This one’s kind of random: the etymology of “OK.” Apparently, use of the word can be traced to a single newspaper article on March 23, 1839. After that, its rise to popularity came courtesy of Martin van Buren. An interesting read, if you’re into weird things like that.
Have a great weekend.
For the past week, I’ve been working obsessively on something. Here it is: a Buffy music video, set to Macklemore’s “Thrift Shop.” Silly? Yes. But also a hell of a lot of fun to make, and maybe even a little fun to watch. I spent dozens of hours on it, correcting and adjusting and fine-tuning, and although it’s still not perfect, I’m pretty happy with the result.
Enjoy!
Warning: contains strong language.
By the way, if you like that, I also did an Avatar video to the same song.
A few weeks ago, I took Betsy’s car in to the dealership for some repair work. When they were done, they handed me a customer satisfaction survey, which said the following (paraphrasing):
We consider anything less than a 10 to be a failing grade. If you can’t rate us a 10, please tell us how we can improve.
It’s a nice sentiment – they have high standards, and they want to get better. But the statement really bugs me anyway. Here’s why.
First, there’s no definition for what a 10 means. Is it really good service? Astoundingly good service? The best service I’ve ever had at a car dealership? The best service I’ve ever had anywhere? The best service I can hypothetically imagine? (That last definition, by the way, could lead to other problems.)
I have no idea what a 10 means, and I’m not sure they do, either. So their statement is like saying “We are absolutely committed to hitting the bullseye, which is…somewhere.”
But let’s say we did have a definition, something like “extremely good service,” which is still vague and arbitrary but better than nothing.
Well, for starters, “extremely good” is inherently subjective, so the dealership is considering itself a failure if it doesn’t meet the highest expectations of a wide variety of conflicting quality scales. There’s no way to make everyone very happy (or even a little bit happy). They’re guaranteed to fail.
But even if getting a 10 from everyone were theoretically possible, it would still be ridiculous. Think how much time and money and effort and preparation and training it would cost to make everyone’s experience extraordinary. Think how exhausting that would be for the staff. All to ensure that they don’t “fail” by getting a 9 from me.
You can’t run a dealership that way. I wouldn’t even want them to.
I realize I’m being a little crazy here. I’m dissecting and over-analyzing an innocuous statement. I get that.
I guess the statement just bothers me because it doesn’t mean anything. It’s disingenuous. It puts me, the customer, on a pedestal that I didn’t ask for and that wouldn’t be possible anyway. Just fix the car, and I’ll pay you. That’s the extent of the relationship I want.
Rant over. Next week I’ll complain about how my sofa is excessively comfortable, and you can feel sorry for me about that, too.
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My ten-year-old niece and her father came to stay with us this weekend. She’s smart, inquisitive, and a lot of fun to talk to. Ten is a great age, because you know so much already, but there are so many horizons left.
I showed her the Spinning Dancer optical illusion. You can see it at the top of this page. The dancer on the left is spinning clockwise, the one on the right, counterclockwise. But the one in the middle is ambiguous – it can be perceived as spinning in either direction, and you can “switch” it by looking at the left or right image. (Actually you can “switch” it without the help of the other images, but it’s harder.) Here’s some more information.
This is pretty cool for a lot of people the first time they see it. But I showed it to my niece, and it blew her mind. She spent five minutes staring at the screen, trying to figure out what was going on. For her, the illusion wasn’t just new or different. It conflicted with her understanding of reality on a fundamental level. I could almost see her mind adjusting its rules to accommodate a universe where this sort of thing is possible.
I imagine this kind of feeling happens to almost everyone. It certainly happens to me.
I still remember the high school math class where I learned that 0.999… is precisely equal to 1. (Multiply both sides of ⅓ = 0.333… by 3 for an easy proof.) I didn’t believe it at first – it was just so foreign to the way my brain worked. I think it took me a full day of thinking it over before I could accept the truth. Apparently skepticism about this particular equation is very common.
Truly world-altering revelations like this seem to get rarer the older you get, but I hope they still happen once in a while. You need a good mental revolution every so often to keep you honest.
Has something like this happened to you?
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Standard Disclaimer
This is fan fiction of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, which were created by Joss Whedon. If you like, you can read my thoughts on the ethics and legality of fan fiction.
[Start reading story from beginning]
Chapter 9
Willow was in her comfy clothes, sitting on the couch at home, a bag of salt-and-vinegar potato chips open beside her. She crunched one as she waited. The viewscreen in front of her read:
Charles Gunn
CEO, Wolfram & Hart, Worldwide
Los Angeles, California
Connecting…
A minute later he appeared, breaking into a wide grin. “Willow!”
