Tederick.com: July 2007 Archives
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Whaddaya think, maybe this is the next tattoo right here:
cuz up is sure as fuck down these days. Besides I could get a whole street cred for upside-down tattoo art. It could be my "thing:" I only make sense when I'm standing on my head.
"You and I think about this sort of thing too much." - Daniel Cockburn
"Aye! He's onto it!" - Barbossa
This one slipped under my radar for a couple of days. Tom Snyder passed away on Sunday; Letterman eulogized him last night. I fucking loved this guy. Loved every single damn minute of him. Obviously I missed his heyday by quite a few years but when he took the post-Letterman slot in '95, I think I watched every single episode. It was sort of an ongoing mainstay of my uni experience, watching Snyder religiously from 12:35 till 1:30 (or even later on tape if I missed it live), no matter where I had been that day or what I was doing the next day. Tom Snyder was just a fucking incredibly entertaining, watchable, insightful old fart eating up loads of airwaves in the wee hours of the night. I even wrote to him when I was like 22 or something like that - I can't remember what I asked him but it was probably unbelievably trivial - and he was (as I expect he was with everyone) kind enough to write back to me personally. Like, handwritten. Man, I cannot believe Tom Snyder is gone. It's a darker world without him.
The only nominal element curiously missing is a musical number; and the only true concession to the Friday night morality of the multiplex is a gag shot of Bart's dick. Otherwise, it's Simpsons through and through. Big glorious frame (and computer-enhanced animation and colouring) notwithstanding, it's amazing how cleanly the 88-minute movie effort fits within the emotional rhythms of the 400-strong flotilla of 22-minute episodes.
Less than six months after her tenth birthday, Buffy turns fifteen today. Oh media.
A certain individual who saved the entire magical and non-magical world from enslavement and death was also born today.
6:46 in the morning? What the hell is wrong with every molecule of me???
Double that grin and give me another. The universe has a hell of an awesome sense of humour. (And dramatic timing! Wooooo.)
I can't sleep.
Hey, I heard about this a while ago but it's sort of driving me nuts: apparently the original intention in Pirates 3 was that if Elizabeth remained faithful to Will for the 10 years he captained the Dutchman, he'd be freed when he came back. Which is very specifically not what is said in the film (I've checked... four times); in the film, Will's fate is that he will have to captain the Dutchman for eternity and only return to Elizabeth (and Will Jr.) once every ten years. But apparently the deleted scene that contains the original intended concept will appear on the DVD, thus providing irritating non-canonical referencing for the folks who want to believe that it all turned out all right in the end. Isn't it so much better if Will is out there on the Dutchman for the rest of time? Like, he's there right now even? He watched Elizabeth grow old and die and his son grow up and his son's son grow up and so on and so forth, and all that time served as the guide for those souls lost at sea, because he had finally become a whole, individuated, selfless person? Isn't that what his story is about? That is a freakin' terrific end to that tale, not "she was faithful to him for ten years so he got out of jail free." Elizabeth got the Empress, Will got the Dutchman, and they pulled a Kyle Reese and Sarah Connor: "in one night, we loved a lifetime's worth."
Sorry. That's been kicking the back of my head for 2 months. I needed to vent.
Did you know there's a Simpsons MOVIE??? I know! Insanicrap. Well it's a pretty goddamn terrific movie, too, and that is heartwarming. It took 'em 18 damn years but they didn't screw it up. I mean there's no Jasper in the thing to speak of and it doesn't exactly rip America in half with incisive critical commentary, but it makes you remember just how much we love the Fab Five, and it has the Spider-Pig song, and Boob Lady and Alaska and Bart's penis and a truly definitive hero moment for Homer J. Simpson. That's pretty tight, Simpsons folks. Pretty damn tight.
Hmmm. Still can't sleep. (Obviously.) Maybe I should listen to the thrumming of Sebulba's engine... that always does me.
You know what? I've got a pretty good crew. Between the roommates and Teen Girl Squad and the Box and the e.team and the soccer team and the Yorkies and the FORPies and the fam and whatnot, I'd say we're fairly well unstoppable right now. We've pretty much got this fucking thing covered.
[Homer anxiety dance]OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD [/Homer anxiety dance]
No week like Comic Con week to be on the internets. Have you seen the Iron Man preview bootleg? As with Golden Compass, I didn't watch all of it, because there's always that part of my brain that clicks on at the 45-second mark and says "don't you want to just see this for the first time when you see the movie?" But I skipped to the end. AND I LOVE THE END.
Meanwhilst, the Indy IV comic con presentation video (live on set with EVERYBODY!!!) can be seen at the official site. Along with a pretty cool video of Shia LeBeouf riding a bicycle! WOOT!! I am such a man whore.
And because I've been meaning to link to it for days and just can't seem to get 'er done, here's the Sweeney Todd poster, which I think is actually the best poster I've seen in the past several years. Definitely hips me to the flick, even though the only stuff I know from Sweeney Todd is the bits they used in Jersey Girl.
