Girl Detective

This week’s box from our Community Supported Agriculture share contained the following; I’ve added what I have done or will do (bwa ha ha) with them:

Romaine lettuce: Caesar salad, of course
Spinach: wilted spinach salad with bacon and hard-boiled eggs
Turnips: roasted “croutons” for Caesar salad
Turnip greens: I’ll saute and serve under sushi rice salad
Radishes: thinly sliced on bread with goat cheese, and in sushi rice salad
Radish greens, finely chopped and mixed into sushi rice salad
Scallions: in sushi rice salad, in frittata, on veggie bagel, wherever I can think of
Snap peas: ate ‘em raw
broccoli: make a broccoli and anchovy sauce over spaghetti, from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything
Kale: I’ll saute it with garlic and white beans and serve over gemelli pasta.

Twice I’ve tried to make the Cook’s Country recipe for Black Bottom Cupcakes–chocolate cupcakes with a cheesecake-like filling. Both times the cupcakes burned. The first time I thought it was because I used foiled cupcake liners instead of paper. The second time I wondered if putting all 24 in the oven at the same time was was too much. Both times I was upset; I rarely burn a baked good. I felt like a failure.

Yesterday, I did some research. At Baking Bites, the blogger thought the recipe’s oven temp of 400F too high. She recommended 350. On Smitten Kitchen, I found a different recipe that also recommended 350. I tried 350, and I made a half batch of 12 cupcakes. It took at least 25 minutes for the filling to set, but the outsides did not burn. I am vindicated. The Cook’s recipe burns at 400, works well at 350, and making just one dozen worked well for me. Here is my adjusted recipe.

Black-Bottom Cupcakes, adapted from Cook’s Country

(Do not substitute regular chocolate chips for the miniature chips. Regular chips are much heavier and will sink to the bottom of the cupcakes.)

Makes 12
8 ounces cream cheese , at room temperature
1/4c. + (1/2c + 2Tbl.) sugar
1/8 + 1/4 teaspoon salt
1 large egg white, at room temperature
1 tablespoon plus 3/8 cup sour cream , at room temperature
1/4 scant cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips
3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder
1/2 + 1/8 teaspoons baking soda
2/3 cups water
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Line standard muffin tin with cupcake liners.

2. With electric mixer on medium speed, beat cream cheese, 1/4 cup sugar, and 1/8 teaspoon salt in medium bowl until smooth, about 30 seconds. Beat in egg white and 1 tablespoon sour cream until combined, about 1 minute. Stir in chocolate chips and set aside.

3. Whisk remaining sugar, remaining salt, flour, cocoa, and baking soda in large bowl. Make well in center, add remaining sour cream, water, butter, and vanilla and whisk until just combined. Divide batter evenly among cupcake liners and top each batter with 1 rounded tablespoon cream cheese mixture. Bake until tops of cupcakes just begin to crack, 23 to 25 minutes. Cool cupcakes in tin for 10 minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool completely. (Cupcakes can be refrigerated in airtight container for up to 2 days.)

I love the idea of related reading–delving deep into topics that interest me. My reach, however, nearly always exceeds my grasp. After I re-read Michael Chabon’s Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, I reserved a number of books from the library: The Escapists by Brian K. Vaughan, Dark Horse Comics’ Amazing Adventures of the Escapist, v. 1-3, Love and Other Impossible Pursuits (the latest novel by Chabon’s wife, Ayelet Waldman, whom I’ve read much about, though never read) and The Ten-Cent Plague by David Hadju, (a well-reviewed non-fiction book from 2008 about the censorship of comics in the fifties after their meteoric rise as a medium in the forties). I doubt if I’ll manage to read all of these before something else jumps to the head of the queue, like the Infinite Summer challenge, but I’m going to give it my best shot.

This week I read all three volumes of Dark Horse Comics’ Amazing Adventures of the Escapist, collecting the six-issue comic-book run of a few years ago. Like Brian K. Vaughan’s The Escapists as well as Chabon’s source novel, the series blends fact and fiction so the reader can either wonder (and possibly research) which parts are “really” real, or just go along for the ride. These books include stories and editorials interweaving comic-book history and material from Chabon’s fictional world, with both new and classic authors and illustrators.