He sat behind a huge desk with absolutely nothing on it, wearing a suit that must’ve cost more than a small car. Still sporting the goatee, still a cue ball on top.
Well, you know. If a cue ball were black.
“Charles.” She smiled. “How are things in Lawyer Land?”
“Oh, it pays the bills. And it pays for a few additional houses, on which to pay the bills.” He laughed. “No, but it’s good. You realize that next week is the 10-year anniversary of the Universal Demon Common Code?”
“Wow,” said Willow, trying to remember what that was. “The UDCC.”
“For the first time ever, a legal framework governing every demon on Earth. No more vigilantes. We arrest, try in court, sentence if guilty.” He shrugged. “Still a few kinks to work out, like…most demons don’t accept our authority. But we’re getting there.”
“That’s great! Really great.”
He chuckled again. “And it’s putting you to sleep right in front of me. Fair enough. What’s on your mind, Miss Rosenberg?”
Pleasantries over. He wouldn’t be smiling much longer. “I assume you’ve heard about Sunnydale?”
Charles nodded. “The entire underworld’s buzzing with the news. It’s like demon Christmas. Which, I guess, would be pretty weird. Are you going?”
“Yes.”
“I figured. Be careful. I know you can take care of yourself, but there are some seriously big-time players gearing up for a piece of this action. Things so dark they make Freddy Krueger look like Edward Scissorhands. I haven’t got names yet, but it won’t be pretty.”
“As expected.” Assume the worst, and you’re never disappointed. “I’ll have my witches there, plus Illyria. And the Council is sending a team of Slayers.”
“That’s a good start. But I’d bring a little more firepower, if I were you.”
“Actually, that’s what I want to talk about…”
“Oh no.” He waved a hand. “Stop you right there. I can’t give you any special forces. This is a battle, not a police action. Wolfram & Hart agents are spread too thin as it is.”
“Special forces weren’t quite what I had in mind.” She paused, feeling rather dramatic. “I want you to give me Vault Forty-Seven.”
“Vault Forty-Seven,” he repeated dully.
“Well, not so much the vault, as what’s inside.”
“That’s, um.” He stroked his goatee. “That’s some pretty heavy artillery, Willow. What are you going to do with it?”
“Exactly what you think.”
“Yeah.” Charles leaned forward. “Sorry, but um, I have to say no on this one. I’d like to help, and Lord knows I’d love a front-row seat to whatever kind of crazy you’re planning. But if we start giving power to vigilantes, it could seriously damage the firm’s reputation.”
Willow smiled. “I’m sure you have ways of handling PR situations.”
“Yeah, we do. Mostly by preventing them.” He shook his head. “Sorry. My answer’s final.”
“No, it’s not,” said Willow. “You’re going to give me what I want.”
Silent for a moment. More curious than defiant. “And why is that, exactly?”
“Because I’m calling in my favor.”
He stared at her.
“Your favor,” he said. “The one you’ve been sitting on for almost two decades?”
“I don’t recall it having an expiration date,” she said mildly.
“No, no, I didn’t mean that. It’s just…” He laughed again, mostly from surprise. “This is what you’re using it on? You can ask anything you want from the CEO of an interdimensional multi-trillion-dollar corporation, and this is it? Don’t get me wrong, it’ll get the job done. I just always assumed you’d go for something…bigger.”
Willow smiled.
“As far as I’m concerned,” she said, “it doesn’t get any bigger than this.”
Chapter 10
That night found Willow rummaging through old boxes and seldom-opened drawers. She finally found what she wanted in a corner of the attic, nestled under a stack of National Geographics from 2003.
She carried her prize down retractable wooden stairs, into a guest bedroom, where she sat cross-legged on the floor to examine it.
The Sunnydale High ’99 Yearbook.
A red cover with odd-looking art: three faces staring at the sun. (You could go blind. Was that what they wanted to teach impressionable teens?) At the bottom, in big, serious letters: ‘The Future Is Ours!’
She flipped through it, searching for one picture after another.
Willow Rosenberg. Rockin’ the overalls, of course. Not so much a smile as a look that said ‘I’m having intestinal cramps.’
Alexander Harris. A grin that could only be translated as ‘Hey, ladies.’ She was probably the only girl in school who’d ever found it sexy.