And now to reiterate, on a separate subject:
[Homer anxiety dance]OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD[/Homer anxiety dance]
Playing a big game now. Heady times, these.
Rebecca Wood, that is.
More news from the front:
Over here, you can read about Daniel Radcliffe reading Deathly Hallows. Oddly, he and I were listening to the exact same music when the book ended. Coincidence? Obviously.
Ye olde info re: Angel Season 6 be here.
And from the Joss panel: Ripper looks like a definite maybe, More Fray Coming, Drew "God" Goddard writes Buffy after BKV, and that crazy son'bitch Joss is writing a fucking ballet for Summer Glau. What?
Two down, one disregarded. Two up: we got ourselves a ballgame. And in case I don't say it enough, there are times when I am intensely glad that Mark is my best friend. That man knows his Transformers.
Merlin's pants, I hates me the telecom industry. HATES IT. (Yes: irony.) I was trucking along the Danforth on my bike this afternoon and my cell phone just wouldn't stop making noise. If it wasn't ringing, it was message-alerting. If it wasn't message-alerting, it was text-alerting. If it wasn't text-alerting, it was low-battery-alarming. I do not need to be this well informed. Nobody does. In the resulting furor I turned off every noise that the phone is capable of making - it is now on silent running, forever. The only way to get my attention now is for me to see the fucking thing light up blue. I'm okay with it.
Merlin's pants, I am also suddenly very fond of the expression "Merlin's pants."
Terry Moore is taking over Runaways, and Warren Ellis is taking over Astonishing X-Men. Which... is... okay... I... guess...???
Also straight out of comic con, a five minute preview of The Golden Compass. And it's official: I'm not on board. This thing just doesn't feel right. The animation on the daemons is way better than it was before, and the sets are pretty and everything, and Daniel Craig owns every kind of balls. But the girl doesn't work. And as the girl goes, so goes the nation. You can see her performing, see the tattered edges of Dakota Blue Richards trying to think her way through the blocking, the lines, the attitude, to pretend to be Lyra for the ten seconds that the camera is running and no longer. Sure, maybe I'm completely wrong and in the movie it will work perfectly. But in this rapid transit tour, it's a misfire.
And fuck me if the winter wind didn't blow straight through me when I heard him laugh.
Marion Ravenwood, the archetype for every woman I've ever loved in my entire life, returns. DONE AND DONE.
Points against Indy IV: 3
Points for Indy IV: 4 (Marion's worth 3)
Points pending: 1 (title)
You know that thing where I said if you didn't want to be spoiled for Deathly Hallows, you shouldn't come to the blog for 4 or 5 days? Turns out it's going to be a lot longer than that. By my reckoning the statute of limitations on spoilers runs out on Monday anyway so you can deal with it as you see fit; last night Amelia and I got shushed at a restaurant because we were talking too loudly about what happens to Neville. (Good natured shushing, mind you, and happily accepted.) And I'm pretty sure Jeff was ready to take a swing at Stacey and me at soccer last week because we just couldn't stop talking about it. You ever seen a pissed off Szpirglas? It's a wonder to behold.
Today we're going to be talking about two of my very favourite aspects of the final book: the redemption(s) of Kreacher and Severus Snape. These are both interesting because I basically thought they were impossible. I mean, I knew she'd make some token effort to redeem Snape in Book Seven and I thought I'd be all like, "OK, whatever" about it, but there is no denying that when she gets done with ol' Sev, she has actually succeeded in completely reversing every single thing you thought you knew about the character. Ditto for Kreacher, a redemption I didn't even see coming... I seem to discount House Elves from the character dynamics scale for some reason (it never even occured to me that she could kill Dobby) which is just faulty reasoning on my part. End of Book Five, I pretty much hated that guy as much as I've ever hated any character in the saga (short of Umbridge). Now, I'm all about Kreacher. I want a Kreacher of my very own. I derive enormous satisfaction from the fact that in the years following Hallows, Kreacher got to live out his remaining time on this earth taking care of Harry Potter and his family. That is a beautiful thing.
Snape's turn, too, is a beautiful thing. More of a tragic thing than Kreacher's, obviously, because every single bad thing that happens to Snape, he brought upon himself. In both his and Kreacher's case, the turn for the readers seems to rely on showing the pitiable state in which the characters find themselves - in Kreacher's case, we literally watch him getting tug-of-warred by the various requirements of the House Elf's enslavement; in Snape's, we see how he slowly and meticulously drove his one true love out of his life, and then had to not only suffer the ignominy of watching her marry and procreate with the living emblem of everything Snape hated/wished he could be, but die for it (at least partially through Snape's actions). There's no magical curse on Snape, but he's as fucked as they come. He's a dead man walking from the moment he turns to Dumbledore before the attack in Godric's Hollow, and yet every single nasty, horrible thing he had to do over the next 16 years is coloured completely differently when you realize he was doing it all for Lily. Good googly moogly, how god fuck awful it is to finally be empathizing with Severus Snape.
