Harry Potter

As the former release date for the long anticipated release of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince draws closer, I find my essence, regrettably, consumed by fiery anger and frustration brimstone (great for gunpowder and insecticides as a matter of fact). What is the true source of this veritable hot spring? Is it justified, and should I be looking for the positives?

Well, there is no denying that the movie experience will be almost cathartic after such a long wait, but I’m certainly tempted to boycott the viewing and find some pirated version to spite the myopic, avaricious money carnivores at Warner Brother’s Studio. They told us, solicitously and consolingly, that the new release date was in an “ideal window for a family tent pole release.” Thank you very much for this wonderful bit of edification, but the fact that it seems your doing this simply for money surprises me greatly.

These monsters love working outside of the calculus of what I call “real life.” Some franchises, most markedly the LOTR franchise, are in a most enviable position where there is little they could do at this point short of casting Smaug as Danny DeVito (great actor, but not quite becoming of a dragon) that would mess things up for them. Warner Brothers is exploiting a similar advantage. They know that the change in the release is not going to effect sales to a great extent, because the Harry Potter fanatics just can’t break the habit. However, my prediction is that, like a good solid addictive habit, Potter Fanatics will go underground like alcohol consumption did during the prohibition. You can screw with passive consumers, but you just don’t mess with a good solid addict. The possible avenues are: my preferred route of pirating (pirated versions of movies always spring up early out of China); inordinate reading of the books or coveting of posters, paraphernalia, etc. (in short, WB contraband); and, a very exciting option, mass riots, calumny, libel, sedition, immolation, interpolation, laceration, defecation, copulation, and general annihilation in utter rage and protest.

Still, they will evade “real life” accountability because when the day comes, people (including me) will go into the theater in droves (I guess I’m not one to talk). Now I would like to present an argument as a more reasoning human being. This puts a little less pressure on the poor, overworked and childhood deprived actors and actress, and allows them to have some semblance of a life for a while. Emma can go be brilliant at some big name school, Dan can prance naked around Broadway without having too many “wand” jokes thrown his way, and Rupert can cruise around in his ice cream truck (sounds like a serious euphemism to me). They don’t have to worry for the moment about promotional pressure, and God knows what else they have to endure around release and during filming. So thank you Warner Brothers. Despite your best efforts you are doing something that is mildly ethical and gracious, maybe this is the beginning of a big step for you.

Peter Jackson is still the best.

Guardian of Good

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/29/syria-iraq

Does this remind you of anything possibly pertaining to Pakistan?

I am not an unpatriotic person, but I have never been this ashamed by the United (thanks to a great unifying McCain-Palin campaign) States of America. We seem to have an almost utter disregard for international mores and respect. I’m sick of the US military playing the “suppression of terrorism” card as a sort of indemnity that allows us to strut about a region like we own the place. This presumably stems from the infernal presumption that the US is a (even the) force of good (listen to some campaign rhetoric), which, of course, people as far back as Gilgamesh saw as the end for which we strive. If the US is the ultimate force of good, and Heaven is for the “good,” send me through the cycle again.

I know the US is waging war in Iraq, but that does not entitle the US to free reign in the environs of Iraq as well; it just doesn’t roll that way. Countries like Syria and Pakistan are taking the moral high ground, responding diplomatically to out-of-line American actions. I feel sullied that we are being morally instructed rightly by Russia and Iran; and trust me they are not the only displeased countries. What the US is doing is an extension of its careless and thoughtless foreign policy. If there was a more effective structure for equitable international justice, we would be getting serious sanctions; the least we can do is apologize (we won’t soon while Bush is wiping his ass the the remainder of his dirty Presidency).

The Norman Invasion

The Norman Invasion in 1066 was a landmark moment in the development of the English language. It forced the Germanic dialects brought to the shores of Britain (categorized by us as Old English) together with the Romance language Norman, which brought a Frankish linguistic touch to the region. This gave rise to Middle English, which houses the works of the great Geoffry Chaucer.

It is amazing how much a single author or piece of writing can impact the entire course of a language. Chaucer is credited with reinventing and developing elements of English. William Shakespeare is a notorious developer and revolutionizer of words. For example, there is speculation that in Macbeth, in Macbeth’s act one soliloquy, the phrase “If the assassination could trammel up the consequences” saw the first instance of “assassination” being used as a noun (I heard this on the radio), meaning the act of assassinating. Martin Luther’s prose (widely disseminated) impacted the development of German, and the Koran has obviously had a significant impact on Arab (and Muslim) language and culture. Moral of the story: liturgical languages are often underestimated and beware of petty vernacular.

Well anyways, what I intended on imparting was this little interesting factoid that brings us back to the point about the Norman invasion. It so happens that the words for most farm animals come from the Germanic (swine, sheep, and cow translate respectively into modern German: Schwein, Schaf, Kuh), whereas the words for the edible forms of those animals can be linked to modern French (porc, mouton, and boeuf).

This is an interesting little trend and though the correlation does not put me at liberty to say exactly why this is the case. But my best guess is the new establishment (Norman) probably comprised the wealthier population who dealt much more with the cooked forms of the meat than the poor German farmers.