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It's comforting to know that you can be sitting in an airport departure lounge with hundreds of annoyed strangers, your flight having been delayed for an hour, and somehow - somewhere - there will be a live feed of a handler stroking a domesticated formerly wild feline broadcast across the nation on morning television.
Maybe Neil Postman has a point after all, if for no other reason than for being able to quote Henry David Thoreau: ' "We are eager to tunnel under the Atlanatic and bring the old world some weeks nearer to the new; but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad flapping American ear will be that Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough." '*
[*Corrections on punctuation will be accepted.]
" 'We go to highschool. We dig rock 'n' roll. We date and go to parties and yes, we sometimes neck but no, we never pet. We also fall in love and that really burns us up. Then we pass notes in class and don't eat and even cry at night. We also think coke and hamburgers are really neat. We wear sneakers, short shorts, highschool sweaters. The girls have ponytails and the boys are crew cut. Our parents can be kinda draggy at times but, gee whiz, they were young themselves once and they're only trying to do their best for us. Finally, we dig America. We think it's really peachy-keen.' "
- Nik Cohn, Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: Pop From The Beginning.
J.K. Rowling says that Dumbledore's gay. Fair enough. It's nice to see that Hogwarts is such a progressive institution. Can't help but feel this isn't really going to do much to the right-leaning amongst us who think that the Harry Potter books are a recipe for one's soul burning for all eternity. These people probably also think that a thorough reading of said books will result in depraved children who can open locks with sticks, fly brooms and make their stairs move.At least you get to hang out with Alan Rickman though, he's pretty badass.
Before you ask, no, three copies of Jo Rowling's newest licence to print money aren't enough, but thanks for asking. I at one stage had four copies in fact, but posted one to a relative whilst on my way home with the goods. I know it's a big deal and all, with various news outlets claiming queues of people lining up at book stores from thousands into the billions, but I somehow figured I wouldn't have to sell vital organs or endure Playstation 3-launch-style wrath in order to get a copy. But then I wasn't silly enough to preorder the thing either; those poor souls are probably still in queue. It has been weird (though I guess not unexpected) to see how avidly people have dived into the book since its lauch at 9:01 this morning; as I made my way home after making my purchases, there were many excited individuals clutching specially made tote bags, if not the book itself. Some seemed to be unable to contain themselves, sitting on the edges of footpaths to begin reading, resigning themselves to not move for fear of finding out how it all ends from someone else. This catatonic, ritual-like state extends to my housemate and a friend of hers, who are both sitting on the couch opposite me ploughing through the tome as I write this.
This is the challenge that now awaits me. I'm still only up to ...The Goblet of Fire, the fourth book in the series. Somehow, amidst all the excitement about I'm going to try and not find anything about what happens. I don't like my chances either. Still, I manged to get through almost two years after The Sixth Sense was released in cinemas without finding out how that ended... only to guess the twist within the first half an hour when I finally watched it. I'm hoping this won't be quite that anti-climactic.
This is a finished book. May not look like it, but I assure you it is. I've been reading this copy of The Culture Club by Craig Schuftan on and off over the last four months, and while I have no idea why it's taken me this long to finish it, I'm quite glad that I finally have. Don't get me wrong, it's very good, particularly in a "beginner's guide to how everything is connected to everything" kind of way, and has led to a number of new pursuits including a minor fascination with existentialism's connection to pinball. More on that another time.
I've even managed to finish another book in the week since completing this, A History of Violence by John Wagner and Vince Locke. Admittedly it was a graphic novel, but that still counts right? I mean, it is a novel after all. It's all gearing up to a complete onslaught of the final four Harry Potter books before various people I know succeed in revealing all the major plot points to me. I'm tired of being behind the times people. And I don't want to hear anything from anyone about how Harry Potter is intellectual dross. Face it, if you cared that much about such things you wouldn't have ended up here in the first place would you?
Check.
