Or FSBRISPITRLA for short.
1) My last name wins. Falconer? I mean, come on. You are going to disagree, scoff at, and generally ridicule the rest of this list, but who can contest such a mighty last name?
2) I practice Capoeira (somewhat)regularly. This means I am prone to doing impressive stunts out of nowhere - an intrinsically awesome thing.
3) I use successive double negatives to buy time when asked tricky or poignant personal questions. Like:
"Well, i'm not, not embarrassed about making a list of five reasons why i'm awesome."
4) I believe in, and actively practice, Phrenology. This is actually not awesome, and is oft the subject of well deserved mockery.
5) When I was a kid, I use to walk around all the time with a bicycle helmet even though I didn't know how to ride a bicycle (I didn't learn until I was 9 or 10). This is also not awesome, but I just remembered it, and seriously five items in a list is too demanding.
Tune in next weekmonthdayrandompost for Five Reasons Why Everyone Who Is NOT Backed By Science Says I'm NOT Awesome. Or, again, FREEWANBBSSINA for short.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Reminiscing about the good ole' times
I've never been able to recall much from my early life. Occasionally a topic will come up, and I will receive a snap shot, blurred and rehashed. I fancy that I can see the huge hill upon which our creaky house sat, basking in the harsh North Carolinian (Carolineian?) sun. A flash of my best friend when I was eight, both of us rolling around with bike helmets despite being no where near bikes. Because that's just what you did.
But still, never have I felt connected to my past. When I truly try to think about it, I am only left with a vague impression of being lost. Say what you will about the psychological and sociological relevance of being raised the youngest of four boys - it doesn't change the fact that, up until my mid to late teens, I was entirely adrift.
Now, on one hand I know this is somewhat normal. Who knows who they are when they are thirteen? It is a fundamentally awkward period, where the body and mind need to simply stretch their limbs and aren't so concerned with what those limbs hit. On that inevitably other hand, however, I feel robbed, cheated. Almost as if someone has stolen from me the chance to have a developmentally helpful childhood and left me only with these ambiguous flashes and this vague gnawing void.
I did foolish things for no reason. Porno was not supporting the degradation of women and giving into a baser nature, it was a curiosity. Spending hours and hours playing video games was not unhealthy, it was my escape and savior. Nearly failing out of school was not an action I regretted or planned, it was just the knee-jerk impulse of a mind more full of flotsam than purpose.
Indeed, there wouldn't be a Robbie to type this blog post if it weren't for a few key figures providing crucial life lines. My comrade Orion on The Candy Coating is one, my older brother Brent another. Perhaps the biggest was my best friend danio - a man so filled with virtue that he seemed to ooze it from his pores as a normal man would sweat. Though many years my senior, he had the goodness of heart and the perspicacity of spirit not to see the weaning fop that I was but the conscientiously noble being that I, like each of us, had the potential to be. If not for these folks, ladies and gentlemen, I simply wouldn't exist.
So it is with this background and this frame of reference that I shiver for today's upcoming generation. I am only twenty years old, but already I feel the guilt of passing to their still fragile shoulders the weight of a such a heavy, twisted world. Sometimes I wish that I were a Titan incarnate, that I could merely spread my arms and shelter them from a world entirely concerned with their exploitation and assimilation.
It is no idle cause. No fundraiser created by an unknown charitable group. This is as real as it gets: Junior youth are dying. Mentally decaying, spiritually oppressed, physically poisoned - they are being slaughtered every single day and it just about breaks me in two when I consider the scope of it all.
For Bahai's, we can turn to the Junior Youth Animator courses, a series of courses designed to arm junior youth of every creed and background to grapple with such a monstrous world. But this is not enough. Everyday I live and breathe on this earth I search for at least one child, one youth that I can help in the way that danio helped me. It's not even a matter of kindness. I have to do so, I must save at least one. To do otherwise would be to betray the trust I have been given, and to usurp the second chance that life, despite my unworthiness, has seen fit to bestow on me.
