Category Archives: TV and Film

True Dua Conversations about Hannibal

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imageSo the thing you have to know to understand this is that the building whose exterior “plays” Hannibal’s office on Hannibal is a single block away from Kelly’s office. That’s right: Chez the Cannibal is just around the corner from her workplace.

K: What do you want to watch now?
A: I’m kind of into the Hannibal rewatch.
K: We might have to stop partway. I’m pretty tired.
A: That’s okay. We know where it’s going.
K: Hannibal. ‘Cause he’s my neighbor.
A: (singing). Would you be my neighbor?
K: OMG Yes!
A: He does kind of dress like…
K: Mr. Rogers! Yes!

And yes, we’re more or less sober.

And on that note, best holiday wishes to you each and every one.

Latest Buffy Rewatch, and a fun fact about me

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The latest Buffy Rewatch is up at Tor.com – it covers “Conversations with Dead People,” which I suspect you’ll all agree is one of the better S7 episodes.

I am at home cooking and working on the next Buffy essay (I’m on “Potential”) and I have my Schmaltz playlist on. The dictionary definition of schmaltzy is “excessively sentimental,” and I don’t know if all of my choices qualify, but I will admit, publicly, that Barry Manilow’s “Can’t Smile Without You” is on it. Essentially they’re songs that make me feel sentimental.

So, I’m puttering around chopping veggies and the Eagles come on, with “New Kid in Town,” a song that’s been making me emo since the Seventies. And it occurred to me, in a distant way, that the lion’s share of my listening brain takes the one lyric: “Great expectations/everybody’s watching you,” literally. It’s as if in mid-song the narrator breaks off to personally address a Masterpiece Theater version of Great Expectations, to say “Hey, there. We’re tuning in. All of us. Just FYI.”

Yeah, so that happened.

Another thing that’s happened, as some of you may have heard, was that we got some freezing rain in Toronto. Here’s a picture:

It’s all about Him on the #BuffyRewatch. (Him Who?)

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slayerThis week’s rewatch is up to “Him,” the S7 episode where a magic coat makes an allegedly unremarkable young man graceful, attractive, and an all ’round tasty morsel.

Here in Toronto, we got a dumping of the white stuff: nineteen centimeters of snow, or so somebody told me. Kelly and I promptly went out and got proper boots. This should be, I think, the last of the official moving expenses. The boots are waterproof and toasty and pretty clompy, and I’ve done my usual stomping about in them for the past couple of days with satisfactory results. I’ve been taking pictures, and they’ll end up here as I continue to sift through them.

The #BuffyRewatch is feeling Selfless @tordotcom.

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slayerI’m up to “Selfless” on the Buffy rewatch. Anya! I love her so. Here’s the essay.

At least one person in the comment threads has already called this the best episode of season 7. I’d say that’s “Chosen,” because I loved how the series closed. But then there’s “Storyteller, too.

Still, Anya! So complicated, so smart, and so darned strange!

Since we are now supposed to be living in a land of snow, I have been uncharacteristically keen to have some. And we have, but it hasn’t been very visually impressive. It falls, it slushes, it goes away. There have been a few good holiday trees though, especially in the financial district. I thought this one, for example, was pretty nice:

Shiny LED trees in a Toronto park. Still no snow.

Slayers are so helpful on the #BuffyRewatch

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slayerThis week’s rewatch covers the episode “Help,” which is the one where a young teen predicts her death, and Buffy tries to stop it.

Today is the last really full week of work for my Novel One students at the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program. They’ll walk out with a first chapter, an outline, and a plan for moving forward with their projects. Starting next month, I’ll be teaching “Creating Universes, Building Worlds,” which is the speculative fiction course with a focus on short stories. There are still some slots for students in this one; if you have any questions, let me know.

In terms of one-on-one mentorships, I will not be taking new students for at least the first couple of months of 2014. I could be persuaded to run a waiting list, so if you are interesting in this and we haven’t talked before, reach out.

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving, if you happened to celebrate it last week.