These turnarounds lead to two of the most affecting images in the book and possibly the entire saga - Kreacher slaving over a steak and kidney pie that Harry will never return home to eat; and Snape wanting to die looking into Harry's/Lily's eyes. Once you put the pieces together on that, tell me you haven't completely come around on every single thing you ever thought about both of those despicable wretches. It's all so masterfully done.
Holy sweet magical crap, JKR spilled the beans. Everything that happened after: the long version!
Surprisingly, the info about Luna was what I was craving the most, with Hermione's career choice falling a close second.
Fuck, I want this. Stupid exclusives stupid stupid.
As I scrambled to make Starbucks change in my wallet this morning, I realized that the Black Dime is no longer in there. After travelling with me for the bulk of 2007, the Black Dime has moved on.
What was special about the Black Dime?
It was black.
Why did you keep the Black Dime?
Because it was black.
Oh, there's no telling what will come of this. Anyways Comic Con has started so it's newsapalooza right now, along with tasty vittles: better shot of Keira, plus two young hobbits. Sam looks good but Frodo looks even more gorked out than usual. Hey, they did all right with Boromir but when my Faramir arrived last month they'd done him at such a high gloss on the skin that I call him Boromir's Sweaty Kid Brother (Fun At Parties). So you have to take these on a case-by-case basis.
Let's round out the miscellany with a list of nicknames I've had in my life:
I don't know why that was interesting but it was interesting to me.
Man I just got a Return of the King craving in the worst way. 3QF gonna be loud this weekend...
OK, I went to the white place for a minute there.
Harry Potter 6 casting rumours: not true. For my part I'm well into casting 7 in my head; I want Daniel Craig for Yaxley and I want to get Peter O'Toole in there as either old Grindelwald or Elphias Doge, as a tip of the hat to the one true Dumbledore (Richard Harris). And clearly we gotta get Bob Hoskins in there somewhere (Xenophilius Lovegood?) or he's gonna cry.
Michael, row your boat ashore. Hallelujah.
Hey guess what: in addition to getting the Indy license (shah!), Sideshow also picked up the import license for Hot Toys' Pirates 3 line. Including this very swank Captain Swann. Those suckers run a damn fortune but them's the breaks.
Enjoyed Buffy #5 a lot but I think I need to read it again cuz the structure sorta threw me. Enjoyed Mighty Avengers a whole lot more, which has been happening with uncanny regularity lately. That is some mighty, mighty Avengers.
The braintrusts at Rogers shut down Tederick Central Command again this morning, calling into question for the umpteenth time my decision to bundle anything, ever. Say you have a bundle of wood. (A "faggot" if you will.) And you set fire to a piece of wood in that bundle. You know what happens to the rest of that wood? It burns. Boy does it burn.
Speaking of fire, you can't deny the simple appeal of this:
(and trailer)
Crapulent awesomeness. But I think it's going to be down to me to make a movie that unites all of the Cardinal points of my particular compass: Dragons vs. Pirates vs. Schoolgirls With Lightsabres. Until then, Dragon Wars will do nicely.
Hey speaking of good ideas for a movie: dead baby in wall. Dead baby from 1925! Tell me this doesn't read like the first scene of a kickass period ghost story.
Fuck, I don't write enough.
Hangover. Harry Potter hangover. While I could not help but remark, last night, how nice it was to be reading anything that wasn't Harry Potter - there are other stories and characters and events in the world, oh my! - after my short respite I am now starting my second read on Deathly Hallows. Because otherwise, y'know, the DTs. Nonetheless I am feeling downright funky all over. It's like having the same dream two nights in a row. Plus I'm inexplicably exhausted. I think I'm not eating well enough or getting enough exercise or something. I felt so completely wiped and exhausted this afternoon that I came home from work early. It's not as much fun as it used to be, now that looking at porn has lost its appeal. Instead I'm cruising celebrity blogs, because I needed more reasons why I am better than Zach Braff.
Here are the recent non-Potter bullet points:
I can't believe Voldemort was living inside Ginny the whole time! I can't believe he decided to take the concept of the Horcrux one step further with the creation of the Morcrux, wherein a little bit of his soul lives inside every single person Harry has ever touched with his mouth! Mental, that.
I WARNED YOU.
