Neville's Ear

"Oh yes. She's a sadist. She's very sick. She's got problems. I think she's been in prison a bit too long. But I suspect even before prison she had problems. She's a racist, obsessed with blood purity. Like Adolf. And she's in love with Voldemort, really."

Delightul interview with Helen Bonham Carter here about filming The Order of The Phoenix, a movie where I imagine many of her scenes were left on the cutting room floor. The biggest problem with that movie was that it was way too short. Another hour should have been added to include the Black family back story alone, something that figured prominently in the book but is hardly the stuff to engage the attention of tweens for very long. Such info, along with that very naughty Rita Skeeter, is all through the last book. (I'm about 3 chapters in, but with a promising rainy Sunday, I imagine I'll be plowing along at a nice clip momentarily.)

I still think of Helen Bonham as a Merchant Ivory princess, dragged repetitively all over Italy by a fussy, clucking Maggie Smith (who never ceases to end-up playing my mother in all her ineffectual-fussing roles) hovering over the scowling Bonham Carter and admonishing her not to play Beethoven because doing so inevitably made her "peevish." To which Helen Bonham Carter would only scowl that much more!

I love that word: peevish. Woe to the young turn-of-the-century woman who was too peevish and moody. No decent husband prospects for her. But whatever happened to that yummy Julian Sands? Seems like he of all people would have popped up in a HP role by now.

No Harry Potter Fun

My daughter is seven and now too cool for Harry Potter play. I thought she'd want to put on her Hogwarts robe, that Gryffindor tie & shirt combo I found at Value Village, grab her broomstick and cauldron, and head to Barnes & Noble to commune with likeminded youth. No way. That was soooo last year apparently. This year it's all just that trailer park princess, Hannah Montana. Ughhh. I guess I was really the one who wanted to go check out the scene. Take pics. Video. Blog it. Least I have a few fleeting moment snaps from her '06 birthday party.

Now, she's the child with the real scars, eerily like Harry, her one-time hero. But she's as anxious to have me & her dad read the last book to her as the rest of the world. Still, this is rather heartbreaking, after all it is "opening night" of the last book of the greatest publishing phenom since Gone With The Wind. And now I'm feeling blue. When they say that cliche over and over about how fast they grow up, there's a reason. Sigh...

The Order of The Phoenix

Other than pining for a heroin-chic Gary Oldman to ravish me at some grungy bar one night soon, I was rather, ummmm, unmoved by The Order of The Phoenix. Likely had something to do with too many cute flourishes, no doubt meant to provide a bit of relief to what was a very dark book. While filled with tantilizing tidbits, the movie was just not black enough for me, although the costuming on Helena Bonham Carter's Bellatrix Lestrange was quite gothed-out, as was her unhinged, poisoned acting. Needed more Oldman and more Bonham Carter, less earnest teens. Yawn.

Harry Potter Spoof

Toilet-bowl, juvenile humor at its finest. This is for adults only. Contains seriously partial nudity. Hilarious! LOL at the Snape wig alone.

Swoon

Oh my Gawd... how does one wait? The endurance, the ordeal! Four days until Plucky Brit Male Film Fest, otherwise know as The Order of The Phoenix. We've got: Ralph Fiennes, Jason Isaacs (Luscious Lucias Malfoy), Gary Oldman (forever singed onto our hearts as Sid Vicious, of course), David Thewlis, those precious Phelps brothers, and of course, at the risk of sounding like a lecherous old woman, dear Daniel Radcliffe, who will be appearing on Larry King Wednesday night at 9pm. All in one film. Wow. Color me ready to geek the fuck out.

Never Met A Rule He Didn't Like

I know this little boy, Andrew Keen, is just a Br'er Rabbit Tar Baby, itching to be thrown into the briar patch so he can sell some books, but ok... let's throw him in and scratch away! The only way to even begin to preserve what only the few really care to preserve at this point, Keen's clarion call to defend the honor of MSM, would be via massive levels of government cultural intervention... to the point of banning anonymous commenting on blogs, apparently.

Really, Mr. Keen doesn't resemble so much the contentious Br'er Rabbit as he does Laura Mallory, a person clamoring to be taken seriously, through benefit of that perceived "unbiased" media lens, by restricting some thing that has become part of the cultural mainstream on their watch, but of course without their permission. At what point did Keen or Mallory become anointed from on-high to go about and do the nation's cultural morality business? There is garden-variety narcissist; then there are these culture-sensibility clowns.

As we head to the July 11 premier of The Order of The Phoenix, let us not forget that Umbridge-esque behavior, that hyper-zealous drive to preserve a crumbling status quo, will drive people not only to despair, but to desperate action. To write laughably outrageous books as well.

Order of The Phoenix Looks Amazing

Further fueling my fantasy of being ravaged by Snape (Alan Rickman) and rescued, and ragaved some more of course, by Sirius Black (Gary Oldman). What a bodice-ripper those Harry Potters can be, if you use a little, uh, adult imagination. There's something for every age group, especially us goth-minded soccer moms, in these movies. They're like a super-charged, sci-fi Jame Eyre or Wuthering Heights really. Order of The Phoenix introduces Delores Umbridge too, although we already know her 'round here as Laura Mallory.




