Muggling Along

Since it has been a number of days since Pauli or I posted I just wanted to pop in for any regular readers and say that we are not going off the air or anything, just both busy with matters of, shall we say, a muggle nature (in other words the usual run-around of life is going at a little bit fast of a pace right now) But keep checking in, leave us comments, read some of the further back stuff etc. a Happy and Blessed New Year to all, Merlin

Fact Become Myth: C.S. Lewis and Israelite History

I have been contemplating this today, on the Incarnation, being as it is Christmas day. Whitney over at Rialb's Blog (see non-Harry external links over on the left) has blogged about this matter and this particular line of thought and writing in C. S. Lewis. The title of this post is a word-play, for the name of Lewis' famous essay was "Myth Became Fact," in God in the Dock. The idea is that "myth" refers not to things that are "untrue" but to truths that transcend historical facticity (equating truth solely with historical fact, as modernism does in rampant forms in such things as "the news," amounts to really nothing other than Materialism and Atheism). The Incarnation is the one place where myth actually became historical fact in the person of Jesus Christ. God became man and thus is real in all forms of reality, both "myth" (spiritual) and historical fact (physical/material). In listening to the reading from Isaiah at midnight Mass, I began to contemplate the question of the role of Israel's factual history. I came to the conclusion that just as Christ is the fulfillment of that history, as He is the fulfillment of all human history - so the history of Israel recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures (what we Christians call the Old Testament) is really the other half of the formula that begins, or rather ends - or rather both begins and ends - with Christ as "myth become fact": It is "fact become myth." It is the mundane details of the physical history of an ethnic and political group, but one who was the "first-born" from among all the nations of the world and meant to be at the head of all humanity united with God in the Incarnation. God assumed that physical history up into a higher realm of truth. In Israel and their fulfillment in Christ He took mundane fact and transformed it into the wonder of "myth," so that in the return journey of Christ as "myth become fact" He might transform fact/physicality into something so much more than mundane. Within the mundaneness of our muggle facts He hid the magic of His love for us to find.

Modern vs Post-Modern: An Explanation of Harry Potter

Since a lot of my recent posts have not been following Alchemical symbolism as closely, I thought I would give an explanation of why I think this a fitting way to discuss Rowling's work and why I think it germane to discuss other venues such as popular music (such as U2) and dramatic fiction (such as My Name Is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok). I think Rowling's work is based in the medieval, both in the aspect of a strong presence of Christ symbols and in Alchemical structuring. But the work is not therefore, in and of itself, the same thing as a medieval alchemical text. It is a novel (or series of them) by a post-modern writer with post-modern elements. There are really 3 periods - the ancient, the modern, and the post-modern. We are in the third (post-modern); the ancient covers most all literature up until the Enlightenment (thus including the classical and medieval eras); and Modernism (the middle era) is basically the Enlightenment up to the 20th century. Of these 3 the "odd-man-out" is modernism. The Via Moderna was a radical shift from the Via Antiqua (borrowing terminology from Dr Scott Hahn's class lectures - which he borrows from such authors as George Weigel, the author of the best-selling biography of Pope John Paul II) and is really characterized by what a friend of mine from Brooklyn referred to as the "tyranny of reason" (much like the tyranny of pure-bloods). Modernism is characterized by a materialistic attempt to eradicate all forms of the transcendent/mythopoeic, including religion (what Cicero referred to as the virtue of Religio, which is among his 3 highest virtues: Piety, Patriotism, and Religion), by calling these "superstition." Note: I believe, in concurrence with the Professor from whom I heard these classifications, that, while the shift to the via moderna is officially at the Enlightenment, the sources lie at least as far back as the Nominalism of William of Ockham in the 14th century. If you want a really good (and short) work to read on the matter of the via moderna and the via antiqua (although this author does not use these terms) read the section entitled "The Dynamo and the Virgin" from Henry Adams' The Education of Henry Adams (which can be found, if I remember correctly, in the second volume of Norton's Anthology of American Literature ... but don't quote me on that, it was a while ago, and I am stranded carless miles from my personal library LOL) Among many unfortunate developments of the post-modern era (which I believe really to be the fall-out from the inevitable failure of Modernism) one very positive element has arisen in the form of a freedom for artists such as Rowling to go back to the Alchemical and Christological underpinnings of medieval literature without the worry of being call "superstitious" (although Modernism still has a strong foothold today, as evidenced in what Granger calls the "high road" attack on Potter, leveled primarily by "academics"). But, as with all valid developments of tradition, the conscious presence of the past is not a foolish attempt at the impossible of a return to the past; rather it is in the context of a step forward. In the case of Rowling this takes the form of exploration of the inter-penetration with particularly post-modern expressions of common post-modern phenomena such as rampant despair (aka the Dementors) and the possibility of the ravages brought by Fascism as a world-wide force (EG the strong resemblance between the pure-blood ethnic warfare and Hitler's Nazi Germany). Thus I think that to examine music such as U2 and literature such as Potok, in addition to the medieval alchemical background of the Potter books, is actually following Rowling's lead by bringing in post-modern material.

Giants and Gin: C.S. Lewis' Narnia and Paganism

So, recently I have been reading The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe when I have a few spare moments and have just come to the part where Beaver is telling the 4 (well, I would have to check but I think it is just the 3 by that point) that Jadis, the white witch, is not human at all but rather half Jinn and half giantess (I just looked up "Jinn" in the encyclopedia I got Nathan's kids, or rather his son Josh told me he had looked it up, and it is apparently some form of a genie). Those who have read the whole series will remember that in The Magician's Nephew Jadis came from a third world called Charn, that was dying and burnt out. So in Lewis' Narnia there are basically 3 "worlds": Charn, Narnia and Earth. I think that if you take "Earth" as the elemental rather than the "planet" you find the name actually very fitting for this world because it is the earth element, the muggleness of mundane material details ... IE everyday life. I believe that the other two worlds stand on either side of our muggle world as the Christian Mythopoeic (Narnia and Aslan) and the Pagan Idolatry (Charn and Jadis). In this sense "myth" is sort of "neutral" in much the same way that in That Hideous Strength Lewis has Dimble tell his wife that Merlin's form of magic comes from a time when magic was more "neutral." But there is a huge difference between the two directions in which the truth of myth can be taken: The Judeo-Christian progression of fulfillment in Christ and the pagan idolatry.