As real as it gets. Youth and junior youth are not the future, they are the now. They are not promising, they are promise fulfilled. But they are also lost, like I was. No quarter a day is required, no monetary grant can assuage this debt. All that is required - all that is needed - is for each of us to open up on our islands of stability a tiny plot for them to call their own. With such a simple act we are ensuring the future, yes, but we are also insuring ourselves. The call is clear, the need apparent. To sit idle is to fail, while the mere act of arising is to achieve the most complete and perfect of victories: the victory of giving life.
But still, never have I felt connected to my past. When I truly try to think about it, I am only left with a vague impression of being lost. Say what you will about the psychological and sociological relevance of being raised the youngest of four boys - it doesn't change the fact that, up until my mid to late teens, I was entirely adrift.
Now, on one hand I know this is somewhat normal. Who knows who they are when they are thirteen? It is a fundamentally awkward period, where the body and mind need to simply stretch their limbs and aren't so concerned with what those limbs hit. On that inevitably other hand, however, I feel robbed, cheated. Almost as if someone has stolen from me the chance to have a developmentally helpful childhood and left me only with these ambiguous flashes and this vague gnawing void.
I did foolish things for no reason. Porno was not supporting the degradation of women and giving into a baser nature, it was a curiosity. Spending hours and hours playing video games was not unhealthy, it was my escape and savior. Nearly failing out of school was not an action I regretted or planned, it was just the knee-jerk impulse of a mind more full of flotsam than purpose.
Indeed, there wouldn't be a Robbie to type this blog post if it weren't for a few key figures providing crucial life lines. My comrade Orion on The Candy Coating is one, my older brother Brent another. Perhaps the biggest was my best friend danio - a man so filled with virtue that he seemed to ooze it from his pores as a normal man would sweat. Though many years my senior, he had the goodness of heart and the perspicacity of spirit not to see the weaning fop that I was but the conscientiously noble being that I, like each of us, had the potential to be. If not for these folks, ladies and gentlemen, I simply wouldn't exist.
So it is with this background and this frame of reference that I shiver for today's upcoming generation. I am only twenty years old, but already I feel the guilt of passing to their still fragile shoulders the weight of a such a heavy, twisted world. Sometimes I wish that I were a Titan incarnate, that I could merely spread my arms and shelter them from a world entirely concerned with their exploitation and assimilation.
It is no idle cause. No fundraiser created by an unknown charitable group. This is as real as it gets: Junior youth are dying. Mentally decaying, spiritually oppressed, physically poisoned - they are being slaughtered every single day and it just about breaks me in two when I consider the scope of it all.
For Bahai's, we can turn to the Junior Youth Animator courses, a series of courses designed to arm junior youth of every creed and background to grapple with such a monstrous world. But this is not enough. Everyday I live and breathe on this earth I search for at least one child, one youth that I can help in the way that danio helped me. It's not even a matter of kindness. I have to do so, I must save at least one. To do otherwise would be to betray the trust I have been given, and to usurp the second chance that life, despite my unworthiness, has seen fit to bestow on me.
As real as it gets. Youth and junior youth are not the future, they are the now. They are not promising, they are promise fulfilled. But they are also lost, like I was. No quarter a day is required, no monetary grant can assuage this debt. All that is required - all that is needed - is for each of us to open up on our islands of stability a tiny plot for them to call their own. With such a simple act we are ensuring the future, yes, but we are also insuring ourselves. The call is clear, the need apparent. To sit idle is to fail, while the mere act of arising is to achieve the most complete and perfect of victories: the victory of giving life.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Oh, Racism.
I've seen things. Not that I am some gray-beard, capable of defeating any potential objections by merely referencing my years. But by this assertion of ocular experience, you should apprehend the mildly somber tone of my intended discourse.
In the Baha'i Faith, racism is described as America's most challenging issue. This makes sense to me, as racism is not based in logic. There are no proofs one can assemble, no flow charts to be constructed in Powerpoint. Racism is inimical to logic; Anathema to reason.
Certainly there are the obvious examples. Tattered remnants of the KKK that appear like so much flotsam on documentaries. The "N word" thrown about with an accompanying quantity of spittle. But what really bothers me about racism in America are it's subtle manifestations.
I went to an affluent, upper-middle class highschool, and one only had to walk down the hall for a few seconds to hear some racial slur said in jest.
In jest. Ingested. Injustice.