Volume 1 has an introduction by Chabon, and opens with the Escapist’s origin, illustrated by Eric Wight, best known now for his comics work for the television show The O.C. It has an eye-catching cover and clever back-cover parody by award-winning cartoonist Chris Ware. I loved the Luna Moth story written and illustrated by Jim Starlin. My favorite piece, though, was the closing story “The Lady or the Tiger, illustrated by Gene Colan and written and with a preface by Glen David Gold (author of the Kavalier and Clay-esque Carter Beats the Devil).

In Volume 2, the standout was the opening story, done in the style of EC’s horror comics, written by comics vet Marv Wolfman.

Volume 3 has stronger stories than 2, I thought, with Will Eisner’s final work, along with a war tale, a noir mystery, a twisted romance and a closing story about euthanasia.

As with any anthology, the quality varies, and the presence of the work by some legends is sometimes more notable than the actual work here. But this is a top-notch production, with excellent covers, heavy paper and great art. It’s a good companion to Kavalier and Clay, and a lark for fans of Chabon’s book to see his fictive comic-book character in actual comic books.

We received our first half box of vegetables last week from our fall as part of their Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. It took all week, but I used it all, including the greens from the radishes and the kohlrabi, and the stems from the kohlrabi and chard. I crammed in three recipes in the last 24 hours: pan-fried greens with tofu last night, frittata with greens for breakfast, and “tabbouleh” for lunch. Taboulleh is in quotes because I had to use couscous instead of bulgur, but it turned out well in any case, and was a perfect vehicle for the odds and ends left in the fridge–salad dressing, radishes and greens, cucumber, olives–all of which I served over the last of our lettuce.

I didn’t have to throw anything away, but many of the greens were looking quite tired yesterday and today. Running out of produce (which I doubt will be an issue as the summer waxes) by using it sooner is a much better problem than using it up at the last minute. Running out means I buy anything else I need from our grocery cooperative. Rushing to use it at the last minute almost ensures having to throw something away. And the thrifty housewife in me (goddess knows where she came from–I didn’t get it from my mother) can’t stand that. So I’ll try to use more produce sooner this week. My veg bin stands empty and waiting.

or, I finally got got.

For years, I’ve heard what a great show The Wire was. It was so great the love for it was even parodied on Stuff White People Like. Anytime it was mentioned, someone was certain to say some variation on “You haven’t seen it? It’s great! You must!”

Since summer is mostly reruns, and since tv critic Alan Sepinwall is helpfully re-watching and posting about season 1 (last summer) and season 2 (this summer), and since my friend The Big Brain finally got his DVDs back from somebody else to lend to me, I started watching. The first episode was good, but it didn’t strike me as having the heroin-like addictive properties others had ascribed to it. So I watched the next episode, then the next. It was about episode three or four that I was hooked like everybody else. I’d come to love this crazy menage of complex characters.

Which made it all the more difficult when something bad happened last night to one of them (no spoilers here, I swear). But that didn’t stop me from wanting to blaze right into the next episode–I find it difficult to restrict myself to just one episode a night, since they’re almost a full hour long.

I’m two-thirds through season one, and I’m here to tell you: if you haven’t seen The Wire, it’s great. You must!

I buy more books than I can read, and more dvds than I can watch. But dvds of television shows are especially difficult. They seem like they’ll be fun, easy and enjoyable, yet they actually require sustained attention. Then, when I lapse, I feel the need to go back to the beginning and start again, consuming even more time.

In 2002, ABC released a dvd set of Sports Night, Aaron Sorkin’s half-hour comedy that ran for two seasons before he decided to focus on The West Wing. I’d seen the episodes before, taping them on VHS from some rerun marathon. G. Grod and I started watching them again on DVD but stopped somewhere in season 1. Then Shout Factory announced last year that they’d do a 10th anniversary collection, with better quality transfers and extras. Did I buy it even though I already had the set from six years ago that I hadn’t finished?

What do you think?

I was encouraged because tv critic Alan Sepinwall is re-watching and posting about the episodes during summer reruns. (So far he’s done “Pilot” and “Apology“) Because of that, and because I’ve set up a semi-regular watching schedule with friends, I stand a chance of watching all the episodes again.

If you didn’t catch Sports Night in any of its go ’rounds, I recommend it highly. It’s about the crew of a third-rate sports show on a low-rated network. The banter is fast and funny, and the characters quickly endear themselves. It’s one of the few shows that many argue never jumped the shark. (Perhaps its secret was that Ted McGinley was in the cast from the get go, not brought in later.) If you like Sorkin’s writing (The American President, A Few Good Men, The West Wing), or if you just like good television, check it out.