A Mystery

So, here is a mysterious thing I came upon today (Christmas) in reading some bits in an Encyclopedia of Fantasy I bought for our friend Nathan's kids for Christmas (his son's interest in Harry Potter is really the reason first read the books and gave them a chance after watching the first 2 movies and saying, "ok, seems like it might actually be good.") I was reading this part on gnomes and it was under the section on "elementals" and "earth elementals" so, seeing gnomes as representative of the earth element reminded me of this post where I posited Ron as being representative of the more "earth" element of the muggleness of the biological soul, along with the fact that this is ironic in a way that shows Rowling's core idea of reconciliation since he is from a pureblood family and Hermione, from a muggle family, represents the more "magic" element of the rational soul - this is all under the section "Final Ironies" in that post. The reason it reminded me of this is that the Weasleys always have to contend with garden gnomes, which would be an earth element and more "muggle" upon the fact that gnomes are an "earth elemental." BUT THEN I read on and it said that garden gnomes are NOT real gnomes, but rather a mis-nomer (sorry for the pun), and that they are really a form of dwarves. This is sort of a mystery to me on the assumption that Rowling would know they are traditionally a form of dwarf, a race which she has not really mentioned at all that I can think of ... it would have made much more sense had garden gnomes been real gnomes, for the reasons I just listed. Any thoughts from anyone?

Paul Simon's Heart

Speaking of "heart related/focused" artists, I am a huge Paul Simon fan. For one I think what he did on the Graceland and Rhythm of the Saints albums, drawing on African and South American music, most closely resembles the literary style known as "Magical Realism" that comes from those "third World" cultures (I put it in quotes because sometimes I think it is they who are rich and we moderns who are really impoverished in our way of looking at the world). This is really what "symbolist" literature is about: the way in which the magical penetrates the gritty details of reality, the way the supernatural penetrates the natural, the way the wonder of imagination penetrates the mundane details of every day "muggle" life. But in regards to this "matter of the heart," there are two instances that have risen to my mind from Simon's music since writing the post on "A Wrinkled Face and a Brand New Heart." The first is a line from the song "She Moves On" from the Rhythm of the Saints album: "It's a fine day, I feel so blessed, My heart still splashes inside my chest." I love that idea of the heartbeat as a "splashing." The second is the title of a song from his middle, more jazz, years. I am not sure what album it is on originally but I encountered it on the second disk of the boxed set. The title is, "How the Heart approaches what it yearns." I have posted on Simon's music before in reference to mythic/classical literature (Dante Aligheri and Beatrice as Al and Betty from "Call me Al") and here is just one more instance of why somebody like me who is so into mythopoeic literature is also so into Paul Simon.