It is more than ignorance, though ignorance is a part. It is more than hate, though hate is present. It is a fundamental misapprehension of the unity of humans, as distasteful to the sensibilities as shouting is to the ear. What a perverse, inverted world we inhabit that we who were born of the same substance choose to differentiate ourselves based on so paltry a thing as skin color.
The subtle things. Jokes about mexicans. Cracks about blacks. The same thrown the other way and rinse, lather, repeat until all is red, red, red. And all to what? Raise ourselves? It doesn't take a genius to realize that there is a difference between raising oneself and lowering others.
Racism really is everywhere, because everywhere there is a lack of appreciation of unity. But the worst are we who occasionally dip into it, like the employee who wins awards by day and steals from the place he works by night. Not quite a full fledged thief but not a character of virtuosity either. It seems to me that we who have freedom have a great burden when it comes to using it. And if there is one thing worse than a thief, it's a hypocritical one.
In the Baha'i Faith, racism is described as America's most challenging issue. This makes sense to me, as racism is not based in logic. There are no proofs one can assemble, no flow charts to be constructed in Powerpoint. Racism is inimical to logic; Anathema to reason.
Certainly there are the obvious examples. Tattered remnants of the KKK that appear like so much flotsam on documentaries. The "N word" thrown about with an accompanying quantity of spittle. But what really bothers me about racism in America are it's subtle manifestations.
I went to an affluent, upper-middle class highschool, and one only had to walk down the hall for a few seconds to hear some racial slur said in jest.
In jest. Ingested. Injustice.
It is more than ignorance, though ignorance is a part. It is more than hate, though hate is present. It is a fundamental misapprehension of the unity of humans, as distasteful to the sensibilities as shouting is to the ear. What a perverse, inverted world we inhabit that we who were born of the same substance choose to differentiate ourselves based on so paltry a thing as skin color.
The subtle things. Jokes about mexicans. Cracks about blacks. The same thrown the other way and rinse, lather, repeat until all is red, red, red. And all to what? Raise ourselves? It doesn't take a genius to realize that there is a difference between raising oneself and lowering others.
Racism really is everywhere, because everywhere there is a lack of appreciation of unity. But the worst are we who occasionally dip into it, like the employee who wins awards by day and steals from the place he works by night. Not quite a full fledged thief but not a character of virtuosity either. It seems to me that we who have freedom have a great burden when it comes to using it. And if there is one thing worse than a thief, it's a hypocritical one.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Paul-o-Tics!
Originally posted on www.thecandycoating.com. Can it get any sweeter?
The other day I was cheerfully ambushed on the street by a young person representing the Green Peace organization. She started by saying "You look like you care about the environment!" Once I got over the momentary annoyance necessarily inflicted by the manipulative nature of this line, I proceeded to engage in a wonderful discussion (she spoke while I nodded sagely) about Green Peace, which then lead to an even more wonderful discussion about Politics and the Baha'i Faith.
At the basic level, Baha'is are completely non-active in politics. By this is not just meant mere refraining from partisanships, but rather a complete detachment from political involvement. This was brought up in the context of the aforementioned ambush because eventually I informed her that, as a Baha'i, I really couldn't join Green Peace due to it's inherent political ties.
And thus we have reached the stark white bone of the issue. I know that many people are somewhat confused by this aspect of the Baha'i Faith. I also know that it is easy to confuse this policy with apathy and a lack of caring. So, here are the facts!
Firstly, Baha'u'llah prophet-founder of the Baha'i Faith, wrote: "The remedy the world needeth in its present-day afflictions can never be the same as that which a subsequent age may require. Be anxiously concerned with the needs of the age ye live in, and center your deliberations on its exigencies and requirements." So, this rules out the apathy theory, as Baha'is are specifically told to be concerned.
Having established our concernedness, we are lead to the next point (you know, secondly): Why Baha'is can't be politically involved. For the answer, we can look to Shogi-Effendi, the Guardian of the Faith: "Fully aware of the repeated statements...that universality is of God, Baha'is in every land are ready, nay anxious, to associate themselves by word and deed with any association of men which, after careful scrutiny, they feel satisfied is free from every tinge of partisanship and politics and is wholly devoted to the interests of all mankind.
