Gwenda

I’m as excited about Joss Whedon’s season eight of Buffy comics (though not as excited as I am about his run on the X-Men) as the next person still mourning the show. Jeff Jensen chats with Whedon about it in EW, which is also lovely, but I must call attention to this one wrong-headed bit at the beginning of the piece:

And save for that love it/hate it sixth season, the show never failed to deliver the goods.

I really, really hope that when Jensen says this, he’s acknowledging that in a good and true universe season seven wouldn’t even exist. It was TERRIBLE. Or has the collective wisdom on this changed? I fear going back to watch it. And while I’m in the camp of loving most of season six (yes, the magic = drugs subplot and what happened to Tara were wrong, but the musical was so very, very right), I still kind of feel like the end of five was the real finale. I will stop now.

Jonathan Safran Foer in the NYT on his dog in the context of the re-consideration of a leash law loophole in NYC that gives dogs some after-hours romp space. He goes on to make some larger points about how having animals in our lives — personally and collectively — is a good thing, if not always convenient.

Yeah, he’s won me over. I could never dislike someone with a dog named George — and he gets it*:

Our various struggles — to communicate, to recognize and accommodate each other’s desires, simply to coexist — force me to interact with something, or rather someone, entirely “other.” George can respond to a handful of words, but our relationship takes place almost entirely outside of language. She seems to have thoughts and emotions, desires and fears. Sometimes I think I understand them; often I don’t. She is a mystery to me. And I must be one to her.

Of course our relationship is not always a struggle. My morning walk with George is very often the highlight of my day — when I have my best thoughts, when I most appreciate both nature and the city, and in a deeper sense, life itself. Our hour together is a bit of compensation for the burdens of civilization: business attire, e-mail, money, etiquette, walls and artificial lighting. It is even a kind of compensation for language. Why does watching a dog be a dog fill one with happiness? And why does it make one feel, in the best sense of the word, human?

*And it’s nice to vicariously experience rowdy dog stories, in which your sweet angel dog (ahem) Emma actually chews relatively few things by comparison. As long as you keep the good stuff out of her reach, anyway.

New graphic novels aimed at teen girls in the NYT, featuring the fabulous Miss Cecil:

The first Minx graphic novel will be “The P.L.A.I.N. Janes,” written by Cecil Castellucci and illustrated by Jim Rugg. It tells the story of Jane, a transfer student in a suburban high school who starts a campaign, “People Loving Art in Neighborhoods.” It’s a call to appreciate the everyday world that comes to involve everything from protesting the construction of a new mall to encouraging pet adoptions from animal shelters.

…

The experience of survival is a personal one for Ms. Castellucci, 37, whose young-adult novels include “Boy Proof” and “The Queen of Cool.” In 1979, when she was 9, Ms. Castellucci witnessed a bombing by the Irish Republican Army in Brussels. In 1986, she was in Paris during a rash of bombings. Those incidents, and the events of Sept. 11, played a role in shaping the story.

And it’s the second installment of Diana Gill’s secret histories and con men roundtable with James Morrow, Jeff Ford, John Crowley and Tim Powers. And James Morrow kicks it off with his first contribution:

JM: Tim says, "I suspect not everybody will agree with me on this last point [namely that] I always at least hope that I have nothing ‘to say’ in my fiction. No relevance to here and now. If I see myself starting to write something that’s perceptibly a metaphor for something going on in the world today, I hope I always have the discipline to cut it out. " Well, Tim, you’ve come to the right place–I’m going to disagree with you, partly because I dissent from what I take to be your Poetics, partly because all of this mutual corroboration is starting to get on my nerves. Time to stir the pot, gentlemen.

Yay!

Charles Shields, whose biography of Harper Lee was published earlier this year, is starting work on a biography of Kurt Vonnegut. He would like to hear from any of you about your experiences with Vonnegut, "either personally or with his novels." He can be reached at cjs1994ATearthlinkDOTnet, or if you want a phone number send me an email and I’ll give it to you.