also: a man, a woman, and a boston terrier.
Yesterday: the worst 3 miles attempted by woman.
Today: I learned my lesson.
Last night I hosted a Buffy party at my house, with no less than 17 guests. I told everybody what to bring--and they brought it! (Color me surprised.)
The occasion was the possession by one of my guests of a tape that had "Graduation Day Part 2" (the second part of the season finale, which was cancelled after Columbine, because of the high-running tensions), "Earshot" (an earlier episode that was cancelled because it was to air right after Columbine and had some eerie echoes thereof), and the original Buffy pilot, which had, among other things, a different Willow.
Because of this tape and the showing thereof, fellow Buffy fanatics Rob and Laura (and Nutmeg, who isn't so much of a fanatic as a fan of any gathering where food is present) flew down to attend.
You're all going to get to see "Graduation Day Part 2" in a few weeks, so I don't need to tell you about that. Other than, it was good.
I will be very surprised if "Earshot" ever airs.
It's a really good episode. I think we all agreed that it's one of the best episodes of the series. There is a reason Buffy is, bar none, the best show on television, because it balances comedy and terror--just like life--so well. And "Earshot" is the story of how Buffy develops telepathic powers and hears what everyone else in the school is thinking, and everyone feels just as upset and alone and out of place as everyone else. She also overhears someone thinking about killing everyone in the school.
Periodically through the show everyone in the room went, "Oh!" Because parts of the show resonated with Columbine so much. Not in a cheesy or exploitative way (I know, it couldn't be exploitative, the show was ready to air before Columbine, but we all agreed that the first word politicians would use was "exploitative"), but in a way that shows why teenagers feel so alienated and disaffected. Buffy treats those feelings as real and important.
Still--I can imagine how various people (particularly those verdammt politicians) would twist this kind of thing around. I hope it airs. I just don't think it will.
The original Buffy pilot is interesting in an anthropological way. The original conception of the character of Buffy seems much closer to the airhead of the movie. The show did really well in replacing Willow as well. The acting was bad, the cinematography awful, the script not so good, the special effects ludicrous--but the fights and stunts were a-one. This clearly was meant to signal to the execs who'd be judging this show that this was the focus of the show.
Rob and Laura and their very excitable roommate, Nutmeg, came down to visit us for the weekend. Darin, of course, had just spent a great deal of time with Rob at MacHack, but they soon proved that they had not completely talked out every single iota of computer chat they could indulge in.
Laura and I discussed other things, like her job.
The running joke of the weekend was Rob's news: He's exhibiting his product, FMSync, at Macworld New York this month. Macworld magazine called to ask if he'd like to attend the CEOs dinner.
Rob managed to work "the CEOs dinner" into every single damn conversation. "Oh, did I tell you?" he'd say. We started throwing things at him.
Saturday morning Darin and I, Rob and Laura, and Fernando and Nancy (it's Saturday: gotta have breakfast with Fernando) had dim sum at Empress Pavilion. I officially reached self-loathing territory with the egg custard tarts, but boy, were they tasty.
We all sacked out in the afternoon (and didn't eat). Then we got ready for the party, at which we had one metric buttload of food: pizza, salad, "snacking vegetables," chips, apple crisp... Yum.
This morning, I couldn't believe we were actually going to eat again, but we decided to go to Delmonico's for the fanciest buffet brunch there is. We kvelled for two hours over the poached salmon and seafood risotto and whitefish and oysters and lamb osso buco and perfect eggs benedict and crab legs and the desserts...oh, the desserts. Flan and creme caramel and a vanilla bean panacotta and dark chocolate truffles and chocolate mousse and banana cake and...
We ate a lot and enjoyed every bite.
We got Nutmeg and drove out to Malibu via Pacific Palisades. We discovered way too late that everyone else in the Los Angeles area wanted to do this very same thing, and getting to Highway 1 sucked majorly. But we drove up and down the Malibu Coast for a while, finally stopping at Malibu Bluffs Park for a looksee that didn't involve 8 million cars looking for space as near the sand as possible.
Rob and Laura took off for the airport--I showed them the traffic page, telling them that it was smooth sailing to LAX--and I went to bed to nap.
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Copyright 1999 Diane Patterson
Send comments and questions to diane@spies.com