And this leads us to our conclusion. It is not that the intent of politics is not also shared by Baha'is; most people want to change the world for the better. But to associate with one specific group is to almost inherently exclude another group. Most politics (even the well-intentioned ones) are fundamentally devisive. Instead, how much better to focus our attentions on the unification of humankind as a whole, and to work in accord with all people to reach this aim.
Oh, and, of course,Baha'is can vote.
The other day I was cheerfully ambushed on the street by a young person representing the Green Peace organization. She started by saying "You look like you care about the environment!" Once I got over the momentary annoyance necessarily inflicted by the manipulative nature of this line, I proceeded to engage in a wonderful discussion (she spoke while I nodded sagely) about Green Peace, which then lead to an even more wonderful discussion about Politics and the Baha'i Faith.
At the basic level, Baha'is are completely non-active in politics. By this is not just meant mere refraining from partisanships, but rather a complete detachment from political involvement. This was brought up in the context of the aforementioned ambush because eventually I informed her that, as a Baha'i, I really couldn't join Green Peace due to it's inherent political ties.
And thus we have reached the stark white bone of the issue. I know that many people are somewhat confused by this aspect of the Baha'i Faith. I also know that it is easy to confuse this policy with apathy and a lack of caring. So, here are the facts!
Firstly, Baha'u'llah prophet-founder of the Baha'i Faith, wrote: "The remedy the world needeth in its present-day afflictions can never be the same as that which a subsequent age may require. Be anxiously concerned with the needs of the age ye live in, and center your deliberations on its exigencies and requirements." So, this rules out the apathy theory, as Baha'is are specifically told to be concerned.
Having established our concernedness, we are lead to the next point (you know, secondly): Why Baha'is can't be politically involved. For the answer, we can look to Shogi-Effendi, the Guardian of the Faith: "Fully aware of the repeated statements...that universality is of God, Baha'is in every land are ready, nay anxious, to associate themselves by word and deed with any association of men which, after careful scrutiny, they feel satisfied is free from every tinge of partisanship and politics and is wholly devoted to the interests of all mankind.
And this leads us to our conclusion. It is not that the intent of politics is not also shared by Baha'is; most people want to change the world for the better. But to associate with one specific group is to almost inherently exclude another group. Most politics (even the well-intentioned ones) are fundamentally devisive. Instead, how much better to focus our attentions on the unification of humankind as a whole, and to work in accord with all people to reach this aim.
Oh, and, of course,Baha'is can vote.
Friday, September 14, 2007
I love you
Originally posted on www.thecandycoating.com, though still written by ME. Check it out!
It’s what we want to hear, what we love to say. What we want to think. But is the way we think about love the same as everyone else? Culturally, aren’t there vast differences between what “love” means? What love are we even talking about? Oh, so many questions.
Enter the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. The Sapir-Whorf hypothes is a linguistic axiom, or self-evident truth, that our friend Wikipedia defines as: “a systematic relationship between the grammatical categories of the language a person speaks and how that person both understands the world and behaves in it.”
In other words: The way we talk affects how we think and behave. Quick example to remove any confusion: anthropologists found an island culture that did not have a single word for “war” or “weapon,” and from this could conclusively say that this culture was entirely peaceful. If they don’t have a word for it, how could they do it?
Along these lines, I want to point out something that my Anthropology professor pointed out to me: English only has one word for love. This may not seem strange in itself, until one factors in the Sapir-whorf hypothesis. What does it say about how we think and behave with love that we only have one word for it?
Even more poignantly, what does it mean that our primary conception of this one word is romantic love? The Greeks had three words for love: Agope – which is basically altruism, Filial – which is brotherly love, and Eros – which is what we would call romantic love.
These observations are significant insofar as they indicate our lack of descriptive language when it comes to love. When I say, “I love you,” it is purely context and interpretation that we must rely on. Or even worse, it is just assumed that I mean love in the romantic sense.
Now, I’m not saying coming up with new words for love will solve everything. But I am saying that coming up with new concepts for love would be a good start. Elevating and recognizing other forms of love as equally valid to and just as important as Eros or romantic love would, I think, go a long way in helping us, as a culture, develop a more mature sense of LOVE. And if you don’t believe such a thing is necessary, perhaps you are unaware of the state of things. This is forgivable, but only to an extent! With a 50% plus divorce rate and a penchant towards separation that is so strong it has led psychologists to label Americans as practitioners of “serial monogamy,” it seems clear to me that we don’t actually know what the crap we are doing here in America.
