Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows

Upon finishing The Deathly Hallows in the early hours of this morning, I have a few personal remarks to make. Before I do, however, let me recommend a visit to Jabel's site to any reader of the Potter series who is interested in technical discussions of the writing.

Here are my thoughts in no certain order:

1.) I was fascinated by the opening scenes, especially the first battle as Harry was being transported from Privet Drive. Jabel put it well in referencing the "chaos" and referring to the event as "horrifying".

2. ) Of all the deaths, I felt that Dobby was the most troubling. I hated to see Mad-Eye go, and the loss of Lupin was quite disturbing as well, but the killing of Dobby at the hand of Bellatrix while the house-elf was rescuing Harry was truly painful.

3.) I am sure she has her reasons, but I think I would have preferred the book not include the "Nineteen Years After" ending.

4.) I would have liked to known a little more about the Malfoy family, especially the (perhaps?) inward struggle of Draco.

5.) I can't help but feel sorry for Snape. I didn't subscribe to the "bad Snape" view of some I know, but I can't say that I'm all too convinced in his goodness, either. I would give him the benefit of the doubt and call him mostly good-partly evil, but I feel sorry for him for not ever fully going for the good.

6.) I've enjoyed the series, but I'm not lamenting the fact that no more of it will be written. I don't feel that I'm missing anything by not knowing of Harry as a parent, a middle-ager, an old man, etc.

7. I'm so looking forward to the movie, especially the battle at Hogwarts.

8. I felt like parts of the hiding out scenes of Harry, Hermione & Ron were a bit drawn out, and the whole days-turned-into-weeks lines weren't satisfying to me.

9. I wonder sometimes if there'll ever be a villain who decides to just go ahead and kill the good guy while he has the chance. I mean, what is up with the whole attitude of delaying the act for a more gratifying time...why not do it and get it over with. It always comes back to bite them in the end.

10. I wanna go stay with Bill & Fleur for an extended vacation.

Dave Meurer: Boyhood Daze

Today I finished reading Boyhood Daze: An Incomplete Guide to Raising Boys, by Dave Meurer. This guy is funny, makes sense, and has taught me a lot I didn't know about boys. Having raised two of his own, Mark & Brad, I easily fell into thinking he could be a pretty good advisor to me as I parent my boys. I'm not disappointed. There are hilarious and poignant matters to be found on page after page, but I think the chapter that tilted the book from quirky to essential, for me, was number 11. It's titled Your Boys-Are They Truly Clueless or Just Ignoring You?, and begins with this paragraph: "A huge portion of your son's life will consist of your supplying him with detailed information that he will not understand, but that you will think he understands because he will nod as you speak to him and even repeat back to you verbatim everything you said while never understanding a word of it." I've witnessed this phenomenon first hand, and now I know it's a common deficiency among boys. But just about the time I was ready to roll my eyes and shake my head with the understanding that "boys will be boys", I came across these two sentences: "Basically, all men are ten-year-olds who are trapped in adult bodies. We may seem mature, but it is only because we have facial hair and deep voices and pretty much run the Senate." Yeah, I think I found out as much about myself in reading this book as I have about my boys. Maybe that was the author's intent, come to think of it. Of the books I've read on parenting, this one has to rank up there in the "required reading" section of my recommendations to parents of boys.

HWOTP Voted "Best" At Londonilly

Christina Aguilera once again has hit the top spot...this time over at the way cool Londonilly site. Check out the post here. I also found some more awesome pics of Xtina recently, one of which is the one from Blender magazine included with this post. Damn. Some of the others I came across I've linked to over on my personal myspace page. Damn. I'm obsessed...

On Finding A Gold Mine In A Thrift Store

I love to read. I also possess a passion to become as liberal a thinker as I can be. A coming together of these facts presented itself to me one glorious day in the month of May, 1996.
I had been talking with a friend of mine named Bruce, and we had agreed that it would be beneficial to broaden our education beyond a narrow track of interests. We posited that by widening our circle of selected reading materials, we could achieve a definite intellectual increase.
I was staying in Coweta, Oklahoma, on a business trip, and met an eccentric man named Rick on an excursion out into the sleepy town of Colcord. I soon discovered that he was as avid a book lover as me, and that he had just procured The Harvard Classics, a set of books put together just after the turn of the 20th century. It turns out he had picked up the compendium at a thrift store and he was willing to sell it. He wanted a certain software title, which I was able to locate for the handsome sum of $90 dollars, and he offered to trade evenly. I still refer to that transaction as the best book investment I’ve ever made.
As I perused each of the books I quickly decided I wished to read the entire set through in numerical order. I began with the first volume, which includes The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, and I was immediately struck with awe. I made my way through the book in about a month’s time, and I made plans to continue at this clip until I’d read them all.
There were some missing pieces to my set, one of which I knew immediately, and some others I discovered later. The first and most conspicuous omission was volume 21, I Promesi Sposi (The Betrothed), by Manzoni. But over two years later, after searching fruitlessly in thrift shops and book stores across the country, this missing tome turned up in a most unexpected place. Another friend of mine, David, from Dayton, Ohio, found it in “The Last Chance” section of his local Salvation Army, for a mere 25 cents, and bought it for me.
Later on I added the Reading Guide and The Shelf of Fiction to fully complete my set, and now every volume sits proudly on the top shelves of the book cases behind my desk at my office. Every morning when I walk in, it’s as if I’m being warmly greeted by some of the wisest souls the world has ever known.
I’ve had some monumental experiences along the way, and I enjoy recounting them to anyone who will listen. After starting with Franklin in the late spring of 1996, by fall I was heavily into Emerson. I recall a sense of wonder at reading about his gardens, and I’ve looked at plant life differently ever since.
Then I recollect getting a beautiful glimpse of inward Christianity when I read Confessions by St. Augustine, & The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a’Kempis.
Later, I remember, I was in California when I read Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, and his view of economics has made me conscious of every penny spent and earned as I work my way through life.
I’ll never forget digging into Darwin’s Origin of Species and discovering not a man hell-bent on disproving the existence of God by promoting evolution, but a man truly fascinated by all he saw in nature.
Reading Don Quixote ranks as one of the funniest events of my life. Then and there I learned in a most humorous way the danger of becoming quixotic.
Then I could almost taste the salty air and smell the stench of decaying fish as I read R.H. Dana’s Two Years Before The Mast. I long to sail the open seas some day, and that desire has reached a fever pitch thanks to this spectacular journal of a seafarer.
Looking back I see that I’ve not been able to stay consistent with my initial goal of reading one volume per month, averaging instead one every three and a half months. Nevertheless, I remain as determined as I was at the beginning to stay the course and finish the project. I’m thrilled by what I’ve experienced thus far, and I’m eager to see what lies on the other side of the next musty page. My aim is still to broaden my education, but I never expected it to be such a beautiful and fun odyssey.
One thing is for certain, that it’s an interesting conversation piece to tell people that one of the best things I own came from a thrift store in Oklahoma.

