December 2002 posts


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the whites of their eyes (reply to post by zachsmind in archived thread)) -- anom, 16:18:07 12/22/02 Sun

Once again, a thread was archived as I was writing a post to add to it. Is it just me & my bad timing (or slow typing?), or is this happening a lot? Anyway, here's my response.

Overall, very nice analysis, Zach, esp. about truth vs. lies. I just have comments on a couple of things:

"Cordy's eyes turn white when she's getting a premonition. Joyce's eyes were white at some points during Dawn's confrontation with the Undeterminable Evil at the Summers home in the episode 'Conversations With Dead People.' When they turn evil, the eyes go black, like when Willow tinkers around with dark magicks. When the eyes go white, the character is drawing from the opposite equivalent."

There seem to be 2 kinds of white eyes in the Buffyverse: glowy & milky. I agree about the glowy-white eyes as an indication of good magic, or at least good power. An additional example of this is when Angel was ensouled--his eyes glowed white for a second or two. But when Dawn saw the whatever-it-was crouching over Joyce's body in CWDP, Joyce's eyes looked milky-white, as though they had a film over them. We've seen this effect before: on the Scoobies taken over briefly by the "hitchhiker" that came as a "gift w/purchase" when Buffy was resurrected. I'm not saying it meant the "Joyce" who appeared to Dawn was evil; to me the milky-white eyes, along w/her lack of expression, just made her look dead.

So I think there's a distinction & that whatever kind of power is using Joyce's appearance has nothing to do w/why Cordelia's eyes glowed.

"If it's really Joyce, it's probably all true, because so far as we know Joyce never lied when she was alive."

OK, I'm taking these out of order, but this statement sort of brought to a head a thought that's been kicking around in my head (ow!) as I've read some of the other is-she-or-isn't-she posts on Joyce. I suggested in another thread that the Joyce who appeared in Buffy's semi-waking dreams may be Joyce from Normal Again--a manifestation of a part of Buffy's mind that gave her confidence in her own strength & heart & finally enabled her to leave the "asylumverse" behind & face the real world (i.e., the "normalverse." In BOtN, "Joyce" seems to be saying supportive things, but she also says evil is natural, it's in everyone. The obvious question for Buffy to ask her is: "What about you, Mom? I never saw evil in you. If it was in you, it didn't mean you were evil. If it's true, you lived your whole life with evil in you & never did anything evil." (OK, she may have slightly misspent a little of her youth, from what we saw in Band Candy, but overall, I'd say--non-evil life.) Maybe Buffy needs to come to the conclusion that, as some of this board's posters have pointed out, there's good in everyone too (at least humans) on her own, & go on from there to find the best way to deal w/the First--whether that means destroying it or not. Joyce may be there as part of Buffy's own mind, posing the problem so Buffy can solve it.
Brief LA Meet Report (Anom, Briar Rose, we missed you) - and Masq you should have come with us -- Dochawk, 21:10:44 12/22/02 Sun

BR - I saw your post below, all I can say is we apologize, we were there and we had Buffy books and CDs on the table and we were very close to the front door. Glad you had an intersting time anyway.

The rest of us met and had dinner and talked Buffy for about 2 hours. Didn't even spend half of it on Spike. Four of us went on to here Kane in concert. Kane is a band fronted by Christian Kane, who played Lindsay on Angel. They were somehwat loud (though we couldn't really tell, since the opening act, The Sons were significantly louder), but they were excellent. Christian has a great voice and the music was wonderful. David Boreanz and his wife Jaime Bergman were there in the crowd, we spent most of the concert about 10 feet away. Noone seemed to be approaching them, so we left them alone (David was clearly trying to disguise who he was, wearing sweats and a hat). It was alot of fun, though a late night (at least by LA standards), but SpikeMom had a real long drive home yet.

Anyway, we had a great time, but those who weren't present were missed.

And Anom, I offered to have a private plane get you, but you said no, and you wouldn't have gotten lost, you've already met Little Bit!!!!!!!!!!!
[> Jealous now..... -- Rufus, 21:29:01 12/22/02 Sun

Sounds like you had fun.....and you got to see Kane.
[> Sounds like a fun BtVS/Angel evening! -- Masq who is in Arizona with family anyway, 21:57:30 12/22/02 Sun

Wonder who was baby-sitting the little Boreanaz nipper?
[> [> Re: Masq in AZ. Did you and Sophie bring all this rain with you? -- CW, 07:14:43 12/23/02 Mon

If so, thanks! Rain here is bad for tourists; good for locals. ;o)
[> [> [> Rain in AZ - yeah! (completely OT) -- matching mole, 12:02:17 12/23/02 Mon

I've been quite concerned about the big drought. Has there been enough rain to make spring wildflowers likely? Not that I can come down in Feb/March to see them or anything but it would be nice to at least think about fields of poppies growing amidst the cacti.
[> [> [> [> Very cool! Count me in the next time. No apologies needed.*S* -- Briar Rose, 12:58:16 12/23/02 Mon

I think I MIGHT have seen y'all when I made that last trip in... Sitting with your backs to the wall near the desk right outside the cantina? Was one of the female members of the party wearing a rust/russet colored sweater and black pants? Beautiful girl. Long, dark hair and talking on her cell phone outside in the lobby and wondering why a wacky stranger was saying 'hello' and kept staring at her?*L (I was trying to not interrupt her phone call but ask about affiliation at the same time, so I looked like an indescisive stalker, I'm sure!:0 )

I am so glad that you posted a review of the Viper Club show! The last time I was there was StoryTeller's last show and I remember it being small, dank and very soochie. That door man was a pill - the only reason I probably made it in was I was doing PR for the band.*LOL

David Boreanaz and wife showed! I had wondered if it would be a predominantly Indy gig... sounds like it wasn't which is a good thing. Indy shows are so quiet! Everyone's playing too cool to actually applaud, let alone rock.

Plan another! I'm up for it!
[> [> [> [> We could use another couple all-day gentle rains like this, But spring looks good for this year. -- CW, 16:00:25 12/23/02 Mon

[> [> [> My mom agrees--the rain is good for AZ! -- Masq, 21:53:58 12/23/02 Mon

And the snowbirds don't seem to care much--they're hear in droves anyway!
[> [> [> [> Ack hear=here. I'm on vacation! -- Masq, 21:55:56 12/23/02 Mon

OT - Re Patricia Cornwell (long and fairly confrontational) -- KdS, 06:13:39 12/23/02 Mon

So much enthusiasm is being expressed over PDC in the book recommendations thread that I feel the need to explain why I simply don't like her intellectual approach to crime writing. I didn't want to post this there because I'd like to keep the thread positive. Note that I gave up reading either PDC's books or interviews after her fifth(?) novel The Body Farm because they irritated me so much - ignore me if she's changed since.

PDC's position while writing her early books, expressed explicitly in a number of interviews, was that to characterise serial killers and the like in depth in a realistic manner aroused feelings of empathy in the reader that inevitably blurred into sympathy. Hence the reader was led in fiction and real life to sympathise and fetishise the killer(s) and forget the sufferings of the victims and their families. In accordance with this, in her early books the focus was entirely on the investigation, which was driven by hard evidence rather than attempts to reconstruct the mindset and motivations of the killer. The killer appeared solely as an uncharacterised force of murder who was killed or arrested at the end.

Now I must admit at the start that there is an element of justification for this. There are authors, both in fiction and "true crime" journalism, who either present serial murderers as charismatic supervillains worthy of respect or as victims of psychological warping who deserve our unqualified sympathy. Most notoriously of course, there's Thomas Harris, whose pretentions to realism are entirely unmerited given his creation of the hyperintelligent, hypertalented, socially suave, hypercultured, verging on sympathetic figure of Dr. Hannibal Lector. As such, Cornwell's emphasis on investigators and victims is a useful correction for those arrested adolescents of all ages who see rapists and random murderers as rebels without a cause.

However, Cornwell's general thesis just doesn't add up. From an artistic point of view there are authors who prove that it is perfectly possible to create realistically characterised murderers without attracting the readers sympathy in the slightest degree. Most obviously for readers of this forum, there's Warren Mears. The early psychological thrillers of Ruth Rendell will also prove instructive, especially the utterly repellent, authentically sleazy protagonist of A Demon in my View.

More importantly, Cornwell's approach is subtly morally corrosive in another way. By portraying serial killers as figures of inexplicable and demonic malice, she suggests that there is nothing we can do except lock our doors and arm our police officers. Such an essentialist view fails to ask any questions about why certain societies, such as the USA since World War Two and Germany between the wars, produce more "motiveless" murder than others. It merely portrays a problem without offering any speculation about what one can do about it. And for all of us who have sufficient moral development to accept that serial murder is a social problem, Cornwell's early novels merely demonstrate the problem in a manner which strikes me as voyeuristic in a rather self-righteous manner. At least the more luridly pulpy authors admit to trying to arouse pleasurable frissons, intead of desperately insisting that they're trying to force people to understand what Horrible Things are going on out there (anyone who reads the newspapers already knows). Given Cornwell's claims to realism and moral example, her subsequent creation of a textbook Moriarty-like charismatic SuperPsycho in Temple Gault comes across as a little hypocritical. By contrast, the ME writers who created Warren Mears, as I interpret S6, did attempt to put forward a position which, I feel, is a convincing analysis of one aspect of the conditions that create serial murder, the social current which suggests that if you kill enough people spectacularly enough you'll get your name in the papers and will never be a nobody.

What drove me to stop reading Cornwell, however, was the suspicion that her essentialism extends to all forms of law-breaking, not just serial murder. There is a scene in The Body Farm in which Cornwell's hero Scarpetta reflects, in rather crude terms, that the sight of the sufferings of a woman whose child has been murdered will have a salutory effect on a judge to make him less lenient on minor offenders in general. Even if one believes that the grossest acts of human depravity such as serial murder are impossible to explain by any motivation comprehensible to sane and moral human beings (a defensible position with which I do not agree), and that those responsible for them are impossible to rehabilitate and can be dealt with only by execution or permanent incarceration, very few people would argue that all minor offenders are possessed by motiveless malignity and impossible to redeem by rehabilitative rather than punitive means. In this passage, Cornwell seemed to me to be deliberately using the revulsion we rightly feel for the depravity of a tiny number of individuals (on both an absolute and a proportionate scale) to promote a one-dimensionally punitive approach to criminal justice in general which I grossly disapprove of.

In parenthesis, the fact that the distressed mother in question proves to be the actual murderer might lead to the suggestion that I am giving Cornwell insufficient credit for moral ambiguity. However, my experience when reading the book was that this standard "least likely person" ending merely demonstrated the manner in which Cornwell's black-and-white approach limits plausible plotting. The character shifts from two-dimensional Grief-Stricken Parent to equally two-dimensional Eeeevil PsychoBitch in the space of a few pages. I have no doubt that people with such high acting skills or ability to compartmentalise exist in real life, but to present such a character in a manner convincing to a reader of fiction would demand writing skills considerably greater than Cornwell's.