I have made intimations along these lines previously but I wanted to say it once more, clearly and for the record: I am so damned grateful to every single Harry Potter fan whose life has crossed mine in the past month. I have traveled with many fanbases, so I can safely say that Harry Potter fans are the best in the world. Unfortunately due to the random and usually unfamiliar nature of these encounters, I can more easily thank the wind than thank them in person. But as I think I've said before, I've had more conversations - sometimes shockingly heartfelt, personal, emotionally supportive conversations - with total strangers in the past month than I ever have in my entire life. Most recently on Friday night at the Indigo where we got our books, where I was temporarily inducted into a small cadre of Potterphiles who had never met me before and will likely not meet me again, where yet another utter stranger joined our midst for the duration from outside and then melted away into the night to do what we've all just spent the last two days doing. We are all of us united. Or like the Coke ad says, "you give a little love, and it all comes back to you."
Love being, of course, the prevailing theme anyway. We won, gang. We won.
What I Liked (being a presumptuous list of excellences)
The greening of Dudley. The motherfucking X-wing dogfight (for all intents and purposes) in the sky over Privet Drive. The death of Hedwig, first soldier down. (I mean that's not a good thing, but damn howdy, it was effective. Cry my eyes out, part 1.) Second soldier down. The kiss. The wedding. Kreacher, now quite possibly my second-favourite character ever. Umbridge's eyeball and what came after. Indiana Jonesin' around the British countryside. The One Ri... er, locket. I can live with the sister thing. Boy-huggin'. Luna's bedroom (cry my eyes out, part 2). The Hallows, whatever they are, and wherever they're from. The death of Dobby. (See above re: Hedwig.) Riding the dragon (oh YEAH). Aberforth, in his entirety, vying with Kreacher for my eternal affections. The Ariana story. Minerva McGonagall. Neville Longbottom, Resistance Leader. The Children's Crusade. The suits of armour. "Is this the moment?" "Oi, there's a war going on here!" Continued magical interestingness (the Gringotts boobytraps; Crabbe's Big Mistake). The Battle of Hogwarts, part 1. Percy. McGonagall vs. Snape. Ron punching Malfoy ("and that's the second time we've saved your life tonight, you two-faced bastard!"). Snape and Lily and Petunia on the playground. Snape and Lily later. Looking into "Lily's" eyes as he died. Grawp vs. giants. Harry walking to his death (cry my eyes out, part 3). The Galadrielesque conversation in King's Cross. Neville beheading the snake. The Battle of Hogwarts, part 2. Buckbeak and the Thestrals. Kreacher and the elves. "NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!" The final duel. The portrait applause. The unremitting sense of joy of the thing, from about page 450 onward, even in the face of what must have then seemed certain doom.
What I Did Not So Much Like (being a list of quibbles that I will otherwise not give a fuck about ten minutes from now)
No Regulus, not really anyway. That damn mirror (that's two I owe ya, G). The strong Trio focus reducing the rest of the cast to cameo roles. All the frickin' Polyjuice. Harry Potter, Frequently Unconscious. Overuse of Rita Skeeter's various doings. Ron flippin' and runnin', again. The ghosts of Harry's family showing up, again. (We get it already.) Remus and Tonks - seems arbitrary and pointless. The explain-it-all convenientness of the apparent states of death. (If we could always just ask the portraits for advice, why didn't we do that from the frickin' get-go?) Knowing the future careers and lifestyles of literally everybody except the three people we care about most.
The one thing I was right about that I most specifically wish I was wrong about:
Fred.
The only "I Told You So" I shall utter:
Harry, the Horcrux. It's on page 568 spelled out in those exact words. To every single person who has declaimed to me with righteous defiance over the past two years that Harry couldn't possibly be a Horcrux, look it the fuck up.
Good shit from out and about:
"Speaking of people who are Like Jesus, In a Way, can I just say that it was like the fucking Beatles came out of those packing boxes when they opened at 12:01? I've never heard screaming like that in my life." - Cleolinda
"As the conflict with Voldemort comes to a head, Ron Weasley is suddenly and shockingly killed. Hermione responds with steely determination, joined by Luna Lovegood, who turns out to be a rare witch who has super-powerful martial arts skills." - If Joss Whedon Wrote Deathly Hallows
"It's one of the key differences between Rowling and her great literary forebears. Rowling has been careful to build Harry up from boy to man, student to leader, but she has been equally attentive to the task of breaking Dumbledore down, from a divine father-figure to a mere human. Her insistence on this point is a reflection of the cosmology of the Potterverse: there are no higher powers in residence there. The attic and the basement are empty. There may be an afterlife, and ghosts, but there is certainly no God, and no devil. There are also no immortal, all-wise elves, as in Tolkien... there is certainly no benevolent, paternal Aslan to turn up late in the book and fight the Big Bad. The essential problem in Rowling's books is how to love in the face of death, and her characters must arrive at the solution all on their own, hand-to-hand, at street level, with bleeding knuckles and gritted teeth, and then sweep up the rubble afterwards." - Time Magazine
"Of course it happened inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?" - Albus Dumbledore
Beyond the veil
One other thing worth quoting from that Time article, by the way: "We did something very rare for Harry Potter: we lost our cool." Boy did we. In this miserable age when irony has eclipsed sense, the entire world went blushingly gaga over the goodhearted adventures of a boy wizard and his friends. I suppose it can't truly be argued that Rowling's work is particularly supple or ingenious in the way that Tolkien and Pullman will forever be; the reason that none of that matters, the reason that all of this happened, is her nearly uncanny knack for characters. We loved them. We loved each and every one of them like (as I quipped in my Phoenix review) blood. There is a dexterity and dimensionality to the inhabitants of this gormlessly cheery alternaverse that leaves them like shadows on the wind long after the storm has ceased to rage. The storm is over, all right, but they're still glimmering behind our eyes, and my strong suspicion is that their mark will be with us forever.