WABE WARNING: Lois Reitzes playing something "skippy."

My Media Is More Powerful Than Laura Mallory's

I'll never get in Mrs. Mallory's Bible study group now. Nor offered a job at Edelman. Asked to lobby for Media Bloggers Association? No way. Guess I'll just have to keep on blogging bravely on alone into the night. I can always hang lite-brites if times get tough. If I get arrested, I'm sure The Ministry of Magic will send an Auror. I answer only to that blue-eyed She-Devil (no, not Hillary), J.K. Rowling.

I'd rather just have the good 'ole boy attorney, thank you very much.

Harry Potter Puts A Spell On Laura Mallory

I hereby decree that the State of Georgia banish book banners to the rubbish bin of media oblivion! Looks like the kids from Hogwarts will be sticking around the Gwinnett County schools. And just in time for holiday hexes. The official vote is Thursday though.

Let's hope the kiddies out there have been stirring at their cauldrons well so that they can hex that hag good. And yeah, if anyone needs a nice, secular Happy Holidays shoutout, it'd be Laura Mallory.

So say it with me folks so they can hear it out there in Gwinnett County... HAPPY HOLIDAYS! And to Laura Mallory and whatever your freak-agenda really was, get back to the subdivision, read the books for chrissake, and leave the rest of the world free at last of your idiot babble, hon.

UPDATE: The case will be decided Thursday Dec. 14th at the State Board Room at the downtown Atlanta-based Georgia Department of Education. The website is here. Location here. The regularly scheduled board meeting begins, behind closed doors, at 8am. According to the GDE communications department, the "vote (on an appeal case) is taken without comment. Generally they identify the case by number only."

For the life of me, I can't find a case number associated with the Laura Mallory case on the website, which seems to be a very good one until you enter the search term "Laura Mallory." Then nothing pops up. No case number. Nothing. Maybe you can find it here.


FYI: J.K. Rowling's official website is a delightful time-waste. Find the secret body image rant! Love it.

Technorati tags: Harry Potter, Laura Mallory, Georgia Board of Education

We've Heard Enough Now Shut-Up

I need to take a smallish blog-break this week to:

a.) build a fallout shelter
b.) actually work

Gotta crank-out a real video for a real client real quick, so no real blogging until Friday.

I do have a bit of real information for you though, in that I had an e-mail exchange with Dana Tofig, Director of Communications for the Georgia Department of Education, about the status of that case belonging only to the personal, religious crusade of that hideous, Umbridge-like woman, Laura Mallory -- the hapless hag who wants to rid Gwinnett County of imaginary menaces from the Harry Potter books. And forceably detach, one must assume, our children from their beloved characters, as well as their own imaginations.

Tofig had this to say about the status of the book-banning case we wish was just a bad dream:

Mr. Buckland (a hearing officer for the state who recently heard an appeal) will not make a recommendation publicly and there will not be a public hearing. The (state education) board's decision, expected in December, will be posted on the internet at http://www.gadoe.org/. This is how appeal hearings are handled in every case.

This case will be handled like any other. State law allows this mother the right to be heard and the case will be decided on the merits of state school law and board rule and nothing else.

Decisions are made behind closed doors only? And all results are posted only on the Internet? Hmmm... I'm sure that Misguided Mallory will be more than happy to oblige the press when the decision does get "posted" wherever.

Let's hope, for this Communication Director's sake alone, that rational minds will prevail, in private or otherwise. Should something ludicrously drastic happen to the sensibilities of state board members and the Harry Potter books are taken away, we in Georgia will rival only North Korea for seismic activity, only any vibrations felt 'round the world from these parts will be generated by global levels of laughter and scorn heaped upon us Southerners for our backwardsass ways - again.

Horcrux This Hag

Umbridge Lives!!!! Umbridge Lives!!! Right here in metro Atlanta!!! Run for your lives children, 'cause book-banner Laura Mallory is coming for you and your own good judgement and imagination.

I bet this publicity-crazed Mallory hag would burn I Will Only Read The Bible (non King James version) into the back of my hand (and all my friends too), just as Umbridge burned her wicked rhetoric onto Harry (in Book Five for you non-readers), as fast as you can mutter Detention With Delores.

If Mad Mallory would shut-up with her idiot-babble, thinly veiled as her Fundamentalist agenda, for two seconds and read the damn books, she might recognize her insidious behavior in many of the most evil characters and knock it off.

Some HP characters and their accompanying personality afflictions who spring to mind when I read about Mad Mallory are: Umbridge of course, a huge dose of Dursley, a flicker of Filch and a lashing of Bellatrix Lestrange.

Guard your minds, kiddies, against The Ministry of (Your) Mind Control and their wannabee High Inquisitor like this stupid, stupid Mallory woman. Fiction has become reality I'm afraid.