My personal position on the spirit in which murder and crime should be presented in fiction was best expressed by GK Chesterton in his prologue and epilogue to his book of crime short stories The Secret of Father Brown. Chesterton's argument was expressed in specifically Christian terms, but it extends equally well to a secular moral position. Chesterton argues that the point of the creation of depraved or malevolent characters in fiction should be to demonstrate to the reader the manner in which such monstrous personalities can arise from the destructive forces that lurk within most of us, but which most of us are capable of repressing. He felt that this should be performed not to provide an excuse for the character's behaviour, or to arouse mere sensation, but to induce the reader to examine their own darker impulses and hence to come to a closer and more rigorous analysis of the morality of their own actions. I would argue that Chesterton's approach can be extended to an examination of the darker aspects not merely of the individual personality but of the collective culture and society, so that we may improve not merely our individual morals but our collective ones. By contrast Cornwell's approach merely encourages us to blame social problems on the fathomlessly evil, unknowable Other. And countless small and large events over human history have shown that when social majorities assume their own unqualified righteousness and the irredeemable darkness of the Other, then injustice is frequently the result.
[> Well done! -- Caroline, 06:49:00 12/23/02 Mon

And not at all confrontional - I found this well-reasoned and thought-provoking. Your last paragraph reminds us all of the excellence of the portrayal of villainy on Buffy.
[> Interesting -- dream, 08:09:27 12/23/02 Mon

I haven't read her, but the reviews of her Ripper book have been off-putting, to say the least. Just a sampling, if you are interested - the first the review from the Times, the second a refutation of her work on a factual basis by a group devoted to Ripper studies:

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/15/books/review/15CARRLT.html?pagewanted=print&position=top

http://www.casebook.org/dissertations/dst-pamandsickert.html
[> [> I read the NY Times review, and it highly dissuaded me from reading the book. -- Rob, 08:17:27 12/23/02 Mon

[> [> Thanks for the links -- KdS, 08:22:28 12/23/02 Mon

The "casebook" one in particular is an excellent summation of the serious problems with Cornwell's reasoning in holding Sickert responsible for the murders.
[> [> On mtDNA... -- Darby, 08:54:22 12/23/02 Mon

On the mitochondrial DNA, there are quite a few other problems beyond the ones mentioned that make it unreliable in such a case. Degradation probably restricted the matching sequences more than a modern comparison of samples would, expanding the number of potential carriers. On top of that, using mtDNA to match samples with individuals isn't done enough to make the match-likelihood numbers any more than educated guesswork - I'd be very surprised to see clear supporting evidence of those numbers. Add to that the fact that the proportions would vary according to the ancestral nature of the population being studied, and I wouldn't trust it very much. Heck, I'm not entirely sure how much the numbers given for modern forensics nuclear DNA work should be trusted (researchers overstate probabilities and understate problems to judges and juries routinely).

Just to be clear on that last comment, it's common to hear that a DNA match is certain up to a couple of hundred million to one chance of a mismatch, when it's probably a tenth of that, still pretty good odds.
[> Excellent! -- AurraSing, 08:19:23 12/23/02 Mon

No complaints here.

And just how did Thomas Harris manage to so successfully brainwash his public into seeing Hannibal Lecter as sympathetic?? The mind simply boggles....
[> A fairly confrontational response...but brief! -- Wisewoman, 08:22:25 12/23/02 Mon

Chesterton argues that the point of the creation of depraved or malevolent characters in fiction should be to demonstrate to the reader the manner in which such monstrous personalities can arise from the destructive forces that lurk within most of us, but which most of us are capable of repressing. He felt that this should be performed not to provide an excuse for the character's behaviour, or to arouse mere sensation, but to induce the reader to examine their own darker impulses and hence to come to a closer and more rigorous analysis of the morality of their own actions. I would argue that Chesterton's approach can be extended to an examination of the darker aspects not merely of the individual personality but of the collective culture and society, so that we may improve not merely our individual morals but our collective ones.

Well, bully for Chesterton (and you), but we're not talking about literary fiction here, we're talking about pulp. You either read it to be entertained or you don't read it at all, but it would seem, IMO, a waste of time and energy to analyze it to this extent and, indeed, to expect so much of it.

C'mon guys, these are murder mysteries, not Pulitzer-prize-winning novels. Lighten up.

;o)
[> [> Well, the thing is... -- Rob, 11:31:18 12/23/02 Mon

...in this case, it is not crime fiction, but a book where Cornwell claims to have discovered the true identity of Jack the Ripper. And according to many reviewers and experts, her case is tenuous at best. Many are chastising her for tarnishing the memory of an artist who can't defend himself now, just because his sometimes graphically gory artwork rubbed her the wrong way. In fact, the NY Times Book Review refers to her saying that she got a bad vibe from him, and that is not a strong enough case for him being the killer, when it doesn't seem that most of her evidence is either circumstantial or open to different interpretations. In one example, she tries to implicate her suspect by the fact that a letter he supposedly wrote was done on a certain brand of paper. But, according to the reviewer for the NY Times, this was the most popular brand of paper at the time and would be akin to trying to implicate someone by saying they wrote a letter on a Hallmark card.

People are getting so worked up at Cornwell at the moment because she has claimed to find the answer to a puzzle that has thwarted investigators for over a hundred years, after less than a year of research.

Rob
[> [> [> Oops! Typo! -- Rob, 11:32:44 12/23/02 Mon

Should of course be "...when it seems that most of her evidence is either circumstantial or open to different interpretations."

Not "doesn't seem"!

Rob
[> [> [> And the art community is shocked as well..... -- AurraSing, 11:37:13 12/23/02 Mon

I saw most of an interview she did on CNN and the part that riled me no end was the fact that she used her millions gained from writing about serial killers to buy up the supposed "Ripper"'s artwork and had one piece destroyed to try and get some mitochondrial DNA....

My sister the art historian nearly fainted when I told her this story.
[> [> [> [> Maybe not exactly what happened... The Discovery Channel did an "in depth" and -- Briar Rose, 12:42:45 12/23/02 Mon

Cornwell swore that it did not in any way damage the piece. What actually happened was that it already had a small nick that they were going to repair and she took her sample from that pre-damaged spot. She did say that she would have shredded the damn thing if she thought it would have helped.

I watched the program, being a long time follower of the Ripper case - she didn't convince me. Her DNA tests were all inconclusive, basically because almost all her samples turned out to be negative for DNA. She based her "tell all" on the fact that this suspect had an itty bitty penis caused by being born with the uretheral hole outside of the actual penis, so they had to remove the flesh that creates the sheath and "he'd have to squat" and "couldn't have sex." That and this "unknown painting" that the artist named "In Jack the Ripper's Bedroom" that was sitting in a museum in Germany or Sweden or whatever and supposedly no-one else knew about it but this museum.... All sounds a little odd to me.

Yes, many cases (you could argue most) are based on circumstantial evidence and admissions are the oly thing that fially breaks some cases (JonBenet comes to mind...) but a lot of this program was rampant spec by someone who readily admitted that she's on a mission because she was sexually assaulted. And she would have found something to support her theory regardless.

I read another book that came out a few years ago... Can't remember the name but it was based on a theory that the Ripper was a prominant doctor based in the area and his family found one of his journals that could lead one to suspect that either this doctor was admitting to the crimes OR he was a rather fanciful "fan fic" writer on Jack the Ripper, writing from a personal perspective and putting himself into the character with amazingly graphic detail.
[> [> [> [> [> Hmmmnn,I remember her saying they took it apart... -- AurraSing, 12:52:25 12/23/02 Mon

It's later on that art-critics referred to it as 'shredding' but at the time of the CNN interview she did not talk about any small nicks being used.

I think any sort of "swearing" on her part regarding research for this book would have to be taken with a grain of salt anyhow.She's on a mission to get her theory out there to the public and she has taken the bit and is running with it,to throw a little horse-sense analogy in there.
[> [> [> [> [> [> Correct - they did take it out of the frame! Almost all the works were removed from the frames. -- Briar Rose, 13:00:22 12/23/02 Mon

[> [> [> [> Question.........who owned the painting? -- Rufus, 13:08:03 12/23/02 Mon

[> [> [> [> [> Cornwell bought the paintings. She says she spent something like 10mil on her research. -- Briar Rose, 13:15:12 12/23/02 Mon

The only one she didn't buy was "In Jack the Ripper's Bedroom" because the museum wasn't selling it.
[> [> [> Sorry, Rob -- dub, 11:47:21 12/23/02 Mon

KdS's post, to which I was replying, is clearly about Patricia Cornwell's fictional crime books in general, and not a specific critique of her most recent, *non-fiction* JtR book.
[> [> [> [> No need to apologize... :o) -- Rob, 09:02:15 12/24/02 Tue

I just assumed that KdS's post was about the Jack the Ripper book.

Rob
[> [> But that's exactly where you need to worry about ideology... -- KdS, 11:52:42 12/23/02 Mon

If people are reading murder mysteries and not in a mood to examine them closely for philosophy, that's exactly when you can find yourself nodding at positions that worry you later (I sometimes find myself suddenly realising how much I disagree with a "trashy" book or film hours or even days after I finish it). I don't believe in mind control by subliminal image, but I believe subliminal philosophy can seep in from the cultural environment if you don't keep your eyes open.

And Chesterton himself, much as I love his work, provides a lot of examples of how much serious (and controversial, and sometimes highly unsympathetic) philosophical and ideological demonstration can be sneaked into light reading.

And finally, given the way large proportions of the population regard Buffy, isn't there a large element of pots calling kettles black here? ;-)
[> [> [> PS -- KdS, 12:04:59 12/23/02 Mon

And if you aren't a crime fiction buff, you probably wouldn't have noticed, but at the time I was reading her Cornwell was aggressively and regularly claiming to be one of a tiny number of people in crime fiction who had any moral backbone, and by implication accusing everyone else of being an amoral killer-lover. So she was the one who first claimed big philosophical relevance.
[> [> [> All too true.... -- dream of the consortium, 12:53:44 12/23/02 Mon

about ideology and "light" reading.

Nothing to add really, except an "absolutely!" and a "you can say that again!"
[> Re: OT - Re Patricia Cornwell (long and fairly confrontational) -- Rufus, 13:24:43 12/23/02 Mon

You are talking about fiction in your post but the end comment interests me.

And countless small and large events over human history have shown that when social majorities assume their own unqualified righteousness and the irredeemable darkness of the Other, then injustice is frequently the result.

Most the folk I know are only interested in removing a threat to the general public. We don't execute our prisoners in Canada so I won't even begin to argue captial punishment. When you get up close to the types who kill the way a serial killer does you aren't much worried about the darkness of a faceless other but worry about the person in front of you ever getting out to do what they enjoy so much.

Giles: NO, I DIDN'T. IT MUST HAVE BEEN AN AGENT OF THE FIRST...AFTER MY LITTLE BURGLARY SESSION. THE KNOWLEDGE CONTAINED IN THESE FILES HAD TO BE PROTECTED, AND THERE WASN'T TIME FOR--FOR BUREAUCRACY OR DEBATE. THE COUNCIL KNOWS NO OTHER WAY.

We have the luxury of debating fictional works, what we were talking about in the lower thread was a work of non-fiction. One I haven't read all the way through just excerpts. If the killers that trouble us so were just immeasurable others then there would be no Criminal Profiling section in the FBI. I'm not a fan of capital punishment, but I do believe in real threats to society being in jail til they check out of life for good.
[> [> Oh yeah... -- KdS, 14:14:36 12/23/02 Mon

If you're talking identifiable individuals then sure, lock 'em up. I had a big argument with my family recently because a well-known serial murderer over here died of old age in jail and they were of the school that felt she should have been paroled sooner. I was just trying to say that if you talk about human beings being Evil then it makes it a whole lot easier to do a lot of less justifiable things to them.
[> [> [> Yes, with that I agree. -- Rufus, 14:36:51 12/23/02 Mon

I was just trying to say that if you talk about human beings being Evil then it makes it a whole lot easier to do a lot of less justifiable things to them.

I think that is the place a murderer had to get to before they start killing people, the objectification of the target. You are right once you think of someone as not you as the other it makes it easy to kill them. What seperates most people from the evil is that they even care to voice their doubts about what evil is in the first place, and unfortunately we all have the capacity to do great evil, but few of us take that step to act it out. And it is a much argued subject....what do we do with those who are a threat to society while attempting to remain humane.
[> I don't think I've been more disappointed in the board than I am now. -- Deb, 17:18:03 12/23/02 Mon

And I apologize if I ever took someone's thread containing thoughts, feelings and opinions given in good-will and turned it into a lynching.
[> [> Nothing on this board has so angered me -- Deb, 21:33:53 12/23/02 Mon

Those of you who listened to "partial" reports on various mediums have, somehow, misconstrued statements and inflated the facts.
1. She did not "go after" Sickert on her own. The Deputy Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard, John Grieve, is considered to be an "expert" on JtR and he told her if she wanted to look into a good lead that no one had covered, she should look into Walter Sickert.
2. She did spend $6 million dollars approximately on the research. She bought a few pieces of Sickert's but in no way was she even capable of buying up the entire collection. He made four copies of one paiting: Three are in museums and one was owned by the late Queen Mother. His work is all over Europe and N. America. One must realize that painters of that era painted their own copies of their originals, so there are several copies of one painting floating around such as the example mentioned: "Jack the Ripper's Bedroom" which hangs in the Manchester City Art Gallery. There are many copies of his paintings, and originals, in personal collections also. He used to give away many of his works, and his first wife used to pay people to buy his work.
3. The positive identification of the same mitochondrial DNA sequences were found on personal stationary of his first wife, on the back of a stamp from an envelope containing a letter from JtR, and from work coveralls of Walter Sickert. No two people have the same sequences. And she does admit that this is circumstantial evidence, but it is strong circumstantial evidence that has lead to further DNA research that will take two years. This DNA is the oldest ever tested.
4. The "art" she refers to in scrapping was one of the Ripper letters. If anyone had bothered to read the book they would have learned that JtR painted most of his letters, or used colored ink on stationary that had the same watermark as Sickert and his wife's. She refers to the letters as art, visual rhetoric. They used a microscope to look at paintings to analyze the stroke patterns Sickert used, which were very geometric with many 90 degree angles, just like on the painted Ripper letters. A letter sent by JtR had what for more than 100 years was believed to be blood on it. They scraped it and found out it was paint mixed with a textured base.
5. She also used the money she earned to purchase a Guest Book from a place Sicket stayed in before the murders became known. Someone had gone through the book in 1886-7 and drew pictures of people and made comments about people. The person called him/herself "the ripper." The artwork is extraordinairly similar to Sickert's doodles and JtR "doodles" on his letters.

