Would you like to see . . .

Mickey Mouse trying to kill himself? 100% real, drawn by the late Walt Disney during the 1930's.

Guess what was suprisingly good?

Holy Crap!!!!

Oh my goodness! So I was talking to my aunt this evening and we were talking about Harry Potter because she didn't want me to say anything about it because she hadn't finished it yet. Anyway, we were talking about how she was the one who gave me my very first Harry Potter book when it first came out in 1998 and she said that I ought to check if it was first edition because that was before all the hoopla about Harry Potter started up and they probably didn't print nearly as many as they did the consecutive years and she thought it might be a first edition. So I did! And it is! So then I checked AbeBooks to see how much it might be worth and first edition Harry Potter and the Sorcerer Stones are selling for like, 3,000 pounds, which is like, $5500! Anyway, I think I'm going to call up a book dealer and discuss it with them but if the price was right I wouldn't feel too horrid about parting with it at all. I mean, I have a bit of sentimental value attached to it but I could just as easily get a new copy and not care a whole lot. My mom said something about how I oughtn't ever sell it but seeing as it's mine, she's not got much of a say in the matter. I think I would buy my aunt a really nice present with some of the money. Perhaps someone wants a Xena boxset of every episode?

Anyway, I feel like I'm getting ahead of myself. First I need to contact a rare book dealer.

I'm off to see The Simpsons movie. Hopefully it won't put the entire series to shame like the last seven seasons have.

III

"But what after all is one night? A short space, especially when the darkness dims so soon, and so soon a bird sings, a cock crows, or a faint green quickens, like a turning leaf, in the hollow of the wave. Night, however, succeeds to night. The winter holds a pack of then in store and deals them equally, evenly, with indefatigable fingers. They lengthen; they darken. Some of them hold aloft clear planets, plates of brightness. The autumn trees, ravaged as they are, take on the flash of tattered flags rekindling in the gloom of cool cathedrals where gold letters on marble pages describe death in battle and how bones bleach and burn far away in Indian sands. The autumn trees gleam in the yellow moonlight, in the light of harvest moons, the light which mellows the energy of labour, and smooths the stubble, and brings the wave lapping blue to the shore."

To The Lighthouse pg. 127
Virginia Woolf

Done!

Good gracious! Well, it took 11 hours of pretty much straight reading, but I've finished the seventh and final book of the Harry Potter series! And I must say that it is quite well done. It's amazing the tonal shift, though. It's still Harry Potter, but it is certainly the darkest and most violent of the series. I shouldn't be surprised if they end up having to make the movie PG-13. It was really strange finishing it, though, because I'm so used to thing, "Good Lord! When's the next book coming out!" after I've finished a Harry Potter book that the finality just felt odd.

Anyway, I read from 12:40 am to 8:00 am and then from 1:00pm to 4:30pm. It is always very strange to read something so quickly when you're used to things taking so ruddy long. For example, I've spent the better part of the summer on Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse
and that's only a bit over two hundred pages! Anyway, it's finished and it feels right funny. I just can't wait for one of my other friends to get through it so we can discuss already!

Free Concert!!!

Today I went to a free concert!! The Decemberists were playing in the new Millennium Park auditorium place with the Grant Park Symphony and it was FREE! That was pretty much the most exciting part. I concert was good and everything, but we didn't get there until a little after five and it started at 6:30 and the grass was literally already all covered with people so we had to sit super far back. It was like the time we went to see Coldplay only not as bad because we sat even further back for that, we paid, and we forgot to bring food so we starved instead of buying a $6.00 slice of pizza.

