October 22, 2004

When we came back from the field trip [to the ice cream parlor, with the children I used to work with], I met up with the after-school kids. They had a movie today: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

I enjoy the Harry Potter films. We have two boys, brothers, who are Jehovah's Witnesses, and they weren't allowed to watch the movie, because it has to do with Halloween and Jehovah's Witnesses don't celebrate holidays. They don't celebrate anything other than God herself, and I can see the religious point of that. [My co-worker] Debbie, however, declared it "stupid." The idea of respecting another religion just didn't occur to her.

September 22, 2004

While I sipped my coffee, I watched Harry Potter on the Chamber of Secrets on HBO. It was only the second time I'd seen the second HP movie. And I still haven't seen Prisoner of Azkaban.

August 6, 2004

I read in the newspaper today that filming has already begun on Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. It will star the same young actors as the first three: Dan Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson. And signed on to play Voldemort is Ralph Fiennes.

Ralph Fiennes is scary anyway--I shall never get over his evilness in Schindler's List.

He'll be terrifying as Voldemort. The movie's scheduled to be released in November of 2005.

July 11, 2004

With all the emphasis I've placed on children's literature lately, I should now note that July 11th is the birthday of E.B. White....

Having said that, let me state that today I finished reading Shadowmancer, a "young adult" novel by G.P. (Graham) Taylor. As I mentioned before, Taylor is a British vicar, but unlike his character Demurral, he is not an evil puppet of the devil. (That I know of.)

Now, some of the literary hype surrounding Shadowmancer compared it to the Harry Potter series. The same marketing concept was used on the Philip Pullman "His Dark Materials" trilogy (of which I've read The Golden Compass), A Series of Unfortunate Events, the works of Eoin Colfer, the works of Cornelia Funke (which I have not yet been privileged to read), et al.

But that's marketing. Taylor's work is neither as detailed nor as imaginative as Rowling's. When Taylor describes the supernatural creature the thulak, it recalls Rowling's descriptions of dementors. But Taylor shuns the idea that Raphah, or any of the protagonists, could be a wizard or witch. He unequivocally states that witchcraft is a tool of the devil, here called Pyratheon.

(It is unclear to me where Taylor comes up with these names - Pyratheon for the devil, Riathamus for God, Glashan for demons, etc. They may have meanings in Latin, but I don't understand them. I hoped there would be a website discussing the book to help me out here, but  I couldn't find one.)

And the book does tend to be preachy. Biblical phrases come from the mouths of nearly all the characters. The story is interesting enough, but the language can be a little clunky. Taylor uses the trite phrase "like a hot knife through butter" in one such passage. So I would in no way compare Taylor's storytelling style to Rowling's.

(Okay, so there is some language in the Harry Potter books that sounds a little funny to my inner ear. I seem to recall thinking there were a few too many descriptions of how Harry's stomach felt in Goblet of Fire, for instance.)

I would imagine Taylor is closer in spirit to the authors of the Left Behind series, Christian novels about the end of the world that crossed over to mainstream success. Nothing wrong with being a Christian writer, of course--it's not as though J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis suffered in popularity because of their spiritual beliefs....

That said, middle school girls who read Holes and enjoyed Kate Barlow may like reading about tough-on-the-outside, tender-on-the-inside Kate Coglan. If you find Hermione Granger to be too much of a goody-goody know-it-all, then I recommend Kate Coglan to you.

(Personally, I like Hermione. Her intelligence and level-headedness often save Harry's butt.)

June 20, 2004

[Yesterday] I was talking about Winx, the cartoon who goes to a fairy school near a heroes' school and a witches' school. I was going to point out the difference between fairies in the cartoon and fairies in J.K. Rowling's world.

The fairies in the cartoon were very human. They were the same size as the humans. The only differences were that the fairies had colorful hair and some of them had wings. They had magical powers, but they (the powers) were somewhat a magic spectre [I mean "scepter," probably] rather than being something intrinsic. They are fully the equal of the heroes and the witches. WINX's fairies are like Julia Roberts' Tinkerbell in the movie Hook.

