HP Tuesday - The Eyes Have It

Last time I left you all in the midst of book 7, a rather large, dense novel. I could continue on with mothers because they appear more and more as time passes in the book, their importance becoming stronger and more fleshed out. But I have other things to discuss, so I’m moving on. Eyes. Yep, I’m going to focus on one body part today; an important part – the windows to the soul and all. Other eye imagery? I keep thinking of writers like Fitzgerald and Orwell – using eyes to watch and see; Big Brother/billboard-esque type imagery. Bespectacled eyes – like Harry’s, James’, and Dumbeledore’s – usually mean wisdom. They also mean God, but I don’t think Harry or James or even Dumbledore is supposed to represent God in this series. Harry is an everyman character, to the extent that we champion him BECAUSE of his lack of knowledge, pig-headedness and general teen-angsty self. Sure, he figures it out in the end; but because of his entire supporting cast (do I sound like Voldemort there?). His sacrifice is only his own, which is why he succeeds, but the figuring out comes from a lot of different people. I think the only God-because-of-his-disembodied-eyes character in the novel is Aberforth Dumbledore – what the heck does that mean? (PS – That link back there is one of my very favorite vlogbrothers – yes, them again – videos ever!) I haven’t figured out what it means. But Aberfoth’s piercing blue eyes – the same eyes as Dumbledore – look at Harry at the beginning of this last quest, they continue to look out of the mirror each time Harry needs egging on – forward motion. I love that this disembodied eye is in a mirror and always turns back into Harry’s own, green eye – the same eyes as Lily. There are so many eye-like parallels here.

Some Thoughts on Imagery
Thinking about imagery, I started thinking about Shakespeare. Truth be told, I think about Shakespeare a lot – rat bastard. It’s because of him I care so much about symbolism and imagery in the first place. Shakespeare finally made me stop asking, “Does every writer mean to add these things to their works or are we just critiquing to sound smart?” and start asking, “What is this author saying about the human condition when she adds symbolism and imagery?” So Shakespeare and eyes; he does it a lot but HP 7 makes me think of King Lear the most. King Lear could not see what was right in front of him and literally lost his eyes. (Side note: This also makes me think of season 7 of Buffy; add Joss Whedon to my growing list of rat bastards who make me think too much…and for making me use the phrase rat bastard come to think of it.) Who’s the sightless character in HP 7? It is Voldemort, who can not possibly win because he doesn’t see what is right in front of him; so many things that are right in front of him. And where are his human, Tom Riddle eyes – his windows to the soul? They’re literally a piece of his soul. One he cut off and discarded in an attempt to seek eternal life. His eyes are a bit of soul, shielded by a window in a locket that belonged to his greatest descendent; it’s become a horcrux. Voldemort gave up his sight and soul and replaced them with snake-like slit-pupil, red eyes. And in the end, the last thing we read of Voldemort are his scarlet pupils rolling upwards as he dies. In the next sentence, Rowling gives the lifeless body lying on the floor Tom Riddle’s name once again. Neither Tom nor Voldemort can cheat death.

Some Thoughts on Symbolism
Thinking about symbolism, I started thinking about the symbol on the spine of my book (British edition) and also the name of this book, the deathly hallows symbol. When first mentioned, at the wedding, as worn by Xenophilius Lovegood, it is rather like a triangular eye. Actually, the exact sentences – just in case you didn’t get that eyes were important in this novel – read, “Slightly cross-eyed, with shoulder-length white hair the texture of candyfloss, he wore a cap whose tassel dangled in front of his nose and robes of an eye-watering shade of egg-yolk yellow. An odd symbol, rather like a triangular eye, glistened from a golden chain around his neck.” (Huh, apparently color is also important in this book – maybe we can discuss yellow, gold, red, green and blue next week?!) This symbol, much like the swastika – which once stood for life, sun, power and good luck – changes over centuries from something good to something inherently evil. The mark of the hallows is a clue that must be followed throughout its history, understood but not conquered; the hallows must not be wielded for power or for eternal life. In other words, the only way to truly understand and use the hallows is to know; wisdom and strength, but also a healthy dose of humility. Harry has the strength to break-up and scatter the hallows; only keeping the invisibility cloak passed down to him.

Lily’s Eyes
Throughout all seven books we’ve been bombarded constantly with the knowledge that Harry has his mother’s eyes. Her soul and his are intertwined. Not just because they are son and mother, but because she sacrificed herself for him; that great, mother-protecting magic coursing through the very soul of these novels. Whether we mean to read into this or not, every ounce of good Harry does seems to generate from this connection with his mum. Lily’s eyes, reappearing in her son’s visage, are what ultimately makes Snape turn toward the light and what keeps him from straying back into the dark. Even at his end, Snape asks Harry to look at him – not because he’s the boy who lived – but because dying is easier when looking into Lily’s eyes. Nineteen years later, who is the only child of Harry’s to inherit Lily’s eyes? Albus Severus Potter – eyes really are the windows to the soul.

A Month of Fun Days

I have a plan! Well, I have a project that I’ve been pondering for about 6 months now. It’s taken on many forms but now I just want to get on with it already. At first I thought about pitching it as an article idea, and then I thought I’d pitch it to a company like Disney as a blog idea, but I never quite figured out how either would work. Possibly just doing this thing on my own blog would make it easier to earn money on another blog or article in the future. For this to work though, I’ll need your help and lots of suggestions.