A Wrinkled Face and a Brand New Heart

"As you enter this life, I pray you depart With a wrinkled face, and a brand new heart" -U2, from "Love and Peace or Else" from How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb "Take these shoes, click-clacking down some dead-end street, Take this shirt, polyester white-trash, made in nowhere. Take these hands, teach them what to carry Take these hands, don't make a fist Take this heart ... and make it break." U2, from "Yahweh" from How to Dismantle and Atomic Bomb Well, several things have converged into this post. Last night when I got into the car with our friend Nate to go Christmas shopping he was listening to this album by U2, yesterday on the phone with a friend from NYC she and I were talking about My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok, which I had bought her as a gift when she moved to Brooklyn to work for the Catholic diocese, and recently Pauli and I have been discussing the Sectum Sempra spell and sometimes in relation to blood. These all converge onto the one topic this post is on ... the heart. Your Heart in a Suitcase This last album by U2 is absolutely riddled with imagery of the heart, but the most powerful imagery actually goes back to the tour for the last album, Everything You Can't Leave Behind. I have not been fortunate enough to go see U2 myself but my friend Smitty is a huge aficionado, member of the fan site www.U2.com and actually saw them twice on the Atomic Bomb tour (lucky jerk LOL), and he has told me about this stuff. My official review of EYCLB is "good lyrics but only all right music" except for that they did re-establish their ability to do a power-pop song well - "Discoteque" was pretty unimpressive to me as good power-pop, "Elevation" and "Beautiful Day" were better. My general impression is that with 1990's Achtung Baby the band changed a lot - the album was very tight musically and they still wrote good music out of habit and that habit was probably even honed more sharply from disillusionment, but over the course of the next 2 albums (Zooropa and Pop) the darkness that haunted the Achtung lyrics took its toll on their musical writing - I can really only describe those 2 albums as sort of "silly" (cf the interview on the accompanying DVD for Atomic Bomb: Bono - "a song is like a smell and there are some U2 smells out there that aren't so pleasant" - I personally think he was referring to these 2 albums as a whole, but I may be wrong). With EYCLB they kind of woke back up but it took a while for them to get back in shape, so to speak, music-wise, and so some of the strength in imagery did not fully come to fruition until this last album. But one of the best images they have ever come up with was from this tour, and that is the image of the suitcase with nothing in it but the outline of a heart. There are a lot of things you can't take with you but your heart, your love and your pain you always take with you - sometimes you have nothing but these things to offer but they are exactly what you need to offer. This carries through in a lot of ways on Atomic Bomb. Bono uses a lot of Old Testament phrasings such as "All you daughters of Zion, all you Abraham's sons" in "Love and Peace or Else" - and one of the primary themes at the end of the book of Deuteronomy is that of the prophecy that Israel will break this covenant and be taken into exilic captivity, but while in captivity Yahweh will circumcise their hearts and replace their hearts of stone with new hearts (to quote Bono from above, "a wrinkled face and a brand new heart"). The Heart of an Artist So, at the time my friend and I talked yesterday she was 20-30 pages from the end of My Name is Asher Lev and really loved the book. But in the conversation she kept mispronouncing the name "Lave"/"Leiv" rather than "Lev." But in thinking about it later something occurred to me that I had not noticed before - she had the right pronunciation for the Hebrew word from which the name comes originally, the Hebrew word for "heart." Note: This actually follows a logical pattern in transliteration of Hebrew words into anglicized Jewish names. For instance, the common Jewish last name "Cohen" (EG the singer Leonard Cohen, the film-makers Joel and Ethan Cohen and the character Max Cohen in the movie "Pi") comes from the Hebrew word for "priest," which is pronounced "cohein." In Hebrew vowel pointing it is one letter/point (a "sere") but in English it is a diphthong so went the transliteration happens and only one vowel is used, the pronunciation leans toward the English vowel sound - in "Cohen" in particular the "H" becomes silent and as well. The name "Asher" is from the name of one of the 12 sons of Jacob, the patriarchs of the nation people of Israel. I would have to look things up on that but I would not be surprised at all if Potok drew on things about Asher the Patriarch in naming Asher the artist. On a more immediate level though, there is the fact that Asher Lev is an artist, particularly a painter who often draws in the medium of charcoal, which is gritty. Indeed, Asher's first experience of drawing with such a texture, as a boy, is using his mother's cigarette butts to create shading on a picture of her sleeping in a living-room chair. He has the heart of a wounded artist, at points grey and ashen (ie "Asher") and gritty and at points red and flaming with pain like his almost violently red hair and beard (as has his father too). Harry Potter's Heart of Gold So, finally, Pauli and I have been talking about Sectum Sempra and the topic has come up of the blood aspect when it is used on a human being. As I have said, I think the part of bleeding is a key part of the larger latent definition behind the "ever cut" meaning of SS. This is especially heightened by the fact that Voldemort resurrected by taking Harry's blood into his body. But the blood is dead without the heart that pumps it. And what Pauli has noted as a possible "change in way of looking at Snape" (ie seeing him "with his mother's eyes") necessarily will entail a "change of heart." I cannot think of any concrete examples heart imagery thus far in the books and I do not suspect Rowling will necessarily develop this image in book 7 ... but I would not be at all surprised if she does. I think it is definitely there behind the latent blood images so maybe just something to keep an eye out for whenever book 7 comes out. You have to admit, one of the biggest things about the biggest character, the blood red giant Rubius (meaning "red") Hagrid, is that he has an enormous heart. NOTE: I think Travis mentioned on his Sword of Gryffindor blog (cf the left side for a link) or in a comment on here to keep an eye on Hagrid for book 7 because the third stage of alchemy is the red stage. I know he did a great post on the 3 stages of Alchemy in Lewis' Perelandra - where the third stage involves what? a marriage.

JKR Reading our site

Well, another JKR actually, but still it's a fun and cool thing. Anyway, she is our first "reader response" post (and I use this phrase with the full pun intended, since I have been rightly accused of being an advocate of the school of literary criticism known as "reader response" criticism ... but in all honesty it is only PART of my literary theory LOL) JKR asks: hi guys, I would love to hear your thoughts on the differing editions of the HP books for the UK and the us. My gut reaction is derision at the powers that be thinking that the poor Americans can't understand that 'mum' means 'mom' and that the Brits call candy 'sweets' and stuff like that. But I am open to being shown differently by an intelligent response!do you think it was necessary/good? Are Americans really unable/unwilling to think outside of their own cultural box as is stereotyped? is that just the opinion of people making decisions based on money? Could they have just included a glossary of terms? If this has been discussed before, would you point me in the right direction. regards, jkr (in Australia) JKR, I agree with you %100. I think variety is a spice of life (sorry, I know it's cliche) and also that language is hugely important. The "slang" or colloquial language that Rowling uses is a part of the distinct English flavor she has. If you read Lewis' Narnia Chronicles (for some reason I especially remember this in the scene where Eustace and Jill meet) there is a total flavor there you can't put your finger on but it draws you into the world He is creating, into the story. If the American editors think US readers won't know that the "loo" is the toilet, then I agree - put a glossary in for them. But learning new things like that will, I think, broaden their experience. Cultures can be so genuinely diverse and you can get such a unique view of how rich a thing basic humanity is from experiencing different ways of speaking, etc.