THAT. WAS. SO. GOD. DAMNED. SATISFYING.
I don't know how much of the epilogue I absorbed. The words were sort of swimming before my eyes.
Don't visit the blog for the next five or six days if you don't want to be spoiled for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Additionally, comments will not be moderated, e-mails will not be replied to, and the web will not be surfed. I am going into the hole.
In the meantime, here be my predictions:
Is Harry going to die?
No. I do not believe that the series we have been reading for the past six books has been the tale of a person coming to the end of his life. This, like largely any other fantasy series for young people, has been a story of how to be a moral person in a complex universe. I do firmly believe that Harry will get a "Frodo" ending - i.e. as with most heroes, he will see and do things in saving the world that will make him unable to return to a normal, happy lifestyle after whatever fates await him in DH - but I do not personally believe he will die.
I have, of course, been wrong before. I had no sooner come up with my "this is not a tale of a person coming to the end of his life" theory than I realized that, well, it kinda is. Death has shaped every single major decision and distinction that Harry has come to in these past six years. His nemesis, Voldemort (true translation TBD), fears death above all other things and seeks to overcome it, meaning that Harry's true quest should be to accept the inevitable reality of human mortality. So... yeah. I still believe paragraph a), but must admit that paragraph b) has solid foundations.
Is Hermione going to die?
Why the FUCK does everyone keep saying that???
Honestly, and these aren't just my prejudices talking: if Hermione was going to die, she would have died in Book 5. At this point I'd actually say that Hermione is the safest character in the series. If there is one Potter character that I would lay good odds on having a nice, fat "what happened to her after Hogwarts" paragraph in the final chapter of the book, it's Hermione Granger. (Future Minister for Magic.)
Well then...?
If Rowling kills a trio member (and I hold that chance at slightly less than 50/50), she's killing Ron. I'd love to think she could do away with Hagrid but I'm not that lucky. Ginny's in solid jeopardy (see above re: Frodo ending). Snape, clearly, is doomed, regardless of whatever deal he worked out with Dumbledore in advance of the murder; Malfoy should be killed (there is no redemption for what he did in Phoenix), but won't be. All of the other Weasleys are obvious fodder, and I remain firm in my belief that killing a twin (but not the other twin) is pretty hefty on the drama scale. Killing a Dursley would also have phenomenal dramatic power; McGonagall's probably all right but some of the other teachers (and former teachers: Lupin, Moody) will probably be going down. It's a war, after all. For some reason I'm pretty sure Tonks is gonna make it. And let's not forget that if "two major characters" are indeed going down, old Voldy is about as major as it gets.
Is Harry a Horcrux?
Yes, I think he is. We do not actually know what curse Voldemort performed on Harry that rebounded and formed the scar. We have always assumed it was Avada Kedavra, but it may not have been; like that drink on the Enterprise so long ago, we only know that it was green. Voldemort had just killed two people to get to Harry, providing ample soul-shredding potential. The opportunity to create a living Horcrux out of the person marked to destroy him would have been quite appealing to young master Riddle. Harry being a Horcrux explains why he dreams Voldemort's dreams, why he sees through Nagini's eyes (another Horcrux) when she attacks Mr. Weasley, and why Snape has been so damn freaked out by H-pot since day one.
But if Harry's a Horcrux, then doesn't he have to die in order to destroy Voldemort?
Who am I, Noam fucking Chomsky? Figure it out for yourself!
A few final words:
Serpentsortia. Murtlap. Millicent Bullstrode's no pixie.
Well, it took six years but I've finally got an idea for a piece of Harry Potter slash fiction. It involves Crabbe and Goyle, Polyjuice potion, and whatever Slytherin first-years they were duping into giving them bits of themselves when C&G had to guard the Room of Requirement for Malfoy. Bex is right, the Room of Requirement is the slash fiction location. It's positively fraught.
Serenity Rose: currently moulting.