By contrast, J.K. Rowling's fairies are definitely not human. They are magical creatures, but they are basically magical wild animals. They're all like the blue Cornish pixies who hang Neville from the ceiling in Chamber of Secrets. In Goblet of Fire, fairies are used as living Christmas decorations. I once said (on 9-28-2002, while "Mr. Elingtin" was in the hospital and I was reading Azkaban to escape some of my fear) that perhaps Snape was in love with a fairy, but that wouldn't be possible in Rowling's world. The only humans in Rowling's world are wizards, witches, and muggles. Even elves are tiny (relatively) and animal-like. The closest thing to Tolkien-like elves in Harry Potter's world are the centaurs. And centaurs choose to live apart from humans. Rowling may have created three magical schools, but none of them would admit fairies, elves, or centaurs.

If Severus Snape was ever tragically in love with someone doomed to die by Voldemort's hand, it possibly would have been a Slytherin witch. But I've long since abandoned that line of speculation. Currently I speculate on whether Hermione Granger lost her virginity to Viktor Krum. (Of course, we all know Hermione will eventually fall for Ron Weasley. He's already falling for her. In Order of the Phoenix, he got jealous of Krum, and bought Hermione perfume for Christmas. I'm just certain that at the end of Book 7 there will be a Weasley-Granger wedding.)

Thurs. April 24, 2008

This morning I did several cold calls to potential advertisers. I did this until noon, when Brie dropped off my nieces. Mostly Lydia, Eira, and I played at the park. But we also played with Barbies, ate ice cream, and watched Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Eira likes to pretend she's Hermione Granger.

Friday, March 14, 2008

When "Mr. Elingtin" came home, we went to Borders. I wanted to spend some of my $25 gift card from Gather.com. (Points, earned by posting content and commenting on others' articles, can be redeemed for gift cards. But it takes a long time.) Which I did, on a bag of white chocolate truffles and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Now I have every HP movie except Goblet of Fire.

Speaking of which, the Leaky Cauldron website is reporting today that Half Blood Prince will be made into not one, but two movies. I think that's an excellent ideas. That way they don't have to cut out so many of the subplots. I really hope they leave in the bit about Lupin and Tonks starting to fall in love. You know how I love a good werewolf romance. "Oliver's Famous Clam Chowder" is one.

This means Deathly Hallows will likely be two films as well. So I have four more Potter premieres to anticipate. At the rate of one film every 2 years, the last will be released in 2015. And Daniel Radcliffe will be, what, 25 by then? But that's okay. I'm sure he'll be able to pass for 17....

In the evening we undertook the epic task of watching the 1939 film version of Gone With the Wind....What else was surprising was that the Tarleton twins were not played by twins. I always pictured them as an 1860s Southern version of Fred and George Weasley.

Monday, Feb. 18, 2008

This Presidents' Day I spend the morning revising chapters 1-3 of Beltane.

In the afternoon, "Mr. Elingtin" and I went to Office Max. We had to get more party invitation paper and make more invitations for my dad's retirement party. We also went to Meijer for beer. I bought a box of Harry Potter valentines that were 50% off.

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Merry Christmas to one and all!....Now, as for presents that I received: there was money, and chocolate, and books. I got the hardcover versions of Harry Potter books 1 and 2 (intended for Brie, really, but she already got the boxed set), and The Great Women Superheroes by Trina Robbins....

[My brother] Kevin gave me a new cartoon version of Alice in Wonderland. And one of my favorite new things: the DVD of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. We watched it when we got home tonight. It was only the second time I've seen it. It's great, but I can't help but feel that there aren't enough scenes with Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Dora Tonks. I hope that when the Half Blood Prince movie comes out, it somehow includes the beginnings of the Lupin-Tonks romance....

"Mr. Elingtin" got snacks and money, too, but no books. He got some pajama pants. Kevin gave him beer. He also got a popcorn popper, 3 toy birds with a nest and a cage (similar to the cage in which Harry Potter used to keep Hedwig--before she was tragically killed by Death Eaters!)....

"Mr. Elingtin" and I waited 'til Dad got back from Reins of Life, then went home. Then, as I mentioned, we watched Order of the Phoenix. Oh, Sirius Black, how I miss you! Now I'll have to wait until 2009 to see the Half Blood Prince movie--and I'm not looking forward to Albus Dumbledore's funeral.