Concept
A month of daily blogs about fun stuff I’m doing. Now, who doesn’t want to read that?! OK, there’s more to it than that. I want to stalk wonder and I want you, blog readers, to join me in the pursuit of fun. I’d also like you to *gasp* comment about it right here on the blog…

Why?
Well, because it’s fun! No, seriously. I’m an unpublished writer and therefore, I spend much of my time depressed about this fact – and the lack of money, or running out of money (I did bills today and realized my savings is dwindling and I haven’t done any freelance stuff in a little while and the part-time job hobby is great, but not really meant for me to live off of without other sources of income). And yes, I do realize I rant about all of these things more than I should on a blog; however, there is a silver lining. Most of the time I am a happier, healthier person than when I had more money and a 40-hour a week office job; I realize this and want to share the fun with others. I think we pretty much live in a craptastic-economy-driven world but there is still fun to be had. We just have to embrace that fun!

When?
Well, I was thinking the month of June, because June is a month with decent outdoor weather for most of the globe. Then again, maybe June already has plenty of fun in it and doesn’t need my help. Also – if I haven’t already beaten this into your heads by constantly talking about it – I will be traveling in the UK and Ireland for the better part of June. One, this is a good thing because traveling lends itself to spontaneous fun times; but two, I may not be able to get to the internet everyday and I may not have time to write a blog post everyday. I think a month of fun days can, and should occur wherever you happen to be and with whomever you happen to be with; but maybe for easier navigation I will wait until July to begin.

In the Meantime…
Feel free to offer suggestions on any of this. I am looking for 30 fun things to do. I do think a lot of fun things happen spontaneously, so that can always be a factor; but if I leave at least a week’s worth of fun activities – people will be able to do them and comment on them on the actual days I do these fun things too. (That was an incredibly awkward sentence.) I also believe some of the fun things I do won’t be remotely fun for some of you; in which case, you would comment with something else fun that you did that day. Yes, this is why I’ve been mulling it over for 6 months now. I think I may have mulled too much at this point.

Fun thing ex: Find a crazy or unique sign and take a picture of it for the blog.
Fun thing ex: Go on a road trip to a little piece of Americana (i.e. Giant ball of twine or that ketchup shaped water tower) and experience its cheesy awesomeness.
Fun thing ex: See a movie on a rooftop with a group of friends.
Fun thing ex: Go to dinner with a group of friends and pretend it’s someone’s birthday. Extra points for best birthday song and best free-birthday treat.

You get the picture; and no, after 6 months of thinking about this, these are NOT my best examples…where would the fun be in that!

Harry Potter Friday – Book 7: Deconstructing Mother Love

I started this Harry Potter book club idea on my blog two years ago for multi-faceted reasons. First, it was a good excuse to re-read a series that has some staying power in a genre I choose to write in. Second, it was a good excuse to build a YA platform for myself (I’m selfish this way but then hey, it’s my blog). Third, the book to movie conundrum is one that hits close to my own heart; I love books and my husband loves movies but we both make an effort to enjoy the other medium so we have something to do together. Fourth, originally I thought the writing got better while the plot went down hill in the series and I wanted to see if on re-reading my opinion stayed the same. Finally, I noticed people have severely strong opinions about this series – from writing fan songs to book burning and everything in between; I just wanted to figure out why people have these strong ties. Selfishly again, if I can somehow harness these reasons I could be a world famous author…or really, I’d settle for a published author.

I think trying to resolve all of these reasons may be why it’s taken me so long to write about this last book. What amazes me the most about the re-read is just how my opinions have changed. I may keep harping on how concise JK Rowling is; but that’s only because I’m completely surprised that my opinions of her writing prowess are so different then on the first read. Seriously! This is exciting stuff for me, and probably only me.

On that note, I’m ready to have some serious discussions about HP 7. Yes, really! Let’s do this thing. Many of you have showed some interest in a feminine read of HP; more precisely the lack of a good, strong female character. I realized something about myself while trying to souse out the great feminist character in Harry Potter: I’m really not a feminist. I’m all about women power and dig me some Buffy and Veronica Mars; I want to write fiction for young adults because of literary characters like Nancy Drew and Anne Shirley; but as a literary critique, I’m crap at the feminine mystique. I’m really more of a deconstructionist. So, try as I might, I don’t see anything wrong with Hermione, Ginny, or Tonks. Considering just how many characters exist and have reoccurring roles in the Potter-verse, I think most are well developed. I have actual feelings about Mrs. Malfoy at the beginning of this book – and who is she really? I mean all of these characters have a first and last name, which you remember. I can’t imagine the notes Rowling must have kept to keep the continuity going through 7 books.

I’m getting ahead of myself. For this blog post I mostly wanted to talk about mothers and how there is one in each opening scene. I’m not sure if this helps or hinders a feminist critique; I guess you could say Rowling only knows how to write one type of female and thinks that motherhood is the most important thing in each one’s life. Who knows, maybe it is? I’m not a mother, so I’d have to defer to those who are. From a deconstructionist standpoint, all of these mothers are intriguing and thought pondering: What does ‘mother’ even mean? Is Rowling trying to make every mother the same?