It’s been nearly a month since 5yo Drake’s preschool ended, but our summer activities just began. I registered both boys for swim lessons. Drake had fun; 3yo Guppy did not. Drake also started a summer day camp at one of the local parks today.

Bigger changes are afoot, though. Drake, previously a very picky eater, ate arugula last night. He LIKED it! And Guppy got up in the middle of the night to get his own cup of water, rather than crying for me to do it. Then today Guppy used the restroom, unprompted, twice.

I’m under no illusions that things will progress in a linear manner, but it IS nice to have some positive change.

A friend recommended Your Three-Year Old: Friend or Enemy? by Louise Bates Ames and Frances L. Ilg to me when Drake was three, Guppy was one and I was losing my mind. Time passed, things with Drake became a little less fraught, and I didn’t get around to it. But with some of the recent, frequent struggles with the previously agreeable Guppy, I decided to look up this book. I hadn’t forgotten its memorable, and apt title.

This is an honest book, as its title might suggest, though the authors are quick to answer the title’s question at the end of the first chapter: your three year old, despite evidence to the contrary, is not your enemy. It covers child development, comparing three and three and a half year olds to two and four year olds, while also acknowledging that all kids are individuals and on similar but different timetables. Three and a half, they note (the age that Guppy is closest to) is extremely difficult. Tantrums are normal, and struggles with basic routines like getting dressed, meal times and bed times are constant sources of conflict.

First published in 1985, it’s somewhat dated, but the basics still apply. Note, however, this is NOT for parents looking for detailed science, and it might offend some attachment and homeschooling families. The authors offer no magic advice, just sympathy with a dose of realism. They recommend getting support from babysitters and daycare providers so parents and kids get a much needed break from one another. Distraction at this age, is better than discipline. Above all, they note, is just getting through the day with both parent and kid as unfrazzled as possible.

Today, for instance, I signed the boys up for swim classes. 5yo Drake went off with his teachers, but 3yo Guppy got in the pool with his group, but stopped, refused to go farther, and kept hollering for me. I tried to convince him to join the other kids, as did two of the instructors. Then I gave up, and got a refund for the class. He’ll probably be ready some other time, but it wasn’t this morning. It certainly wasn’t worth a power struggle over something that’s supposed to be fun.

A French film that didn’t get much box office love during its limited release last year, Tell No One (Ne le dis à personne) is mysterious and compelling. Dr. Alex Beck is a widower, and on the 8th anniversary of his wife’s death, he receives an email suggesting he’s still alive. When he tries to find out more, bad things happen to him and those around him. A great rental if you like dark, stylish thrillers. A US remake is in the works, according to IMDB.

I saw the new animated feature from Pixar, Up, earlier this week with my nearly 6yo son Drake. I cried three times, he was scared about as many times, but overall we enjoyed it. One of my favorite fleeting moments of parenting is sitting in the dark with Drake, watching a movie and hearing him laugh with delight. I love sharing that moment with him.

In addition to the balloons, old man and pudgy boy featured in the ads, Up has a delightful dog and bird, both of whom often steal their scenes. It’s rated PG for good reason, though. There are some scary chases, both by dogs and up high, and a cruel villain with a gun. In general, I think this is better for school-aged kids (I was glad not to have brought 3yo Guppy) and not for kids afraid of mean dogs, guns and heights. Also, I opted for the 2D, not the 3D, which I think would be better for kids older than Drake.

While it’s no Wall E, which I thought one of the best films of last year, and perhaps Pixar’s best yet, Up is still very good and worth seeing. It’s beautiful to look at, and has stuff to appeal both to kids and to adults, without resorting to the cheap pop-culture references of Pixar’s low-rent imitators.

The Escapists by Brian K. Vaughan is one of several comics inspired by Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Like that prose novel, this graphic novel plays with the boundary of reality and fiction. In it, a young man from Cleveland, Max Roth, buys the rights to a defunct comic-book character, the Escapist. He finds two friends to help create a new version of the comic book, then tries to publicize it in the manner of the character’s creators, Sam Clay and Joe Kavalier. It tells the story in real time, with flashback and pages of the fictional comic the team creates, all with different artists to distinguish the changes in story. Like the novel it’s inspired by, The Escapists is clever with sympathetic characters, a layered narrative, and a story both tragic and hopeful. A fitting, post-modern complement to Chabon’s excellent novel.