Harry Potter And The Pointless Driven Life

It seems English schoolchildren are being overly "excited" by former Anglican priests who are quickly asked to leave school presentations when they make statements about TV being "crap"and Harry Potter being possibly queer. That boy Harry P. was always a little odd, now wasn't he? But that's the whole point. Odd is not always the "bad news" one might be so terribly afraid of. But don't go telling any priviledged little WASPy school kids such nonsense. They might get all agitated, and thereby forced to consume an extra dose of ritalin from their pusher parents.

And whatever you do, do NOT try to engage priviledged, self-satisfied, smug lawyer-types in a conversation about the very issue that's tearing apart the Episcopal Church while you're at, of all weird things, an Episcopal retreat!

WASP lifestyle-driven yuppies just hate to be mentally agitated, guess that explains their love of drugging-up their small children. And they certainly don't like to think about much beyond the ALTA/country club box about gay rights and certain priests (their own at All Saints', for instance) who might be compelled to take a moral stand one way or the other on the issue of acceptance of homosexuality, or not, in the Anglican church and community.

At a church outing last weekend, I tried to find out about how fellow parishioners were thinking and feeling about our own priest at All Saints', Geoffrey Hoare. His deep reflections and prayer and meditations on the issue of homosexuality, in the Anglican body and in our church, are present in a blog he is keeping while on on his corporately-funded sabbatical to Africa and elsewhere.

Careful what you go looking for, Dear Readers; you might find it. Here's a sampling of the responses I was met with upon bringing up the subject:

"No, I haven't read it." (Translates to: I haven't read anything in the last ten years other than the WSJ at best.)

"What's a blog?"

"Marriage is a man marrying a woman, and that's it."

"He's vulgar (Geoffrey). He uses the "F" word all the time."

"The parish is doing just fine without him."

"He's too intellectual for me. He doesn't get through to me at all."

At that point, I (silently) suggested they all drop the "F" outta All Saints' and opt for the utmost in simplistic drivel by reading The Purpose Driven Life instead of having to deal with Sir Geoffrey's complexities and utter lack of relentlessly cutesy-cute babblings about fantastical "good news."

What a bunch of boring yuppies they were. I was appalled at the extreme lack of intellectual curiosity in just about anything, except for the small matter of me being divorced and a single mom and would thus upset the couples-only seating plan of the dining hall, as one shrieking Muggle of a soccer mom just couldn't wait to point out when I tried to sit down at her married couples-only table.

And yes, that was hurtful, and what a bellowing hag she was, that Yet Another Atlanta Lawyer's Spouse Thing I made the gross mistake of trying to engage in something resembling a conversation. The numbers just don't add up so cutesy-cute and paired-off when you're alone with your kid at a FAMILY retreat.

But let's take a moment and back away from the bitterness and see what Sir Geoffrey has to say lately about what the issue of homosexuality may or may not do for his continuing leadership (I have hope) of this one Atlanta church.

"In the meditation period I re-read Romans 1 and 2. While I have come to accept that the overriding issue of my entire life in ministry will be shaped by discussions about homosexuality, it is not the only or the most important thing to me and I'd like to be able to put it aside. This morning I allowed the faces of many of the people of All Saints' to come before me in prayer.

And here is where I am: I see nothing especially wrong and much that is more than right in the way many of our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters conduct their lives in the faith. I see no reason to bar any of them from the Lord's Table or from offering their gifts in ministry. I pray that our Communion does not ask me to abandon them or ask them to be less than who they find themselves to be.

The phrase that kept coming to my mind as I prayed was "The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." Without grandiosity or any hint of a savior complex, and with a good measure of fear and trembling, I know that I will stand with those I am called to serve and lead." I hope, --maybe in vain, but I hope that those with power in our church will find a way forward together.

I fear that there is too much hurt and anger free floating around to allow that to happen and once more our sin (the sin of all of us) will lead to an even more broken body of Christ and an even less effective mission. I have heard the argument that we should go our separate ways so that we may all focus more clearly on proclaiming the gospel.

This is dreadful theology for anyone who reads the Gospel of John in which the unity of Jesus' followers is required for the sake of the right proclamation of the good news. Arguments about who fired the first shot, started the war or chose to split the church are not helpful, nor are proposed ways forward that ask us to give up on the people we are given to love and serve. I also, in no way, ask others to stop those ministries of reaching out to people concerned about their obsessions or who experience their lives as disordered.

I hope that in time those who proclaim homosexual people to be "objectively disordered" (a la Benedict XVI) will temper their certitude and maybe do what Archbishop Williams asks, taking another look and perhaps finding things of which they may repent."

Full blog here.

And BTW, least you think me too snarly today, I met and talked and danced with some wonderfully delightful, engaging people while at the All Saints' Kanuga weekend: Keith the Mad Scientist, who likes to banter almost as much as I do; Jan The Doctor and her cheerfully shopping husband; MaryJo, a widowed mom and her sweet angel of a son. That other single mom with that amazing dancer of a three-year old who's name I can't recall right now. And always in my life, my dear kind friends and former neighbors, The Jacobs family.