A Pair of Rogues

Damn I would have loved to be there.

(available here)

myPhone, not iPhone

I have a new cell phone. It’s cute and pink.

Evidently when it was introduced last December, it was kind of a big deal, but I didn’t know that until I looked for the pic up there. Tokyo went pink for the occasion.

So did Paris.

 

None of this has anything to do with my choice of phones or colors. I chose the phone because it was pink, and the color because it will be easier to spot in the depths of my bag. Clearly, this is so last year. This year is all about the iPhone.

But the thing that bugs me (literally) about getting a new phone is that it is (literally) buggy.

As in, bugged.

As in, eavesdropping of the illegal kind.

Oh, you say, where did you get the commie propaganda?

But honestly, it’s okay.

 

Because Big Brother only means the best for me, and what are a few civil liberties worth, anyway? (Pay no attention to Benjamin Franklin and the founding fathers spinning in their graves.)

And, even though the FBI can eavesdrop on my private conversations –

– even when the phone is turned off –

All I have to do to make sure my conversations are private is to take out the battery.

See? No big deal.

And I have nothing to fear.

I am a good Episcopooks who knows which fork to use for salad and which fork to use for shrimp and when to genuflect and when to cross myself and when to murmur sweetly near my commie-pinko cell phone’s “secret” microphone –

“Bite my ass.”

 

 

 

 

 

More Daniel

Just wanted this link up here to a interesting interview with Daniel Radcliffe.

Thanks to Nanna in comments.

Daniel Radcliffe fans? Info, please?

How tall is Daniel Radcliffe?

His entry in the IMDB says he’s 5′6″ but it’s two years old.

However, he clearly is not a tall guy at 18.

How tall is Rupert Grint?

How tall are James and Oliver Phelps? (Aha! Answers found here and here: 6′3″. And I love “hair brown (dyed in ginger for HP!”)

(click for full pic)

I’m wondering how they made Harry seem the tallest on the front row there, unless he really is tallest. If so, it appears they did a remarkable job of hiring short kids with the exception of the Weasley twins, Neville, Dean, and who is on the far left, anyway?

Come on, fans. Fill me in! This is kind of driving me nuts for some reason.

And in other news — I already loved Evanna Lynch –

 

But what a great story, when a fan decides to audition and gets the role and nails it, and even greater when she comes up with stuff like this!

I ship all the normal ones - Ginny/Harry, Ron/Hermione, blah blah blah. But I do have a strange one, which is Luna/Dumbledore. I think they would be quite perfect. They’re both so detached, so otherworldly and so comfortable with themselves and they have this uncommon fearlessness of death. They also both have quirky hobbies and deep minds and I can see them getting along a storm. I don’t see this ship sailing, of course. It’s just one which I think could have had potential, aided along by a time-turner.

Now that is greatness.

Deathly Hallows (w/SPOILERS)

I’ve been pondering this for a few days and realized I’m not going to ever sit down and write a truly organized entry on my thoughts and reactions to a book that I pretty much loved.

But!

That doesn’t mean I can let it go.

So now I’m going to write some disorganized thoughts and reactions.

Let me know where you think I’m right and where you think I’m wrong.

First –

THE WEASLEY TWINS

Excuse me, but I don’t just know the Weasley Twins.

I am the Weasley Twins.

 

(Harry Potter Personality Quiz by Pirate Monkeys Inc.)

So I speak with authority when I say –

One: The wooden radio broadcast was genius, though I think they would have been in charge of it.

Two: Their actions in the battle for Hogwarts were lame, dreadful, sorely lacking.

Fred and George are all about razzle-dazzle and what’s more, they are freaking geniuses! Don’t you think they’d be doing more in that battle than, than, whatever they were doing?

And don’t you think Fred deserved at least as heroic a death as Dobby?

I don’t mean stop the story cold while we mourn and cry, but at least give a sentence and a heroic image of the guy doing something, razzle-dazzley and heroic, while he bites it.

And then?

And THEN –

Excuse me, but you know as well as I do what happened next. While Percy was crying into his frilly hanky –

George was mounting his broom and taking off with fire in his eyes, and he was out to avenge his brother’s death (which was probably sneaky and underhanded, anyway, and the equivalent of wizarding’s being shot in the back).

And while we’re on the subject of that battle –

LUPIN

Killed Greyback. He had to have. And we wanted to see it. We needed to see it.

And Tonks was at his side, holding off some other scurvy wizard bastard to give Lupin time to finish the job, even though he was hanging on by a thread, a mere thread, before he died, too.

And what’s more –

GRAWP

Was a total waste of trees in every book he was in.

