So give me a spark I can look for instead

My favorite band is breaking up. I feel understandably sad about this. But I'm glad that in eleven years they made seven incredible albums that I listen to almost every day. If the Woods is the last album they ever make, I'm glad that "Night Light" is the conclusion to their catalogue, achingly beautiful and obstinately hopeful. I'm glad that I got to see them three times (the show at the 2002 Siren Music Festival remains the single best set by any band I have ever seen,) and I'm glad I have my ticket to what may be their second-to-last show ever on Aug. 2 at Webster Hall. But I'm still getting all teary eyed, even if I'm not ready to say goodbye yet.




Yesterday, when I wrote that Buffy failed to address race, I neglected to discuss "Pangs," in which a vengeful Chumash spirit gives Xander syphylis and kills a bunch of people and Giles, SPike, Willow, and Buffy get into a stupid fight about political correctness and the legacies of colonial genocide. It's a horrible episode - certainly Jane Espenson's worst for the series - way worse than "First Date," Ashanti and all, and symbolizes for me the failure of the show to address race in a meaningful and valuable way. Plus, the cheap Angel tie-in is stupid, Riley is a doof, and the only good thing about the episode is Anya's constant babbling about sex with Xander, which is actually pretty awesome. Well, the other good thing about pangs is that it provides one of Anya's funniest lines in the song "I'll Never Tell" during the amazing season six musical epic-sode Once More With Feeling. That will have to do for now.

Oh, also, this is awesome.