To start with, it’s amazing plot braiding to juxtapose Narcissa Malfoy, Petunia Dursley, Andromeda Tonks and Molly Weasley. Obviously some of it is foreshadowing, Narcissa Malfoy and Molly Weasley are both pivotal to the plot towards the end – and also again because they are mothers. I don’t just think it is foreshadowing or plot braiding though. It’s more because Rowling doesn’t need these mothers to create the scenes, but they are all pivotal to each, separate scene. Maybe pivotal isn’t the right word, they each advance the plot by defining the character of motherhood.

Narcissa Malfoy
Narcissa is clearly the one Malfoy with her senses intact in the first chapter. She stands out by looking downcast yet clearly being in charge of her household; she keeps her son and husband in line and alive with firm glances and nudges.
MOTHER LOVE MOMENT: The last we read of Narcissa in chapter one is, “Draco Malfoy looked in terror at his father, who was starring down into is own lap, then caught his mother’s eye. She shook her head almost imperceptibly, then resumed her own deadpan stare at the opposite wall.” She is showing her family exactly how to act and what to do; clearly she is already prepared to make her family survive by any means necessary.

Petunia Dursley
Petunia Dursley remains her steadfast self when it comes to her son Dudley; she’s in three or four pages of this massive novel, yet she still manages to call her son Diddy, Dudders and Popkin in that space. Her life is her family; and like Narcissa, she is quite single-minded in her protection of them.
MOTHER LOVE MOMENT: Rowling peppers Petunia’s exit from the series with these final words, “She gave him an odd, tremulous look and seemed to teeter on the edge of speech, but then, with a little jerk of her head, she bustled out of the room after her husband and son.”

Andromeda Tonks
Harry could have gone straight to the Burrow when he leaves Privet Drive, but Rowling sends him to the Tonks’ first. Although she is talked about quite a bit, Andromeda Tonks hasn’t appeared before this book; we already know she is sister to Narcissa and Bellatrix. Here’s yet another mother, and also a sister (like Petunia and Lily); one who is going to extreme lengths for the sake of her daughter.
MOTHER LOVE MOMENT: Although she’s talked about and referred to quite a bit in this book, she appears only once, briefly to ask, “What happened to our daughter? Hagrid said you were ambushed; where is Nymphadora?” We know she’s a pure-blood, a healer, a strong female who resembles her sister Bellatrix in many ways, but she only speaks one line – and it’s about concern for her daughter, the Auror who married a werewolf.

Molly Weasley
Molly is Harry’s surrogate mother – also mother of his best friend and his girlfriend. She is as worried about Harry as she is for the rest of her family; there really is no distinction anymore. Not once do you see her regret the friendship that’s sprung up between her family and Harry. The Weasleys (minus that prat Percy) are all loyal toward Harry and the Order. Molly is different from the other mothers we’ve seen so far – they are all worried about one child, she is worried about ten (counting Harry, Hermione, and Fleur too). We’ve seen Molly a lot in the series, she is the most complete, well-rounded mother character; she gets a full range of emotions including scatter-brained and sometimes ridiculous. I like this about Molly; it makes her into many mothers I’ve known, not just the outline of a mother-type character. And let’s be honest, at the end she gets the best line of the entire series!
MOTHER LOVE MOMENT: In the opening scene at the Burrow, Harry, already feeling horrible about putting others in danger, can’t quite figure out why she doesn’t hate him yet. “He could hear the self-justifying note in his voice, the plea for her to understand why he did not know what had happened to her sons, but –
‘Thank goodness you’re all right,’ she said, pulling him into a hug he did not feel he deserved.”

Kendra Dumbledore
Brilliant! No, seriously! Dumbledore is dead and now he gets a mother and more face-time than when he was alive. Why put Kendra in here now? I have no idea what kind of mother Kendra Dumbledore is. Through conjecture and hearsay she appears to be quite a bad one, but how do you explain the goodness of Albus and even Aberforth Dumbledore? At least some of it has to be nurture.

Lily Potter
The mother all other mothers must me compared to throughout the series. She’s here at the beginning…and in the middle…and at the end. I think Lily’s note to Sirius separates her from the Lily & James Potter duo in the scene at Grimmauld Place; stressing her ultimate sacrifice more than James’.

Appoline Delocour & Tonks
We also meet the mother of the bride, Appoline Delocour, who must be at least half Veela – a mythical creature and not just a wizard. And finally, we find out Tonks is pregnant with a baby who will also be more than a wizard – his dad being a werewolf and all. It’s sort of like tying up all the loose ends. We see mothers at very important, life moments and we get yet another dose of magical-creature-unity-and-equality vs. magic-is-might-dark-wizard mentality: A true good vs. evil moment.

I definitely think Rowling pulled the women into the foreground during the first quarter of the book. No, not necessarily in a feminist way, but in a sort of roto-scope, look-at-this sort of way to emphasize what’s coming, what’s been, what’s most important, and inevitably what’s dark magic conquering: LOVE. Yes, it’s so simple and obvious, but I really do admire the way in which it occurs.