Daniel Osbourne. Having a staring contest with the camera, and winning. Oz lived in Tibet now. Last she heard, a grandfather, and owner of a surprising number of yaks.
Cordelia Chase. Prettier than you, and knew it. Who would ever have thought, all these years later, she would actually miss Cordelia?
And finally…
Buffy Summers. Warm, honest smile. Glowing with optimism. Not a child, not innocent, even back then. But still, mostly, herself.
Going back, seeing her this way – it could break your heart.
Willow closed her eyes. When had Buffy changed? When had the darkness crept in?
You could point to any number of traumas, of course. Loss of her mother. Death and harrowing resurrection. Annihilation of her hometown.
A lot of people told Willow the real change had happened during the war. Connor being turned to a vampire, he and Angel staking each other’s hearts at the same moment. The death of Andrew, and of so many Slayers.
The day that Diabo’s vampire thugs traveled all the way north to Colorado, took Dawn hostage, and hacked off part of her leg as a warning to Buffy.
It was supposed to intimidate her.
He obviously didn’t know Buffy.
Spike told Willow later, he had never seen a human being so angry. Hadn’t understood, really, what anger was capable of. That night, he learned. No screaming, no swearing. No throwing things around. Buffy was far beyond those minor tantrums. It was almost gentle, this rage, in its exquisite sharpness, its single-minded unity of purpose. It was a physical force, irresistible and serene.
Spike had never seen it before. But Willow had. She had felt it, breathed it, tasted it. Carried a piece of it, still, in her heart. Willow and Buffy, they understood each other fine.
A team of commandos rescued Dawn. Later that night, Buffy and Willow stormed the Palace, just the two of them. Witch in the sky, Slayer on the ground, they split the world between them.
Diabo was dead within forty-five minutes. They wrapped up the rest of the war in a few weeks.
That was when she changed, people said. And maybe it was true.
But for Willow, the real change had come three months later, during a rare sunny day in London. They were on vacation – sitting together on lawn chairs in St. James’s Park, eating overpriced watercress sandwiches, watching pelicans on the lake.
She could still remember the exact words that had shifted the course of their lives.
“Will,” said Buffy, “I’ve been thinking.”
“Not allowed,” Willow said brightly. “This is relaxing time only. If I see you with even a single idea, I’ll drag you to the stockades.”
Buffy didn’t answer, and Willow realized they had drifted into something serious. She put down her sandwich, worried. “What is it?”
“I’ve been thinking,” said Buffy. “I want to kill the vampires.”
Willow frowned. “As opposed to what you’ve been doing for the past twenty years, chasing rainbows and cuddling puppies?”
“No,” said Buffy, still looking at the water birds. “I mean, I want to kill them all. I want to eradicate their species. I want to wipe them off the planet.”
“Oh.” Willow wasn’t sure what to say.
“I’m tired, Will. I’m tired of fighting one battle after another, when nothing changes. I’m tired of playing hero like it’s some kind of game. I want to finish this. Forever.”
Willow reached for Buffy’s hand, but found her fingers tight, unresponsive. She pulled back, really concerned. “Well, um. What did you have in mind?”
“Start with their power sources.” She was getting warmed up now, constructing her idea aloud. “Where do vampires draw their strength? The Hellmouths. So let’s destroy them. There are thirteen in the world. I say that’s one down, twelve to go.”
“Wow. Uh, that’s a pretty tall order. I mean, theoretically it’s possible, but…”
“Next. Their allies. Who are the biggest vampire sponsors anywhere? The Senior Partners, Wolfram & Hart.”
Willow was still playing catchup. “You want to stop them from…”
“I want to kill them.”
“Okay, Buffy, listen. Listen to me. Please?” She tugged at her sleeve and finally got the Slayer’s attention. “I know you’re hurting. I can’t imagine how much. But this stuff you’re talking about? We’re kind of in crazy territory here. The Senior Partners are older than the universe. Their entire dimension is a fortress. There are whole categories of magic that only exist because they invented them. Think about what you’re saying.”
She wondered if that would make her mad. But Buffy looked back to the water, undisturbed.
“I have thought about it,” Buffy said. “A lot. And I think it’s time we stop selling ourselves short. With one Slayer, one witch, and some friends, we killed a god. Remember? Now we have dozens of witches, hundreds of Slayers, all the resources of the Watchers’ Council, mountains of cash. And you. You’re ten times stronger than you were back then. A hundred times. Whatever we want to do, let’s do it.”
Willow kept silent. She could see her friend had rehearsed this talk, needed to get it out.
