Pateman's Ponderings - the musings of Matthew Pateman

I was sifting through my files and found a couple of pieces. One is a long essay that expresses considerable concern over the representation of Willow as Jewish (because it seems to be so irrelevant to her being when one might expect it to have rather more informing power). I think this was for a seminar series but cannot remember. The the piece is super short and looks like a companion piece to strong defence of Beer Bad. It's short and the exact opposite of sweet! Willow Rosenberg, in the very last episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer , saves the world. She does so by summoning her extraordinary magical powers and performing a spell of such magnitude that it transforms all of the girls and young women who may have become the Slayer on the death of the previous one into a Slayer now. In other words, it alters millennia of (super)-natural law and lore and, in the process, allows Buffy (the current vampire slayer) to have an army strong enough to defeat the First Evil....

Trolls, hammers and and hints of the early pre-Anya days of the Nordic nuisance. A brilliant episode with  humour, great character development and tension (Xander's anger at being in the middle of the squabbling Willow and Anya is great), Anya's love of money... One of the most under-rated eps of the entire seven seasons, I think. Also, post Avengers ' Hulk, 'puny receptacle', anyone...! And here's the outline ( a revised version of an earlier one that I don't have) and the first and third drafts, separated by a mere nine days. I'm not sure where the second one is. Espenson writes of this episode: ‘Triangle’! Another one I like a lot. The troll was wonderful to write for. And I'm very proud of Spike's interest in the fried onion appetizer. And I love that he tries to be helpful with the location of possible babies - ‘what do you think - hospital, maybe?’

Revival Beach is the latest album by Indie rock band The Burning Hell. Literate and inventive, nostalgic and great storytellers, the band have gone through a number of line ups and always have jaunty, provocative, unusual songs to sing. The current formation is the trio of Mathias Kom, founder member and the one constant in the group, Ariel Sharratt who has been a member for the last few albums and who, in addition to her musical and vocal talents, also makes some of the band’s videos. And the final member is Darren Browne, long time member and along with Kom and Sharratt these three have been touring as The Burning Hell for ages. These are joined by guest musicians on different tracks. On a previous track , Kom sang ‘I guess I’m guilty of repetition / But I like themes and I like tradition’ and Revival Beach is chock full of many of the preoccupations, motifs, images and musical echoes that are such an integral part of their music-making. But, as with all of their albums,...