I so want opinions in the comments on all of this. Also, feel free to add in your feminist reading – or any other literary theory you’d like to. Of course, coincidentally it is Mothers Day on Sunday. The picture attached to this blog is all my own. (Yay, no copyright infringement this week!) It’s a picture of me and my mom – she’s a much better person than I am, so I know all of my good parts are from her nurturing. Happy Moms Day to all of you mothers. And in case you don’t think I’m excited enough about the arrival next week: Mara Corey you are going to be an awe-inspiring, remarkable mother! Matt, you of course will be an amazing dad too!

I.AM.A.WRITER.

This ego-centric rant is what comes of being holed up in bed sick for a week. I think I may have had too much time to think about me. Which, it turns out, is good, but now you have to read all about it.

I spent a good deal of last month reading Amanda Hocking, the whiz-bang self-publisher from my home state who has just signed a-very-healthy-dollar-amount-book-deal. Her books are entertaining; they need another edit or two and hopefully a book publisher will give her that. She sites on her blog that she wants to write; she doesn’t want to deal in the nitty-gritty business of writing. Kudos to her and anyone else who does self-publish, it scares the bejeezus out of me. I too hate promoting myself; heck, I don’t even always let my facebook page know when I have a new blog post. This is stupid; I should just get over myself and learn from Amanda Hocking, who has done an amazing job promoting herself. She’s not done with self promoting now that she has an agent, editor and publishing house though. In fact, I think she might be in for a little bit of a shock as she will, most likely, be working even harder now to meet deadlines while still promoting herself beyond what the publishing house is willing to do. But I get it Amanda; I too just want to write. Well, I want people to read what I write, and like it, and pay for it and support my writing habit – vicious circle!

I.AM.A.WRITER.

Amanda Hocking is someone I can relate to because her ideas and writing style are not that dissimilar to my own. It’s always a good thing when someone making a lot of money doing what you want to do is only as good as you are; or maybe you are even better. You feel slightly more confident in what you are doing then. Of course after I finished reading Amanda Hocking, I picked up HP 7 again and cried a little. JK, you are just so good at what you do. Amanda Hocking and JK Rowling are really not the same writer. They both write YA but there the similarities end. I’m always amazed at how clean cut and concise JK is. If I ever meet her I want to know how she managed to edit so precisely all the way through to the end with deadlines, movie set visits and publicity junkets. I realize I am already a decent writer when I read authors like Amanda and I strive to be a better writer when I read authors like JK; but never do I think I’m in the wrong profession or that I can really ever be anything besides a writer.

I.AM.A.WRITER.

This week I received an email from the Unemployment Insurance of MN office asking me to fill out a work survey and self assessment. Apparently, if you’ve ever been on unemployment and you did not report the finding of a full-time job, they will keep tabs on you and “help” you try to locate employment; whether they give you money or not. This is a good thing. I know that. This is why I always fill out the surveys and assessments. They, like myself, want me to be a productive member of society. Here’s the problem: The unemployment office doesn’t really take into account who I actually am; to them I’m merely a number or statistic. If/when I’m gainfully employed they can move my number over from the jobless to the job-full. Really, it just means the surveys and assessments try to push me out of my writing box and into any category of employment I can simply do. The silly thing is, I sometimes agree. I spend hours going over these surveys and then looking for and applying for jobs in any field I know I’m qualified for. A few weeks ago I spent 3.5 hours in an interview for a job that was identical to the one I left two years ago simply because they called and I thought I should re-enter the full time work world. I didn’t get the job, thank goodness! What would I have done then?

I.AM.A.WRITER.

I often get frustrated at the part-time job hobby – it’s not a bad job at all, but it’s not who I am. When people ask me what I do, I never think to mention the part-time job hobby unless in reference to researching for a novel. I don’t talk about it on facebook or think about it when I’m not there; I doubt I’ve mentioned it on this blog except in vague passing. And this may be what stops me from getting jobs in interviews. I have to talk about my current employment and in most cases it pertains – or I can make it pertain – to the job I’m interviewing for. I mean it’s not that far off from copywriting; I do all of the same things and bridge all of the same communication boundaries – just for one store instead of an entire corporation of stores. But ask me about my freelancing work, or The Loft, or the novel I’m working on, or this blog (all things at least mentioned on my resume) and I’m sure you can see the light shining in my eyes. All other jobs are just a stepping stone to my writing career. Honestly, if I can’t be a writer than what am I? Nothing.

I.AM.A.WRITER.

Every year since I graduated from high school I talk to one particular friend on my birthday (mid February) and again on his birthday (beginning of March) without fail. These conversations used to be in person or by phone, but life often gets in the way; so for the last decade they’ve been via email. I hope you all have at least one friend like this. I’m borrowing from L.M. Montgomery here, but a real kindred spirit; someone in your life who honestly cares about the trivial information you are willing to part with on a not-so-frequent basis. Time seems not to matter for either of us; we always just pick up wherever it is that we left off the year before. I tend to confess things in these emails that I don’t to anyone else in the world. There are some things you just don’t want to – or need to – burden your nearest and dearest with…heck, on at least 360 days of the year I don’t even want to admit them to myself. Then there are those other days – days I need to spill it and tell someone how inadequate I sometimes feel. It helps that the return emails are similar in their pessimistic awkwardness. Oh, I don’t mean we dump on each other and then we’re both better humans until the next year – we share plenty of dreams and daily life happenings as well; I promise, usually the good does outweigh the bad. This year found us both complaining about work (my friend is a doctor in the middle of his residency and not so much liking the 80 hour work week on top of being a husband and a dad – with a second child on the way!!). I wrote back with some soul-searching comments about trying to make it as a writer when the rest of the world seems to be pushing me into a career in retail or office space. After I sent the email, it really hit home just how much I try to be these two different people. One who feels that looking for full-time employment, because she lost a job during economic-crisis-time, makes her a productive member of society; the other one is excited to have a decent part-time job hobby she doesn’t have to care about and gets to write for a good portion of each day. Why do I continue to tear myself apart like that? I know who I want to be, which one makes me happy and content.