“And then we come for the vampires.” Buffy stood up, paced over the concrete path, animated. “We step up the game. No more of this medieval weapons crap. We think different. We stop treating it like a series of fights, and start treating it like what it is. Genocide.”
Willow’s throat went cold. “Yeah, when you’re selling your plan to a Jewish girl, maybe don’t bill it as a genocide? Not really one of our favorite words.”
“This is different. They’re not people, Will! I didn’t hear you complaining about the first few thousand I slaughtered.”
That was the first real flash of anger, but it faded at once.
“I’m just saying,” Buffy continued, “we need to get efficient. Industrial. Let’s figure out the tiniest amount of wood that qualifies as a stake, encase it in a bullet. Let’s explore the limits of holy water. Can you spray it as steam? Can a priest bless a rainstorm, or the moisture in the air? Let’s do it. And sunlight. I want to shine it in the dark. I want to synthesize it, weaponize it. We’ll find a way.”
She was really getting into it, using her hands, sculpting invisible futures in the air.
“And we need to go further. Long-range vampire detectors. Chemicals that toxify human blood, without hurting humans – we can put them in the water supply. Gases that stop vampires metabolizing blood – we can pump them in the air. We just need to do the research.”
Buffy sat down again, hands clenched tight, a fresh intensity in her eyes. “And when we’re ready, we sweep the cities. Big ones first. We go block by block. Spread out from there. Sterilize the major infections. After that, the rest is just cleanup.”
She was nodding.
“We can do this, Will. We can make it happen. I know I can get Giles onboard. But I’m coming to you first. I can’t do it without you.”
Buffy leaned toward her urgently.
“What do you say?”
Willow rested her head in her hands, thinking. Trying to find a path of logic through the doubts and the worries. Trying to figure out what, exactly, bothered her about this scheme.
It wasn’t the epic, near-insane difficulty of the plan; she had followed Buffy into hell before, and she would again. Nor was it the ruthless, massive, calculated violence; though that made her uncomfortable, she knew Buffy was basically right. Vampires were monsters, not people, and they ought to be exterminated.
What bothered her was Buffy herself. The hunger in her voice. The grim, predatory set of her jaw.
Willow didn’t care what this would do to the vampires. She cared what it would do to her friend.
“Buffy,” she said at last. “You know how this ended for Captain Ahab, right?”
Buffy’s smile was colder than Siberian tundra.
“Ahab hunted his whale in a wooden ship,” she said. “Let’s try it in an aircraft carrier.”
They talked about it for three more weeks after that. But in the end, Willow said yes.
And now she was sitting on the floor, looking in a yearbook at a girl who no longer existed.
What would become of the woman who’d taken her place?
What would become of them both?
Here’s Wordnik: a dictionary on steroids. Type in a word or phrase, even slang and nonstandard words, and you get:
Have fun!
Sekrit projekt to be revealed soon (if all goes well). In the meantime, have a giggle.
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Spend enough time thinking or reading about fictional worlds, and you’ll come across the concept of canon. What is canon, and why does it matter?
The term is borrowed from religion. A church’s canon is its core text, its founding documents, the books that tell its history truthfully (as the church sees it) and outline the tenets of the faith. Anything in the canon is real, accurate, reliable. Anything outside the canon is secondary at best, heretical at worst.
Now look at a fictional universe like Star Wars. You’ve got the movies, of course, but also cartoons, books, comic books, video games, and even more. Literally thousands of pieces of art created by lots of different people. How do you know what’s real – that is, what “really” happened in the context of the Star Wars universe – and what isn’t?
Canon is the answer. If it’s canon, it happened. Otherwise, not so much.
If you’re not a geek, this sounds absurd on the face of it. What do you mean, canon is what “really” happened? It’s fiction. None of it really happened. What does it matter?
It matters if you’ve ever stayed up till 3 a.m. reading an amazing book that you couldn’t put down. You turn the pages because you want to find out what happens next. You know, rationally, that none of it’s real, that nothing actually “happens.” But for the moment, it’s real in your mind. That’s what stories are all about.
And that’s what I mean by “real.” What’s part of the story, and what isn’t? What happened to the characters, and what didn’t? When you talk about this universe with other fans, what belongs to the universe, and what doesn’t? Non-canon stories can do all kinds of fun and goofy things; they can tell alternate histories, make weird jokes, cross over with other fictional worlds; they can contradict canon all they like. But they’re just for fun. They don’t answer the big question: what happens next?
