in heaven, and refusing to tell her friends what they had done to her.
• Spike telling Buffy how much she’s meant to him after her friends have shunned her for putting them in danger.

Often, during these more difficult and complex story arcs, fans idealized the high school years of the show. But isn’t that like life? Brian K. Vaughan, one of the authors of the new Buffy season 8 comic book series, was asked how he would write the final scene of Buffy if he were given the chance, and he replied, “I always thought it would be kind of poignant to just have Buffy and [her friend] Xander be the last two people left, and have them reminisce about high school. The point being that, while you’re going through high school, it seems like hell, but once you’re old you begin looking at high school like it used to be paradise.”

He’s not the only one who feels that way. We might think we hated high school, but if that were so, we wouldn’t take such pleasure in old John Hughes films and the first three seasons of Buffy. Joss Whedon stuck his high school on a hellmouth to indicate just how awful it was, but seven years later, at the end of the final episode, after they seemed to have grown up and moved on and changed so much... Buffy and the gang end up back in high school. As they stand in the hallway, with the camera circling around them as they discuss what they’re going to do once they’ve conquered the baddies, they momentarily revert back to the gang we’d seen seven years earlier. Buffy wants a new pair of shoes, Willow is eager and excited about a new store in the mall, Xander jokes about mini-golf... and Giles mutters to himself that the kids won’t pay any attention to him, and the earth is definitely doomed. And in this scene, Joss lets us know that no matter what happens in their lives, Buffy and the gang will always be back at that high school, for that was where they became who they are.

Just like we did.

Slayage Conference, Day Two

Hello everyone (yes, I'm back in Toronto, and while I've actually used "y'all" for a year or so now, due to my fascination with Britney Spears, it's wearing off). It's taken me two posts to do day two, so let's keep going!

Day Two began with a keynote from Elizabeth Rambo, who gave an interesting talk on "Restless" ... or so it seemed. She acknowledged that others have covered Restless and its echoes throughout the season (in my book I do it, too, though nowhere nearly as detailed as the others, where I mention "Restless Moments" throughout other episodes) and instead she took the theme of going back to the beginning (something else I outline in my episode guide of Bite Me, but again, nowhere nearly as detailed as Elizabeth's talk was). She focused on the first couple of seasons of Buffy, pointing out some moments that echoed later in the final season. Her talk was great, and she really made me rethink the series and want to go back (yet again) and look at how Joss brings all of his seasons together through his weaving of threads throughout all seven seasons. Her new book is called Buffy Goes Dark, about the last two seasons of the show. How much do I love that title? Not only did the series end, therefore going dark, but Buffy (and Willow and everyone) goes WAY dark. Love it. It'll be out early next year by the sounds of it, but you can preorder here.

After her talk we went to watch Rhonda Wilcox, a.k.a. The Mother of Buffy Studies, as she delivered her speech, entitled, "'Can I spend the night / alone?'": Segments and Connections in 'Conversations with Dead People.'" And what a speech it was. She focused on the opening of CWDP where you see the title card (something you never see before or again on Buffy), and a band setting up and singing a song that Joss wrote, and how the words reflect the rest of the episode. She showed the clip, then began analyzing the words against the ep:

Night Falls
I fall
And where were you?
And where were you?
Warm skin
Wolf grin
And where were you?
I fell into the moon
And it covered you in blue
I fell into the moon
Can I make it right?
Can I spend the night?
High Tide
Inside
The air is dew
And where were you?
Wild eyed
I died
And where were you?
I crawled out of the world
And you said I shouldn't stay
I crawled out of the world
Can I make it right?
Can I spend the night
*Alone? Alone? Alone?
I fell into the moon
And it covered you in blue
I fell into the moon
Can I make it right?
Can I spend the night?
Alone?

The question discussed after the paper was the actual question, "Can I spend the night alone?" Does it mean "Please go away, I need to spend the night alone," or, as Rhonda suggested, "Am I able to spend the night alone, or will something happen to me?" The paper made me look at the episode differently, and want to watch it again. Two things she mentioned worth noting: The French title of the episode was "Connivances." (I loved that detail.) And I've often disagreed rather vocally with those who call to task Joss and Co. for the death of Tara and then the use of Tara in this episode (as many of you know, Amber Benson was supposed to appear to Willow rather than Cassie but her schedule wouldn't allow it... or so I was told by both Amber and David Fury, despite later comments by fans to the contrary, who say Amber refused to appear because it would further tarnish an already tarnished memory of Tara). People accuse Joss of creating a lesbian character just so he could kill her (which is ridiculous, in my mind, considering how incredible that character was... and secondly, who exactly is the one who should be rethinking things when those same fans are referring to Tara as "the lesbian character," as if that's all she was and had absolutely nothing else to offer?) Anyway, in this episode in particular, fans said that Cassie being there instead of Tara was a blessing, because making Tara the first would have been the final stake in that character, so to speak, and even by evoking Tara's name it was bad enough. But Rhonda argued that it's in Cassie's insistence that Willow commit suicide that we are cued to know it's not Tara, which speaks to her character... we know Tara wouldn't have done that, and it's Willow's connection to Tara that prevents her from doing so. Thank you, Rhonda! It was my favourite paper of the conference.