Romantic love is certainly a form of love. It is even a good form of love. Me and romantic love - we tight. However, it is only one facet on the much larger diamond of love. Expecting relationships, marriages, and our love lives to last on only romantic love is like expecting a tripod to stand with only one leg. There is more to it; there has to be, because, as any who have had even the most cursory experience with romantic love can testify, romantic love is unreliable and generally short-lived. A spark may create the flame, but it cannot sustain a flame once lit. A flame untended is a flame doomed to die out. And a flame doomed to die out is hardly a flame worth having at all.
But hey, I’m just the guy writing these things – what do I know? I’m curious what YOU think. So, what do you think?
It’s what we want to hear, what we love to say. What we want to think. But is the way we think about love the same as everyone else? Culturally, aren’t there vast differences between what “love” means? What love are we even talking about? Oh, so many questions.
Enter the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. The Sapir-Whorf hypothes is a linguistic axiom, or self-evident truth, that our friend Wikipedia defines as: “a systematic relationship between the grammatical categories of the language a person speaks and how that person both understands the world and behaves in it.”
In other words: The way we talk affects how we think and behave. Quick example to remove any confusion: anthropologists found an island culture that did not have a single word for “war” or “weapon,” and from this could conclusively say that this culture was entirely peaceful. If they don’t have a word for it, how could they do it?
Along these lines, I want to point out something that my Anthropology professor pointed out to me: English only has one word for love. This may not seem strange in itself, until one factors in the Sapir-whorf hypothesis. What does it say about how we think and behave with love that we only have one word for it?
Even more poignantly, what does it mean that our primary conception of this one word is romantic love? The Greeks had three words for love: Agope – which is basically altruism, Filial – which is brotherly love, and Eros – which is what we would call romantic love.
These observations are significant insofar as they indicate our lack of descriptive language when it comes to love. When I say, “I love you,” it is purely context and interpretation that we must rely on. Or even worse, it is just assumed that I mean love in the romantic sense.
Now, I’m not saying coming up with new words for love will solve everything. But I am saying that coming up with new concepts for love would be a good start. Elevating and recognizing other forms of love as equally valid to and just as important as Eros or romantic love would, I think, go a long way in helping us, as a culture, develop a more mature sense of LOVE. And if you don’t believe such a thing is necessary, perhaps you are unaware of the state of things. This is forgivable, but only to an extent! With a 50% plus divorce rate and a penchant towards separation that is so strong it has led psychologists to label Americans as practitioners of “serial monogamy,” it seems clear to me that we don’t actually know what the crap we are doing here in America.
Romantic love is certainly a form of love. It is even a good form of love. Me and romantic love - we tight. However, it is only one facet on the much larger diamond of love. Expecting relationships, marriages, and our love lives to last on only romantic love is like expecting a tripod to stand with only one leg. There is more to it; there has to be, because, as any who have had even the most cursory experience with romantic love can testify, romantic love is unreliable and generally short-lived. A spark may create the flame, but it cannot sustain a flame once lit. A flame untended is a flame doomed to die out. And a flame doomed to die out is hardly a flame worth having at all.
But hey, I’m just the guy writing these things – what do I know? I’m curious what YOU think. So, what do you think?
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Are there any who object to this union?
Mawaige! Lacey, frilly, bell-tolling - oh, yes, mawaige. Immaculately cleaned males dressed in oak-solid suites; Gloriously adorned females wearing dresses directly imported from some magical flower realm. Weddings are nothing if not replete with eye-candy.
This past weekend I went to Minnesota to bear witness and testify to the union of Anisa Smith and Stanfano Ascari. It was a lovely ceremony. Austere in it's simplicity yet dynamic in it's depth and meaning. Then it was done, they was mawwied, and we danced the night away.
In the Baha'i Faith marriage is described as the "fortress of well-being." It is cited as the very bedrock on which a stable and successful society is founded. It is as elementally necessary to our continued progress as fire was to cavemen.