I first read Michael Chabon’s Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay in the sleep-deprived, surreal days following the birth of my son Drake, now almost 6yo. He was hungry around the clock, so I nursed him lying down so I could read at the same time. I even got a book light so I could read during the night feedings. I remembered the book itself only vaguely, yet the physical act of reading it–nursing, switching sides, wrestling with the book light and an unwieldy hardcover–is still very clear.

I was surprised, then, on this re-reading, to find this book not only extremely well-written and crafted, but also so enjoyable. How could I not remember how flat-out GOOD this book was? Well, I remember it about as well as I remember Drake’s earliest infancy. THAT I don’t need or want to go through again, but this book was a delight to rediscover.

The book details the friendship and collaboration between Josef Kavalier, a WWII Jewish refugee from Prague, and Sam Clay (ne Klayman). The cousins are in their late teens, and break into the burgeoning business of comics by creating a character called The Escapist.

The long run of Kavalier & Clay–and the true history of the Escapist’s birth–began in 1939, toward the end of October, on the night that Sammy’s mother burst into his bedroom, applied the ring and iron knuckles of her left hand to the side of his cranium, and told him to move over and make room in his bed for his cousin from Prague.

The book is a wild mixture of history, fabrication, Jewish lore, metaphor, comic books, romance, and adventure, all told through a fascinating panoply of complex, engaging characters. I’m a comic book geek, so the lengthy sections on comics history were interesting to me. The book likely would be a tougher read for someone with no interest or experience with comics. Even so, there’s so much going on in this book, I’d be very surprised if a reader didn’t find something to like, even love, in this sprawling epic.

Yesterday was my first day with a CSA share, or half of one, to be precise. I was lucky enough to inherit a few weeks of veggies last summer; the freshness and variety convinced me to invest this year. Today’s box included the following. After some research, I’ve added storage tips and probable recipes.

Spinach: Surprise! Don’t wash right away. Keep in loose bag till ready to use, then stem and clean. I’ll make Tofu with Spinach Sauce.

Kohlrabi: remove greens and store unwashed in loose bag till ready to use. Store bulb in vegetable drawer (cold and moist). Peel and cut up bulb raw to use in salads. I’ll use greens with chard and bok choy in Pan-Cooked Greens with Tofu and Garlic*.

Arugula: wash, dry, and store in plastic bag with paper towel to absorb extra moisture. I’ll make Tuscan-Style Steak with Arugula and Parmesan.

Radishes with greens: Remove greens, wash and store like arugula. I’ll use radishes in Tabbouleh*.

Broccoli: cut off bottom of stem. Store upright in shallow water. I’ll make Stir Fried Beans with Broccoli*.

Bok Choy: Don’t wash till ready to use. Keep in loose bag till ready to use, then wash and dry stalks. For Pan-Cooked Greens with Tofu and Garlic*.

Swiss Chard: Like spinach. When ready to use, trim stems, then remove leaves from them with a sharp knife under running water, letting the leaves fall into a bowl; rinse off additional dirt from leaves and dry. Roughly chop stems, then add to recipe a minute or two before adding leaves. For Pan-Cooked Greens with Tofu and Garlic*, and More Vegetable Than Egg Frittata*.

*From Food Matters by Mark Bittman.

The entire title is a bit unwieldy: The Woman’s Book of Yoga and Health: A Lifelong Guide to Wellness by Linda Sparrowe with yoga sequences by Patricia Walden. I call it The Purple Book for short, and I refer to it so frequently I have never lent it out. I’ve even considered dissecting it so I could take certain sections with me on vacations or breaks instead of toting the entire nearly 3-pound book. Thus far, though, it’s intact, and it’s gone with me on short weekends and long family trips. If you are a woman with even a passing interest in yoga–even if you’ve never tried it before–I can’t recommend this book highly enough.

It begins with three series: Essential, Energizing, and Restorative. Sparrowe recommends practicing at least three times a week, and fitting the practice to your needs alternating essential with energizing or restorative if you’re injured or run down. The subsequent chapters offer further specific information, health advice and yoga sequences for a comprehensive array of issues: menstruation, menopause, pregnancy, back injuries, headaches, depression, and more. Yoga sequences are illustrated by clear photos and detailed descriptions, along with benefits and cautions.

