Friday favorites

In college I fell in with a fantasy-reading, strategy-game-playing, sci-fi-loving crowd, and the (relatively) obscure TV show of choice was, naturally, Firefly.

 

Thanks for that, Mal. Having been inducted into the cult of Whedon, That Guy and I eventually ended up watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. All of it. And then Angel, too. Admittedly, it sounds like the worst teen soap set-up ever: cheerleader prevents the apocalypse by killing demons while navigating the social miasma known as high school.

But then there are the lovable characters, the world's coolest librarian, the Shakespeare references ("we few, we happy few, we band of buggered"), and the surprisingly good musical episode "Once More with Feeling."

And it's always fun to watch with a classicist. Ancient languages are a key ingredient, and according to this guy with a blog (a reliable source, I'm sure), translation was done by students in the classics program at UCLA. Pronunciation of said translations is mostly terrible.

Books and book-learning are important in the series. Despite Willow's hacking abilities, many episodes, especially in the early seasons, involve the Scooby Gang hitting up Giles' library for research after Buffy encounters a new threat. They do do a bit of internet research, mostly on a database called "Demons, Demons, Demons," but ancient books are their weapon of choice. There's also a great moment referencing the power of words in season four:

Riley: These spells, these really work? I mean, can you really "turn your enemies inside out"? Or "learn to excrete gold coins"?

Anya: That one's not so much fun.

Willow: They work, Riley. But they take concentration, being attuned with the forces of the universe.

Xander: Right. You can't just go "librum incendere" and expect...
[Xander's book bursts into flames and he slams it shut, extinguishing it]

Giles: [wearily] Xander, don't speak Latin in front of the books. 

Buffy and I both love giant books

BONUS: Buffy led me to this fascinating blog on classics in pop culture.

Friday [sic] Favorites

First I didn't know what to write about, but then the mail came.  Now I'm totally frustrated because I can't post the photo I want!  So you all get a link today: The Pleated Tartan Plaid Shirtdress from Lands' End Canvas.  Oh wow.  I ordered both colors and it's possibly the most adorable dress ever.  And it's on sale.  And it has POCKETS. 

Unless you are female (and if you're not, you've probably given up reading this already anyway), you cannot possibly understand how awesome usable pockets in dresses are.  They are AWESOME.

My blue shirtdress and I will see you at church tomorrow.  Black shoes or brown?  There's black in the plaid, but the tartan just gives me a brown vibe.  Hmmm.

The sky co-opted my blog topic

I picked up The Essential Calvin and Hobbes last night for a bit of bedtime reading and pondered this cartoon, ruminating on the parallel between it and my relationship to Indiana weather. 





Calvin is me; Hobbes is the Indiana weather, which is always promising snow, but never really delivering.  I was thinking of writing a blog post about how Indiana, lacking a true winter season, does not deserve the "Midwest" label.

Naturally, when I opened the door and stepped on to the stoop this morning, my ballet flats were overcome by three inches of newly-fallen snow. I was forced to retreat in search of boots.

Friday Favorites

This will (possibly) become a regular feature.  Things I love this week:

Summer Harms—my inspiration for all "things-I-like"-type lists.  We worked together for a couple of summers, she married one of my childhood crushes (wait, did I just admit that?), and now she's pregnant with the newest mini-Harms.  Awwwwww.  Anyway, she inspires me to try new recipes and clean the house.

Lace knitting patterns by Herbert Niebling—Google him!  This guy wrote the most beautiful knitted lace patterns.  Here's a tiny little section of the only doily I've finished so far.  It's two feet in diameter, in peach-colored silk, and I almost couldn't bear to part with it.  But it was a wedding present, so off it went!

Fountain pens and my mini Moleskine diary—the Borders in town has gone out of business, so I picked up this tiny daily diary for cheap.  It's adorable, fits in my bag, and has (so far) inspired my to write something about every day this year.  Even if it's only "Meatloaf for dinner and more Buffy with Astrid."  NB: a fountain pen writes more smoothly and lightly than a ballpoint and will improve your handwriting by about 50%.  No kidding.

Les Miserables—I'm kinda over my high-school Les Miz (the musical) obsession, but every time I pick up the book, I love it all over again.  See yesterday's post.

Epiphany

As it happens, a number of the non-Christmas books I've been reading have key scenes set at Christmas time.  I was re-reading the Harry Potters, including Deathly Hallows, which includes my favorite scene of the series, Harry and Hermione's visit to Godric's Hollow on Christmas Eve.  One of the few things I missed in the new movie was any mention or explanation of the motto on the Potters' grave, "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death."  If you looked carefully, you could see it in the film, but it wasn't referenced by the characters.

On a tangentially related note, I also love Ms. Rowling's epigraph from Aeschylus:

Oh, the torment bred in the race, the grinding scream of death and the stroke that hits the vein, the haemorrhage none can staunch, the grief, the curse no man can bear.

But there is a cure in the house and not outside it, no, not from others but from them, their bloody strife. We sing to you, dark gods beneath the earth.

Now hear, you blissful powers underground - answer the call, send help. Bless the children, give them Triumph now.

Here's an interesting explanation, including the original Greek and a re-translation. I love the idea of "a cure in the house," as Christ came in the incarnation to save sinners from beside them.

I'm also re-reading Les Miserables and had forgotten that Jean Valjean buys back Cosette from the Thenardiers on Christmas Day.  He takes her to Paris, and in the following days:

On her part, Cosette, too, unconsciously underwent a change, poor little creature. [...] from the very first day, all that thought and felt in her began to love this kind old friend. She now felt sensations utterly unknown to her before—a sensation of budding and of growth.

Her kind friend no longer impressed as old and poor. In her eyes Jean Valjean was handsome, just as the garret had seemed pretty.

Such are the effects of the aurora glow of childhood, youth, and joy. The newness of earth and of life has something to do with it. Nothing is so charming as the ruddy tints that happiness can shed around a garret room. We all, in the course of our lives, have had our rose-colored skyparlor.

Nature had placed a wide chasm —fifty years' interval of age—between Jean Valjean and Cosette. This chasm fate filled up. Fate abruptly brought together, and wedded with its resistless power, these two shattered lives, dissimilar in years, but similar in sorrow. The one, indeed, was the complement of the other. The instinct of Cosette sought for a father, as the instinct of Jean Valjean sought for a child. To meet, was to find one another. In that mysterious moment, when their hands touched, they were welded together. When their two souls saw each other, they recognised that they were mutually needed, and they closely embraced.

Taking the words in their most comprehensive and most absolute sense, it might be said that, separated from everything by the walls of the tomb, Jean Valjean was the husband bereaved, as Cosette was the orphan. This position made Jean Valjean become, in a celestial sense, the father of Cosette.

And, in truth, the mysterious impression produced upon Cosette, in the depths of the woods at Chelles, by the hand of Jean Valjean grasping her own in the darkness, was not an illusion but a reality. The coming of this man and his participation in the destiny of this child had been the advent of God.

The coming of a benevolent father on Christmas, you see? An advent.  The father ends darkness and despair, and the child brings love and hope.