December 14, 2007

In the evening I read online about how J.K. Rowling produced seven, and only seven, handwritten copies of Tales of Beedle the Bard. Fictionally, this is the book that wizard and witch children read, like Muggle children read Grimm's fairy tales. The once-fictional-now-real Beedle has seven tales, one of which is told in Deathly Hallows.

But now she's written the other six. Six copies were given away by Rowling to people who were involved in the writing of the Harry Potter books. She auctioned off the seventh, with all of the proceeds going to charity. (I don't know which charity, but Amnesty International is one of her favorites.) The buyer was Amazon.com. It's unknown at this point whether the general public--and all of Harry's rabid fans--will get to read the tales, or at least an excerpt of them.

Saturday, Oct. 20, 2007

Today is the 67th birthday of the poet (and former US poet laureate) Robert Pinsky--who I've only heard of because he guested on The Simpsons. (I know what you're thinking--"guest" shouldn't be a verb. You're right. Pretend I wrote "guest-starred.") I wrote of him in "Poet's Day"--which I read at the Chicory Cafe today.

But first, I worked very hard to revise Beltane into a second draft, so that I could begin sending out Beltane queries.

While I was online today, I read that J.K. Rowling, as part of a book tour of the U.S., told an audience in New York that Albus Dumbledore is gay. She said that he was in love with Grunewald when they were young, and that was part of the reason that Dumbledore fell in with Grunewald's fascist schemes. He was blinded by love, in other words. The audience's reaction was applause. Now, it's nowhere in the books, but the author exercised her authority and said it. So Dumbledore was gay.

February 13, 2003

At work, Brad finished reading the kids Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone. P-p-poor st-stuttering Professor Quirrell turned out to be evil, and Snape was revealed to be protecting Harry. Then Dumbledore ate the earwax bean, Hagrid gave Harry the photos of Harry's parents, and Harry went home to the Dursleys for the summer.

(Isn't Quirrell a bit like Verbal in The Usual Suspects? It's always the one you least suspect who turns out to be Kizer Soze.) ....

After the library, I went to the post office and picked up the mail. Then I went to CVS. I got "Mr. Elingtin" some chocolate and a card for Valentine's Day. I also bought him some aspirin, which he's supposed to take every day. I could have spent money on a box of Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings valentines, or some stickers, but I resisted.

January 16, 2003

My greatest accomplishment at work today was finishing Artemis Fowl. It was a good story. Boy captures fairy, holds her for ransom. Fairies stop time and use a troll to try to get her back. Boy loses ransom, but makes a wish that heals his sick mother. And they all live happily until Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/photo/249747.Artemis_Fowl

The back pages of the book say a movie is being made. Not that I can't already picture Artemis, Butler, Juliet, Holly, and Foaly.

Now for the inevitable Harry comparison. In Artemis, fairies are highly advanced magical creatures, living underground and disliking humans. In Harry, fairies are not intelligent, much smaller than humans (Artemis fairies are Hobbit-sized), and are used as Christmas decorations.

Both books have centaurs. In Artemis, Foaly the centaur is a paranoid, wisecracking technogeek. In Harry, centaurs are wise and highly respected. They choose to live in the Forbidden Forest, away from humans. Foaly also shuns humans.

Trolls, ugly, stinky, and stupid, are the same in both.

As to Artemis himself, as I said before, he's a Slytherin. He's ambitious and deceptive, and a thief. But he does show nobility when he buys a wish to make his mother healthy. Artemis has no magic powers, though. Harry also breaks rules, but he isn't part of a criminal family, and he doesn't steal. (Well, there was the Marauder's Map...) Both boys have good hearts, but Artemis doesn't have good actions.

Speaking of Harry Potter, I read in today's paper that [book] #5, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, is coming out on June 21st.

January 10, 2003

Yesterday [at work] we'd read aloud a passage of Sorceror's Stone that mentioned Harry taking home to the Dursleys a note saying he'd somehow turned his teacher's wig blue. I drew the bald teacher scowling at her now-blue wig. That was my third drawing of the book.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/209363954/hed-somehow-turned-his-teachers-wig-blue

December 29, 2002

I will attempt to put this dream in linear, somewhat logical order, but this bears little resemblance to the way I dreamt it.