I really like Book Six. I tend to underestimate it every time I go into it, on account of there being no story. But I enjoy the Voldemort Godfather II stuff more and more each time I read it - it's just so well-authored and evocative. Plus it really makes me look forward to what they could do with it in the movie, particularly if they can work some digital whamma jamma to slowly move from Christian Coulson to Ralph Fiennes over the course of the film. Besides, the present-day stuff in HBP is just so unremittingly fun. I kinda respect that about old JK: after the sheer psychological punishment of Book Five, she stepped it back a notch and let us have one last good time before what is sure to be the sheer psychological punishment of Book Seven. Lo, shall we look back upon these days with fondness.
DH minus 177. Slightly ahead of where I wanted to be, but there are worse things.
OH MY GOD.
Must. Not. Scratch. Serenity.
This is driving me NUTS
Aaaaaaaaaaaaand my tat got blogged about by the artist himself. Not the tattoo artist, the art artist. And Mr. A dropped me a cordial e-mail on the subject, too. Sunshine and puppies over here, Internet.
Sera herself is a great scabby mess right now. And the scabs have started to come off so she looks a bit like she's disintegrating after having been turned to stone by Lord Voldemort. But the response has nonetheless been overwhelmingly positive all over town and continues to be so. I am having random "new tattoo?" conversations just as frequently as the random "which Potter are you on?" conversations that I've been having for the past month. Boy I talk to a lot of strangers about my life. (Just in case you thought that only happened in blog-form.) I wrote an extremely lengthy decompress on the subject of tattooing last night in my journal and, because I am a coy bitch, I shall not reiterate it here. Except to say that I'm fairly confident that this is the single best thing I've done for myself since 2003.
I had a late recording session last night for City Surf, so I booked today to work from home. Why commute when you can sleep right up until 8:30? Perfect day for it too; warm and sunny with a pleasant breeze. I ran a network line down to the living room, made tea, opened the windows, took meetings via telecommunicative devices, and generally enjoyed myself. And watched 7 episodes of E.R. while I worked, from back before the show sucked. I'm cool that way. You know, like when Ewan McGregor was on it that one time, or when Omar Epps jumped in front of the subway. I was in my second year of film school when season three of E.R. was on the air, and the show was the perfect metaphor for just how freaked out I was, all the time.
Hey guess what! Extreme Steve vol. 3 starts tomorry. I'm very excited.
Happy Sexiversary, everyone! Yes, today would be the recognized anniversary for the loss of my virginity. Celebrate as you deem fit.
I am taking this opportunity to help put to rest a cultural myth, because I was not de-virginized in the manner depicted in story and song (and American Pie) as the standard for young North American males. In a complete reversal of everything we've come to expect from the de-virginization process (and in spite of the so-called "anniversary" today), there was no one definable "time," a single event where "it" demonstrably happened for the first time. Nope, in actual fact I'd say that the loss of my virginity took about a full week, a week of gradual progress. As such it wasn't so much a "loss" as a "slow misplacing."
This kinda bugged me for a long time; it's bad narrative and shite at parties, among other things. We all want that story, even if it turns out to be a stupid/embarrassing/painful one. What I've come to realize in the years since V-day is that I'm by no means alone in my experience, particularly among those who lost the V after their generation's prescribed age average (I believe in my case, I was supposed to lose it when I was 15.3?). I got to undergo the process in a safe and caring relationship, so that doesn't suck. I position it as a worthwhile alternative to getting shagged after prom in the back seat of a car. (Which is also fun.)
Hey, while we're on anniversaries, we premiered the original Centipede fifteen damn years ago today! Wow. Half my life. Fifteen damn years and yet I still don't feel like I've "started" really making movies. Well what's with the back-catalogue then? Jesus, I've made more movies than I ever would have thought possible back on July 17 1992 and done things that wouldn't have occurred to me in my wildest dreams. Any feeling otherwise is such backwards horseshit.
Guest-hosted moviesTO over the weekend... ignore the bit about the Sunshine tickets (that got all screwed up), but enjoy the rest!
Restless, unfocused dreams last night - at one point I was trying Indiana Jones' hat on over and over again; at another, I was about to sit my OWLs at Hogwarts and was flying into a panic because I couldn't remember Wingardium Leviosa - which even I knew was ridiculous, given that it was the first thing we learned in first year. Then Cripps showed up and it all went to hell, possibly as a result of certain soccer-related conversations from the subway home last night. Oh patterns.
Which is all by way of saying, I don't think my brain (or this blog) is going to be much good this week. I'm about a 65% walking Harry Potter repository right now. I'm going to be abjectly useless at work, for sure, and the blog skein might be a tad specific for the next whiles. So unless you're all keyed up to read about my latest Potter thoughts - which will be occasionally broken up by tattoo gushing or the virginity thing I'm writing for tomorrow - this is gonna be a dull week on the blog.
Hey, tattoo: going well, although Sera now resembles nothing so much as a dirty great hunk of scabby scabness. She's itchy, too. Damn itchy. Vitamin E barely keeping ahead of the irritation factor. But I am still very, very happy. Having now gone ahead and done this, I suppose I oughta provide a little information on the whys, but we'll save that for later.