Foretold By The Prophets

I've been dwelling on "Prophecy" a bit due to some academic reading I've been doing, and I thought that a fitting title for a post written on the Monday after the 4th Sunday of Advent, Christmas week. In the course of contemplating and predicting things - more below on the matter of "predictions" - based on the events atop the Astronomy Tower in HBP I have come to really be in awe of Rowling's genius and orthodox insight into these matters. Fore-telling and Forth-telling One day in a grad class on Biblical Theology a professor named Dr. Hahn spit something out that has been monumental in my understanding of these things. For the record, I side with the concept of a unified "Biblical Theology," which is a big matter because it is hotly contested in academia, but for myself, because of confusions existing in the current debate, I have found it necessary to make recourse to concepts that are more properly from "contemporary/post-modern" philosophy, such as the concept and question of "identity extended through time," in order to grasp the thing well. Anyway (returning to the real world from that of academic jargon lol), Dr Hahn said: "Prophecy is not primarily fore-telling, but rather forth-telling." That is too say that it is not primarily "knowing the future" but rather knowing what the present is REALLY about, knowing what is at the core of what is happening. Then you are a prophet because you can see how, to follow Dr Hahn's step by using his favorite (and well worn lol) quote from Mark Twain, "History doesn't repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme." Dr Hahn has also tied this in to the New Testament. In lists of "gifts of the Spirit" you find that one of them is "prophecy." But what is there left to prophesy about? Is Revelations a "foretelling." Well, yes, but only because it is a forth-telling. It describes the true state of the Church Militant and its relation to the Church Triumphant through the Liturgy. NT prophecy is basically the authoritative teaching of the Church based in a typological reading of all history stemming from the typology between the Old and New Testaments. Note: As regards the liturgy, "Mystagogical Catechesis" which was prominent up through 4th century, was basically typology applied to the Sacraments of Christian Initiation. Rowling and Harry Potter In regards to JKR's work, I think she is exactly along these lines with Dumbledore's comments to Harry about the prophecy. She is like Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back, "Long have I watched this one. Always looking to the future, never his mind on where he was, what he was doing!" You get the impressions that the centaurs know this when Firenze comes in to teach divination, that true prophecy is about something much deeper than tea cups and crystal balls, it involves reading the world (in his case the skies which he has the ceiling of the room transformed into) in a clearer way, looking at the world through new eyes (cf Pauli's comment on Harry "having his mother's eyes" as foretelling a new way of seeing Snape). In regards to my own predictions, it is my hope that my predictions are based in this same thing, in seeing how the themes and motifs of the novels have worked together thus far to produce a rich meaning. Tolkien One of my favorite scenes in the movie of The Two Towers is what I call Frodo's "Tiresian" moment (Tiresius being the blind prophet in the Oedipus and Antigone cycle from classical Greek drama). That scene at Osgiliath (not really "faithful" to the book but this is precisely one of the places I use in defense of not always being a materialistic fideist) where everything slows way down and Sam's speaking sounds like from a great distance through a tunnel and Frodo gets that possessed look in his eye, complete with a little bit of drool (prophets have always been thought to be possessed, the way poets are possessed by the muse - OT prophets were possessed by the Davar Yahweh, the "Word of the LORD") - and Frodo looks up and says "they're here." Because of his connection with the ring he can see into the situation and know what is really going down in a way the others cannot. Humorously, the "they're here" reminds me of the little girl in Poltergeist. But think about it, she is sitting in front of the mystery of a TV screen full of static, but she knows what it really means ("from the mouths of babes"). Prophets and the Incarnation So, anyone who has read much of my writing here knows I think the Incarnation is paramount beyond all reckoning. And these thoughts hit me, as I said, in doing some academic reading, so now I am full circle back around to that matter. I was reading an article titled "A Hammer That Breaks Rock in Pieces: Prophetic Critique in the Hebrew Bible." I was reading it because it was written by Mary C. Callaway, a professor in OT studies at Fordham U., which is the university and department I am applying to. She brought out a really incredible point. In Israel the prophet was a class of person who had a sort of "dual citizenship:" He really was a member of the People of Israel, but he was also a representative of Yahweh and His Word. My main point here is simply that the prophet is a type of Christ in the Hebrew Scriptures which I had never recognized before. If I go to Fordham I think I will like studying with her.

Tragic Endings

I can't remember if I have officially stated these thoughts or whether they have been simply the underpinning of other thoughts I have made informally so I thought I would spell them out formally here, including a further conclusion I have reached on them. There has been much speculation on whether or not Harry will die in book 7 and I have been on the "no" side, especially in my official predictions. Travis over at Gryffindor's Sword has even had "Poll Troll" on the matter and he has also posted on JKR's comments that those who know the Christian story well will be able to make good guesses at the ending and Travis' own feeling (which is also my own) that this does not necessarily mean Harry will die (for one, it would seem more proper to Alchemy for the Golden soul to live after being brought about). Of Course, John Granger seems to come down on the side of Harry dying at the end. By the Way: I think it is great that Rowling is being more open about the Christian theme of the series, kind of simply put to all, "deal with it." For me, my thoughts have centered on the consideration that JKR does not seem to be doing a tragedy in the technical sense of the term (such as Shakespeare's plays falling into distinct categories such as Tragedies and Comedies), but I have come to some further conclusions on this. Although I still think it more likely that she will have Harry live (cf the title of the first chapter of the first book) I have to admit that having him die would still not make the series a formal "Tragedy" in the way that it would if the 4 houses were not reconciled through that death. NOTE: One cool aspect of Harry dying but at least part of my prediction coming true, that Snape is involved and dies with him after removing the scar horcrux with Sectum Sempra, is that it would be a pretty cool adaptation of the Biblical scene of Christ's death: The Salvific death of the savior, and dying on either side of him the good thief (Snape) and the bad thief (Voldemort). Granger has done a good exposition of how JKR is all about the classical formula of leading trios (in The Hidden Key To Harry Potter.)