*****UPDATE*****

Christopher R. Beha, a writer from New York, started a blog at the beginning of this year called The Whole Five Feet, in which he has vowed to read through the Harvard Classics in a year, roughly one volume per week (sure beats my pace!), and then post an essay at the completion of each. Click here to see his blog...I'm also adding it to my Frogroll. I guess I'm not alone, after all...

Bryson: A Walk In The Woods, Part 2

On June 1 I posted about Bill Bryson's book A Walk In The Woods, and this afternoon I finished it. Described as "travel lit", the work is primarily the result of the author's attempt to traverse the Appalachian Trail, a roughly 2200 mile (I say roughly because, as the book so marvelously points out, the Trail's length is debatable and changes from time to time) course from Georgia to Maine through thick woods and over daunting mountains. This is perhaps the starting point both for the author's intent for writing, and the reader's decision to pick up the book, but one thing I learned is that herein is much more than a journal of a man walking among the trees and critters. I found a boatload of paragraphs that stirred up a sense of environmental awareness, and not a few interesting historical accounts of the eastern United States. I also found quite a bit of philosophy, biology, and anthropology. To be brief in my review, this is one of those books I will feel very inclined to recommend to my friends for years to come, I think. Oh, and by the way, Bryson is one of the funniest men alive. I laughed out loud on more than one occasion, and for me that is quite unusual.

(Note: I have no idea what the picture is all about here, I just found it in a quick google search for a pic of Bryson, and thought it served my purpose.)

Harry Potter & The Order of the Phoenix

“But they’re older now”. Thus was the brilliant observation of Jabel’s wife upon our sleepy exit from the theater in the wee hours of Wednesday morning. Jabel, his brilliant bride, myself & aj ventured out with a room full of school kids (alas, we weren’t the OLDEST ones in the crowd, but we were def in the top 5 or 10) to see the latest Harry Potter movie, The Order of the Phoenix. I had just remarked how “dialoguey” the movie was, and that there seemed to be less magical and spectacular events than in prior films, when the aforementioned better half of my best bud proffered her retort.
And it’s true, you know? Harry, Hermione, Ron & the crew are older, a full year, in fact, and as they navigate the mid-teen years it seems like change is the order of the day. Perhaps it’s the quality over quantity focus that is developing in their decisions to use magic, a sort of magical maturation, if you will.
In the looks category, Ron appears to me to the one who’s “aged” the most, what with his bulkier, more pronounced teenage bulkiness. Harry is just behind him, although he remains quite wispy and apparently underdeveloped, which adds to his role as underdog. Neville Longbottom and Draco Malfoy both seem to be at quite an awkward stage in their developments, and let’s just say that nature has not been very good to either of them. Hermione, on the other hand, maintains a little girl appearance, which is as odd is it as disappointing. She needs to grow up and get pretty, which I’m sure she will in the last two films. I’m speaking, of course, of the actors that play these characters, but the physical changes are inseparable between the portrayer & the portrayed.
Emotionally and mentally there seems to be an overall maturity being revealed as well. I noticed how Ron was less inclined to act out in a nervous, short-tempered manner, and was rather quite reserved when faced with conflict and aggression. Harry, again, isn’t quite up to Ron’s development here, it seems, still being inclined to lash out and appear overwhelmed at times.
All in all, Phoenix was an enjoyable book and movie, and the role played by Sirius Black in both was a joy to me. I hate that he died, but the ending scene at the Ministry of Magic was my favorite part of the story. The book was long, and the movie was comparatively short at 2 hours, 18 minutes, but the crescendo happened perfectly. Perhaps it’s magic, but this film doesn’t suffer from an anti-climactic ending.

Random Policies

I saw another Dilbert comic today that is just hilarious, and quite true. I thought of a few places where this "random policy generator" seems to get a lot of use. Here's a few:

Work (of course)

Church

Home

The Post Office

The IRS

...