Meantime, meet Serenity Rose.
We creamed the opposition in soccer last night, thanks once again to our substitute goaltender and some fine offensive player from... well... everyone. The only downside to the game (aside from tattoo concerns) was the Bug Storm. Yes, we played in a Bug Storm. We played in some kind of mass migration of tiny gnats that proceeded uninterrupted through the entirety of the first half of the game; literally millions of the damn things were all headed north in a languid, unbroken cavalcade across the flats. By halftime they were stuck to my arm like flypaper and getting under my contacts and god knows what all else. It was most discomfiting. But as for the Yellow Wall - which may soon have to be renamed Yellow Domination - we've got a hell of a team there, folks. It's nice to be in charge when everything's going well.
Turns out it's a lot more fun to do me as a kid. You know, like how Muppet Babies are inherently cuter than Muppets.
That thing where every British actor has already been in a Harry Potter movie isn't exactly true. Here's who should be put in the next flick according to me, Supreme Mugwump:
Rufus Scrimgeour: Derek Jacobi
Narcissa Malfoy: Tilda Swinton (despite Narnia conflict)
Horace Slughorn: Brian Blessed
Merope Gaunt: I would have said Shirley Henderson, but they've already used her. I'm going to go to the bullpen and grab Kelly MacDonald, not least because I enjoy looking at her. Kate Beckinsale wouldn't suck either.
Morfin Gaunt: Jason Flemyng
Marvolo Gaunt: Ian Holm (conflict again, but why not?)
Tom Riddle Sr.: Toby Stephens
Fenrir Greyback: Bill Nighy
Regulus Black: Only one person alive can play Gary Oldman's badass kid brother, and that man is Johnny Depp.
It's not a patch on the South Park one, but you can't deny the appeal of designing your Simpsonsverse self.
No tattoo options though. 
simpsonsmovie.com
Incidentally, thanks for being polite about it but you're right, I am an idiot. The Simpsons Movie comes out next week, not this week.
As it turns out, doing yoga with a scab the size of a baked potato on your left arm is a study in compromise. Yeah.
I am very nearly done Order of the Phoenix. That means I'm a day behind, but Teen Girl Squad had my Half-Blood Prince until just now so there's not much I could have done about it. Stupid girls and their poisonous reading habits! Marrr. But anyways, I just read page 698, which serves as the basis for the story I use whenever asked how obsessed I am with Harry Potter. Goes like this:
Cast your mind back to the summer of 2003, when Phoenix came out. After a marathon weekend reading session that had got me into the climax at the Department of Mysteries, and in no fit state to deal with whatever "main character death" Rowling had been advertising for months, I happened upon the following passage on page 698:
"But the Death Eater Hermione had just struck dumb made a sudden slashing movement with his wand; a streak of what looked like purple flame passed right across Hermione's chest. She gave a tiny 'Oh!' as though of surprise and crumpled on to the floor, where she lay motionless."
I turned to page 699 to continue... and page 699 was blank.
It's not actually blank. I'm looking at it right now; there are words on it. But on that day, after reading that paragraph, my brain turned page 699 white, just in case page 699 contained the confirmation that Hermione Jane Granger was, in fact, dead.
So that's how obsessed with Harry Potter I am.
All in all I'd say seeing the Phoenix flick this week was a mistake because it totally torpedoed the last act of the book for me. As a cautionary measure I'm going to leave off seeing The Simpsons until well after I'm done Book Seven. Just don't have enough room in the brain right now. It's a shame, though, because there will be Batman.
For a series called Harry Potter, I don't think I can recall one of these movies that was so brilliantly, delightfully about its titular character. Pecs bulging and eyes steady, Daniel Radcliffe glares out from the screen with a dominance that wilfully pushes the rest of the junk clean out of the frame. Actor and character have fused at last. Radcliffe's matured chops meet Harry's Book Five angst, and the resulting potion is the film franchise's equivalent of veritaserum.
7 days out, 700 pages to go. And FYI: it absolutely sucks to see a Harry Potter movie without Becky Jo Wood.
OH MY GOD I LOVE HER SO MUCH. OH MY FUCKING GOD I AM SO HAPPY.
See? I toldja. 
I am in love. That's all there is to it. I am in love with my own arm. In my humble opinion - which is, at this time, admittedly not too terribly humble - Lisa did a better job with the art than the original. The eyes, for example, are fucking phenomenal. I love the living shit out of the eyes. There's a smirky glint going on in the face that wasn't there before. And the shading on the face and on the clothes is, quite simply, not something I thought was possible with tattoo art. The blue in the hair pops. The definition on the pants (good pants) and shoes and arm bandages are all just tremendous. For a first tat, Lisa cranked this one out of the park and made herself a big ol' lifetime customer... because yeah, I have got to do this again.
Here's the last time you'll ever see my inner left arm un-Rosed:
I've sent a picture over to Heart Shaped Skull. Attitude of gratitude.