Sharp-Shooter Snape

I was out on the porch with Dom last night as he was grilling some hamburgers (he must have REALLY wanted burgers, it was in the 20s and he is thin and from El Paso TX) and in talking about what I've been blogging about on here regarding predictions for book 7, I remembered something I meant to stick in but forgot. Sharp-Shooters Have you ever noticed how much like bullets the jets of light from wands in spells are? What I mean is that there is a distinct physicality to them. You have to have good aim. Hermione stops Ron from trying to help Harry when his broom is jinxed in book 2, because of the distance he might accidentally hit Harry (well, that is her excuse, she's really worried about Ron's broken wand and his usually sloppy performance - but the point is that it's an excuse that works because it is valid). Likewise, in the fight at Hagrid's Hut with Umbridge in book 5, viewed from the top of the tower, they see the spells flying like bullets. In the fight in book 6 you have the mountainous death-eater's spells bouncing off walls like a bullet ricochet. In fact the speed and random method reminds me of a turret gun in one of the first person shooter games I used to play online (Half-Life, Team Fortress Classic - which is one of the straight ahead "shoot 'em up" team based games, unlike some others that glorify actual criminal activity like "Grand Theft Auto"). Another neat scene is when Harry runs from the graveyard in book 4 and tosses an "Impedimenta" back over his shoulder without even looking but he can tell it got one of them because he hears a thud or something like that. The Snape-Shot We have already learned that Snape is a pretty impressive wizard: an accomplished legilemens and occlumens, a potions master, and a master of non-verbal spells. I think we will also find out that he is about the best shot ever to cross the thresh-hold of Hogwarts. This is how I think, in my prediction of the grand finale, he will be able to hit Harry's scar with Sectum Sempra without hurting Harry himself. Dom's Thought Dom made a suggestion which I don't think will be the case because I don't think it is her particular style, but if it does wind up being true (which of course presupposes my prediction coming true, which it may not) I trust Rowling's ability to make it her own and make it interesting. He suggested that because of the nature of Sectum Sempra Harry's scar would always bleed just a little, like the Stigmata. Like I said, I don't think she will have that, but it would be cool if she did because she would have picked it up from one of hers and our favorite authors, C. S. Lewis. In That Hideous Strength, book 3 of Lewis' "Space Trilogy, when Jane Studdock meets the Ransom character who was the protagonist of the first two books (in That Hideous Strength he is now called "the director"), he occasionally winces as if in great pain but then a second later is back to normal as if there is no pain at all. The wound that this is from happened in the second book, Perelandra, when Ransom fought the possessed Dr Weston, the "un-man" (like the werewolf or "man wolf") in the stony heart of the mountain. It is a wound on the heal, which is taken from the "Proto Euangelion" (or "first gospel" or "first good news") of Genesis 3:15 in the cursing of the serpent, "he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel," and the wound is painful all the way through the rest of this life. My Boyish Glee I'll be pretty pumped if my predictions wind up being true, and not just because of "I told you so!" OK, All right, I have to admit there will be some of that. But more importantly it's just so cool the way she introduces stuff in minor ways and then brings them back around in major ones (for instance, Barty Jr's use of poly-juice potion in book 4 is huge. Think about it, not even as great a wizard as DD had any idea until he makes the goof-up of removing Harry from DD's sight at a crucial moment) PS: Speaking of Dom, I probably never mentioned on this site (at least I can see no reason why I would have) the time Dom walked into my room after watching "Fight Club" for the first time and asked "how did you do that?" - In various conversations I had managed to give him THE WHOLE plot of Fight Club - EXCEPT the "change-over." I mention this because Dom has not read the HP books, only seen the movies, but as much as I talk to him he might as well have read the books LOL. It works out well for him though, his boss in his assistantship at grad school right now is a huge HP fan, so he's able to discuss it with her.

Recommended Reading

If you are interested in good essays to read concering the themes of my posts on Johnny Cash as a country mystic, essays on love and hardship in life, here are some: Read June Carter-Cash's essay in the liner notes of the Sony Memory Classics re-release of the San Quentin Prison show. Also read her essay in the liner notes of the "Love" cd from the 3 disc career-spanning compilation "Love, God, Murder" (Bono did the essay for "God" and it is all right, Quentin Tarentino did the essay for "Murder" and it sucked; he's a looney who can't even get the lyrics to songs right. Both these essays are really good. In ddition to being a beautiful woman June was also a very effective writer.