I was at work with a roomful of kids. I told them to each read a book, but as they were getting settled with their books, Rosalind [a co-worker] started reading them Harry Potter. I ran off to do some errand, which for some reason involved taking off my shirt and walking around in a bra.

I came back to hear a strange new chapter about Professor McGonagall. I became her as I listened, acting out the scenario in which the professor went to the mall and couldn't figure out where to park....During some parts of the dream I was thinking, "Why did J.K. Rowling write that?" ....

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/838626.The_Fellowship_of_the_Ring

Not much was accomplished during my waking life. I read the newspaper. I read that Sir Ian McKellen, who played Gandalf in Lord of the Rings, was hired to play Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban movie. I'm sure he'll do well, although Richard Harris was a perfect choice for the role. But who will play Fawkes the phoenix?

December 22, 2002

[I dreamed I was in a castle.] I also dreamed that my brother was dating a pig. She looked, smelled, and sounded like a woman, but I knew she was a transfigured pig. I talked to her as we walked through [an outdoor fair]. She told me she had 10 piglets, 4 of whom were in college....

Then there's the episode [in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland] with Alice and the Duchess's baby, with the baby turning into a pig. Oh, and Circe turned Odysseus's men into pigs. Homer Simpson/Odysseus ate the pig that used to be Lenny. But those are both human-to-pig transformations, not the other way around. Same deal Hagrid's threat to turn Dudley Dursley into a pig. Come to think of it, I may have been thinking about Harry Potter. That castle was a bit like Hogwarts....

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3.Harry_Potter_and_the_Sorcerer_s_Stone

At five we opened our presents to each other. "Mr. Elingtin" gave me a new thermal coffee mug, a Harry Potter DVD, and the Independence Day DVD. Cool stuff. But all I really wanted for Hanukkah/Christmas/Winter Solstice was "Mr. Elingtin's" continued health. That's all I want for the next 70 years. I love my sweet, sweet honey boy. I only want good things to happen to him.

We put Harry Potter in the DVD player [and] watched the movie. This time I noticed how different the beginning is from the first 2 or 3 chapters of the book. Then I played with the interactive DVD extras. They're fun; you'll have to get past Fluffy, pick the right flying key, mix potions, and select the right bottle to get to the sorceror's stone. There are also guided tours of Hogwarts, interviews, and deleted scenes from the movie.

Among the deleted scenes were 1) Aunt Petunia finding letters inside egg shells, 2) Dudley in his Smeltings uniform, and 3) a longer scene showing Harry's first Potions class, almost exactly like it is in Rowling's book. I really enjoyed those extra scenes.

December 14, 2002

I dreamed that instead of ducks on our property, we had foxes. "Mr. Elingtin" and I went out and picked up litter so the foxes wouldn't eat it. While we were doing that, we discovered a fox that had a head at both ends, as in the cartoon Catdog. The two-headed, gray fox went down the bank into the river and swam away.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41899.Fantastic_Beasts_and_Where_to_Find_Them

This dream was partially inspired by Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. There were no two-headed foxes in the book, but there was a three-headed snake.

December 12, 2002

Having finished Holes, we began to read some of the kids Harry Potter at work.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38709.Holes

Today I listened to the description of Dudley's school uniform: maroon jacket, orange knickerbockers, a straw hat, and a knobby walking stick. I didn't remember that, but it struck me so funny, I had to draw a picture. I hope I have several original illustrations by the time we're done w/the book.

By the way, I read Quidditch Through the Ages and started both of the other books. I especially enjoy reading about fantastical beasts. It's a very clever book.

But Connie Neal's book The Gospel According to Harry Potter is also interesting. She suggests that Albus Dumbledore us like God: he loves Harry, helps and protects him, but allows him free will to follow or break the rules and fight evil. Dumbledore hates evil, but is very forgiving of people who have done wrong (Hagrid, Snape). When, in the 1st book, Dumbledore warns the students they will die if they visit a certain hallway, it's like God warning Adam and Eve to stay out of the Tree of Knowledge. But I wonder if J.K. Rowling really asks, "What would God do?" when she writes Dumbledore.