Weddings are a different beast, however. While I appreciate as much as the next man a good rite of passage, and while I love as all do friends and family being near at significant life moments, I can't help but think of the classic anglo-saxon wedding as two parts opulent, one part silly, and one part fun. It's a monstrous machine, functioning now like some terrifying AI of the future, functioning outside of human control and fueled by it's own longevity and weight. It has attained cultural inertia, and the best we poor mortals can do is try to dive out the way without being entirely crushed.
The wedding this weekend made me think of this specifically because it wasn't a denizen of this terrifying beast. It was a breath of fresh air; something of a trend with Bahai weddings that i've attended. Sitting there, listening to the simple collection of readings, read by a diverse number of people each of whom meant something to the couple being wed, I felt a glimpse of hope for this bloated institution. It turns out you don't need a solemn man in a large hat to conduct a lengthy and established ceremony (although solemn men in large hats are not strictly unfavorable either). You don't need pillars of gold leaf and angels performing fly-bys in tight flight formations. You just need two people, their love for each other, and some simple method of connecting with an essence beyond the ordinary world. Song, ceremony, men in large hats - all are aimed at this last goal, and all are acceptable in their own way. But in my experience, God, spirituality, Allah, our emotional selves - whatever you wish to say - is more responsive to sincerity than to lavish displays.
The required vow in the Baha'i Faith is simple: "We will all verily abide by the will of God." And whether or not you believe in God per se, it strikes me as a good idea to base such an ambitious vow of commitment in something beyond humans. Humans fail. Humans falter. Humans are limited. But a concept of the Divine can transcend all these things and last eternally - just as we want, on the most basic level, for the proposed union of two souls to last. Thus, to me at least, weddings are not just a ceremony. They are a pledge to strive, for as long as we live, to seek our nobility over our depravity. Our solidarity over our fractured selves. For surely we have the capacity for both, and at some point we will have chosen by our actions which direction we favor. How much better, then, to choose conciously and wisely, and to do so with someone there to help us when we (as we must) falter.
This past weekend I went to Minnesota to bear witness and testify to the union of Anisa Smith and Stanfano Ascari. It was a lovely ceremony. Austere in it's simplicity yet dynamic in it's depth and meaning. Then it was done, they was mawwied, and we danced the night away.
In the Baha'i Faith marriage is described as the "fortress of well-being." It is cited as the very bedrock on which a stable and successful society is founded. It is as elementally necessary to our continued progress as fire was to cavemen.
Weddings are a different beast, however. While I appreciate as much as the next man a good rite of passage, and while I love as all do friends and family being near at significant life moments, I can't help but think of the classic anglo-saxon wedding as two parts opulent, one part silly, and one part fun. It's a monstrous machine, functioning now like some terrifying AI of the future, functioning outside of human control and fueled by it's own longevity and weight. It has attained cultural inertia, and the best we poor mortals can do is try to dive out the way without being entirely crushed.
The wedding this weekend made me think of this specifically because it wasn't a denizen of this terrifying beast. It was a breath of fresh air; something of a trend with Bahai weddings that i've attended. Sitting there, listening to the simple collection of readings, read by a diverse number of people each of whom meant something to the couple being wed, I felt a glimpse of hope for this bloated institution. It turns out you don't need a solemn man in a large hat to conduct a lengthy and established ceremony (although solemn men in large hats are not strictly unfavorable either). You don't need pillars of gold leaf and angels performing fly-bys in tight flight formations. You just need two people, their love for each other, and some simple method of connecting with an essence beyond the ordinary world. Song, ceremony, men in large hats - all are aimed at this last goal, and all are acceptable in their own way. But in my experience, God, spirituality, Allah, our emotional selves - whatever you wish to say - is more responsive to sincerity than to lavish displays.
The required vow in the Baha'i Faith is simple: "We will all verily abide by the will of God." And whether or not you believe in God per se, it strikes me as a good idea to base such an ambitious vow of commitment in something beyond humans. Humans fail. Humans falter. Humans are limited. But a concept of the Divine can transcend all these things and last eternally - just as we want, on the most basic level, for the proposed union of two souls to last. Thus, to me at least, weddings are not just a ceremony. They are a pledge to strive, for as long as we live, to seek our nobility over our depravity. Our solidarity over our fractured selves. For surely we have the capacity for both, and at some point we will have chosen by our actions which direction we favor. How much better, then, to choose conciously and wisely, and to do so with someone there to help us when we (as we must) falter.