The Country Mystic Who Lived ... and Died

MERLIN'S TRIBUTE TO JOHNNY CASH A couple of my posts, including a very recent one, have been on Johnny Cash. I thought I would here give a tribute to the Man In Black that is also a defense of why I think it relevant to discuss his music on a Harry Potter discussion site. This is really important to me because to me both Cash and Potter are instances of art that I feel really gets to the core of the real questions of our lives as muggles seeking the magical, and I think there is a common theme that makes this the case. The Next To Last Album: Solitary Man. In 1996 Cash won the Grammy for best country album with his Unchained, which was a phenomenal album itself. But in between this album and his next album, Solitary Man, he suffered a stroke. I think at that point Cash figured he had one good album left in him before both he and June exited the stage of the wayfaring state, and he wanted it to be his best ... and it was. In truth Cash had one more album left in him after Solitary Man, which would be much more of a closing retirement album, and I'll discuss that one next. But I think at the time Cash did Solitary Man he thought it might be the only one he had time left for and had a message he really wanted to get out, more important than a closing retirement album. I should clarify that I mean a message encompassing a whole album - he had 2 songs on his final album that were a similar message in regards to his career and life, but this did not encompass that whole album. A couple people have noted, in speaking of Solitary Man, that Cash's voice is notably weaker on the album than the album before, and thus say that it's not as strong of an album. But, given what I will discuss below, I think it is a stronger album specifically because of that fact. I think that when you listen to the album and the themes, noticing the weakness of the voice accentuates to you how much Cash wanted to get this theme out, how much desire, determination and drive is there. It reminds me of a book I read for a course in college, Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. Occasionally Ellison, as the first person narrator, drops out into sort of soliloquies that are all in italics and the style of which strongly resembles a very hot jazz trumpet solo (kind of fitting, Solitary Man reminding me of soliloquies). In one of these pieces he is speaking about an African-American girl singing a solo in a college choir, and he says that her voice sounds too big for her body. This is what Cash's vocals remind me of on this album: a meaning and desire that is to big for the voice so obviously weakened by stroke, all the more effective because it is bursting at the seems. Structure: The structure of Solitary Man is, like the video for "Hurt" from the next album, about Cash's life and the meaning of it. It begins with his "standard fare" throughout his years. There is the "man in black" image in Neil diamond's "Solitary Man"; There is the toughness of his persona in Petty's "Won't back Down"; There is his history in Americana folk and country music in songs like "That Lucky Old Sun" and "Nobody"; and there is his fascination with and appropriation of contemporary music in U2's "One" (In the 80's he had done Springsteen's "Highway Patrolman" and in the 70s he was notorious for covering Dylan tunes like "Don't Think Twice" and He and June doing "It' Ain't me Babe" together on stage) Then comes the center of the album, THE message Cash is hitting: two songs - "And I See a Darkness" by Will Oldham who sings backup on the song, and "Mercy Seat" by Nick Cave and Mark Harvery. The first is the question of our lives, the presence of the darkness that haunts our existence ever since a man and a woman and a serpent met and talked beside a mysterious tree. It is a song, in short, about the dementors that guard Azkaban Prison. Rather interesting, is it not, that one of the most important projects to Cash in his earlier career was playing in Folsom and San Quentin prisons? In the recent movie the warden at Folsom asks Cash not to sing any songs that remind them they are in prison and he replies, "Why? You think they've forgotten?" "Mercy Seat" is downright haunting. The primary image of the piece is that of the electric chair viewed by a death row inmate as mercy and release from suffering. This is basically the effect the dementors have on us. The song is meant to drive home one strong point, to drive it home pointedly like that spike one the wall of Michael's doorless cell in Chesterton's The Ball and the Cross: suicide is wrong, BUT you MUST understand WHY it is so wrong, and WHY it is so tempting to some - if you are ever to help those tempted by it. NOTE: The bishop of the diocese I live in, Wheeling-Charleston WV, Rev. Michael Bransfield, did his MA Philosophy thesis on a French philosopher named Camou, who asserted that suicide is the main question for philosophy - and I would have to agree because I think it is a defining question of the Incarnation and redemptive work of Christ: what is the difference between the suicide and the martyr, and what does it say about the meaning of human life? It's simultaneously a VERY fine line and an unbridgeable chasm ... you find the same in The Ball and the Cross when the two assistants jump from Lucifer's flying ship and only Turnbull and McIan know there is hope for them because of the dreams they had where they did the same for the right reasons. The answer to these fundamental questions of life is given in the next two songs on the album, "Would You Lay With Me (In a Field of Stone)?" (a love song), and "Field of Diamonds", a song of wonder at the beauty in life. The next to last song has a double meaning for Cash, I think. It is his standard country tune with tongue in cheek about "love gone bad" but I think the title "I'm Leaving Now" also refers to where he believed he was in his musical career as well as his life. The Last song is an old traditional that I also play a lot and which my father enjoys listening to me play, "Wayfaring Stranger." The Church standardly refers to human life as "the wayfaring state" or "the pilgrim state." I think Cash used this song as a capstone to the album, saying "there's my/our life and what we have done with it, there's the deep problems and there's what I believe are the answers, so where are we left after all that while we still travel the road of earth?" - we are wayfaring strangers. The Last Album: Cash's last album was The Man Comes Around. Like I said, this is his retirement album - in 2 ways. The First was that I think John new the end was coming. Although June was in the video for "Hurt" which indicates she was alive when the album was released, I think John had a feeling their flight was leaving soon. The second way it is a retirement album is that it is not necessarily a "tough" album as an album as a whole - but that is ok. Paul simon put out an album called You're the One, and I heard some say "well, I just didn't like it the way I liked Graceland", and my thought was "the songs were pretty decent - but, hey, Simon had one hell of a career and I think he deserves a "wind-down" album or two in his retirement years." On WTMCA, for the most part of the album you have Cash continuing his fascination with personal/religious songs by other artists, and while I would not have chosen Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus" ... to each his own. You have Cash singing old standards like "Danny Boy," "Streets of Loredo" and the Hank Williams SR classic "So Lonesome I Could Cry." You also have Cash giving a smiling farewell wave by closing the album with "We'll Meet Again." But the album does pack one Wallop, and that is the two opening songs. "The Man Comes Around," is an adaptation of the Book of Revelations (St. John's Apocalypse). If a man is nearing the end and thinking about what it's all about, the last book in the Bible and the most mysterious in the whole Bible is a pretty natural topic. The real wallop is the cover of Nine-Inch-Nails "Hurt." I already covered some of that in talking about the video, but here I would note one thing about the video and that is the closing. It closes with two shots: young Cash rising, and old Cash saying goodbye. The first is black and white from the Sun Records years, of Cash on stage with the lights fading (a televised performance). The second is the gripping one, Cash at the piano, after the last note has sounded, closing the lid on the keys and putting his musical career to rest (at least in it's "big world" or officially public aspect). Pretty much the span of his musical career and public life from beginning to end. The End As I said in my previous post, once June exited the stage, John basically just grabbed his coat with a hearty "I'm coming, Dear." What this reminds me of is Dumbledore's comments, in book 1, on Nicholas Flammel and his wife setting their affairs in order and going to bed after a VERY long day. May John and June Rest in the Peace of the LORD.

Motherhood in HP

I thought I would just throw this up as another place to think about and watch in book 7 for major meaning developments. We have always known that the mother figure is important for Rowling (as is the father figure, each in their own distinct way) and this is quite natural, for JKR is herself a mother of 3. For both Harry and Voldy their mother's played important roles in who they are and how they look at the world. But we also see it in other "minor" characters. At a Quidditch match Fred and George are restraining Ron from going after Malfoy physically ... until Malfoy makes a comment about Molly Weasley, and then all 3 Weasleys light into him. And Neville reverences something as small as a candy wrapper given to him by his mother at St Mungo's in book 5. In book 6 we get a "mother drop" on possibly the most central character as far as the meaning of the books goes - Snape's mother, Eileen Prince. It is no small fact that he takes her last name as an emblematic moniker for himself. Be looking for something big about her in book 7.