I'm not posting this is defense of Cornwell's theory, and I have never read any of her fictional books. What is quite upsetting is:

1. The unconfirmed, unsubstantiated attacks on this book, a non-fiction book, by people who have not even bothered to read it.

2. Almost no one seemed to even bother to read my entire review of the book. The historical information of Victorian England, the establishment of Scotland Yard, the atrocious living conditions of the poor, the nature of travel during that period, what was known about forensic science, what was known about human anatomy, the relationship between Scotland Yard and the public, the nature of newspaper reporting, dress, customs, etc. I also discussed the social/psychological aspects of the books. It is not a matter of me being upset because you didn't read my post. It is a matter that many went with a gut reaction, and so concentrated on crying "murder"!

3. In no way does Cornwell "romanicize (sp)" JtR. I am offended that some of you consider that people who read this might have some sick romantic notion about psychopaths.

When you stare into the abyss it will stare back, but if you fail to even acknowledge the abyss, it will devour you and you'll never know what happened until it is too late. You don't counter "evil" by ignoring it.

It's ironic that this board discusses anti-social, and sociopathic behavior of characters on a fictional TV program that we all watch faithfully, record, buy DVDs, etc., but some get upset over a book based upon research of a tremendously well-known serial killer. There are many, many more JtRs in the world than there are vampires. For those of you who have had the occasion of having to deal with a psychopathic murder, rapist, con artist, etc. this books presents an opportunity to take a peek into their world views.

It was a healing read for me, and I'm just disgusted that some of you do not even bother to honour the impact the book had on me -- someone who has issues and actually read the thing.
[> [> [> Deb! This is such a wonderful statement: -- Briar Rose, 22:30:59 12/23/02 Mon

When you stare into the abyss it will stare back, but if you fail to even acknowledge the abyss, it will devour you and you'll never know what happened until it is too late. You don't counter "evil" by ignoring it.


Precisely! You summed up so much so eloquently and so passionatly in those few lines.

Whether it be Jack the Ripper or Spike - it's about looking into the darkness and understanding the root to see the light.

It is the nature of everything to seek balance, and only by understanding both sides can we ever begin to acheive that balance. This includes within US as well as outside of us. For a lot of people, looking at what they most fear has the ability to remove that same fear. The unknown is always more fearful than the known.

One of the reasons I am interested in criminology of all kinds is precisely because of my experiences. It helps my healing to understand that pedophiles are normally self-loathing sociopathics, or that rapists are functioning on power issues, not sexual attraction.

Maybe I'm crazy, but it does seem to help to face the darkness in myself as well as in others and find the balance. It may not "fix" the inner issues, but it certainly makes the experience less of a personal trauma when I see that it happens anywhere and everywhere and that sometimes it's just Will 'O the Wisp. It keeps it from being such a 'Why me?' situation and expands it to include all people and all things.

Some of that may not make sense... I can't quite put the words down right to explain what I'm thinking. But I hope the drift is there.

Shine on!
[> [> [> May I counsel patience to all? -- Caroline, 07:20:59 12/24/02 Tue

Deb, I honour your feelings, both about Cornwell and about how you felt about the responses to your post. I also honour the feelings of those whose feelings concerning Cornwell do not match yours. They have as much right to their feelings about Cornwell as you do to yours.

However, part of posting on a board such as this is that we are limited to written word to communicate without the cues used in verbal communication. Similarly, the relatively fast nature of the board means that we sometimes post hastily and do not intend our words to be interpreted as others do.

Perhaps in the future, before you take umbrage, you may wish to ask someone who has offended you precisely if that is what they meant, so that you can clarify the matter. Making sweeping statements such as 'I've never been so disgusted with the board' is unlikely to ingratiate you with your fellow members, or lead to a continuance of the civility that many of us enjoy here. It is also hardly a proportionate response to blame the entire board for your feelings towards one or two posters. Many of us actually write the angry responses and then delete before posting - it does help to vent the spleen.
[> [> [> [> Wise words. -- AurraSing, 08:58:54 12/24/02 Tue

I don't recall coming on board here yesterday trying to offend anyone,just added my opinion and learned more about the controversy regarding Cornwell's treatment of Sickert's works. It was good to learn more (I had never even heard about the Discovery documentary) and find out that some of the stories floating around there were nothing more than that-just stories.

I'm hoping I didn't get tarred by Deb....I had not read her original post regarding Cornwell's work and was simply commenting on an opinion on an author's work that I used to like. Personally,I don't like the fact that Cornwell had the audacity to stamp her book cover "Cased closed" when the simple truth is that we may never know who Jack the Ripper was,thanks to the all-blurring hands of time.She may *think* she has proof but then again many modern day cases have been set in stone as well,only years later to have other facts come to life and exonerate the accused.

Peace on earth,goodwill to all.
[> [> [> [> You misquoted me -- Deb, 12:22:17 12/24/02 Tue

And this is part of the problem. I said that "Nothing on the board has so angered me." Not, "I've never been so disgusted with this board." I was referring to the board as an entity itself. Your take is that I am referring to being disgusted with board members. There is a big difference, and this demonstrates the difference between argumentation and debate and personal attacking. Yes, we all have differing opinions, and I accept that, but I don't accept personal attacks, which many of the posts read as. If you don't agree, fine. It's your right. "Anger" and "disgust" are two different things entirely also. I can be angry at my daughter, but she will never disgust me.
[> [> [> [> [> Then allow me to get it right -- Caroline, 16:43:02 12/24/02 Tue

I am sorry if you feel I misquoted you. Your first post expressed 'disappointment' at the board in the subject line. Your second post expressed 'anger' at the board in the subject line and then the last paragraph expressed that you were 'disgusted' by the lack of understanding of some posters who you feel did not honour the impact that the book had on you. (I just reread your posts).

I don't understand your point about the difference between board members and the board itself (surely we indivduals determine the character of the board by our participation). Perhaps you and I have a different understanding of the ontological status of the board. I have certainly been affected by the posts that others have made but I have never credited or blamed the board for it but those board members. And unless I misread the last paragraph of your second post, you were disgusted with the lack of understanding of some board members. Shouldn't that anger then be applied specifically rather than globally at the board?

I feel that my words still apply. It's very easy for intent and effect to be very different things in this medium, which is why asking for clarification before taking umbrage is always a good idea. We cannot predict how others will respond to our thoughts but if someone does misconstrue, you will have a more constructive debate by asking for clarification. Write the angry post and then don't post it - it's better than counting to 10. This post is merely a plea for tolerance, understanding and the gracious acceptance of apologies.
[> [> [> You are right -- Deb, 19:57:36 12/24/02 Tue

In the last line of the above post, I do use the word "disgusted." That's quite a powerful word that I wish I could take back. I ......... (that word)to all, and I wish you all well.
[> [> [> [> No worries, luv -- Caroline, 09:49:51 12/26/02 Thu

[> [> Personal feelings -- Rahael, 05:43:27 12/24/02 Tue

Well, then I apologise again. Did I start a lynching by discussing a book you recommended to someone else? I understand you liked it a great deal and found a lot of useful things, things that resonated with you emotionally.

But you have to understand, that in the words of Rufus, other people have suffered crime, other people have strong feelings about the way Cornwell depicts fellow human beings. Other people beside yourself know rapists and murderers and killers. And yeah, I thought it was okay of me to discuss Cornwell herself and not your feelings about the book. I know understand that it hurt you deeply, and I repeat the apology made below. I just didn't have even coherency in me to write a long post tackling views of the past, the historical situation of women, personal responsibility etc, all issues I also have strong views upon.

You also have to understand Deb, that the rape thread left me suicidal. That the repeated expressions that death was the only thing that was left - left me feeling that the walls of my room closing in on me. Was I in denial? and all the pain came rushing back.

That were my personal feelings. That had nothing to do with the very personal feelings expressed by yourself, Tyreseus and Briar Rose.

I'm just glad that I'm out of that, feeling healthier and stronger and more whole.

And in a way, I owe that thread a lot, for making me think hard, and come out more positive about life, realising that I could never use that option again, never think about it again.

It made me think and it challenged me, which I have to be grateful for, no matter how painful the trial was.

But I made that reply in the middle of being caught up in those terrible feelings, and that was very wrong of me.

So I apologise to you again.
[> [> [> This apology applies to Alcibiades as well. -- Rahael, 06:13:39 12/24/02 Tue

Alci, where are you? Come back and post here! I miss you, and have felt really guilty that I had something to do with you leaving.
[> [> [> and, an apology to the board -- Rahael, 06:58:44 12/24/02 Tue

Cos now I'm ashamed at having let that slip. It seems dishonourable. And ungentlemanlike, if that makes sense. And I'm tired of asking for posts to be deleted after I make them, so I'm not going to, especially because writing these apologies is emotionally taxing and I'd have to write everything out again and the new version would just have been full on grovelling and whatnot.

I'm kind of discomifted that I cause so many of these incidents on the board, and seem to arouse so much dislike from so many people that I admire. This will probably be the very last apology I post here, cos I fully intend never to have to apologise again, and that's a promise. If I don't express any opinions whatsoever apart from 'great post', I should be safe, right??

I'm also a little squicked at how many times I've let the board see into my emotions and thoughts. But I'm not going to apologise for that, because I wouldn't be feeling so good about the world, good about you guys, grateful to life, grateful for all the good things I'd been given if I hadn't come here. I am very sure about that. So this is a Thank You! as well!
[> [> [> [> Could we put a limit of one apology per offence? -- Caroline, 07:29:32 12/24/02 Tue

I do not favour the Clinton and Lott manner of the continual apology. If it is sincere, there is not reason that it should be done more than once. I would hope that all of us value each other and can have our differences and arguments without personal attack. Isn't that what we come here to do - find both agreement and argument?

I was going to email you Rahael but decided to do this publicly so that you know how much you are valued, especially by me. Your posts have made me laugh and brought tears to my eyes. They have also been very cathartic for me precisely because you do have the courage to express the pain and hardships you have gone through. You express feelings that many of us hold onto inside and never show. You have a way of taking personal themes and making them touch each and every one of us in a universal way. I want to thank you and so many others on this board for enriching my experience not only of Buffy but of life.

A merry christmas and joyous new year to all.
[> [> [> [> [> LOL -- Rahael, 08:25:11 12/24/02 Tue

Yeah, it can turn kind of Uriah Heepish, can't it? lol. I get kind of worried when people don't accept my apologies!

I actually used to find it really hard to say sorry. After being on the board a while, I started to find it easier and easier, and a couple of months ago I left my sister speechles when I actually phone back to say "sorry". We've like almost got on since then!

As for the other very nice things you've said, thank you. I hope you know how much I value you, and the things you've said to me about life. Surely the greatest gift that we can give others is understanding and acceptance? Which is why I understand why Deb's so unhappy that I and a couple of other posters haven't understood or accepted her point of view. As an aside to Deb, I might not agree about things like authors, but you know, there's other important stuff!