December 10, 2002

After work we went to Value City to buy my mom some dishes we saw in the ad. They were out of 'em. But we bought some hats for "Mr. Elingtin," some calcium tablets, and a cheap, non-authorized documentary DVD about Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone, relating it to other kids' fantasy movies.

December 8, 2002

Today we went to my Mom and Dad's. My dad was watching football in the basement as usual. I helped my mom put decorations on her Christmas tree. It was fun to see my old rocking horse ornaments again, and other ones I collected as a kid.

"The Butterfly" by Luis Ricardo Falero, 1893. Public domain.

I also had to learn how to replace a lightbulb on a string of lights so I could group the fiber-optic fairies together on white bulbs. It was fun, too. You know, in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, fairies are summoned to be decorations at the Christmas Ball.

December 5, 2002

After work, I went to the library. I returned Annotated Fairy Tales and Trick or Treat. I got 3 supplementary Harry books. Two were written by J.K. Rowling: her thin Quidditch Through the Ages and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, both written under wacky pseudonyms.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/47534.Gospel_According_to_Harry_Potter

The third was called The Gospel According to Harry Potter. It tells how Harry and his friends exemplify religious values. Some religious people want to ban or burn the books because of the association of witchcraft with evil. There's nothing sinister in the books, really. No more so than in The Wizard of Oz or The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe....

I also stopped at Meijer...Other stuff I almost bought at Meijer included a book of "background" myths and folklore for Harry Potter (not authorized by J.K. Rowling)....

It was about 5 when I got home. I don't remember much about what he did next. But I probably began reading Quidditch Through the Ages.

December 4, 2002

Today I finished the fourth Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. It was the darkest, scariest book so far.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6.Harry_Potter_and_the_Goblet_of_Fire

First the Weasleys came and picked Harry up and took him to the Quidditch World Cup. While they were there, the gathered wizards and witches see the Dark Mark, the sign of Lord Voldemort, in the sky.

When school starts, the students learn that Hogwarts will be one of three wizarding schools competing in the Triwizard Tournament. It's a difficult and dangerous competition, so only the 17- and 18-year-olds are supposed to enter.

One student was supposed to be chosen from each school. But the goblet of fire selects 2 students from Hogwarts--Hufflepuff Quidditch player Cedric Diggory, and Harry Potter. (Harry was 11 in the first book, and has aged to 15 in the 4th book.)

The four students battle dragons, survive romantic complications at a Christmas dance, save their friends from the merpeople, and finally enter a maze. Cedric and Harry are just about to win the cup together when they're transported to a graveyard. There, Voldemort uses Harry's blood (and, in a gruesome twist, the severed hand of Wormtail, the wizard formerly known as Scabbers the rat) to get a new body. Cedric dies, but of course Harry fights off Voldemort again. Then Harry lives happily until Book 5 comes out.

Harry has a crush on the Ravenclaw seeker, Cho Chang. But Cho loves Cedric. Well, she did before Cedric died. Ron seems to have a crush on Hermione, but his head is turned by the supernaturally beautiful Fleur Delacour from Baeuxbatons school. (She's part veela, a beautiful woman who can turn into a harpy-like creature.) Hermione has a crush on a Quidditch player from the third school. His name is Viktor Crum. He likes Hermione, too.

Even Hagrid developed a crush, on the Beauxbatons headmistress, who is also half-giant. (She says she's just big-boned.)

Also, we learn that Snape used to be one of Voldemort's followers, the Death Eaters. But then he turned on Voldemort and became a spy, and has been fighting against the dark wizards ever since. Of course there's still the possibility that he may go back to his evil ways. I hope not; I like Snape and I want him to be good, even if he does hate Harry.

And that's just a summary of what I liked about Goblet of Fire.

Appropriately, I saw a TV show about J.K. Rowling on the Biography channel this evening. She said it was not true that she began the first book in coffeehouses because she couldn't afford a flat with heat. The truth is, Scotland is way too cold in the winter to live in an unheated apartment. Her daughter Jessica was an infant then, and now she's about ten. J.K. Rowling recently got remarried, and now she has a baby son, too. She's very creative, and she can draw, too. She also has already written the epilogue to the seventh book, telling what Harry and his friends did when they grew up, who they married, etc.

Personally, I think Ron and Hermione will get married and have seven kids, just like Molly and Arthur Weasley.