When the Country Mystic Cut a Video

When I put that in the "More cuts" post from Matthews Gospel I noticed certain language that sparked other things in my mind. A Long while ago I wrote a post called "Flesh and Blood: HP and Country Mystics" about magic in relation to our physical existence as "Flesh and Blood" and noted Johnny Cash's song by that name. In Christ's words in Matthew, he speaks of His blood being "poured out." This is an ancient wine and grain offering in pagan as well as Hebrew cultures called a "Libation;" in which some of the wine and grain are poured out as an offering to Yahweh or the gods. On his last studio album before he died ("The Man Comes Around"), Cash covered the song "Hurt" by Nine-Inch-Nails and he transformed the whole meaning of the song by changing one word (in reality I think "redeemed" is the most appropriate word here, and meaning it with all the pregnancy of the power of reference to pagan myth being redeemed in the Christ "myth become fact"). Trent Reznor said " I wear this crown of s**t on my liars chair" and Cash said " I wear this crown of thorns, on my liars chair." The video for this song is KILLER, it gives me goosebumps ... in fact it is so good that they re-released the album containing a DVD of the video - I had to go out and buy it again LOL. There is a libation scene in the video: Cash sitting in front of a table spread with a banquet, holding a glass of wine, very effectively NOT singing or lip-syncing to the soundtrack but simply staring straight into the camera as he shakily pours a cup of wine out onto the feast ... I think my heart stopped when I saw that scene. The video ends with an increasingly more rapid succession of images cutting back and forth between video of Cash's life and a Crucifixion of Jesus movie, and what the Libation means in this context is the Libation of Christ. BUT it also has a meaning within the lyrics of "Hurt," sort of like "This is what I, Johnny Cash, have done so foolishly pouring out my life into selfish things. In other parts of the video June stands on the stairs behind him watching him like an angel ... it is a really powerful video. Those who are huge Johnny fans knew that when June left and walked out the door of this world into the next, all John needed to do was grab his coat before he was right on her heels.

More Cuts

Following up on my recent post "A River of Blood" and Pauli's post "Cuts and Shortcuts" I just remembered something I meant to put in my "river" post and forgot, but it is important and can be self-encapsulated enough for another post. In Biblical Hebrew the idiom for making a covenant is that you "cut a covenant", using the Hebrew verb for cutting, "Karath". A primary instance of this is Yahweh's covenant with Abram in Genesis 15: 7-21. He has Abram bring a heifer 3 years old, a she goat 3 years old, a ram 3 years old, a turtledove and a young pigeon and cut all but the birds in half, the halves are placed "over against each other." Abram is put into a deep sleep and when night falls Yahweh passes between the halves. If I remember correctly this is the standard form of an ancient covenant; the two parties would pass together through the halves of religiously, sacrificially severed animals. Travis over at Sword of Gryffindor has provided some info and links to an interview that Rowling is conscious of the Christian underpinning of the books. If this is so, one must ask, what is the defining mark of Christianity? The New Covenant in the blood of Christ - "For this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." (Matthew 26:28)

A River of Blood

"Then he brought me back to the door of the temple; and behold, water was issuing from below the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east); and the water was flowing down from below the south end of the threshold of the temple, south of the altar."-Ezekiel 47:1 The Traditional Christian interpretation of this vision in Ezekiel is that it is a prophecy fulfilled in the blood and water that flowed from the spear wound in Christ's right side on the Cross (if you are facing east, as the Temple does in the vision, the south is on your right side). This post will be continuing on the fascinating line Pauli and I have both been developing on the meaning of the Sectum Sempra spell (and note we call it a spell, not a curse ... as will be discussed below). Make no mistake about it, I think this issue may be THE big one. There is something huge going on here ... I think it is huge on sort of predicting things about book 7, I know it is huge for the meaning of the books. Muggle Matters (practical uses of Sectum Sempra) I loved Pauli's comment from Keenspot. Here is what I would add as a possibility for Snape's familiarity with the curse. Why did Snape write the spell in his potions book? Why did he write it at all if it is originally dark magic? One runs more risk of being busted if one leaves a paper trail (Hint, Hint: how did Black get into Gryffindor's common room in book 3? Neville was writing the passwords down to remember them). I think Snape wrote the spell in his potions books because he used it for potions. Of course, if it were especially helpful in potions, and also has potential for grave effects (such as those on Malfoy, but also especially the effects if it can be used to create a horcrux) ... this would kind of reinforce what we have said about potions as relating to the water element and the serpent and "cunning." The "Sempra" is the important part here. I would advise the Keenspot writer against using the spell to open doors ... if they ever plan on shutting that door again. The things stay separate. Maybe you need this in potions, maybe some potions require some things not only to be cut but to be cut in such a way that they cannot re-coagulate. Maybe the "for enemies" was a later annotation when Snape was in a darker mood. Predictions Now for the fun stuff - the guessing game :) I do not think Pauli's speculation on Sectum Sempra being the Horcrux spell is "insane," I think it is dead on (What a great post). One thing to keep in mind ... with each horcrux destroyed Voldemort becomes weaker in total - ie, he no longer has the horcrux as a back up, but I don't think he gets it back either ... I think he is left then with just that much smaller and weaker of a soul. Here's my prediction: Harry hits Voldemort physically with Sectum Sempra but does not realize the scar is a horcrux ... but Snape is there and Snape does. SO, he hits Harry's scar with Sectum Sempra and forever severs that piece of Voldy's soul from Harry (I think A scar will remain, but not THE scar, meaning the scar as a horcrux). Without a host (and "ever sectioned" from the rest of his soul) that piece dissipates and Voldemort is left to bleed to death by the very same spell he has used to create his most powerful weapons. I still think Snape dies due to an unbreakable vow with the specific wording "will not let Voldemort die" (which would include actually killing him, but the vice versa might not technically be true and Voldemort might fear Snape thinks he might "get off on technicalities" if he wavers back to the light side). Using Sectum Sempra to remove the scar horcrux would definitely qualify as "actively" allowing Voldemort to die. Ever Bleeding I think I have mentioned before that for Hebraic thought blood (daam) carries the soul (nephesh) - this is why it was unlawful at least since the time of the Covenant with Noah after the flood, to eat meat with its life-blood still in it. Now, early Christian thought flowed from (but radically transformed) Hebraic thought. For example, the liturgy contained in the work "The Apostolic Tradition" bears witness to the Roman Liturgy circa the beginning of the second century AD, and interestingly it contains heavy borrowing from a formal Jewish ritual blessing known as the Birkat Ha'mazon, as well as blessings taken from more informal Jewish household blessing and such. If thinking on blood imagery passed from Hebraica and Judaica to Christianity, it would then pass from medieval literature (such as the lance in the Holy Grail issuing the blood of Christ) to Rowling's general way of looking at things and symbols she uses. "Ever bleeding" is not the literal meaning of the spell (since the spell has a broader application than humans/animals). BUT it is, I believe, part of the larger meaning behind that literal meaning (since it is the effect on human beings and human beings just happen to be what the Potter series is all about). If the blood is the carrier of the soul and Sectum Sempra is used in dark magic to divide the soul, the person creating a horcrux is literally "ever-bleeding" because their blood/soul is ever being divided from its source (ever leaving the body, or rather separate from it, and no longer in unity with the whole). There are two ways to be continually bleeding. The first is the blood of Christ continually flowing from the wound in His side that is ever open in Love, alive and life-giving ... in which case the blood is ever leaving but also ever returning, bringing back with it union with other human souls; IE those in a state of Grace. The other is to be continually cut into pieces in Hell, like Voldy's soul being ever-divided (as Pauli notes in his references to the "second death" and damnation). NOTE: In regards to "making the salt-water fresh" in Ezekiel's vision: Further down in the Ezekiel passage it is related that the river flowed and did this (turning salt water to fresh) as far as two towns which are named and to this day we have no real idea of the actual physical referents of these town names. But we do know this, that they represented the gentile nations and that the salt water becoming fresh represents the Gospel mission to the gentiles. BUT we also know that in Hebrew the numerical sum of the two names is 153 (in Hebrew, each letter has a numerical value). In John 21: 6-8, the risen Christ tells Peter and the others to let down the net on the right side of the boat, and then St John tells us exactly how many fish they brought up in the net ... 153. Numerology is a fundamental way in which first century Jewish writers thought and wrote ... for instance, In Hebrew, if you add the numerical value of "father" and the numerical value of "mother", the sum is the numerical value of the word "yeled" or "child"which you would know if you saw the movie Pi. ;)