"No more virgin canvas," my friend Jacob said when we started this process. He's been my key adviser on this from the start. It was Jacob who pointed me towards Sinful Inflictions in lovely downtown Whitby Ontario, which is where he got his rather spectacular art done. I got hooked up with Lisa at my consultation a couple of months ago, and have been doing the thrill-of-dread waiting game ever since for my July 12 appointment.
Let's cut straight to the heart of this thing: getting a tattoo hurts, Internet! Didn't see that coming. And good fucking God, was it a turn-on. Didn't see that coming either. Jesus I'm licking my lips right now just thinking about it; I've got a full flush on. Mmmmmmmm tattoo.
When Lisa was doing the outline, it hurt a lot, but I was doing a pretty good job of managing it - occasional flashes to the river of fire on Mustafar, sure, but for the most part I was just giggling and chuckling and so forth. I realized today (and should have done long, long ago) that I have a weird sense of humour about pain. That's why I'm always cracking up when I fall over snowboarding or get hit in the head with a soccer ball: I just sort of find pain amusing. It bears elements of simplicity and focus that are quite useful.
So there I am giggling away and commenting that the pain is more irritating than painful, when she starts with the shading - and holy mother fuck, that's a whole other level of owie. So... I started picturing going down on various people. Yeah. Some people I have gone down on, some people I would like to go down on. It became a bit of a free for all but I kept at it because it was terrifically effective.
And then she starts the colouring and the white... and there is no longer a single thing I can do to be anywhere other than that fiery maelstrom of pain. I am right in there. My entire life has turned into an old, beaten up piece of film: there are unintentional speed-ups, and film white-outs, and bad splices cutting through the center of frame and even a burn-out or two. I just lived there for about ten minutes because there was nothing else I could do. But when that was done, it was done. And I was just so goddamn happy.
OK that's enough storytelling for one night. Gotta go buy Vitamin E.
GO GET A TATTOO, INTERNET. You'll be glad you did.
"I don't wanna die without any scars."
Moody and Shacklebolt ain't lackin' for charisma neither, but man howdy that is some good purple hair.
Very tired. More to come.
I know they make 'em different in Alberta, but Jesus, thirteen?! And what's with the 23-year-old boyfriend? That's a thing now? (Says the 30-year-old who's been chasing a 20-year-old like a puppy after a 1956 DeSoto)
Gruesome as it is, I can't help think that this story would make a hell of a film, in the Heavenly Creatures / Welcome to the Dollhouse / Ghost World mould. (That's a mould?) Though it'll probably just end up a gorramned CBC movie-of-the-week. But the subtextual possibilities are monumental.
Hey, speaking of viscera, my brother did a mockup for school last week of a waterbed called the Eviscerated Bear. He took the tauntaun concept a step further by making a bed where you actually crawl into a bear's guts (rubber tubes of heated water) and are soothed to sleep by a gently pulsing hearbeat. The kids learn about the inevitable passing of all things and stay snuggly warm. It's really something, and proof that all those year Adam spent bisecting Gonzos and building parachutes for Nini actually went somewhere productive.
I am doing my best to be productive as well, which means more time crawling forward on my meagre production slate and less time for everything else - including the film-watchin'. I really don't know when I'm seeing Harry Potter, or any other movies at all really; even the Pirates screenings have been necessarily curtailed. As one third of the popular singing sensation Mamo!, I am more than aware of the current state of theatrical distribution, thankyouverymuch. Still, I was going through the movie listings the other day and was sort of re-bummed-out about the fact that World's End, six weeks after its release, is pretty much gone from Toronto. I miss the days of longer runs. When I was a teenager - which wasn't that long ago, cheers - I made a semi-regular habit of going to see my favourite movie of the summer on the the Labour Day weekend, to close off the vacation before school started; unless my favourite movie this summer turns out to be Rush Hour 3, that shit just doesn't happen any more. It takes (for me) the last veneer of decency out of the summer movie phenomenon, because at least in the past it was possible to conjure the illusion that the movies, if dumb, were at least amiably enjoyable enough to be worth looking at again in due time. Summer movies in the 21st century are the cinematic equivalent of overworked prosties, out the door before you're even done towelling off. Sucks. This all points to a future where the blockbusters are downloaded into our brain before they're even written, sold to our hard drives before we've bought the computer, and interact with our iPhones to let us text-vote our preferred endings to the digital animation department that will, for a modest fee, create the ending we want so that we don't have to surrender our emotions to something as archaic as "authorial control."
And all this so that we can avoid the need to deal with death. Cripes, we are a backwards people.
Now I'm getting e-mails from Adrian Veidt. I'm really liking the way this is going.
Fucking hell it is HOT, Internet. Oddly beautiful night in its way, too, but my room is actually so hot that if I sit in it, I pour sweat as though I am my own little garde