So that’s what canon is about. But how do you know what’s canon and what isn’t?
The short answer is, the creator defines it. The creator of a story, by definition, sets the parameters of what does and doesn’t belong to the story. He can point to some of his own creations and say “That’s not part of the story,” or he can point to other people’s creations and say “That’s part of the story, but that isn’t.”
In fact, the creator can even shape canon directly, without using any work of art as a medium. For instance: Buffy’s birthday is given as October 24, 1980, at one point in the show, and May 6, 1979, at another point. To resolve the contradiction (and various other birthday-related issues), Joss Whedon declared that Buffy’s “real” birthday was January 19, 1981. So that’s what it is, even though it’s never appeared in a canon “work” (to my knowledge), and even though it contradicts what would otherwise be canon information.
So, canon is whatever the creator says it is. Simple enough, right?
Well, not exactly.
The creator could be dead. Or she could be alive but choose not to answer questions of canonicity, or give answers that are ambiguous, inconsistent, or incomplete. Or a world could have multiple creators of equal “authority,” who might contradict each other. Or a particular work might have multiple versions, leading to confusion about which version – if any – is canonical. Or two canonical works might contradict each other. Or an unfinished “canonical” work might be published after a creator’s death, leading to debate over how true it was to the creator’s vision.
In a weird way, I find these little puzzles fascinating.
Tolkien’s Middle-earth, for example. The Lord of the Rings (I mean, of course, the book) is clearly canon, as is The Hobbit (in its most recent version; there have been several). But putting aside those two neat and tidy packages, you’ve got a whole giant mess of notes that Tolkien left behind, mostly unpublished within his lifetime, mostly about the First Age – the stuff that happened long before Frodo was born.
These notes were collected and published – with astonishing diligence – after his death, by his son, Christopher Tolkien. They never had any finalized form to them. They were endlessly revised, often self-contradictory. The younger Tolkien made a valiant attempt to extract a single coherent narrative, which was published as The Silmarillion. Is that canon? In this case, I think you just have to accept that the boundaries of Middle-earth are a little blurry.
What about Star Trek? Roughly speaking, the shows and movies are all canon, the novels and comics aren’t. Except that, when you get down to details, it’s a mess. Trek creator Gene Roddenberry seemed to have a sloppy and ever-changing notion of what was and wasn’t canon. And nobody can agree on The Animated Series, or “reference” books like technical manuals. The whole situation has its own separate article on Wikipedia, if you’re interested.
The Buffyverse is better off, mostly because creator Joss Whedon is a geek and actually cares about questions like this. The TV shows (Buffy and Angel) are canon, the movie isn’t, some specific comic books are, most comic books (and novels) aren’t. The status of certain comics is ambiguous, but the big-picture situation is pretty clear.
Star Wars is really complicated, and the canon situation has changed over time. But (very) roughly speaking, there are tiers of canon. The movies are top-tier, 100% canon. The cartoon shows are second-tier: canon in all cases except where they might contradict the movies. Novels, comic books, and games are largely third-tier: they build on the movies, and try to keep up their own internal consistency, but new movies (like Episode VII) are free to trample all over them.
Regardless of what the creators say, I think there are usually “tiers” of canon, in practice, in the fans’ minds. Most fictional universes have a central, indisputable “text” – The Lord of the Rings for Tolkien, the live-action shows for Star Trek, the live-action movies for Star Wars, the two TV shows for Buffy – and everything else, no matter what anyone says, is secondary.
This notion of a de facto canon leads us to fanon. Fanon is fan + canon, that is, the stuff that fans consider to “really” have happened, regardless of what the creators say. The most infamous example of fanon is Han Shot First. (Yes, that has its own Wikipedia article too.)
The original version of Star Wars has a scene where Han Solo and Greedo (green alien dude) sit down at a table in the Mos Eisley cantina. Greedo has a gun on Han. Han slowly reaches under the table, grabs his own blaster, quick-draws, and takes the guy out.
When George Lucas released the Special Edition in 1997, it had all kinds of little changes. Among them: now Greedo shoots at Han first, misses, and then Han shoots. (Later editions of the movie fiddled with the scene still further.)
Fans hated the change. Why? Well, first, because Greedo missing at point-blank range makes him seem utterly incompetent, and thus, less threatening. Second, because it removes any shred of moral ambiguity from the scene, making Han a less interesting character. (Not like it was that much of a gray area anyway – I mean, Greedo had a gun pointed right at him.) And finally, because it alters a beloved classic for no good reason.