Even more than books and authors! (I mean, most of my friends just laugh and dismiss Buffy straight off - my oldest cousin, last week, caught me reading the board, took hold of my hand and said: "Rahael, it's rubbish. I've analysed Italian films, and there's nothing in Buffy! It's impossible that you can see anything in it, and if you do, you can't be as clever as me!" Of course he's a 16 year old boy, so I just laughed at him and then he later came and said, "I'm sorry I didn't mean that you were stupid!")
[> [> [> [> [> [> Rahael.... -- Briar Rose, 01:07:23 12/25/02 Wed

Never worry about small things. Posting on a board is always dicey because sometimes we simply don't think that someone is going to be completely devistated by a remark we make from our own truth.

We all post from life experience. And each life is unique. There is no one way to take any topic. Nor can we all be mind readers and see in advance how others will react to our posts.

I do hope that I didn't add to any pain you are carrying. I posted what I did in "that thread" because I truly have a feeling that "death" is NOT all that is left to survivors. Nor is permanent penance for something that is over, wasn't our fault, never was, and needs to heal. I was trying to promote healing while also validating some people who are still working on it.

But I also agree with Caroline - One apology is enough. :) Your posts are important as are ALL posts on this board! This board is unique, in that personal experience counts for more than severe Buffy-verse knowledge. Keep being you, because you are all you can be.

To paraphrase the immortal words of Maya Angelo (who I rarely agree with on many levels, BTW):

When I was young I did the best I could do. Now that I'm older, I will do better. But it will always be the best that I can do.

And that's all we CAN do in this life.*S*
[> [> [> [> Re: and, an apology to the board -- Sara, 07:45:27 12/24/02 Tue

Rah, I know we've had very different experiences but as another person who is an open book to the world, I think I really understand how you're feeling in regard to communicating on the board, so in the hopes that I'm not being presumptuous, or overstepping any boundries I haven't a right to overstep, I'd like to share the benefit of my two extra decades of being kind of "out there." You don't have to apologize, you really, really don't have to. When so much of you is so close to the surface, it's going to spill out, and it takes an amazing amount of energy to keep it bottled in. I've tried both ways, and it's really tiring to hide, even though you may sometimes say more than you want and regret that too, also a common experience of mine. That doesn't mean you shouldn't have opinions, and it doesn't mean you have to feel waves of guilt when someone reacts badly to your opinions.

There was a pro smoking thread a while back that just hit me so hard, that I posted a very emotional thread that Wisewoman interpreted as an implication that she killed my father. Well, hard to do from Canada, and somewhat ironic considering my mom is a smoker who lived in the same house (honest dub, no one's coming to take your fingerprints or anything I promise!) but it was a conclusion that could be taken from my words. Well, I've thought about that post many times, and my conclusions are this - was there truth in it? yes, did I miss some of the point of Wisewoman's post that set me off? yes, should I have made my post? I honestly don't know, but I probably would have felt worse if I didn't. Do I regret it? again not sure, but do I apologize for it? no, just as I don't expect Wisewoman to apologize for her response. Does she hate me? I don't know, but I sure hope not 'cause she's pretty funny.

I happen to think having strong opinions is good, and yes we need to be careful on how we present them, but we also need to recognize when someone else is overreacting to our words and be able to let that go. You have one of the most interesting voices on the board, I'd hate to see you modify it to make it more acceptable to other people. I'm really glad you've turned a corner, and I hope this helps and doesn't make anything worse. If I shouldn't have written this I apologize a million times!

- Sara, whose aka growing up was Sarah Bernhardt, hmmm, I wonder why...
[> [> [> [> [> Oh Sara! -- Rahael, 08:13:51 12/24/02 Tue

You completely understood, and it is tiring keeping it hidden, especially because in normal conversation I find it very easy to hide.

I just wanted to add that you are right about people's reactions. My reaction to the rape thread - the only fault committed there was the real culprit - the man who inflicted that on me. My reactions were completely personal to me, and I actually owe Deb, Tyreseus and Briar Rose a thank you for helping me look more truthfully to myself. I hope that they don't mind that my conclusions were very different to their's, and that my epiphany was simply a reaffirmation of what I believed before. But this time I was lucky enough to have that affirmation in such a special way - the darkness above me literally opened up before me and I realised that while I loved, I would never be apart from my mother. That was her greatest gift to me, to make me feel loved and special, and there's nothing the world can do to sully it.

And it's been a year long journey to this conclusion.

(laughing re your million apologies)
[> [> [> [> [> Re: and, an apology to the board -- Wisewoman, 08:19:47 12/24/02 Tue

Sara, far from hating you, I can't believe you actually made me laugh about all that! (Good to know my fingerprints are safe!)

dub ;o)
[> [> [> [> What Caroline and Sara said -- Sophist, 08:56:04 12/24/02 Tue

We all have posted here with the expectation that we were merely making an intellectual point. Because we can't see or give non-verbal signals, we can't anticipate the very real emotional impact that some arguments can have (quite innocently). That happened with Deb and Alcibiades, and it happened with Deb and many others here; it has happened several times with other posters over the last year (dream, I really didn't intend any misunderstanding). I don't see any apologies as necessary, just some understanding on all counts. We all owe it to each other to grant the benefit of the doubt.

Rah, you owe no apologies and IMHO never have owed any. Unless you stop your wonderful posts. Now that would be unforgiveable. :)

And Alcibiades: do start posting again. You are very insightful.
[> [> [> [> [> What Caroline and Sara said -- Rahael, 09:30:11 12/26/02 Thu

Thanks Sophist.

I hope you had a great Christmas!! I kept trying to reply yesterday, but AOL decided that I really shouldn't.
[> [> [> [> [> [> AOL, the real First Evil -- Sara, the Computer Slayer, 11:46:01 12/26/02 Thu

Anything that keeps you from posting to us is certainly evil, and wasn't AOL first? (Although we all know that Wolfram and Hart are a mere subsidiary of Microsoft)
[> Hmmm Cornwell, mysteries, and other related things -- shadowkat, 20:03:37 12/23/02 Mon

"You writers are somewhat inherently evil." Spike to leslie in her dream. Leslie's post. And fitting words we might want to remember. ;-)

Every reader brings their own experience to a book. So it is like everyone is reading their own version of the same book, interpreting it in their own way. No one interpretation is any more valid than another. - Ann Prachett, author of Bel Canto (quote not exact but close)

********************************************

First off - I've read Patricia Cornwell, all the books up to the Body Farm. Actually I've read over 100 different mystery writers in my thirty-five years. My father who is a myster writer, self-published, has read even more from all over the world. I asked him before dinner tonight what he thought of Chesterton and Cornwell, he said Chesterton didn't take mysteries as seriously, his were fun parlor room mysteries solved by a Catholic priest. Very good. Did a series a while back I believe with Tom Bosely and Tracey Nelson...or maybe someone else. They are similar to Andrew M. Greely's Bishop mystery series. Cornwell - Dad stopped reading because well she got a bit gruesome and was taking things way too seriously.

For those of you who have never read Cornwell, let me tell you a bit about her stories: Kay Scarpetta is a forensic scientist or coroner - she is head of the county and basically solves the crimes in the same way the folks on CSI do. It's a tad gruesome. Somewhere midway through her series she developed a serial killer character named Templeton Gault - this character is similar to Hanniabal LEctor, except more secondary not really a lead like Hannibal is in the novel Hannibal. He's more like Hannibal in Red Dragon actually - a nasty. The stories are well written and a good airplane read. I stopped reading them because - well I got bored of the writing. After about six books the writer begins to feel as if she is phoning it in.
I honestly didn't care about her ideology nor did I really notice it. It's not really that apparent until maybe The Body Farm. She's a good writer btw. Very detailed. Thoroughly researched her fictional novels and keeps the pages turning. I liked her better than others in the serial killer group, ie. Patterson, Harris, Sanford..

*******************************

Warning - below is an extensive list of mystery writers I've read over the years and recommend as being fairly interesting reads. It doesn't include Nancy Drew, HArdy Boys and Encyclopedia Brown because I read them as a young child. But they were fun too.

I've grouped them by mystery type: grisely horror/serial killer style detective mysteries, cozies - amateur sleuths, police procedurals/police detectives, private dicks, female private sleuths, and non-series mysteries:

1.Similar mystery writers to Patricia Cornwell are: TJ McGregor, James Patterson (whose also done other books), Thomas Harris, John Sanford,Dean Koontz does a few - Intensity, - these I call the grislely serial killer writers. They are gripping, scarey and fit within the horror genre as well as the mystery genre with the killers often grostesque monsters. (I cannot imagine Agathe Christie, Chesterton, or the parlor room mystery writers liking them very much. Too totally different views.)

My creative writing teacher at CC was a mystery writer - wrote a Nice Murder for Mom - also a cozy mystery.
He taught me that you wrote what was in you - whether it was a mystery or memoire. His class taught me that we read what we want into books and seldom get the author's true ideology through them - you tend to interpret what you want to see or not see as the case may be. Unless of course you're reading Ayn Rand who hammers you over the head with her ideology.

2. Here's the cozy crowd, called cozies because well they are safe comfortable mysteries that don't keep you up at night and you can read with a spot of tea or coffee: Agathe Christie - read almost all of hers, best by far was Curtain IMHO - she may have created the form, Chesterton fits here, Conan Doyle's Holmes for a few, maybe even a few Andrew Greeley's.
Some of these are also known as Parlor-room mysteries - you know the ones where the detective is visiting a friend or just wandering around his village and someone dies and they get wrapped up in investigating it. They are usually a private citizen, a priest, or a retired cop. Altman did a great parody on the form in a movie recently which for the life of me I can't remember. These mysteries are called in the publishing biz - cozies. PErsonally? They bore me to tears after a while - reading one is a bit like watching Murder she Wrote or Diagnosis Murder. But I've read a ton.

3. the police procedurals and professional sleuths: JA Vance (detective is a cop), PD James (Scotland Yard), Tony Hillerman (he fits in the cultural category too - his mysteries all take place on Indian (Native American) Reservations and the detectives are Native Americans - one was recently made into a movie called SkinWalkers - quite good.), Georges Simeonon - Maigret, Anne PErry (her's are historical - take place in 19th century I believe), Ruth Rendell (occassionally), Arthur Upfield (aboriginal detective named Lt. Bonaparte or Bony - ) Australian writer

4.The private detective group - Raymond Chandler (Philip Marlow), Dashielle Hammette (the Maltese Falcon), the guy who wrote the Travis McGee series, James Lee Burke (very good by the way),Rex Stout - Nero Wolf

5.Female private detective: Sara Grafton (alaphebet series), Jane Evonovich (New Jersey Bounty Hunter - quite funny),Sara Partesky (sp??) - V.I Warshowski - made a movie with Kathleen Turner,

6.Lawyer and other specialities detectives, including art curators and archeologists: Grisham's books - The Firm, The Client,David Baldacci, Scott Turow, Elizabeth PEters (particularly adore her Vickie Bliss series),

7.The horror detectives: Laurel K. Hamilton's Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series and the Fairy Series

8.The non-series/non-detective mystery writers which I personally prefer:
Minnette Walters (brillant writer - best character development I've seen in a novel), Ruth Rendell (I feel like I'm sloshing through quicksand when I read her books, sorry..not my cup of tea), Barbara Vine (a pseudonyme for Ruth Rendell), Nagio Marsh, Peter Hoeg (Smilla's Sense of Snow), Ian Pears (specializes in historical mysteries - Instance of the Fingerpost), Caleb Carr (The Alienest),

9.And of course the creators of the mystery Wilkie Collins (The Woman in White) and Edgar Allan Poe.

My father writes non-series mysteries about business men.
His first was The Chairman - it took place in a corporation.
The second was Hostile Takeover. Third - Don't Mess With Jenny Lee. When he writes - he's interested in why people commit crimes and the plot. He enjoys writing and self-publishes the books on 1stBooks.com and Amazon. They are short mysteries about 200 and some pages in length.

My take on all this hubbub? Seems sort of silly to me.
I've read Pat Cornwell - she's good but not great, hardly worth fussing over and probably won't have the lasting impact of a Simenon or a Agathe Christie or Conan Doyle or even a Chesterston. I found Deb's post on JtR moving actually - b/c it was about Deb not PAt Cornwell. (If you catch this? Please keep posting Deb and don't let the views of a few scare you off. I like your posts. I really do. I know I'm just one little voice here but I'd miss you.) And what Deb got from the JtR book perked my curiousity. KdS's reaction to the JtR perks it even more. I'm wondering what it is about this book that has everyone so riled? It's just one more theory about JtR. Every five years or so...someone writes a book about Jack The Ripper...never understood why. I don't find Jack the Ripper that interesting. But I don't find serial killers that interesting either. I can however understand why others do.