I.AM.A.WRITER.

I mean do you know that since college – about 12 years or so – I’ve weighed between 150 and 250 lbs. And I don’t just mean I started out at one end of those 100 lbs and slowly moved my way towards the other end; I mean I’ve yo-yoed up and down between them. That’s not healthy. Six months ago, so about a year after getting the boot at corporate job TM, I topped out at 227 and instantly had a small nervous breakdown. Once you see 250, you really, really don’t ever want to see it again. Truly, once you see 200, you really don’t ever want to see it again; and I’ve seen 200 about 4 times in the last five years. Every time I’m loosing weight I think, “This will be the last time!” I really hope this IS actually the last time, but here’s what I realized during this week of self discovery. The periods in my life where I’m loosing weight usually coincide with great feats in writing: A new job, a new project, heck even just a complete month of consistency in my writing regimen. So maybe it’s time to admit it to myself and stop trying to do all of this other stuff.

I.AM.A.WRITER.

I believe I’ve blogged plenty about living and studying in London at the end of my undergrad career. Many moments from that time – in part because I kept a decent journal while in London – seem crisp and clean in my memory. One of those moments stands out as a big dot on the Mariah timeline – marking crucial moments that are often not so momentous at the time. In this particular instance, Ruth, a lovely Irish woman who used random air quotes and rode her bicycle all around London town, simply asked me a question. She taught a British Drama course which mostly consisted of reading plays and seeing London Theatre productions that sometimes corresponded but often didn’t. During a lecture one day she stopped to ask us all what we planned on doing with our lives. At the time I was getting ready to graduate, take my LSAT and move far away from MN to attend law school. I mean this was a clear cut path, one I was not going to be deterred from. For some reason I didn’t give the answer already in my head; I said the first thing that came to my mind, “In a perfect world I’d be a playwright”. It didn’t happen overnight. I still graduated, took the LSAT, applied for law schools and got accepted to two of my top choices; but that random comment kept sneaking through my subconscious, laying its seeds of truth. I have no doubt that I could be practicing law in another state right now, making a lot more money than I do at the part-time job hobby – but would I be happy, content or less-stressed? No. Writing is in my blood; it’s who I am.

I.AM.A.WRITER.

You, blog reader, already know this about me. I’ve already hashed through most of this in similar blog posts. You know more than I do apparently, because I keep trying to do something else. I don’t even want to do anything else; I’ve never really wanted to do anything else. Writing is my identity and my purpose. It’s not the only thing I am, but it is how I want to be remembered. We all have such a small amount of time here and I often feel a sense of urgency coming through when I write, like I have to get it all down while I still can. I want you to read what I have to say, my take on the human condition and the stories that inspire me. Wow, does that sound like I have a god complex? I don’t. I don’t think you have to read what I write or like what I write; I just know I have to write it.

I.AM.A.WRITER.

Maybe all writers continue to go through this self-doubt stage. Maybe it’s a constant battle. Maybe the next time I sit down to work on my novel I won’t get up to wash clothes, scrub out the sinks and get caught up on my email correspondence. Maybe I’ll just sit down and write. More than likely I will have good and bad writing days; I will fill more blog posts with my needs and concerns about my lack of writing – or lack of putting down on paper all of the words and thoughts swirling around in my head, desperately trying to find their way out.

Writing isn’t just what I do, it’s who I am. And sometimes I need to remind myself by screaming it out loud…I.AM.A.WRITER!

On Being Ill…with a Few Brief HP Musings

I’m sick with what I’m calling the MN Plague: It’s not quite the flu and not quite a cold and sometimes mimics strep throat or bronchitis – that’s what I have. And also, I threw my back out which means when the bronchitis symptoms arise I have to sit down or brace myself against a wall to stop the excruciating pain. I discovered quite some time ago that I hate writing when I’m sick – I just can’t do it. I can read and I can watch TV, but I usually just sleep a lot …and also eat popsicles and drink tea. The mere fact that I’m writing and posting this means I must be on the mend.

On the mending front, I haven’t wanted to sleep half as much today; but I’m also sad because I’m missing Irondale High School’s Harry Potter Club screening of HP 7.1. Irondale High School’s Harry Potter Club is a firm supporter of my blog, so I hope their event will be amazing! I believe they are also doing a Tri-Wizard Tournament in the spring (we’re in MN, spring is weeks away); hopefully I can be there for that. I’m with you in spirit – as I just put the movie in – and will lie here on the couch with ice on my back (and a very tolerant British husband) to watch it at roughly the same time.