Lucas can say whatever he wants. Any self-respecting Star Wars fan knows what happened in the cantina. Han shot first – that’s fanon.
You can get break this down even further, from the beliefs of the fandom at large, to the individual fan. Any sufficiently obsessed fan probably has “headcanon” – their own private version of what did and didn’t happen. (I swear I’m not making these words up.)
Take Avatar. The party line is that the comics post-TV-series are just as canon as the show itself. But I ain’t buyin’ it. The idea that Aang would agree to murder his friend – when the central conflict of the series finale was that he wouldn’t even kill his worst enemy? And I’m supposed to accept this from a script writer who wasn’t even involved in the show? (No offense, Gene Yang.) Forget it. My headcanon says it never happened.
You can even have worlds where there is no canon, no central text, at all. Just lots and lots of contradicting stories with rough similarities.
King Arthur is a good example. Most everyone knows the basic elements of the Arthurian world – the Round Table, Queen Guinevere, the Quest for the Grail, etc. – but there’s no master document to clarify the details. You pick a story you like and get lost in its own, unique interpretation for a while.
I would argue Batman is in the same boat. His story has been told, retold, rebooted, retconned, interpreted, and adapted so many times that I would say there is no single, authoritative version.
In one sense, throwing away canon is nicer. Simpler. More room for artistic license. You can just sit back and enjoy each story on its own terms.
But on the other hand, there’s something pure and enticing about a precise, beautiful, undiluted world like the one in Lord of the Rings.
And that was quite possibly way more than you ever wanted to know about canon. Post script, oh my goodness I am a nerd.
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Standard Disclaimer
This is fan fiction of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, which were created by Joss Whedon. If you like, you can read my thoughts on the ethics and legality of fan fiction.
[Start reading story from beginning]
Chapter 7
Dawn led Willow briskly through the white, antiseptic halls of the E. Johnstone Psychiatric Hospital.
Dawn’s navy skirt left her lower legs bare, and Willow couldn’t help but glance at her right calf, which had a slight polymer sheen under the glare of the LED bulbs. You might not even notice if you weren’t looking for it. And that was a ten-year-old model – the new prosthetics today were indistinguishable from the real thing.
Willow had asked her once about upgrading, but Dawn said she didn’t care if people noticed. Why should she? If it made someone uncomfortable, that was their problem.
In some ways, she hadn’t changed at all.
“You haven’t seen the room since they remodeled, have you?” Dawn was saying. “It’s a lot better. I think he’s happier now.”
Willow tapped her wrist. The time blinked there briefly. “It’s almost ten. Will he still be awake?”
“Should be. He only sleeps six hours a night. You know how active he is.”
“How often do you visit?”
“Two or three times a week, if I can.”
They stopped at a door that read:
Rupert E. Giles
Rm 2389
Dawn touched the doorknob, looked back to Willow. “Sometimes he knows me. Usually not. If he isn’t, you know, there, don’t push him too hard. It just gets him mad, or scared.”
Willow nodded, a queasy feeling growing in her stomach.
They went inside.
The room was huge, nearly as big as Dawn’s entire flat. Left and right walls fitted with floor-to-ceiling oak shelves, every inch crammed with books. Personal area on the far side, bed and a curtain, bathroom door half-open, shoes and clothes lying around.
In the middle of it all, four big tables, each with a pile of books.
Not a hospital room. A library.
“It’s incredible,” Willow murmured. “Can’t believe how much they expanded. This must have cost a fortune.” She gave Dawn a sharp look. “You’re not paying for any of this yourself, are you? ‘Cause you know I can…”
“Everything courtesy of the Watchers’ Council,” said Dawn, with a hint of pride. “Thank God, for all the struggles we’ve had, we’ve never lacked for money.”
Willow set her eyes on the figure at the far right table. With a deep breath, she went to him, Dawn following behind.
In many ways, he looked just as he had in high school, all those years ago. Slightly rumpled gray tweed suit. Old-style glasses, probably non-corrective, as he’d long since gotten laser surgery. Clean-shaven. Standing over an open book, left hand marking his place, taking notes with the right. Yes, he was more wrinkled now, hunched over a bit, hair thinning and gray. But it was still him. Still Giles.
Except…
Except he hadn’t looked up when they approached. And something…there was no other way to say it. Something was missing in his eyes.
“Yes,” he muttered to himself. “Yes, these markings certainly indicate the artifact was created by the Patoreth clan. But the grammar…” He squinted at the book, flipped a page forward, back again. “The system of verb declension is unprecedented for this region.” Now he was scribbling in the notebook. “If I could reproduce…”
He went on.