There are writers who focus on serial killers as their lead character - one who did a far better job than Ruth Rendell and is more famous: PAtricia Highsmith. She wrote Strangers on the Train which btw did not have the same ending Hitchcock gave it in the movie - Hitchcock did not believe audience's could handle Highsmith's ending. Then of course
the whole Talented Mr. Ripley series. So having the serial killer be an attractive devil is not new. Highsmith wrote in the 1950s. She was so controversial - that several of her books were only published in Europe NOT in the US. The US censors couldn't handle it. A far worse serial killer novel, probably the worste serial killer novel I've ever read or tried to read is - American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis appeared in the 90s and boy, that is one book I'm tempted to burn. ugh.
What an ugly book. The movie version is far better and much tamer. Reading American Psycho - which I was unable to finish btw - made me feel dirty inside. The book describes in gleeful and gruesome detail the rape and murder of women by a rich serial killer. Yes - it has some interesting things to say about capitalism and loss of identity but it's hard to focus on this in between paragraphs of grisely and voyeuristic slaughters. IF your curious? Trust me, skip the book and rent the movie with Christian Bale - it has the same themes and far less slaughter.

True crime novelists? Don't tend to read them - find the whole thing terribly exploitive - of the victims not the killers - the killers get off on it. Ann Rule, Dominick Dunn, and now apparently Pat Cornwell - at least Pat is doing it historically - probably figured she was safe, no victims or families of victims to offend...besides it's not like she's the first or the last to write about Jack the Ripper - everyone else has done it. It's become a bloody cliche. Which was why I didn't pay much attention to her book on the topic. I even told a friend: "So Cornwell has her own theory eh? Take that with a grain a salt. It's just the latest in a whole slew of theories. My favorite one was where the killer was Queen Vic's physician." Apparently not as safe a topic as poor Patricia thought, course that might have a little to do with how she decided to research the topic. Guess she got bored writing mysteries and decided to try something new, got carried away as true crime novelists tend to do and as luck would have it pissed off some people. Ann Rule does the same thing over here. Heck - someone is suing Dominck Dunn for it. That's the problem with writing non-fiction, particularly true crime novels, biographies, memoires, - you piss people off. Fiction is far safer - hence the reason I focus on it as both a writer and a reader. Non-fiction - if it's about people - I take with a grain of salt, writers tend to lie for a living guys. We don't always mean to but face it's what we do. We write beautiful lovely sentences...but they invariably contain lies which we call opinions and paint as truth. Non-fiction is the opinion of the writer on a topic they have researched, whether or not the material inside is valid - depends largely on the veracity of the writer and whomever they are citing. It also depends on whether you personally choose to agree with their opinion.

I prefer Fiction - because at least the writer is up-front about it - this is my opinion, most of this isn't true, enjoy. Non-fiction is saying - this is true and doesn't admit to being opinion, and uses a lot of other people who have similar opinions to back it up - ie. the majority of experts agree so this must be true. Hence my dislike of non-fiction.

I also prefer fictional mysteries over true crime novels for a similar reason. a) I know for a fact that the fictional mystery is NOT true. - I do not know for a fact that everything that happens in the true crime novel is. I think it's safe to assume it's not. b) true crime novels are exploitive and tend to glamorize painful events turning readers into voyeurs. I have enough trouble reading about it in newspapers or on the news. Give me a good mystery any day.

Well that was a long unedited ramble. Hope I didn't offend Kds or Deb or anyone else in the above thread. If so? I appologize. We all have different tastes guys. And different opinions. But miracles of miracles we all share a love and fascination for a little cult show called Buffy the Vampire Slayer...that is why we come to this board and what we share, which may be the reason why most of our on-board skirmishes are off-topic.

Hope this adds to discussion. Also apologies for the ramble,
no time to edit.

Merry Xmas, Happy Holidays, Have a great New Year !

Best, SK (who thinks its amazing to be discussing mysteries with people in France, Canada, Great Britian, St. Louis Missouri, NYC, SC, and elsewhere at the same time. It is a small world after all and at times like this a remarkably peaceful one.)
[> [> What? No Ellery Queen? -- Sophist, 20:33:51 12/23/02 Mon

[> [> [> Oh I forgot Ellery...one of my fav's -- shadowkat, 08:07:55 12/24/02 Tue

Jim Hutton played Ellery Queen in the series. And we used to get Ellery Queen's Mystery Mag all the time.

Ellery was pre- Magnum P.I., Columbo, (That Rock Hudson series I can't remember the name of) and several others.
And the written mysteries were even better.

TV Sleuths:
Murder She Wrote,
Ellery Queen
Columbo
Magnum P.I.
etc...drawing a blank.

help??
[> [> [> [> Re: Rock Hudson - MacMillan & Wife -- Desperado, 09:50:22 12/24/02 Tue

[> [> I wish I had read your post before my last post. -- Deb, 21:44:24 12/23/02 Mon

Thank you.
[> [> [> You're very welcome -- shadowkat, 09:05:09 12/24/02 Tue

I did like your initial review btw - it was moving.
I suggest those who missed go hunt it in the archives.
Also here's a few other books you might like Deb:

1. The Dress Lodger - takes place during same time period and really speaks to some of the issues you raised in your initial post.
2. some of Caleb Carrs books
3. Also try Minnette Walters

I'm sorry I didn't comment more fully on the topics you raised but as someone once told me regarding my essays? I felt a bit out of my depth, so thought it best to let your words stand for themselves. It's a shame everyone focused on Pat Cornwell - but that happens on boards. If you'll notice - often people will take one sentence from a post or a word and go off on it - to the extent you wonder if they read the post at all. Has zip to do with the post and more to do with the reader of it - that person saw something that they had something to say about. This btw keeps your post up longer and causes more people to read it. For example I may not have read your review if it weren't for the responses - since the book didn't interest me that much.
And I have a limited number of posts I can read due to my modem power, etc. so have to be picky - so I cheat, I follow certain people around the board. That day I picked Rahael. (I love Rahael's posts - she writes beautifully, don't always agree with her...but hey, that's what makes it interesting). So I guess you can blame Rah for my reading of your post. Tomorrow it'll be Rufus or cjl or yourself.

Have a great holiday. SK
[> [> [> [> Sometimes I think I'm part demon -- Deb, 13:31:04 12/24/02 Tue

I just have this uncanny ability to metaphorically reach inside someone and pull out the most hurtful experiences and emotions and just comment on them, for all the world to hear. I can cut up, slice and dice someone's most unacknowledged psychic trauma. My daughter says my theme song is "Don't Fear the Reaper." People either love me or hate me because I facilitate people's "small deaths," (when I'm not busy digging around inside, and cleaning out my own psyche.) Then I read, or hear something like what Rah said: Feeling suicidial during the rape thread. Then I just wish I was just as good at helping people put the pieces of their lives, which I so adequately assisted in shattering, back together again. So, as the police officer asked me in a dream I had a couple of weeks ago: What demon lives in your basement and inside your walls?

If it doesn't read as such, this is supposed to be a type of apology.

Ah, into the snow and ice and hoping there is some squash pie left when we get there.
[> [> [> [> [> No need......... -- Rahael, 14:30:23 12/24/02 Tue

Already it seems incomprehensible to me. But it's not anyone's fault. I was reduced to the same kind of lostness when I unexpectedly saw a video of an old family wedding, a Christmas several years ago, and then she was looking straight up at me, a strong, powerful gaze, before she vanished again. That precipitated a kind of breakdown in Finals year. Good timing!

I just wanted to let you know that I have not been functioning properly for awhile. Mostly, after such times, I just run around trying to repair any damage I might have inadvertantly created. No matter what it may look like, it's always a sin of omission. My deepest fear is of causing hurt or pain.

Bring up anything strong about death that isn't carefully framed in art, or with words so that it is safe (as you did your experience with your near-death) and it will haunt me and engulf me. There was a drunken college after party drinking session where a friend started going on and on about corpses. When I asked him to stop, he said "Rahael, you should face your fears!" and kept going on. I just started crying and crying. I have not become desensitised to it. Just more sensitive.

Buffy, with its themes and with its metaphors allows me to approach my fear and contain it and makes it safe for me to think about my life.
[> [> [> [> [> A Belated Thank You to all who did such moving posts in 2002 -- shadowkat, 15:39:10 12/24/02 Tue

It bewilders me why people who post wonderfully worded essays from the heart feel the need to constantly apologize for them. We love your writing. It moves us and makes us see a part of the world we might not have seen before.

Meanwhile trolls and people who say hurtful snarky things never apologize and do hits and runs.

Oh well, Life continues to bewilder, bemuse and amaze.

Anyways here's a belated thank you to the writers of some of the most moving and lovely posts this year, if I leave someone out? Please add them on...Also thanks to Masq, D'H, and all the other archivists who have kept our posts alive for posterity.

Here's a list of my favorites off the top of my head:
Rahael
Caroline for the myth, Jung and the comic thread
Rufus
Deb
Zachsmind (James Marsters essay)
slain
Sophists - historical posts
fresne
aliera
redcat
Age
manwitch
cjl (the Dawn series)
Honor H's demon reviews
D'Herbelay's demon review
Dedlaus
Masq's post on Angel the Series
Areustha on Film Noir and existentialism and souls
Alicabades
Wisewoman
Catcus Watcher
Hacceity
Exegy (who I still miss)
Yoda (who sent me to this board and did one on Nightmares)
Rob and his reviews and Buffy Annotated threads
Om's movie and episode reviews
Maladaza's brillant rift on willow/tara and Jonathan Swift
leslie's Monster in the Man and recent Warrior thread
Maeve Rigan's posts on widening gyre
David Frisby's posts on Nietzche
TCH's on language and Wittensen's Poker and Snow
KdS - on Dark Avenger and the Iron Dragon's Daughter
Darby - the critic and the biology threads
Sara
Dochawk - on how the ratings system works and inner hollywood deals and of course Willow and Tara threads
Tach - on Spike
OffKilter - also on Spike
Dead Soul - for the comedy and for Sunday Girl and the
Seville scene in Fanged Four
Marie - for the Welsh
anom
Jbone -for the game
Rowan - for the fanfic
Estrangere -for the wonderful responses
Solitude -for her posts on Ats and Existential Scoobies

Ok - I'm sure I forgot somebody...

so add your own....

SK - thanking the people on this board for responding to my words and creating such lovely posts for me to read on my own. Your words got me through a difficult time in my life.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

And PS: PLEASE STOP APOLOGIZING FOR WRITING FROM YOUR HEARTS!!
[> [> [> [> [> [> Re: A Belated Thank You to all who did such moving posts in 2002 -- Dochawk, 16:18:30 12/24/02 Tue

Gee thanks, but any list of the wonderful contributions of posters has to start with your posts and not only those wonderful thought provoking essays (you still haven't changed my mind about Spike though, the season 7 writers are starting to though).

Although you mentioned Masq, we must thank her for 1. her amazing reviews on the ES site of both Buffy and Angel and 2. All her work in keeping this board alive.

Given all the rancor above, its amazing how threads can be shifted to the positive by just one post.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Can't say it better. -- Deb, 20:29:45 12/24/02 Tue

And I have to ask myself the same question Rah posed to herself. Is it such a good idea to post when I am going through difficult times?

Many of you would say yes, but in my case I don't think so. I really don't like hurting anyone. I don't like to hurt. I know it is hard to believe, but I don't tell everything that goes on in my life ; ) But there's something I'm doing over the next few weeks that really needs my focus. So, I'm not saying good-bye (I'm terrible at lurking. If I come here, I have to post.) When Buffy starts up again, I am sure I will come running back because you are the only people in the entire world that I can discuss Buffy with, and get great feedback instead of blank stares and worried looks. I really do appreciate you all, and the way you welcomed me right on in. You are all very special (don't forget that Rah -- You go girl!!) So, please no one respond to this, because I'm not leaving. When I finish what I am doing, I'll probably come back and tell you all about it. Shadowcat: Someone told me that they confuse me with you sometimes because I sound like you, or something to that affect. I really can't think of a higher compliment. To everyone who is going through a rough time: Let's just stop for a moment and breath before we carry on. We all are extraordinairily courageous to just live, let alone work at finding meaning in it all too.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> you mean... -- anom, 17:53:46 12/26/02 Thu

"We all are extraordinairily courageous to just live, let alone work at finding meaning in it all too."