Anyway, we (Maddi, Hana, and I) were like, okay, kind of sucks that we're so far back but whatever. People kept milling in and setting up around and behind us and it was fine until this old guy decides to plop a couple of lawn chairs down right in front of us! We had put 2 1/2 feet or so between us and the person in front (you know, personal space and all?) and he plopped his chairs right in between us. So we were all like, what the fuck? There was a couple beside us with a toddler and a couple several feet away and they were both like, what the fuck? as well, so it wasn't just us. This guy was seriously breaching lawn concert etiquette, which led me to believe that perhaps he and his wife who he brought over were patrons of the regular symphony that does not include The Decemberists and were confused and hassled by all the young people all over the place. I think the most irksome thing was that we were so far away that it really wasn't necessary that they sit there. They could have easily seen just as well (i.e. not at all) from further off in a less awkward position. Anyway, they set up a little table and got out some Brie and wine and Bud Light (?) and kept gesturing more and more people over until a little line of them was scattered in between the two feet people had put in between themselves and the people in front of them. It was really quite ridiculous. We were not being subtle about our disdain at all, either. They were either super dense of didn't care. Also they had a bunch of Hawkeye memorabilia, which, according to Maddi, makes them creepy because people who tailgate for the Hawkeyes are super intense.

It was still a good concert, though. We mostly sat through it and there was a bit of thunder and lightning during The Tain, which was appropriate and cool. At the end when they came out to do an encore featuring 16 Military Wives and The Mariner's Revenge, though, it felt a bit more like a rock concert because all the little kids were mostly gone and everyone was up dancing and stuff. It was a good time.

The drive home was crazy though. It was just pouring with rain. It was like Zeus had heard there was a free concert after the fact and was pissed that no one invited him. We had to even pull over for a bit because we really could not see. The lightning was cool, though. Then we went back to Maddi's and had some birthday cake in her honor (Agnes and Karlene came over too for that) and had a nice conversation with her mother about whether or not its a better idea to send your kids to public school or to home school them. She pretended a bit that it was about the level of education that Maddi and Hana were getting, but I knew the real reason. She's really just upset about the fact that Maddi and Hana aren't really religious at all anymore and blames the fact that she sent them to public school for it. She couldn't voice this though because she knew that we all would disagree with it and also that it's not a rational reason. Maddi and I kept kind of going, "Well, I don't necessarily think that home schooling is a bad idea, I just think that keeping your kid around only people who have a singular point of view is a bad idea because it doesn't make them a very well rounded person and it really shelters them." I don't think she's really changed her mind, but it's too late now and Maddi and Hana are the heathens we all know and love today!


2 days to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows!! Holy Shiznit!

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix = Big Disappointment

But really, what else is new? I knew it would be quite lackluster going in simply because it was only a little over two hours and the book itself is around 700 pages. I've read several reviews on this movie that are not favorable, but the reviewer never seems to have read the book. This is a review from the perspective of someone who has read all the books and loves them.

This is Harry's emo year, something I think he's allowed due to the fact that his childhood was a mess and he witnessed poor Cedric die at the end of Goblet of Fire when he found out for certain that Voldemort was back. Really though, that doesn't make the emo-ness any less funny. I just find it fairly realistic. Anyway, the fifth book was basically about foreshadow and the slow build up of dark power and it was quite dark and eerie. The movie, I think, did manage to capture this. What it did not capture was the nuances of the rest of the book. I mean, Harry Potter is in school. Harry Potter is on the quidditch team. The book is dark, but it's also quite funny. I think that overall Harry Potter is a good deal harder to do than other fantasy epics like Lord of the Rings because the characters are fully developed people that you really care about. The characters in Lord of the Rings were actually developed more in the movies; in the books they were nothing more than archetypes.

So here is my slew of complaints:

1) First off, their Miss Figg was awful. Just really awful! She's supposed to be frantic and angry but instead she's soft spoken and calm. I mean, for goodness sake! She's a squib and the boy she's supposed to be watching after's just been attacked by dementors! That was just awful.

2) Hermione and Ron weren't made Prefects. Are they just writing that out entirely from now on?

3) Quidditch was never even mentioned. Are they done with quidditch entirely as well? Because that had a lot to do with Ron's character in the later books. I mean, where is Ron's character without "Weasley is our King"?

4) Ron had all of four lines.

5) Having Harry and Cho make out in front of the picture of Cedric was unnecessarily gross.

6) What the hell was up with having Cho spill the beans instead of Marietta? And I know it would be horrid to mar Cho's pretty face, but they could have at least kept the bit about Hermione charming the contract everyone in Dumbledore's Army signed to spell out "SNEAK" in pimples if they betrayed the group. That was brill, and I loved Hermione all the more for it. Also, I realize this was a quick way to break Harry and Cho up without having go into all the issues involved with going out with the boy who watched your last boyfriend being killed by a dark lord who many don't even believe has returned, but still. Once it was let out that she only gave out because of veritaserum it kind of ruins it.