This book is a terrific reference, and I’ve learned a great deal about yoga from using it, even though I’ve never read it cover to cover. I can always find at least one yoga pose to suit my circumstances, and usually have to restrain myself from doing more. I can almost always fit in three yoga poses a day, even at my busiest and most harried. What I like best about it, though, is its practical approach. At core, it recommends eating, resting and exercising in moderation.

No matter how often you do yoga, you can’t hope to prevent or heal your health problems without making other lifestyle changes. If you practice yoga, but continue to eat poorly, get very little sleep, or stay in abusive or stressful relationships (in either your personal or work life), chances are you’ll continue to get sick.

While it’s the kind of advice that seems so obvious it doesn’t need to be stated (and many medical doctors don’t), Sparrowe does it in a reminding manner, not a nagging one. I’ve had this book since it was published, nearly seven years ago. Not many books have that kind of staying power, especially ones that can be reductively classed as self-help. This one, I’ve found, is a keeper.

I wrote last week about my 5yo son Drake, and our struggles with some of his behaviors that are typical of kids on the autism spectrum. At that time, I tallied three steps forward and two steps back. I might have known I was jinxing myself.

The day after, Drake found one of his digital watches and spent most of an hour singing tuneless nonsense words while he timed himself. I was surprised at this not because it’s a new behavior, but because it’s been gone for months; he used to do it frequently at home and at preschool. Additionally, he’s having more extreme outbursts of temper. If I tell him no, he will sometimes throw himself to the ground, crying and screaming at full voice, at home and in public. These are both regressions, and disheartening after the cautious optimism about progress.

When we saw one of his teachers the other day, he smiled, but would not speak to her. Later, though, he said, unprompted to a friend, “Hey, I want to introduce you to one of my friends. I don’t know if you know him.” Then today I got a progress report from school. He overcame some problems he was having in music class. But he never initiated play with another kid. It feels like every step forward is negated by one step back.

It’s silly to keep score, even if events were quantifiable. And it’s hardly useful for me to pin hope and despair on fluctuations in his behavior–he’s growing and changing all the time. So I’ll celebrate any progress, and remember it usually comes with a regression in something else, so I shouldn’t be alarmed. That approach typifies my sense of parenting, one I’m not always able to enact, though I do keep trying: Enjoy things when they’re good, and don’t flip out when they’re bad. Or, in the newly fashionable phrase, “Keep calm and carry on.”

My elder son, now-5yo Drake, was not a sleepy baby. Newborns are supposed to sleep around the clock; he didn’t. Drake was alert all the time. He slept rarely, and for short intervals. He didn’t sleep through the night until he got his own room at just over a year old. It was, as many can imagine or empathize, a source of stress.

I followed all the advice for Drake: bedtime ritual, warm bath, dark bedroom. Yet for the first six to eight months, I couldn’t put him in bed unless he was asleep. Even then, as I gingerly laid him in his co-sleeper, then his crib, I’d slowly back away, muscles tensed in a combination of fear and hope. About half the time, he’d start to cry and I’d have to go through the whole comforting/singing spiel again. So whenever I saw a movie or television scene of a parent going into a child’s room, stroking their head, and talking to them, I started to rant. That was ridiculous, unrealistic, romanticizing, etc. etc. Kids didn’t sleep that soundly. There was a reason someone advised, “Never wake a sleeping baby.”

When I heard Colin Powell’s comment upon hearing that President Bush was “sleeping like a baby” on the eve of war with Iraq. I laughed. Finally, someone had got it right.

I’m sleeping like a baby, too. Every two hours, I wake up, screaming.

But then, as so often happens, things changed. Around age two, Drake started napping for hours at a time, and sleeping soundly at night. With now-3yo Guppy it happened even sooner. I even sometimes find myself in the reverse dilemma from Drake’s infancy: I have to wake them, and it’s not easy.

I’ve made my peace, then, with the sappy parental bedtime scenes. I’ve had a few of my own. I _can_ go into their room, remove the books from the beds, kiss their heads, and pull up the sheets. When they’re lying there, abandoned in sleep with rosy cheeks, it’s easy to forgive a lot of the tumult of the day that went before.

Until the next day, that is, when the screaming and the hollering and the “MOM!”ing and the neediness starts all over again. But I’ve got most of a good night’s sleep to help me weather it.