In other related HP news, I met one of my blog followers and repeat commenter on Monday (Hi Anna!) so that was exciting and fun. Anna – and other people going on the Best of the British Isles tour I will help chaperon this summer (in MN that’s exactly 5 days after spring) – two months from today will find us visiting the birthplace of Harry Potter at the Elephant Coffee Shop in Edinburgh! As a writer this amuses me to no end. I can only hope one day people will tour the Barnes & Noble Cafe in the Galleria in Edina for similar reasons. Or make treks to the sunken gardens of Kensington Palace in London; not because it’s rumored Kate & Wills will make the palace their London home but because it is Mariah Whurr’s favorite place in the entire world to muse and write.

Really this entire brief post is to let you all know I haven’t forgotten about book number 7 and my lameness with the entire book/movie club blog. In fact, while I’ve been sick this week, I started reading book number 7 again in an attempt to get back into the swing of things. I propose that I really will…almost certainly…could actually be the truth this time…post an HP 7 blog sometime next week. Please note I did not say Monday – although I will try – because I don’t trust myself that much. Keep your fingers crossed…seriously, like all of them.

The Book List of Bragging Rights

This is not new at all, but I had to add my two cents. There’s a list of 100 books from the BBC going around facebook. I’ve received the list about 6 times now from different friends, all in memo form all referencing the BBC saying the average person will only read 6 of these books in their lifetime. Basically you bold the books you’ve read, count them up and send the memo along to another group of friends.

My latent journalistic powers find a couple of things wrong with this. How did the BBC pick their 100 books and how did they decide who the average person was? And not just, is the average person British or an English speaker. Have these books all been translated into different languages; actually some of the books on the list weren’t written in English to begin with, so translations may be a moot point. But yeah, there’s a lot wrong with the general parameters of this list to begin with.

I’ve perused the list before, but from a reading standpoint I know I’m not average; heck, it’s right there in the title of my blog. This time I decided to play along and dutifully copied the list into a word document and went about bolding the books I’ve read and italicizing the books I’ve started but never finished. And I quickly came upon another problem, this time the list was missing # 23 & #26. Next, I wondered why The Narnia Chronicles and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe were both on the list when all of Shakespeare’s works and all of the HP books were both considered just one book. Then I wondered why so many Hardy and Austen books were on the list as separates when some of each of their contemporaries were left off entirely. Finally, I decided I had to go do some research because the questions about the list were quickly outnumbering the books on the list.

A quick google search lead to a not surprising revelation (Is a revelation actually a revelation when it doesn’t surprise you? Maybe it was an ironic revelation?) The list going around facebook did not originate from the BBC at all. Oh, the BBC has a list of 100 books from 2003 that their readers chose. (At some point someone will explain to me how the BBC seems to be TV, radio, newspapers, magazines and whatever other medium it chooses. And I ask this knowing full well I’ve applied for three different jobs with BBC America and they send me recruiting emails fairly constantly. Move over Disney, there’s another media conglomerate trying to take over the world; they appear to be stealthier about it.) This 2003 list is still available on the BBC website (sigh) and is called the Big Read List. In all fairness, the lists are somewhat similar, but still different in a few ways. No where on the BBC list does it say that the average person reads only 6 of the books in their lifetime. On the contrary, this is a list of BBC readers’/watchers’/interfacers’ top/favorite books. Which still leads me to wonder where the only 6 books thing came from?

When I say this is not a new controversy, I’m not kidding. I typed “BBC 6 books” into the google search engine and it shot out 80,600,000 results. I read through/clicked on the first 20 results and all of them were related to this conundrum. It’s like facebook’s best kept-not-so-much secret. I know you all know everything you read on the new-fangled internets thingy shouldn’t be believed, that things like wikipedia aren’t the most reliable of sources, but this BBC thing did make me stop and ponder for a minute. I mean no where in the history of the BBC have they ever said that the average person only reads 6 books on a list and yet, 80,600,000 results link them together forever in the subconscious of our world culture. That is actually some kind of CRAZY!*!&!&#

It turns out people are somewhat passionate about their book lists – and the need to vent about other book lists and the authenticity of things they find online – especially on facebook. And it turns out I’m the same way. Venting about books should be a good thing, right? I mean that is one of the points of my own blog; I’ve said many times I want people to disagree with my opinion and comment with their own. So why did I find myself getting more and more disgruntled while reading the whims of other bibliophiles during this google search? I actually wanted to punch one blogger who said he would never read HP at all and thought the BBC list was more “low-brow”. (Here I would like to point out that HP has made it to both lists, just saying.) Yes, Princess Diaries is on that list, but since I’ve read it I say it’s not “low-brow”…Oh, come on. I write YA, of course I read “low-brow”. Books are a form of entertainment, and sometimes that means you read mindless quick things and sometimes you read more profound thought provoking things. I’m a firm believer in all literature, which kind of goes along with that whole freedom-of-speech-thing and no-book-burning-thing: Codes to live by.

