Joss Whedon: A Musical Celebration

“The Avengers” (or for those of you in the UK, “Avengers Assemble”) was wonderful, yes. No, I have not seen “Cabin in the Woods,” but I dearly want to. Now that I have graduated and have my beautiful bachelor’s degree, I all of a sudden have free time. And one of the ways I have been spending that free time is to continue in my epic quest to watch all of Buffy and Angel. (Firefly √, Serenity √, Dr. Horrible √, Dollhouse √) To celebrate all the Joss Whedon going on, I present to you the theme songs from all of his major TV projects.

(P.S. If you go to any of the actual YouTube pages for these videos and you haven’t seen the show in question, don’t read the comments. Spoilers abound.)

First out of the gate is the Buffy theme. Written and performed by the band  Nerf Herder; they recorded two different versions of this same theme, and I think this is the first one. Which is fine with me, because one of my favorite moments in the series (so far) is when they play the theme in the Season One finale.

When we get to the Angel theme, we arrive in L.A. with a more melancholic acoustic sound (though still with a rock edge). The song is “The Sanctuary” by Darling Violetta. The opening motive is quite beautiful.

And of course, the country song all nerds love, “The Ballad of Serenity.” Written by Joss and sung by Sonny Rhodes.

If you make the argument that the themes get progressively more acoustic, the next natural step would be Gregorian Chant. I give you the Dollhouse theme. (“What You Don’t Know,” Written by Jonatha Brooke & Eric Bazilian, Performed by Jonatha Brooke)

All of these except “The Ballad of Serenity” have extended or full versions you can find on YouTube.

I try to be my best,
Nathan Hathaway Adams

Watching

Given my post on reading, I have been doing some thinking on watching. Not seeing, watching. There is a very significant difference.

Seeing is something I do late at night when I’m bored and I’m staring at the television screen. If I’m lucky I transition to watching if something like “The Colbert Report” is on.

Watching is something I do when I get home from rehearsal and unwind by watching an episode of “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” on Netflix.

Seeing is a mindless absorption of visual information and we do too damn much of it. We need to stop seeing and do more watching. We need to think about what we see. Why is that child crying? What does that mean? Do I care? Is there anything I can do for him? We are only here for so long, and if we aren’t careful watchers life may pass us by, us having only seen it.

This is something I feel very strongly about and is something I am trying to incorporate into my daily life. Look around and watch. Observe. Listen. See the unobvious beauty in the scene that lay before me. Feel as the cool milk runs down my throat and really enjoy it.

What got me thinking about this was two-fold. One fold was reminiscing about reading “Our Town.” (A brilliant play about using the time that we have and a punch in the gut and a half. Go, read. My website will wait.) The second fold was television.

The idiot box is only that if you let it. I look around and see many wonderful television shows. It’s an exciting arena of serialized drama and there’s something thrilling about really engaging a show. Looking back it’s so much more fulfilling that randomly flipping through channels hoping for something to catch my eye.

I think that the advent of things like Hulu and shows coming out on DVD is huge boon to the world of television. A whole new culture of people who see it as a birthplace of art and treat as such is steadily growing. Watching a good television show discerningly is just as artistically valuable as watching a classic film or reading a book, and I treasure the hours I am spending this summer diving into such wonderful stories. But the only reason I can feel that immersion is because I’m watching, trying to do more than just see.

Whether it’s our daily lives or visual art, I really feel it’s imperative that we (you know, as a society and junk) take what we take in more seriously.

Observation is a preliminary step to action, and without action we might as well be rocks.

Don’t just see the forest and the trees, know what they mean!

Watching, always watching,
Nathan Hathaway