“Try calling him Rupert,” Dawn whispered. “He seems to respond better to that.”
Willow cleared her throat. “Hello, Rupert. We came to visit you.” No answer. “Do you know who I am?”
Giles halted suddenly, looked her up and down. “Of course,” he said. “You’re Willow.”
She and Dawn exchanged grins.
“Willow Rosenberg,” he continued, returning to his book. “Yes, I’ve read all about you. Very famous. Instrumental in the human victory at the Battle of the Palace, Rio de Janeiro. The eighth of April, in the year of Our Lord 2015. Arguably the turning point in the Great Vampire War.”
Willow’s smile slipped.
He was pacing, now, wagging his finger as if lecturing. “The war began, of course, with the vampire Gabriel o Diabo. Diabo’s key insight was to transform the siring of new vampires from a haphazard personal affair into a systematic and disciplined method for building a vampiric army. At the height of his power, he controlled Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, and parts of Argentina and Peru.”
“Yes, that’s right,” Willow said gently. “Rupert, I’m here with you right now. Willow Rosenberg is here. I want to talk to you. Can we do that, Rupert?”
He gazed up at the ceiling a moment, lost in thought, then went to the shelves as if hunting for another book.
Willow glanced at Dawn again, then back to him. “Giles,” she tried.
“Rupert Giles,” he said, finger still moving over the spines of books. “A controversial figure. President of the Watchers’ Council for seventeen years. Sometimes criticized for allocating immense resources to certain projects deemed…”
Always the same tone. Dry, but somehow lively, in an academic sort of way.
She kept pace with him. “What about Joyce Summers? Do you know her?”
He switched gears seamlessly. “Mother of Buffy Anne Summers, widely considered the most prolific and effective Slayer of the last century. Joyce’s influence on the Slayer during her formative years cannot be overstated. Her unexpected death is frequently cited as a key event in the early…”
Willow listened. Be patient, she thought. Give it time. But inside she felt terribly hollow.
“Jenny,” she said.
“The Djinni are a race of quasi-spiritual entities, originating in the Arabian Peninsula, most known for…”
“Jenny Calendar.”
The finger stopped. The lecture fell silent.
From behind, she watched him lift his head.
“What did you say?”
Heart beating quicker, Willow kept her voice steady. “Jenny Calendar. Do you know who she is?”
He turned around. Looked at her – actually saw her – for the first time.
Softly. “Yes.”
“Would you like to see Jenny again?”
He studied her. Searching.
Barely a whisper. “Yes.”
“Would you like to travel to Sunnydale and see Jenny Calendar again?”
Slowly, he took off his glasses, wiped them, put them back on.
“I believe I should like that very much indeed.”
“Okay.” Willow was nodding, over and over. Couldn’t stop. “Okay, Giles. We’ll go and see Jenny again. Okay.”
Giles frowned.
“Now where was I? I’ve lost my train of thought.”
Back to the bookshelves.
“Yes, yes. The Compendium of Elders. If I could locate the second volume, I could begin translating the key passage in the Zaddion Codex, which may shed some light on this grammar issue…”
Willow looked at Dawn and saw that her cheeks were wet with tears.
“Dawnie,” she said, then realized for the first time that she was crying too.
Chapter 8
Back in the flat now, almost midnight. They were leaning against counters in the dark kitchen. The only light was the moon gleaming on the Thames. Two empty wine glasses stood by the sink.
“Any progress on the research?” Willow said. “Any closer to finding him a cure?”
Dawn snorted. “You’d really think so, wouldn’t you? The largest pharmaceutical in the world, with an entire department working on it. But no. Not really.”
As expected. Willow blinked, tired but not yet ready to sleep. “Anything we can do to speed them along?”
“The manager’s requested money to build a whole new lab, hire dozens more researchers. I told her I’d check with your Foundation, but it’s so expensive, I figured…”
“No. If it goes to the Foundation, it’ll be tied up in red tape for months. I’ll pay for it myself.”
The least she could do.
“Uh, Willow.” Dawn slipped off her shoes and kicked them away. “I realize you’re rich and all, but no offense, we’re talking upwards of six hundred fifty million – ”
“I said, I’ll pay for it.”
“Wow,” said Dawn. “Okay then.” She curled her toes, watched her feet. “But you still won’t consider the Almada spell?”
Willow shook her head, not meeting Dawn’s eyes.