7) What was with all the development of Kreacher only to not have him play the pivotal role in the death of Sirius? Also, I could have done with the Sirius's mother's portrait occasionally shouting "Mud-Blood!" and "Blood Traitor!" That would not have been that time consuming.

8) It was nice meeting you for five seconds, Tonks!

9) I really didn't give a shite when Sirius died. Also, why did he die before he fell through the veil? That's not what happened in the book.

10) I think Malfoy spoke once. They're going to have fun with that in the next one when he has a huge part.

11) Why was Ginny acting kind of jealous? She wasn't jealous, she was dating all sorts of fellows by then.

12) Why did they skip out of the kids actually being able to defend themselves in the Department of Mysteries? And why did everyone travel about in smoke? I don't think they can do that. Sure, they can apparate but that was definitely not apparating. I mean, it looked cool but I was kind of looking forward to seeing Death Eater's heads shrinking and such. It made these young witches and wizards who, in two years time will have to be battling full force with that sort, seem helpless.

13) I don't know about everyone else, but I always pictured the Ministry of Magic as pristine and white. Why was it black? And why was there a creep Stalinist portrait of Fudge floating about?

14) Why was Harry actually possessed by Voldemort? The whole point in the book was that he wasn't possessed by Voldemort. He talked about it with Ginny and she was like, "Well did you kill any chickens? Cause that's what happened to me when I was possessed by Voldemort." And he was like, "No." And then he wasn't possessed by Voldemort.

15) Could they try and bit a bit more subtle with the message next time? I prefer to not be beaten over the head with the moral of the movie.

That being said, they did do some things quite well. Umbridge was the creepiest thing I have ever seen. Seriously. And that's including Ralph Fiennes without a nose. I'm also glad they included the twin's bang of an exit, I was quite worried about that. It's wasn't that well done, but I still did smile because it made me remember how it happened in the book, which was absolutely brill. I really think that this would all work better as a miniseries because then it could be four or five hours no big deal. It's a lot to cram into 2 hours and 10 minutes. Too much to make it good.

Finally, I say what heck to the movie theatre. They keep putting in more and more commercials (not trailers, commercials) before the movie yet instead of reducing ticket prices, which you might think would happen, ticket prices go up. We went to a 10:00 showing of Harry Potter. It didn't start until 10:22. Ridiculous.

7 days until Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows! *squeals in delight* I really cannot wait!

Listening to: Wilco--Sky Blue Sky

Did you know . . .

that the Amish evolved from Anabaptists?

Are We Americans really that stupid?

I have noticed a trend in the selling of foreign books and movies. Often bits and pieces will be changed in order to better suit the intelligence of the American public. Or, our apparent intelligence. Anyway, the biggest and best example is Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. That is how the book was sold and still is sold in the United States. I actually checked at the Amazon Canadian store and they have the British version, so it's not really Americans. It's the United States. At any rate, J.K. Rowling named her book--the original version--Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. This title actually makes a good deal more sense because in mythology (and not just British mythology, mind you) the Philosopher's Stone is a stone which can turn all metals to gold and be used to create an elixir that would induce youth. The Sorcerer's Stone does not exist.

I saw this again when I was watching Miyazaki's "Whisper of the Heart". I kept thinking that it was an especially inane title (so much so that I was wary of watching the movie) but then I looked it up. Apparently literally translated it means "If You Listen Closely" which, in my opinion, is much nicer sounding than "Whisper of the Heart" which sounds like a syrupy romance novel.

So why all the unnecessary and stupid changes? Obviously entertainment executives are underestimating the American public. Or are they? I wonder if Harry Potter would have done nearly as well over here if they hadn't changed the title. I mean, I would still love it and I know tons of other people who would as well, but what about all the people who apparently when to see Norbit and Wild Hogs? It can't possibly be just in the United States that these sorts of people who enjoy the stupid and moronic exist. Perhaps it just that we are a more populous and spread out nation than the UK.

I'm still pretty insulted, though.

listening to: M. Ward--Sad, Sad Song