...the hardest thing in this world is to live in it? @>)
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Thank you SK, and the same to you -- KdS, 04:07:00 12/25/02 Wed

And apologies to Deb for touching off this mess.
[> [> [> [> [> [> Addendum -- s'kat, 11:58:11 12/25/02 Wed

Forgot to add the wonderful ponygirl/ponygoyle, Calvin's great unreliable narrator post above (yes I read it - have no clue what to say about it yet), and Miss Edith, Finn
Macool...who keep things spicy with their insightful
and often contradictory takes on the characters and writing.

This is a fun international board to frolic on. Thanks for Masq for putting it up.

Merry Xmas. Will be gone from the board for a little while myself - for a much needed winter holiday in sunny Florida.

SK
[> [> [> [> [> [> It's not just the sherry talking - you guys are the coolest! -- ponygirl, 17:36:39 12/25/02 Wed

A thousand thank-yous to Masq and every single one of you for keeping me sane and making me think with all of your wonderful words! I would hate to think of getting through a work week without this board.

Off to drink more before I get realllly mushy! Take care!
[> [> *L more cozies.... -- Briar Rose, 22:43:05 12/23/02 Mon

I tend to like the "cozies" but only if they are different in some small way.

Right now my favorites are Rita Mae Brown and Diane Mott Davidson.

Couldn't agree with you more on Hillerman! (I didn't like the movie much... Joe Leaphorn not knowing the Checkerboard and wearing a Fed suit??? I think they should have just filmed in order of novel with cinematic contrivances, but that's me.*L)

And I can't live without my Holmes and "Murder in the Rue Morgue."
[> [> Ooooooo Koontz -- Rufus, 23:51:42 12/23/02 Mon

I read a biography of the guy and he comes from a horrific family, yet look at what type of a guy he is. I think there is a theme of his books that gives us a hint, he writes of people who overcome fictional circumstances and eventually find a peaceful life. Which makes me ask, why are some people brutalized as children and go on to do remarkable things, and why do some children who have never known want go on to be killers? I know one way of creating a monster is to neglect, use mental or physical torture on a child......but that isn't a sure thing and just doesn't explain why some go on to hate and harm and some become self-destructive, and then those who are able to go on and create a happy life.

I've read books from Agatha Christie, and even Sue Grafton, but I find a few stand out that are true crime and the first has always been "Helter Skelter" by Vincent Bugliosi. I won't mention the names of the killers from that book because I don't want to give them more attention than they deserve. I've also gotten a few books by John Douglas and a few others like him.....Base Instincts (What makes killers kill) by Pincus....Without Consceince by Hare, Evil, Inside Human Violence and Cruelty by Baumeister. The fictional stuff is something that I pass the time away with and Koontz, Hamilton, F.Paul Wilson are a few that I read.

I forgot who in this thread mentioned child abuse, but they are right, the types that abuse their children have pathetic lives but at some point decided to share their pain with their kids. That is a betrayal that is unforgivable but I see all the time where abused kids would do anything for any sort of approval from those incapable of understanding love past their own selfish needs. Kids are a gift, and some people don't deserve the right to reproduce. I can feel sorry for someone who has been abused up to the point that they do it to someone else, then I'm more worried about what they have become capable of doing. One more thing, the worst thing for victims is that they tend to blame themselves for what has happened to them, no matter how old they were....that to me is a monster at work, not only to abuse a child but to make them forever believe that if they had been better, their parent wouldn't have been forced to hurt them. Don't get me started on the system that worries more about the reunion of families than the safety of the most vunerable members.

Now back to the Ripper murders...facinating subject because the time in history when it happend. We got the Industrial Revolution when machines started to take over manual labour and with that extra time some decided to do more than go on a holiday. Deb pointed out why she liked the book and it had nothing to do with the killer but the mean times women lived in. Prospects were limited and the lives of some women ended in prostitution. I could care less why Cornwell wrote the book cause so many others have done the same things so stone throwing would hit a lot of glass. Do I believe she has solved the mystery....I don't think we will ever know for sure, leading of course to the next book promising a solution. I haven't gotten her book yet (it's on order and shipped) but as she didn't come hat in hand to me for pocket money I can't complain how she spent her own funds.
[> [> [> Re: Ooooooo Koontz -- shadowkat, 08:22:23 12/24/02 Tue

If you find that time period and the Ripper murders interesting - here are some other books you might enjoy:

The Alienest by Caleb Carr
The Dress Lodger (deals with grave robbing and industrial revolution)
The movie Time After Time with Malcom McDowell
The graphic novel From Hell (although unlike KdS - I prefered the movie to the graphic novel...that personal taste thing can be such a bitch. ;-) )

For True Crime? The best is probably Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. Another excellent one is by Norman Mailer: The Executioner's Song which was a tv miniseries with Tommy Lee Jones. The movie Badlands with Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek. Helter Skelter is an interesting take on the investigation and referred to in Btvs episode Primeval or Yoko Factor. My parents used to have a copy that I flipped through. There are some good true crime novelists out there. I'd avoide the popular ones - who seem to be a bit on the tabloid side of things - Anne Rule annoyed me when she researched a true crime in KC about a physician who killed her kids - Deb may remember it. Dominick Dunn seems to enjoy going after the dark lives of the rich and famous. They get tons of tv films made from their works.

I do still agree with your take on all this...just not a non-fiction fan to the complete and utter dismay of my friends and family who keep insisting that I should try my hand at writing more of it. "Hey - look at the sucess of your Buffy essays "- they say, "now write something meaningful and sell it!" Sigh. They just don't get it.
(I've been fighting the urg to write a fictionalized version of a murder that happened in Overland Park, Kansas in the 1980s where the victim was a nasty monster and the killer driven insane. Very sad intriguing story about the twisted nature of adolescent friendships and the effects of popular culture on them.)
[> [> Re: Hmmm Cornwell, mysteries, and other related things -- akanikki, 23:55:46 12/23/02 Mon

Shadowkat - loved your summary - had a couple of comments and additions -

Category #3: JA Jance also has a group of mysteries which feature a female sheriff in Arizona - my personal favorite for quick reads

Category #6: Have you read Kate Wilhelm? She writes about Lawyer Barbara Halloway who works with her retired father. Also, Richard North Patterson is one of my favorites in this series. He is often confused with James Patterson, but his books always focus on the courtroom side - not the gruesome stuff.

Category #8: loved Smilla's Sense of Snow and The Alienist - not sure their authors' ever came close on their next books. Pears' Instance at Fingerpost was amazing in it's presentation of contradicting viewpoints. Also, check out Katherine Norville's (I'm not sure of the last name) Eight. Talk about a convoluted (and international!) mystery - good for those who like chess, as the game is interrelated into the action.

There are others who I am too tired to run down - but the Italian guy who wrote the novel the movie Sean Connery and Christian Slater starred in - something like The Name of a Rose? Also, Nelson Demille (not sure which category he belongs in, but love most of his stories) and also Ken Follet (very popular, but has done some wonderful stuff in the midst of his churning out dreck to keep his advances period).
[> [> [> The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco -- Rufus, 00:11:36 12/24/02 Tue

I like Jance too.
[> [> [> I left so many out...thanks for the add-ons -- shadowkat, 08:33:53 12/24/02 Tue

Yes - I've read Richard North PAtterson - prefer him to James Patterson actually.

Oh and another favorite I left out last night:

I place this guy in the literary mystery category: Arturo Perez-Reverte (whose name I probably misspelled.) He's a spainish writer and his books are translated. The first is The Flander's Panel about art restoration. Then The Club Dumas - made into a so-so movie by Roman Polanski called Ninth Gate.
Seville Communion. The Fencing Master. and finally the Nautical Chart. I love this guy.

John LE Carre has a written a couple as has Ludlum.

Geeze the number and categories of mystery writing out there is astonding.
[> [> [> [> amazon.ca.....gee are they fast got my copy of "Portrait of a Killer" today. -- Rufus, 16:33:12 12/24/02 Tue

I think my to read pile just keeps getting higher...
[> [> [> Katherine Neville wrote The Eight -- Dead Soul, 21:13:41 12/26/02 Thu

And several other terrifically complicated and fascinating novels that straddle a line between international mystery and fantasy mysticism.
[> [> And a different book for you to look for. -- Rufus, 01:45:00 12/24/02 Tue

Before everyone thinks I'm knee deep in gory reading material I have one book for you all to consider.....

Destructive Emotions, How Can we Overcome Them
(A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama) narrated by Daniel Goleman

On the top of the cover page is: An Extraordinary Collaboration Between Buddhist Scholars and Western Psychologists, Neuroscientists, and Philosophers
[> [> Check out Elizabeth George! -- Sara, 06:32:23 12/24/02 Tue

Great analysis sk - although I'm in the camp that Agatha Christie never gets old. I re-read all her books every 5-6 years. I wonder what gives her the staying power, when others start to seem a bit empty? Anyway, you should try any of the Elizabeth George mysteries, recurring characters, complicated crimes, no serial killers , and lots of relationship stuff.
[> [> [> Re: Check out Elizabeth George! -- shadowkat, 08:41:29 12/24/02 Tue

I think what made Agatha so great was she treated the mystery novel like a puzzel - kept you guessing, gave you the solution and you could track it backwards through the book so it made complete sense. Also her detective was a bit like the one on Monk or in Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes books - filled with all sorts of interesting quirks and human foibles. She wrote one of my all time favorite mysteries: Curtain - the last Hercule Poirot. Right up there with Hounds of the Baskervilles.

Elizabeth George - I believe is another name for Elizabeth Peters, it's her more gothic group of mysteries. I think I've read one or two. She is quite good.

Gothic romance mysteries:
Victoria Holt
Phyllis Keatly Snyder
Mary Stewart - Touch Not the Cat, and several others I'm blanking on at the moment
Dauphne DeMaurier - Rebecca
Rosemary Rodgers - even wrote one I think

These are where the heroine has to figure out who the murderer is and believes it's the guy she's in love with, it's not of course...
[> [> [> [> Sorry,two entirely different people..... -- AurraSing, 09:04:26 12/24/02 Tue

Elisabeth George is a writer based in California who has a highly succesful series based around the characters of Chief Inspector Lynley and his assistant,Detective Constable Barbara Havers.

Elisabeth Peters is an Egyptologist who has some fun (but not overly mysterious) historical novels,some set in the early 1900's in Egypt and the rest scattered over England and the Eastern US states.Fun but not as intense as Ms.George's works.
[> [> [> [> [> Agreeing re: Elizabeth George -- yabyumpan (decided to honour the furry purry one :o) ), 09:36:00 12/24/02 Tue

Love EG's books. Would also recomend Val Mcdermid,writes books featuring a PI called Kate Brannigan, set in Manchester, UK. Wonderfully gritty, down to earth and humorous. Also writes about a journalist/sleuth called Lindsay Gordan, same as above. She recently started a series about a criminal profiler called Tony Hill, these are darker and can be an uncomftable read but very well written.
Any one interested in feminist/lesbian mysteries/crime books should try Kate Calloway,Clare McNab and Rose Beecham. I tend mainly to read women writers although I love Koontz as well, there is always so much compassion in his stories.
[> [> [> [> [> [> Good to see you back -- Wisewoman, 10:14:32 12/24/02 Tue

Glad that yabyum will still be purring on this board, as well as where the good cats go.

Oh, and BTW I absolutely adore Elizabeth George.

;o)
[> [> [> [> [> Elizabeth Peters also writes under the pseudonym Barbara Micheals.. -- AurraSing, 09:59:05 12/24/02 Tue

...which are her more Gothic/supernatural based tales.

Actually her real name is Barbara Mertz,she has a Ph.D in Egyptology and lives in Maryland.And she has a pretty great sense of humour based on her most famous character,Amelia Peabody,whom I find to be a great hoot.
[> [> Brother Cadfael -- WalkingGhost, 12:02:51 12/24/02 Tue

I really like the Brother Cadfael series by Ellis Peters.
[> [> An entirely positive post (personal recommends, peace and goodwill to all authors) -- KdS, 04:38:08 12/25/02 Wed

Looks like my tastes may be a little more hard-boiled than most of you, but here are some personal recommendations in the crime genre:

Firstly, the two author's who I'm most impressed by at the moment are Carol O'Connell and Jack O'Connell (so far as I know not related). They're both contemporary urban crime, but written in a heightened, almost magic realist style, with some of the oddest and most fascinating characters and plots you'll ever meet.