Next up was lunch. I'm not sure if I mentioned this earlier, but there are no eateries around the campus. There's really not much of anything around the campus. I'm thinking marks at Henderson must be really high, since students really don't have much choice to do anything but study. So what happens is at lunch you hop on a shuttle, and usually the people on the shuttle all decide to go somewhere in particular and you all go together. We lucked out (though from the people I met, I'd think I'd luck out no matter who I ended up with) and went to a Chinese buffet with an amazing group of people. A bunch of them told me how much they enjoyed my speech the night before, and one of them explained that it's exactly the sort of thing you want at a banquet after a day of heady papers -- something entertaining and moving. So I was pretty thrilled that she considered my speech to have fulfilled both of those requirements. Lunch was pretty good, actually, though despite all the culture shock I've mentioned so far, it doesn't matter where you go in the world: Chinese buffet decor is all exactly the same.

After lunch I went to a Giles and Joyce panel. These were the papers:

"A Sexy Fuddy-Duddy and a Woman Who Knows How to Moisturize: Adulthood, authority, and Sex in BtVS"
"'Gladly wolde he lerne and gladly teche': Giles as Teacher

Sadly (in what would become a little too common throughout the conference) the person delivering that first paper with the fabulous title didn't register and didn't show up, so the person delivering the second one was on his own. The paper lost me a little bit -- it was delivered in sort of a point-form fashion, as if it weren't fully developed yet (the author didn't pretend it was: he was up front and asked for advice and took notes during the discussion, which was really cool). And in a room full of teachers, it was an interesting paper to discuss. Sadly, I'm not one, so his theories on pedagogy sort of went past me, and I'll admit I zoned out occasionally. He was challenged a bit by the attendees, who suggested you can't look at Giles as merely a teacher and remove him from his other roles (like that of father figure or mentor), but "teacher" is just one of the many things he does. The presenter went over several instances where Giles is using various techniques as a teacher, for better or for worse, and again, some in the room suggested that Giles is teaching from a privileged position -- one teacher, one student -- that other teachers don't have the option to do. I wanted to suggest that in season 8 of Buffy, we see what happens when his classroom balloons to thousands of students (and they're right; his methods no longer work) but the presenter had admitted that he hadn't actually read the comics yet. I also wanted to ask about what he thought of Giles deciding not to play the teacher role in "Helpless" when Buffy has to deliver her final exam, so to speak, and instead he pulls her out of the situation when his fatherly devotion trumps his role as a teacher. But I was worried the presenter had actually talked about it and I missed it. The good thing about this paper was it gave me a lot to think about, which is something that could be said for all of them.

The next session was Fans and Fandom. Papers:
"New Lines: The Fan and Textual Poaching in the Work of Joss Whedon"
"Success of the Fittest: The Evolutionary Appeal of BtVS"

And, once again, the second person didn't register, didn't show up. The first paper was delivered by Ian, the guy we'd been hanging out with that first day, and he'd given us a quick summary of his paper. I was intrigued, and I certainly wasn't disappointed. His paper talked about how Joss uses material from other pop culture media in his movies as a nod to the fans who can find it. He told us ahead of time that he had to take his 30-page paper and bring it down to 10, but what we heard was great. I especially liked his suggestion that the scene in "Innocence" where Buffy and the gang face down the Judge is from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The last session was entitled "Willow." Anyone who knows me would know there's no way I'd be in another session if there's one on Willow (well, okay, maybe a session on Wesley would cause me to be in a panic trying to figure out which one to go to, but that's it). The papers:

"The Rage of Willow: A Kleinian Perspective on Witchcraft Performances"
"The Dark Redhead: Willow and Her Fury, or 'Are you kidding? She's like Dark Phoenix up there"
"'This is a witch symbol': Willow's Queer Identity"

And again (sigh) the presenter of the first paper didn't show. Which is too bad, because I loved the title of the paper. The presenter of the third paper actually went first, and she was an undergraduate student -- the only undergrad delivering a paper. And she was great! She admitted to being extremely nervous, and said so, but despite a fast delivery, the paper was wonderfully written, and contained some great lines. In a study of Willow's witchness as a metaphor for her queer identity, she compares her to Buffy, who she said was "closeted as a Slayer" and "her sexual prefernce is for the undead." Ha! Loved it. I thought the paper was excellent.

The next paper, which was fantastic, was about how Willow's red hair is the trigger that she's uncontrollable, and that traditionally, "all the kick-ass girls have red hair." Jessica Rabbit, Lucille Ball, Jean Grey, Clara Bow... she had lists and lists of them. Her paper focused on a comparison between Will and Jean Grey, and she put up some of the panels from X-Men showing exact scenes that mirrored Willow's development. My favourite was the obvious one where Cyclops tries to stop Jean from destroying the world, and in the panel tells her that she'll have to kill him first if she's going to do it (the scene actually gets a shout-out in the season 6 ender, when Andrew says that Willow is like Dark Phoenix, which is the name for Jean Gray's character at this point in X-Men). Both women have to work on controlling their power.

One thing I was going to ask but was beaten to the punch was when someone asked the presenter what she made of Willow's hair going black when she was at her most out-of-control, and the presenter expressed her frustration of it, saying that in television you need visual cues to show what is going on quickly, and that's what they did, but in doing so they undercut what they were trying to establish with Willow's red hair. It was a great paper.

At the end of the day, just as Sue and I were trying to figure out what we'd do for dinner, David Lavery came up and asked if I'd be interested in going out to dinner with the next day's keynote speaker. I was very excited about her keynote, and so I eagerly said yes, and it was one of the most fascinating dinners I've had. Next post: The woman who helped shape Joss Whedon.