And honestly if you are going to rant about something, then why not the facebook list that makes me out to be a Dickens lover – I’m SO not! I’m a British Literature major, there is a difference. I’ve been forced to study, read and endure through countless paragraphs of boring, serial length Dickens novels (and now, how many of you want to punch me?). I find Herman Melville and Steinbeck almost as boring, but I’m not condoning their right to be on the list. The Grapes of Wrath – although I’ve never been able to read it – reminds me of my junior year of high school. A year I spent in non-honors English because of a falling out with my 10th grade Honors English teacher. While my friends had to read The Grapes of Wrath in one evening, I spent 4 weeks reading Ethan Frome in class (It is 98 pages and less than novella length for those of you who are not familiar with the works of Edith Wharton). It was my own personal torture. I had English with my boyfriend at the time; since I was cheating on him with an exchange student from the opposing high school across town, I felt hideous every time I walked into the classroom and sat down next to him – living through another hour of “reading time” no one needed since we’d all finished the book on the first or second day. Ah, The Grapes of Wrath, my own personal reminder of bad adolescence and teenage angst. Ah, this blog, letting me relive and share with the world my past indiscretions and misdemeanors.

Back on track, at the end of all of my research (or an hour, which you may know from past blog posts is about the extent of my internet research tangents usually) it appears the facebook list comes from an article in The Guardian and also mentions nothing about only 6 of these books being read in a lifetime. In fact, The Guardian list comes from 2,000 people taking part in an online poll at worldbookday.com. The poll asked you to nominate the top 10 books you could not live without. Below I leave you with both lists. NOTE: Another oddity, Dante’s Inferno seemed to sneak into the facebook list at some point replacing Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar at #76. I’m not sure how or when, but it too is interesting if only because I’ve read The Bell Jar but have never read The Inferno so my number changed. I have no answer about the 6 books question. I’m guessing someone on facebook just made it up for some interactive, pass-along quality: Everyone feels good because they’ve read more than 6 books on the list; it’s all for bragging rights. Hey, at least there are now 80,600,001 results on google.

The Guardian/World Book Day/Facebook List (circa 2007):
1. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkein
3. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four, George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
11. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
12. Tess of the D’Ubervilles, Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22, Joseph Heller
14. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, William Shakespeare
15. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
16. The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkein
17. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulk
18. Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
19. The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch, George Eliot
21. Gone With the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace, Leo Tolstory
25. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis
34. Emma, Jane Austen
35. Persuasion, Jane Austen
36. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis
37. The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh, A.A. Milne
41. Animal Farm, George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney, John Irving
45. The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery
47. Far from the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies, William Golding
50. Atonement, Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi, Yann Martel
52. Dune, Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Mark Haddon
60. Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
62. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
66. On the Road, Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
72. Dracula, Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes from a Small Island, Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses, James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath / The Inferno, Dante
77. Swallows and Amazons, Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal, Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray
80. A Possession, A.S. Byatt
81. Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple, Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web, E.B. White
88. The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Mitch Album
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection, Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
94. Watership Down, Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet, William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo

(PS - for bragging rights I've read 48 and started 11 others)

The BBC Great Book Read List (circa 2003):

1. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkein
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, A.A. Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows and Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan of the Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane and Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls in Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie

What’s On My iPod

Apparently this is a popular celebrity related question. I am not a celebrity, but music, and therefore my iPod, is a constant in my writing life. My iPod trumps the TV for background noise while I sit at my computer tappity typing away. My musical taste is fairly bizarre and abnormally eclectic, but after reaching the middle of my thirties this year I no longer care what you all think of my eccentricities (or lack thereof) in the musical realm.

I listen to a plethora of instrumental music while I’m writing. Not just classical and jazz, but big band and lots of orchestrations and full score soundtracks. This isn’t always the case – mostly because I listen to too many different types of music and yet not enough. I spent all of November listening to only Lady Gaga because her music played an important plot point in my current manuscript. Of course if I were to publish that particular ms and she didn’t give her permission, I’d have to come up with a fictional musician who had a similar repertoire. This is bothersome; the uniqueness of Lady Gaga is what makes the plot point important. It’s just another writing conundrum on the back burner slowly simmering, patiently waiting to become an actual publishing problem.

On-the-Go Playlist
I walk to and from the part-time job hobby most days. It’s often my favorite part of the day because it’s just me, the outdoors, the music and my castles in the sky. I’m lucky. The thing about walking 3 to 4 miles a day outside in MN all year long is that it’s ungodly cold a good portion of the time…and then Amazon hot and humid other times. This is when that little “on-the-go” playlist function on my iPod comes in handy. I can make a new playlist everyday, hit shuffle and go without the need of exposing bare skin to the elements when I don’t like, or want to listen to, a particular song.

As you’ve guessed, I’ve become an expert master at the on-the-go playlist – combining diverse rhythms, tempos, speeds and lyrics into a masterpiece of eclectic design in 45 minute spurts. There are lists that make me linger and ones designed to make me get from point A to point B in the quickest time. During the bitter cold walks I often put complicated and dense music on the list – hoping I can concentrate on unraveling the meaning behind the lyrics and forget about winter slowly ripping my face off with her cold burn. At other times I’m in a more completive mood and want easy music I can think around; music to flesh out a flat character or delete superfluous extra characters while I’m away from the computer and my words. And because I’m geekerrific and spent too much time in my formative years creating choreography for synchronized swimming routines, I often find myself thinking about different music that would work as dance or ice skating choreography: I’m still waiting for the “Caribbean Blue” waltz and the “Telephone” Paso Doble on DWTS. Come on, it would be awesome!