James Cameron, fresh from Terminator, directed Aliens, the sequel to Ridley Scott’s Alien. Scott’s movie was dark, brooding, psychological horror. Cameron wisely takes the sequel in a different direction, adding many more monsters (though only six suits were used, he claims in an interview on the special edition), many more characters, and a lot more action. Ripley’s character still gets room to develop, though the others around her tend to be caricatures, albeit entertaining ones, like Bill Paxton’s Hudson, who talks tough till he meets the aliens:

We’re all gonna die man!

or Michael Biehn’s good guy, who has the good sense to value Ripley right away:

Ripley: [pointing to part of gun Hicks is showing her] What’s this?
Hicks: That’s the grenade launcher. I don’t think you want to mess with that.
Ripley: You started this. Show me everything. I can handle myself.
Hicks: [chuckles] Yeah, I noticed.

With the aliens, as with the humans, the mother figure is in charge. The men around her support and protect her, but she’s the one not to mess with, especially if her offspring, literal or metaphorical, are threatened.

Seventeen minutes of deleted scenes were added back in to the theatrical release to make the Special Edition DVD we watched. They were fine scenes, adding detail and character, but not necessary. Given the amount of action and horror, I’d have preferred a shorter edition. Action, or movement, was key to Cameron’s take on the characters. He put less detail into the alien suits, but made them more mobile. He hired gymnasts and athletes and instructed them to move quickly, and inhumanly. This, along with the editing, gives the impression of a legion of aliens, not just a paltry half dozen.

The character of Ripley recently topped Sci Fi Online’s list of “Women Who Shook Sci Fi.” (Entertainment Weekly has a geekish, though valid, quibble with the list.) Also, there’s an Alien prequel in the works. Even with all the kerfuffle, I think I’m going to skip installments 3 and 4. I saw them when they came out, and prefer keep the memories of the very good 1 and 2 unsullied.

Did you know the movie Alien was thirty years old? Ridley Scott’s space-monster classic has aged surprisingly well. It’s a pleasure to revisit it, and be reminded of how many later films, not only its sequels, have stood on its substantive shoulders.

In space, no one can hear your scream.

A mining ship is on its way back to Earth. The crew is awakened out of stasis after the ship, Mother, intercepts what seems to be a distress call. Tension builds among the characters as they gradually figure out what’s going on. There is an iconic dinner scene, a scary monster designed by H.R. Giger, and some kickass performances, particularly that of a then-little-known Sigourney Weaver. My husband G. Grod and I wanted to revisit this and its sequel, Aliens, after watching Cameron’s Terminator and T2. I’m now v. much looking forward to Aliens, on deck for tonight if I can stay awake for the special edition’s whopping 154 minutes.

I do so love a good arbitrary deadline. Some of the folks from The Morning News propose reading poor, dead David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest this summer. Four writers who’ve never read it are guides, with other guest experts joining them along the way. They start 6/21 at summer solstice, and ends 9/22 at the autumn equinox. It works out to about 75 pages a week. Totally do-able, no?

Speaking of chunky classics, David Copperfield is the selection for the next book club (real and virtual) at Semicolon. Sherry does the online book world a great service every week by hosting a Saturday Review of Books, where readers can share links to what they’ve written, and find other blogs by other readers.

My husband and I bought the Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 2 dvd set when it came out, watched a few episodes, then put it away. We had no idea where we’d ended, so we went back to the beginning, starting with Season 1, episode 1. Buffy is a fun show with a dark sense of humor and a way with theme and metaphor. Season 1 was Buffy finding her bearings in Sunnydale and battling the Master, an ancient vampire bent on, what else, releasing hell on earth.

Season 2, though, digs deeper and even darker. The series moves away from some of the sillier “monster of the week” episodes, and spends more of its time on the bad guys: Spike, Drusilla, and a friend turned foe. It still finds time for the funny, though.

Oz: Yeah. Hey, did everybody see that guy just turn to dust?
Willow: Uh, well, uh… sort of.
Xander: Yep. Vampires are real. A lot of them live in Sunnydale. Willow will fill you in.
Willow: I know it’s hard to accept at first.
Oz: Actually, it explains a *lot*.

Nasty stuff happens to characters we’ve come to love, and we get to see how it affects them over time. I found the two-parter in the middle, “Surprise” and “Innocence”, along with the season finale, wrenching stuff. The Amazon reviewer sums it up well, I think: “This is some of the best TV ever made, period.”

While the media is abuzz over a silly rumor about Buffy that will likely never come to pass, do yourself a favor: ignore the gossip and revisit the original series. It’s a perfect show for the summer season of reruns.