Kings Row borrowing

I've just noticed another John Williams borrowing: the opening march from Star Wars sounds uncannily like Erich Korngold's theme to Kings Row — a film from the forties starring one Ronald Regan. Want proof? Then listen again to yesterday's Composer of the Week.

Both worse and better

It says something about my normal state of health that, having caught the cold that's been doing the rounds at work, I actually feel somewhat better than I have done for months...

Daemon hunting

According to the daemon test on the Golden Compass site, I'm best represented by a snow leopard. While this suits my fickle feline personality perfectly, it's somewhat grander than expected — I've always thought of my daemon as being a neat, slightly aloof, black cat — but I'm not going to complain...

Hush

I wonder, is it possible? Could Hush be my favourite Buffy episode? Let's examine the evidence.

The episode starts off by having Professor Walsh state its key idea: that communication is not what we say, but the thoughts and ideas that lie beneath our words. Witness Buffy's failed attempts to communicate her growing affection for Buffy; Xander's inability to express what he really feels for Anya, Anya's inability to speak without putting her foot in her mouth; and Willow's Wicca group who talk and talk and talk whilst missing the central point about witchcraft — that it involves magic — and Giles' failed attempts to get Olivia to understand that monsters really do exist. Thus, when the Gentlemen steal the townspeoples' voices, they do them a favour, allowing them to communicate the things that they can't actually come out and say to each other.

But the catch is that so much of our communicate is non-verbal. From the whiteboards that Willow and Buffy buy — Will's look of contempt when she sees the board huckster is divine and so necessary to the comedy of their arrival at Giles' — to Maggie Walsh's computer voice to Giles' overhead projector presentation — is anyone else disturbed by the enthusiasm with which he draws the removal of the hearts? There's even a nod back to Nightmares in the way that Xander cups his ears, mirroring the active listening gesture from his school days.

Thus the character are able to explain all the things they haven't been able to put into worlds. Buffy is finally able to kiss Riley and both accidentally reveal their secret identities to each other. Xander demonstrates his feelings for Anya by smacking Spike around and An demonstrates that, despite having no voice, she's still able to communicate the most inappropriate thing under the circumstances. And as if that wasn't enough, the whole fiasco triggers the first real meeting between Willow and Tara.

The Gentlemen themselves are — by a country mile — the most monstrously wonderful of Buffy's monsters. Certainly, they are the most gothic of its monsters. There appearance, with their elegant dress and their floating gait, suggests that they stand apart from the quotidian and expresses their fundamental inviolability. They also manifest another key gothic trait: that, rather than directing their primary attacks against the body — which they do do, albeit as a secondary way of obtaining their required tally of seven hearts — they direct their attacks against one of the key features of what it means to be human: the voice. For without the ability to speak, humanity is lost: no matter how clever an individual animal may be, without a voice, it remains completely apart from its fellows; an isolated island of consciousness in an ocean of ignorance.

This, I think, explains why I love Hush so. It works so perfectly as a piece of recitative, pulling the narrative forward, forcing the various nebulous relationships to crystalise out of the solution of the series so far. It contains some of the very best, most gothic, monsters ever to appear in Buffy. It features some wonderful comic moments and some great acting. But most of all, it tells us something important about what it means to be human.

Stern on Bali

Today's Guardian pick is Nick Stern's short, crunchy piece on climate change and the Bali summit. Let's hope the politicians agree with Nicks three recommendations...