My on-the-go lists usually only last a day or two and then I try a different combination. Before now, the longest list lasted a week. Three weeks ago, when the weather here started thinking about maybe, possibly becoming springtime; I made a playlist to coincide with this wish for just a little bit warmer weather. It’s hard to figure out how to dress for outdoor activity during March and April in MN. There’s still snow and ice, but there’s also a lot of water and mud. In the morning a winter coat is needed but in the afternoon sometimes no coat at all is best. I wanted the playlist to take all of this into consideration, but mostly be hopeful and energetic. Something to brighten my mood and make me look around at all the changes spring brings with it. Three weeks later and I’m still quite content listening to this same playlist. Oh, I shuffle it everyday for a different combination and surprisingly, each new combination brings a different shade of spring into the light like an endless list of possibilities. And that’s what’s on my iPod right now.

The List
Here’s the list in alphabetical-by-title order. These aren’t all of my favorite songs or artists, but for some reason this playlist has intriguing staying power.

“Cecilia” – Gaelic Storm cover of Simon & Garfunkel
I listen to a lot of Irish bands in March; it’s my homage to St. Patrick’s Day. Plus, Gaelic Storm is one of my favorite bands and “Cecilia” has been on my list of favorite songs since 1994 when Torvill & Dean ice danced to it at the Olympics. I don’t think this version is better than the original, but doesn’t everything sound better with a bodhran drum?

“Charge” – Splendid
I have no idea why I like this song. I’m also not sure why it works so well here, but somehow it fits right in. There are those songs that may mean different things to you each time you listen, but you’re always going to love them. This is not one of those songs. At times I will go months – if not years – without hearing it; then when I do decide to listen, I need to hear it over and over again. This is one of those times. Plus, the line, “Confusion is a definite direction” is oddly gratifying.

“Come On Eileen” – Dexy’s Midnight Runners
The 80s at their best! You know you love it too. Not only is it frenetic and easy to walk to, but for me it is nostalgic. When I moved to London I was still young enough to listen to most things my mom warned me about, so I did not take any CDs or Discman with me (Remember I’m old and therefore my college years were spent pre-mp3). Week two found me inside a Tower Records purchasing a two tape compilation of 80s music from the sale bin. The entire collection became my London soundtrack (and not just mine, it was so popular we hooked up little travel speakers to my walkman and turned it into party music on a weekly basis) and this song was my anthem. Toora loora toora loo-rye-a, I could hum this tune forever.

“Free” – Zac Brown Band
This song puts a smile on my face every time I hear it. It so doesn’t mean that I’m a country music fan; it just means sometimes country music exactly puts your abstract thoughts and feelings into song and makes them seem easy and attainable. Also, damn you Chris for suggesting this one…and by that I mean thank you.

“Hallelujah” – Vitamin String Quartet cover of Paramore
Euphoria. That’s what I feel every time I hear this song. I’m fairly certain it was made to move to. I do like the cover better than the original. With music you don’t always need words. Sometimes they are essential, sometimes it’s a partnership, but often the music speaks for itself.

“Illusion & Dream” – Poets of the Fall
Truthfully, the lead singer’s voice of this Finnish alternative rock band makes me melt. I have no idea what he looks like, but it really doesn’t matter. Yep, you all know what I’m talking about. POTF are very easy to write to as a rule and apparently just as easy to walk or run to. This song is a little slower than some of their others; it gets under your skin and sinks into all your nerve endings in a hypnotic way that scares me a little – but mostly leaves me peaceful and smiling.

“Jubilee” – Mary Chapin Carpenter
No one is surprised by this at all, at all. I often find my soul in a Mary Chapin Carpenter or Ani DiFranco song; so inevitably, one of them usually appears on my on-the-go playlists. What I like about Miss Carpenter – and all singer/songwriter performers – is the variety: many different styles, many different moods. I don’t have a favorite song; rather, a different song lends itself to my state of mind on any given day. At this moment in time that song happens to be this one.

“Kelly’s Wellies” – Gaelic Storm
March and Gaelic Storm again. Also, there’s so much water right now, I really should invest in a pair of rain boots; the snow boots aren’t really doing the trick. I’m wading through my fair share of ankle deep water and jumping into lots and lots of puddles: Yes, I am 35 going on 5, thank you for asking. But really, traditional Irish music is actually tangible. Much like the African-American spiritual, “Trad” is a part of the people and the place it originates from – stories past down in an oral tradition. The music itself can be touched, sensed and felt. If you ever get a chance to hear it in person – a bunch of local Irish lads in a small pub somewhere in Ireland – DO IT!

"Somewhere Over the Rainbow" – Israel Kamakawiwo’ole
Don’t judge me! Actually, feel free to judge me; I don’t mind. Seriously though, there is something about listening to “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” in spring. And the ukulele version is obviously the best, duh.

"Teeth" – Lady Gaga
I admit it, I am a little monster. I think all of Lady Gaga’s music is on my iPod - which must make me a fan. And for no reason at all this is my very favorite. The beat is so strong; I think high school marching bands should think about performing this one. That is if high school marching bands can perform something containing the lyric, “take a bite of my bad girl meat”…so perhaps not. I feel fierce while stomping around listening to this song, like I should be on a runway modeling clothes with Tyra Banks somewhere.