For police procedural fans, I'd suggest KC Constantine, who writes the finest "realistic" dialogue currently known to man. He's probably the modern crime writer whose work is closest to novels that happen to have crime in them, rather than "crime novels". You should also read RD Wingfield's Jack Frost novels (dismally neutralised by British TV) which are reminiscent of a British Joseph Wambaugh without the over the top violence and angst. The atmosphere of overstretched police officers trying to keep a lid on chaos is remarkable. They're also incredibly funny (albeit quite coarsely so).

If you're into the puzzle kind of mystery, Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse novels beat anything written since World War Two for sheer tricksiness of plot. You may have seen the TV series spun off from them, which was much better than the Frost one but still a little too cuddly in the characterisation.

Finally, Grafton and Paretsky fans are recommended to look at Marcia Muller's Sharon McCone books. Muller started writing well before either Grafton and Paretsky but got unfairly overshadowed by them. The best thing about the series, now up to about the twentieth book, is the way the hero becomes progressively more hardboiled and formidable as she loses her initial idealism and innocence, but never loses her essential moral approach. (Her love life pattern is interesting - first an unequal relationship with an overcontrolling older man, then a nice laidback guy who eventually bores her, then a period of depression and ill-advised casual sex before she finally meets a man who matches her for strength of light and dark side and ability to integrate them - remind you of anyone?)

Merry Christmas everybody!
[> [> [> Re: -- aliera, 05:09:41 12/25/02 Wed

Merry Christmas KdS...thank you for a great number of mini-gifts throughout the year...interesting posts. Light and warmth and joy and laughter and peace and comfort to you and yours.
Periodic update - where are you located? -- Darby, 08:25:23 12/23/02 Mon

Haven't done this for a while, and we're in a bit of a holiday lull.

Would you tell us where you post from? It's fun to know how far-flung the neighborhood really is!

You can just put up a subject line, or more if you prefer.

Here's the list I've accumulated from the last couple of times. You'll see current regulars, regulars now no longer seen, and lurkers of all sorts... If you're on here and have moved, update please!

A8 - Baghdad by the Bay (SF)
agent156 - Dallas, Texas
Akita - SE Pennsylvania, Upper Bucks County
aliera - Albany, New York
anom - New York City
Aquitaine - West Island of Montreal
Arethusa - Houston, Texas
Arya_Stark - Central Connecticut
AurraSing - In the southeast Kootenays (British Columbia)
Belladonna - Chicago, Illinois
Bob R - Kansas City, KS
Brian - Louisville Kentucky via Troy New York & Boston
Buffyboy - Vallejo, California, 30 miles N of Oakland
Cactus Watcher - Phoenix, Arizona
Calluna - Port Orchard, Washington - Across Puget Sound from Seattle
caltrask55 - Randolph Massachusetts!!!
CaptainPugwash - Channels Islands (UK) - the original 'Jersey'
Caroline - Washington, D.C.
cat - Indianapolis, Indiana
celticross - Middle of Nowhere, Kentucky - not far from the Tennessee border
Cheryl - Phoenix, Arizona
Chew-lean - Atlanta/Decatur, Georgia (for 6-7 months out of the year) & Florida
cjl - Brooklyn, New York
Clarity (and Polyhymnia) - Stafford, Virginia, USA...an hour south of Washington D.C., an hour north of Richmond VA
Cleanthes - NE Florida
Copper - Phoenix, Arizona
Cydney - Milwaukee, Wisconsin
cynesthesia - San Jose, California
Cynthia - Manhattan, New York City, New York
Darby - Upstate NY, west of Albany, southern edge of the Adirondacks
Dariel - Brooklyn, New York
darrenK, - Brooklyn, New York
Dead Soul - Arcata, California, 80 miles south of Oregon
Deeva - San Francisco, California
Dichotomy - Beautiful, sunny, Denver, Colorado, USA
Dochawk - Brentwood, California
Doriander - Queens, New York
Doug the Bloody - Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
dream of the consortium - Cambridge, Massachusetts
Duquessa des Esseintes - Phoenix, Arizona
Dyna - Chicago
Earl Allison - Danvers, about twenty miles north of Boston, Massachusetts
eldersister2000 - SW Michigan
Eric - Oklahoma, from Santa Barbara / Sunnydale
Etrangere - Suburb of Paris
Exegy - Rockford, Illinois
FelipeRijo - Porto Alegre, the southernmost state capital of Brazil
Forsaken - Arkansas
fresne - San.Francisco. Bay Area, California
Gellis - Mckinleyville - California, maybe Oregon.
ghostdawg - Iowa City, Iowa
GreatRewards - Seattle, Washington, USA
grifter - Vienna, Austria
Hauptman - Boston, Massachusetts
Heather - Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
heather galaxy - Chicago
Humanitas - Central Florida
Isabel - Schenectady, New York
J - Columbus, Ohio
Jane's Addiction - Raleigh, North Carolina
JCC - Ireland
Jen C. - Berzerkely California
JLP - Columbia, Missouri, halfway between Kansas City and St. Louis
j.nina - State College, Pennsylvania
John Burwood - Portsmouth, England
Jon - Portland, Oregon
JoRus - Just N of Seattle, Washington
Julia - Portland, Oregon
Juliette - Birmingham, England
keldari - Dallas, Texas
Kimberly - Northeast New Jersey (Commuter Town)
Kitt - Brent, Alabama, S of Birmingham, E of Tuscaloosa
LadyStarlight - Rocky Mountains - Waterton Park, Alberta
Leaf - Perth, Western Australia
leslie - Santa Monica, California
Lilac - West Suburban Chicago
Liquidram - Saratoga, California (Silicon Valley)
LittleBit - Columbus, Ohio
Little One - By Dogs-Nest, Ontario (A Farmer's Daughter)
Loki - Manchester, England
Lunarchickk - Northwest NJ - Jersey girl, born & bred :)
Lyonors - Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
maddog - Portsmouth, New Hampshire
MaeveRigan - Raleigh, North Carolina
Majin Gojira - Just Outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Marie - N. Wales
Masquerade - San Francisco
matching mole - Urbana, Illinois, USA
Millan - Sweden
minasrevenge - Houston, Texas
MrDave - Annapolis, MD
nay - between Baltimore & Washington DC, MD. USA
Neaux - Durham, North Carolina
newmoon - Portland, Oregon
NightRepair - Melbourne, Australia
njbethany - Atlanta, Georgia
Non-Hostile Seventeen - Long Island, New York
O'Cailleagh - South Wales, UK
Off-kilter - Yokosuka, Japan
OnM - Southeast Pennsylvania, due west of Philadelphia
pagangodess - Small town Ontario, near Ottawa
ponygirl - Toronto
pr10n - Farmington, Utah (20 minutes from Salt Lake City)
Purple Tulip - Upstate New York, near Canada
Rahael - London
Rattletrap - Norman, Oklahoma
ravenhair - Just Outside Memphis, Tennessee
redcat - Honolulu, Hawai'i
rendyl - Just South of Montgomery, Alabama
Rob - Rockland County, NY...about 40 minutes from the City
Rochefort - Detroit, Michigan
Ronia - Washington, D.C.
rowan - Southeastern Pennsylvania, NW of Philadelphia
Rufus - British Columbia - Just Outside of Vancouver
Sara - Upstate NY, west of Albany, southern edge of the Adirondacks
Scroll - Mississauga, near Toronto, in school at Waterloo
Sebastian - Milwaukee, Wisconsin
The Second Evil - An hour west of Washington DC
shadowcat - Brooklyn, New York
Shaglio - Northeast Massachusetts -Danvers, MA
Sharon - Johannesburg, South Africa
Shiver - Northwest New Jersey (relocated from West Virginia)
skpe - Irvine California (5 minutes south of Disneyland)
Slayrunt - Akron, Ohio
solstice - New Orleans, Louisiana
Sophie - New York, New York*
Sophist - Los Angeles (* - or so "they" would like you to believe! I'm just kidding...although I've never seen them together...)
Spike Lover - East Texas
SpikeMom - San Diego, California
squireboy - Toronto, Canada
SugarTherapy - Suburbs of Minneapolis, MN
Talia - Atlanta, School in Philadelphia
tam - Newton, Massachusetts
Tillow - Southeast NY/Bordering Jersey
tim - Columbus, Ohio
tost - Roswell, New Mexico
Tracton - Be'er-Sheva, Israel
Traveler - Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Tymen - Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
valkyrie - Fort Worth, Texas
vampire hunter D - Susquehanna Valley in Pennsylvania
VampRiley - Southeast Pennsylvania, North of Philly.
verdantheart - Provo Utah
Vickie - Santa Clara, California
Wilder - Rock Hill, South Carolina
Wisewoman / dubdub - Vancouver, British Columbia.
yabyumpan(maybe) - Hackney, East London. UK
yuri - San Francisco to Montreal, Canada
ZachsMind - Dallas, Texas
zargon - Dallas, Texas
Zoey - Clemson South Carolina
zoomusicgirl - Warner, New Hampshire
[> Re: Periodic update - where are you located? -- Cheryl, 09:15:57 12/23/02 Mon

Wow! I'm already on the list - now I feel like I really "belong" here. :-)
[> [> Re: Periodic update - where are you located? -- Lilac, 13:22:57 12/23/02 Mon

Me too. I don't post very often, but I read all the time. I feel like part of the community, even if no one else knows I am (hah), so it's nice to see myself on the list. Thanks, Darby.
[> Still Vancouver, BC -- dub, 09:18:52 12/23/02 Mon

But, wow! What a reminder of all the posters we haven't heard from in a while! Where are you guys??

;o)
[> [> Still about 45 minutes south of where Dub lives. -- Rufus, 14:12:28 12/23/02 Mon

[> [> [> And still a long way away from there (unless you discount the Atlantic!) -- Marie, 01:04:37 12/24/02 Tue

[> Re: Periodic update - where are you located? -- monsieurxander, 11:12:01 12/23/02 Mon

Professional lurker here...

Ocean Springs, MS is where I call home. Currently, though, I'm on vacation in Southern California. Happy Christmas, everybody!
[> Stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again -- cjl, 11:23:43 12/23/02 Mon

Sorry. Dylan joke.

But seriously folks--still in Brooklyn, NYC USA.
[> About a 100 metres west -- matching mole, 11:35:49 12/23/02 Mon

and three stories lower than where I posted from last time. Still in Urbana but creeping closer to the Champaign side of campus (another 200 metres or so further west).

Enjoy your holidays everyone!
[> Sin City -- Tyreseus, 11:52:58 12/23/02 Mon

Yup, the adult playground...
the tourist capital of the United States...
the city of neon, tacky decor, larger than life casinos...
the only place you can visit the Eifel Tower, the Canals of Venice, the Roman Forums, the Brooklyn Bridge and the Sphynx within an hour (if you can stand the heat)...

Las Vegas, NV
[> Re: Periodic update - where are you located? -- KdS, 11:57:55 12/23/02 Mon

Borders of London and the county of Essex.

A region which "proper" Londoners regard with much the same degree of affection as, I gather, Manhattanites view New Jersey. And no, I do not drive an XR3i, I have no relatives in jail, and no members of my family wear white stilettoes.
[> [> KdS -- yabyumpan, 10:52:50 12/24/02 Tue

I was going to suggest an Essex Girl SiT in thread below, who staked Vampies with her white stilettoes but I thought it was probably too offensive ;-)
[> Comfy chair -- d'Herblay, 12:18:26 12/23/02 Mon

[> [> Re: Comfy chair. Me, too. With my sister's dog Buffy next to me. -- CW, 14:21:10 12/23/02 Mon

Her daughter has a cat named Angel. The dog was named after BtVS, although my sister isn't a huge fan. The cat is just a fun coincidence.
[> Near the Heart of Downtown Indianapolis Indiana -- David Frisby, 14:28:40 12/23/02 Mon

I live near the center of Indianapolis which is near the center of Indiana which thinks of itself as the crossroads or center of the States (or the once land of the Indians). Born and bred her myself, my parents migrated from Kentucky around WW2 time. But of course, as we all do to some degree, I think of my true location as planet earth, so home is anywhere on the planet. On the deeper question of home though, I've not resolved the dilemma Leo Strauss puts forward (at the end of his _On Tyranny_ -- the final controversial paragraph) with regard to the citizen-philosopher (as contrasted with the stranger-philosopher, which is another story), namely: whether the citizen-philospher is primarily a citizen of the earth or a citizen of the whole. The question of our place (or "location") with regard to the earth (our mother? the planet? the goddess? the mystery?) seems to me to be the fundamental question for the future of our species (now that "God" has died).