And –

GINNY

Is a kickass witch with incredible powers and clearly Jo Rowling decided she couldn’t let any of the kids actually kill anybody (whatever) but she could have used Ginny, she could have let Ginny do something important — not get stuck in the nursery!

But –

NEVILLE’S GRAN

Was absolutely fabulous.

And –

NEVILLE

Turning into a badass punkass kickass hero was beyond fabulous, it was beyond my greatest expectations. We all knew he was going to finally step forward and be a hero but I never expected him to be so damn tough and wow, that really worked, even though we didn’t actually get to see him pulling it off and just heard about most of it after the fact.

But –

LUNA

My freaking dog in heaven, she not only broke my heart with her ceiling mural, but we wanted to see her do something totally “Luna” in the battle, and get the best of some Death Eater or other. In fact, I think I know what she did, now that I think of it.

I am pretty sure that if you look at the Malfoys and follow them on their quest to find Draco in the chaos, you will see Luna leading them along sweetly with her distracted smile, totally oblivious to all the carnage around her, until she reunites the happy family, and then conks them with a stunning spell, binds them with something else, and smiles hazily and wanders off looking for some other way to make herself useful.

Here’s the thing. I really think Ms. Rowling was under the impression that since she initially started off with arcs in mind for certain characters, by the time she got to the final battle she thought we really only needed to see those characters complete their arcs. She didn’t think we needed to see the characters she made us love later in the series strut their stuff. She may have even thought there wasn’t enough time and paper to finish off all the arcs.

But!

Just as there was room for two sentences (I think) about Trelawney and her crystal balls, and those two sentences brought a cheer to my heart –

And there was room for a sentence or two about Peeves doing his usual brilliant vandalism –

There was room for a sentence or three — a flash from one image to the next — of many characters.

And each of those characters doing something totally characteristic.

Why didn’t we see the Quidditch team soaring overhead in formation, knocking something around or through something?

Why didn’t we see Cedric Diggory’s father with vengeance in his heart going after somebody?

Why didn’t we see the characters we’ve grown to love and care for getting in their last licks before the ending?

There was room, there was plenty of room, I never heard or read a single word about, “Oh good gravy let’s hope she doesn’t make this one too long.”

I heard and read words about hoping it wasn’t overwritten, but not about length.

I wanted to see more of the grand finale.

Damn it.

And there is also the possibility that she feared that giving too many heroic moments and actions to too many characters would diminish the impact of what happened to Harry.

It would not have.

It really really would not have.

And don’t get me started about the time and pages devoted to wandering in the wilderness like the lost tribes of Israel. We honestly (honestly) didn’t need to read as much of that as she thought we did.

And then?

Oh good dog have mercy –

NINETEEN YEARS LATER?!?

Names?!?

We fast forward nineteen years to get NAMES?

The only moment worthy of its space in that entire dreadful fanfic epilogue was Harry’s line about Snape and Slytherin.

And yes, that was nice, really nice.

But REALLY!!!

But still, I held on, I kept reading with hope in my heart because I knew what was coming ….

I mean, I really thought I knew what was coming.

And I was wrong.

But listen.

How cool would it have been (not to mention a nice bookend-ing moment) if there on Platform 9 3/4s we’d seen Dudley putting his little mullet-head on the train?

Not a friendly, “Howya doin’, Dudley?” but instead, let Dudley and Harry exchange cool nods, barely covering their discomfort, but we’d see that even if Dudley is still a Dursley — he has a bit of clue.

I dunno.

To me, that would have been the perfect ending.

Not an ending that told us who had kids and named them after whom, but an ending that hinted at character and story and left us filling in the blanks with unexpected pleasure instead of unexpected confusion.

(Sidenote: A really good epilogue doesn’t try to fill in the kinds of details she gave us — who had how many kids and what they were named. And it doesn’t even really fill in all the blanks, as she does on NBC this Sunday, according to articles. Those details are as likely to annoy as to irritate. “What, he works for the ministry? She’s a lawyer? Do what?!?” An epilogue hints at lives that have continued, gives you what you needed, that he’s happy, and hints at a couple of unexpected twists and leaves you with a lot more to think about and a lot more questions, but the kinds you could spend hours musing over and discussing with your friends, not flat facts that end all what-ifs with cast-in-stone answers. At least, that’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it.)

Now. If you want to read a couple of reactions to Deathly Hallows that are much more thoughtful than mine, go here and here.

You’ll like what you find.

And lest it got lost in my mutterings –

I really loved the book.

It surpassed my expectations of what I thought it would be, and even where it went in the direction I thought it would, I was still unexpectedly satisfied and sometimes even surprised at the way it happened.

It’s a wonderful book and a wonderful series and I will definitely be reading it off and on for the rest of my life.

Thank you, Jo Rowling, for everything.