C. S. Lewis on Narnia films

Here's a thoughtful, informative piece by Jordan Ballor from the Acton Institute about Lewis's concern about a Narnia film in general and Disney in particular. I believe it's the first article I've read to note that CSL knew nothing about CGI, so of course he was sick at the thought of an actor in a lion suit playing Aslan. The piece also delves into the idea of "vulgarity" in film, and how a Christian denomination has dealt with "the film arts" in different ways over the last 80 years.

Stephen Fry interview with JKR

Stephen Fry (no relation) is the reader of the British HP books on tape and a narrator on one of the HP video games. He's also in tons of films and has a very memorable voice, recently he did an excellent job as the narrator in the film version of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. This interview link came by way of Rialb, thanks for finding it for us. Also the Leaky Cauldron published the transcript here.

The White Stag

Here is another Lewis image I am really glad they included in the Narnia movie, although maybe they could have explained it a little more (I forget how much Lewis explains about the White Stag's place in Narnia in the book) At the end of the story the four chase a white stag through the woods, BUT it is never stated anywhere that they are seeking him in order to kill him. I think they hunt him for other reasons ... I think he is a talking stag and one of great wisdom. This is a traditional Christ symbol, so they hunt him as we strive to become Christ-like. But here is what I would like to emphasize: It is the White Stag that leads them back to the lamp-post from whence they come back to our world. Narnia is the magic, but (contrary to the beliefs of Salazar, Voldy and Lucius) that magic is not meant only for itself, there is the Incarnation in which the magic of God breaks into and saves and heals the world of we "muggles." The 4 have become kings and queens in Narnia, but this was never the end in itself, their job now is to take that magic and who they have become through it and "take it to the street," so to speak. They have seen the mountaintop and now it is time to go back down and walk the valley and help others. This is where the White Stag as a Christ symbol leads them, back to the mundane world of muggles like "The MacReady." To quote what you might think a very odd source indeed (but one which Pauli turned me on to, so to quote Sparrow in the upcoming Deadman's Chest, "All I was was an almost innocent bystander") - The Chorus of the last song on the Meat Puppets album "Too High to Die" goes: I'm comin' down from the mountain I have seen the high and mighty I will go again someday But for now I'm comin' down

Stabat Mater: Susan, Lucy and Aslan

I just wanted to call attention briefly to one of the things in the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe that the movie did really well. Just as Mary stands at the foot of the Cross as Christ dies, so Susan and Lucy accompany Aslan to the stone table and bear witness to his sacrifice. In Christian Tradition this image has become known as the "Stabat Mater," which means, the "standing mother." It is the woman who faithfully stands by and bears witness, and, as Simeon prophesies, has her own heart pierced through by the sword of sorrow (Luke 2:35). This image has actually, I believe, been used in a number of movies recently that you might be surprised to find it in. In these movies it is not specifically a mother but there is a female who must bear witness. In BOTH of the "RING" movies the intitial killing has a "female witness." In the first it is the friend Becca (who becomes a sort of prohpetess from the experience), and in the second it is the girl the guy tried to get to watch the tape to save himself from the curse. In "BOONDOCK SAINTS" in the final scene where they are about to execute the head mobster in the courtroom, the father, Il Duce, tells the woman from the audience that she should not worry, it will all be over soon, but she MUST watch. But I think Susan and Lucy are my favorite from recent movies ... the hands on the mane of Aslan as he walks the "Via Dolorosa" was especially gripping. NOTE: Just a note in defense of my zeal for the "RING" movies ... the first was directed by none other than MR Pirates of the Caribbean himself, Gor Verbinski.