“It would cure him, Willow.”
“You remember what Giles said. No magical – ”
“Yeah, I remember. No magical cures to natural ailments. Crosses a line, goes against the order of things, blah blah blah. I won’t start the old argument again. I just…I miss him so much, you know?”
Willow crossed her arms, hugging herself. “Yeah. I know.”
For a while they stood together silent in the dark.
“Willow, do you remember Faith’s funeral?”
“Of course.” After all the demons, the chaos, the war, killed by a motorcycle crash in her early forties. “How could I forget? The first funeral in history with an open bar.”
“And a guitar solo.” Dawn was smiling.
“People always say funerals should be a celebration of life. But only Faith had the guts to actually do it.”
“And Xander was all twitchy because he had just gotten sober, and everyone was drinking. But he insisted on being there.”
Willow followed Dawn’s example and kicked off her own shoes. The cold floor felt good on her feet. “Did you know he lost his virginity to her?”
“That may have come up, like, twenty or thirty times. Every time it did, he tried to cover my ears, protect my innocence. I kept asking him where he thought my kids had come from.” Dawn’s laugh settled into a mischievous smile. “Speaking of which, I’ve always wondered…I mean, you don’t have to answer…did you and Faith ever…?”
Willow lifted an eyebrow. “Did we ever…what?”
“You know,” Dawn insisted. “Did you ever…do it?”
Willow sputtered and laughed. “With Faith? Oh, my goodness. She didn’t even like girls.”
“What?” Dawn practically shouted. “Are you kidding me? I just thought…I mean I always assumed…”
Willow was still laughing. “Straight as an arrow, Dawnie.”
And now she’s gone forever, said a voice in her head.
Her laughter died. Dawn must have thought the same thing, because she got serious again. She leaned back against the counter, gazing out the window.
“Buffy was there, too,” she said. “At the funeral. Nobody knew if she was going to show, but she did. She paid her respects, drank the booze, helped carry the casket. She was a good girl. Didn’t cause a scene.”
“I remember,” said Willow. “That was the last time I saw her in person.”
“And you know,” said Dawn, “what I really remember about that day? More than the drinks and the party and the strippers. I remember, right at the end, Buffy took me aside. Gave me the strangest look, like a trapped animal, or something. And she took me by the shoulders, and she said, ‘Dawn, when I die, don’t let anyone get on a stage and talk about me. Just put me in the ground. No eulogy, nothing.’ She wanted me to promise. I asked her why.”
Her gaze grew more intent, as if seeing past the river and the buildings to some distant, unimagined place.
“And she said, ‘Because if someone has to explain who I am, I haven’t done my job.’”
Dawn sighed and rubbed her neck. “I’ve never told that to anyone before.”
Willow took hold of her arm.
“I’ll get her to come,” she said. “I’ll find a way.”
“Thanks.”
And then, a long moment later:
“Wait. How did you find out Faith didn’t like girls?”
“I, uh…” Willow felt herself blushing in the dark.
Dawn laughed so hard she got the hiccups and had to hold her breath.
As you probably know, the great Leonard Nimoy died a week ago today.
The man who breathed life into Spock was by all accounts talented, intelligent, and kind. And though he was sometimes frustrated that people only knew him for one role, he eventually realized that, if you have to be known for one role, Spock is a pretty damn good one.
Spock himself was, in a word, fascinating. He was a geek before it was cool – a scientist, a logician, an inspiration to anyone who felt like an alien in their own life. Spock was not, as many people believe, emotionless. Rather, he had decided not to let his emotions define him. We could all use a little of that self-control sometimes.
A small selection of tributes to an outstanding actor:
Nimoy’s final Twitter post, which seems just right.
Scientific American remembers.
A great painting, titled I Am Spock.
Nimoy’s Bilbo Baggins song unites two of my favorite things in the world: Tolkien and Star Trek. It’s so adorably wonderful, it’s hard to believe it really exists.
A great commercial featuring the two Spocks: Nimoy and Zachary Quinto. A surprising number of inside jokes for something that was (I imagine) aimed at the general public.
And finally, one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen: Nimoy’s starring role in the “alternate official video” for Bruno Mars’s “The Lazy Song.” He doesn’t sing – doesn’t even speak – but he’s perfect. Just shows he wasn’t afraid to make fun of himself.
That’s all I have. If you’ve got any links or thoughts of your own, please, share in the comments. Have a stellar weekend. Live long and prosper.
Brian D. Buckley 