David Frisby
[> Winsley, near Bath, England -- Tchaikovsky, 15:49:24 12/23/02 Mon

That would be a holiday location. Term time is Leamington Spa.

General question: could we have this list on the Existantial Scoobies site somewhere? Makes interesting reading.

TCH
[> Kansas City, Missouri -- Deb, 16:27:03 12/23/02 Mon

[> Milton Ont, (about an hour away from Toronto) -- Wolfhowl3, 16:51:20 12/23/02 Mon

[> Re: Periodic update - where are you located? -- slain, 17:18:28 12/23/02 Mon

I'm not on the list, so,

A small village near the small town Chorley, Lancashire, UK (that's 'England' to you yanks ;))
[> Re: Periodic update - where are you located? -- Lumina, 19:34:43 12/23/02 Mon

Lurking from Sydney, Australia.
[> [> Re: Periodic update - where are you located? -- lcolford, 01:49:32 12/24/02 Tue

Seattle, delurking on the cheap, using anyone else's computer.
[> Mississauga, Ontario. Canada -- lynx, 02:48:16 12/24/02 Tue

[> Dayton, Ohio (1 hour north of Cincinnati) (NT) -- WalkingGhost and The Pocket Editor, 04:12:38 12/24/02 Tue

[> Re: Periodic update - where are you located? -- Celebaelin, 08:52:45 12/24/02 Tue

UK is factual (that's in Europe btw, I'm joking of course), Kenilworth (about 10 miles from Tchaikovsky during termtime) is more accurate (and slightly unnerving).
[> Re: Periodic update - where are you located? -- shadowkat, 09:08:09 12/24/02 Tue

Will be back in Brooklyn, NY Jan 4. Right now posting from Hilton Head Island, South Carolina where we are having thunderstorms and pouring rain.

SK
[> [> Bonnie Scotland! -- Dark Presence, 09:46:43 12/24/02 Tue

A little lurker who lives on the East coast of Scotland in a county known as Fife.
I've just managed to catch up with the new series thanks to Broad Band and KazAa! YEY!

Hope everyone has an excellent Christmas!

DP
[> [> [> East London, UK -- yabyumpan, 10:47:57 12/24/02 Tue

The UK contingent seems to be getting bigger, yay us :-)

Happy Holidays everyone....
[> Re: Periodic update - where are you located? -- Sarand, 09:57:49 12/24/02 Tue

Currently Queens, New York. I thought there were more of us in the city than the list would indicate. Hmm. Born and raised in Iowa, where, Mr. Frisby, we refer to people from Indiana as Easterners. ;)
[> Massachusetts -- Nightingale, 11:08:29 12/24/02 Tue

but I'm currently lurking from New Jersey.

Happy Holidays to all! :)

-NG
The teleology of BtVS (Unspoiled future spec re S7) -- Sophist, 09:27:34 12/23/02 Mon

teleology
Pronunciation: "te-lE-'-l&-jE, "tE-

2 : the fact or character attributed to nature or natural processes of being directed toward an end or shaped by a purpose
3 : the use of design or purpose as an explanation of natural phenomena

If S7 is to be the last season, and I think it is, then we need to understand the purpose(s) of the series in order to speculate how it might end.

I can't claim any originality in suggesting that one purpose of the show is take our characters from adolescence to adulthood (does anyone else think that "adulthood is awkward and that "adultery" should be usable in this sense?). My own corollary is that Buffy is the guide for this transition for those close to her: originally Xander and Willow, but now Anya, Spike, and Dawn.

We know from the beginning that JW originally saw Xander as most like him. If we assume that the writers kept this in mind, then I think it fair to say that one purpose of BtVS is to show Xander's transition to adulthood. JW is, in part, telling his own story.

My view is that, excepting Dawn, the other characters have made the transition. Anya chose humanity. Spike got his soul. Willow was an adult by the end of S5 (her abuse of power in S6 -- accepting the retcon of her problem -- was a flaw of adulthood, not adolescence). Dawn's story can't be completed in the time remaining.

I have stated several times, to some mild disagreement :), my view that Xander has yet to grow up. I suggest that one purpose of S7 is, finally, to complete that transition. Knowing ME, that transition will be painful. And at the end, Xander won't need a guide any more.

I'm leaving for vacation on Wed and won't be back till the following Wed. Snark early or you'll lose your chance.
[> Of course, it all makes sense now...it's All About Xander. (???) -- cjl, 09:55:35 12/23/02 Mon

No snarkage, here, Sophist--just an expression of puzzlement, and a mild rebuttal.

The main characters aren't finished with their journeys yet. None of them. And that's the way it goes in real life, too; we don't finish our journeys until the Final Dirt Nap, and maybe not even then (depends on whom you ask). Granted, some of them are further along than others (i.e., Giles), but most of the characters are still struggling to make the leap from childhood-to-adulthood, Spike and Anya included. Xander, as much as I like the character, is one of many C-to-A stories in BtVS heading toward an S7 resolution.

Let's eliminate Giles and Dawn, since their stories will be the grist for the sequel series (plural). As for our main characters...

1. Buffy - As of right now, still hanging on to a sliver of childhood normalcy--normalcy which can never be recaptured. Must confront the darkness at the heart of the Slayer if she is ever to claim her true destiny.

2. Willow - Powerful badass witch, computer wizard, softer side of Sears geek, gentle and supportive friend, homicidal monster. Willow has to learn to integrate the various aspects of her personality before she can truly utilize her amazing gifts in an effective, adult fashion.

3. Xander - The whole existential crisis and such.

4. Spike and Anya--120 and 1120 years of un-living, respectively, but do either of these ex-demons know who they really are? Spike seems to have found his strength through Buffy's unwavering belief in him, but sooner or later, he's going to have to make a decision based on what he believes is good and right, and not what Buffy thinks. Anya, dear Anya, always following, never leading, yet always the outsider in her group. When will she learn to trust her own considerable strengths? Both have been around forever, but they're basically at the same place as the rest of the Scoobs.

5. Jonathan and Tara - Journey to adulthood completed. No need to keep them around, then....

IMO, we're going to see the completion of the journey to adulthood for Buffy, Willow, Xander, Spike and Anya. Not saying all of these character will LIVE (see #5, above), but they'll resolve all their issues. Xander, for a change, will have to settle into the background and let somebody else have an big arc for a change. (And yes, that's sarcasm.)
[> [> LOL -- Sophist, 10:46:55 12/23/02 Mon

Not all about Xander (especially not for me!). That's one purpose among many. It surely is a purpose though; even I would concede that.

I think we're having a semantic disagreement on some of your points. I am making the distinction between the actual transition from adolescence to adulthood, and the problems of adulthood itself. The way I see it, every character except Xander (leaving out Dawn) has made the actual transition. The problems the others now face -- and I have no dispute with your description of them -- are problems that adults face, not adolescents. They may not be completed as adults, but that's a different journey than the transition (IMHO -- you clearly see it as all one journey).

I don't expect any character to be complete at the end of S7, except, as you ironically note, the ones who are going to die. I do expect at least 2 deaths this year, maybe more; that will be part of Xander's pain. But it will also mean he can escape the cycle of adolescence which he's now in and start to deal with the issues of adulthood like the rest.
[> [> [> In defense of Xander.*S* -- Briar Rose, 13:42:37 12/23/02 Mon

I see Xander as having grown almost as much as the rest, if not in some ways more so... Xander was the first to actually deal with the need to escape his family's pattern of denial and lethargy. To distance himself from the need for parental approval and to try and change his life for the good.

All along, Xander has been the one with the least power trying the most to contribute ot the over all cause. Sure he's snarky, sure he's insecure, sure he's a follower, and sure... He's not as outwardly sophisticated emotionally as those around him.

But (and I hope not to make this a wide ranging stereotype that offends!) many males who are not balanced in a strong family unit or surrounded by lots of non-family emotionally accessible males tend to "mature" emotionally later than many females.

This has always been true when you look at things biologically. Females are ready to carry on procreation earlier than most males are. Their growth spurts come earlier, their hormonal changes come faster, and they are more readily "trainable in social graces" because of the communication genes they carry. Many males are a little less communicative as a whole, by NATURE not nurture.

What amazes me again and again is how well Joss Whedon has always protrayed the growth difference in males and females. Xander is on his curve for real life males, IMO. In fact ahead of the curve in a lot of ways considering his background.
[> [> [> [> Re: In defense of Xander.*S* -- Sophist, 18:34:44 12/23/02 Mon

I see Xander as having grown almost as much as the rest, if not in some ways more so...

But (and I hope not to make this a wide ranging stereotype that offends!) many males who are not balanced in a strong family unit or surrounded by lots of non-family emotionally accessible males tend to "mature" emotionally later than many females. ...Xander is on his curve for real life males, IMO.

I'm not sure these points are consistent, but I agree with the last one. :)
[> [> [> [> Re: In defense of Xander.*S* -- Nascent, 18:58:37 12/23/02 Mon

So do you think Xander has actually moved past the emotionally toxic environment that he was raised in, or is he simply trying to escape his parents' fate through surface changes - his own place, better job, nice suit, nice car - without honestly addressing the fears and darkness in his own heart? (Not meant as any kind of Xander bash - just curious.)

I'm still struck by his "Heart of Darkness" comments to Andrew. I take it a lot of people assumed he was talking past tense about an emotional trauma he's already moved past, but I'm not so sure. Is he still the poor sod who had his heart stopped and replaced with darkness, just to go through the rest of his life empty, in quiet despair?

Does it seem that we're still seeing the dreamscapes of "Restless" playing out in many ways? In their dreams, the First Slayer tried to kill each core Scoob through their strengths - Xander's heart, Willow's spirit (or soul?), Giles' mind, and Buffy's hands (or warrior nature). Could it be that each of these characters may be facing these same issues in reality now as their story potentially draws to a close?

There seems to be a big question mark floating over Xander's head this season - is he still heart of darkness boy? And what was with the talk about sleeper agents? Willow's fear of using her power seems to be rooted in her fear of or refusal to accept the darkness in her own soul. She's neither "Good Willow" nor "Bad Willow"...she's both, but she has to accept that before she can balance the two. Of course, Giles may or may not have already lost his adorable wee British heed. In any case, if there's little to no documented history of TFE, his usual approach to research is cut off. Meanwhile, Buffy the warrior has to figure out how to fight a non-corporeal being and Uber Vampire henchmen that don't seem vulnerable to her usually formidable physical strength. With each of the main Scoobies cut off from what they've always considered their main strengths, they'll each have to learn a little something about themselves as they face this battle.
[> Here's a twist...(Unspoiled future spec re S7) -- Darby, 13:38:12 12/23/02 Mon

If Xander is Joss' viewpoint character, he may reflect something that happens to a lot of us: a slow transition that we're barely aware of until one day it hits us that we are officially adults. Maybe something specific will occur to make him realize it's happened, but I think we're being shown the transition this season. It's not as dramatic as the other arcs but still has a certain guerilla resonance (you ever stumble onto a turn of phrase that, in retrospect, maybe doesn't make sense but you can't get yourself to abandon it?).

Maybe it'll hit him when he finds himself yelling at kids to get off his lawn...
[> Memo to Joss (faux FOX) + free Firefly rant! -- pr10n, 17:24:11 12/23/02 Mon

Great story pitch. Love teenagers/humor angle, fresh! Suggest name change to "Xander, the Vampire Slayer's Pal" or such.

Regards,

FOX Corporate Firefly Killers, aka the Great Satan, the Programming Blue Hands of Death, Spawn of the Tasteless Masses, Creators of "Flex-o-Choose" the new TV Remote that works by gluteal muscle tension and relaxation [$49.99 US, Special Discount for Network Programmers oac]

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