Sunday, August 5, 2007
Re: Harry Potter
NO-SPOILER WARNING: This post contains no spoilers
That having been established, let me begin by saying that Dumbledore is not dead and turns out to be a parrot trained by Voldemort, Harry is a figment of a House-elf's imagination, Hermine is a brussel sprout, and Ron is really a pimple on a fourteen year old boy. Shocking revelations, all.
I do not wish to post about the actual story - no, that is silly. If you care about the story go buys yous the books and read them. I wish to comment on the phenomena that is Harry Potter.
You see, I do not regard these books as books. Not even as stories. A story, traditionally, is something one reads at one's leisure. It is something one visits occasionally, like a distant relative calling for Christmas. It is NOT something one painfully slaves over, both seeking and dreading the ending, as is the case with Harry Potter. Instead of remaining content with visits like most stories, an unfinished Harry Potter book practically demands you move in, next to the cat and please won't you remove you shoes. An unfinished Harry Potter book takes on a life of it's own - it activates it's own gravitational field and, until summarily defeated, cackles maniacally as your ordinary activities circle around it's slightest whim.
It is almost a spiritual experience. Ancient tribes use to beat their drums for hours on end while inhaling hallucinogens, the Orient meditated while on Opium, and now America adds it's own chapter to the epic-ways-humans-have-tried-to-transcend life by READING. Oh America, you always DID have the dorkiest hobbies.
Record times are put up. People who read nothing besides the occasional issue of People finish a book in two days. I personally finished the most recent and final book in something like 10 hours, pausing only to use the bathroom and sacrifice to the gods of fictional writing (sometimes doing both at once to speed things up.)
I don't really want to identify WHAT causes this madness. Was Europe really that relieved when people found out it was rats that carried the Bubonic plague? Actually yes, yes they were. Bad analogy. But the point is that the phenomena defies identification. On the simplest level, they are just really, really good books. Yet, human history is fraught with really, really good books, and next to none have transcended cultural, generational, and personal taste-tional boundaries like Harry Potter has.
Sad thought: It is the Iliad of our day, and J.K. Rowling our homer.
Well, one thing is clear: J.K. Rowling has one hell of a task ahead of her in trying to create any other fictional work. It's like if Prometheaus, not content with gifting humans with fire and the ability to heal, decided to try his hand at inventing the plow. Gee thanks Big P, but I think you peaked a little too early.
That having been established, let me begin by saying that Dumbledore is not dead and turns out to be a parrot trained by Voldemort, Harry is a figment of a House-elf's imagination, Hermine is a brussel sprout, and Ron is really a pimple on a fourteen year old boy. Shocking revelations, all.
I do not wish to post about the actual story - no, that is silly. If you care about the story go buys yous the books and read them. I wish to comment on the phenomena that is Harry Potter.
You see, I do not regard these books as books. Not even as stories. A story, traditionally, is something one reads at one's leisure. It is something one visits occasionally, like a distant relative calling for Christmas. It is NOT something one painfully slaves over, both seeking and dreading the ending, as is the case with Harry Potter. Instead of remaining content with visits like most stories, an unfinished Harry Potter book practically demands you move in, next to the cat and please won't you remove you shoes. An unfinished Harry Potter book takes on a life of it's own - it activates it's own gravitational field and, until summarily defeated, cackles maniacally as your ordinary activities circle around it's slightest whim.
It is almost a spiritual experience. Ancient tribes use to beat their drums for hours on end while inhaling hallucinogens, the Orient meditated while on Opium, and now America adds it's own chapter to the epic-ways-humans-have-tried-to-transcend life by READING. Oh America, you always DID have the dorkiest hobbies.
Record times are put up. People who read nothing besides the occasional issue of People finish a book in two days. I personally finished the most recent and final book in something like 10 hours, pausing only to use the bathroom and sacrifice to the gods of fictional writing (sometimes doing both at once to speed things up.)
I don't really want to identify WHAT causes this madness. Was Europe really that relieved when people found out it was rats that carried the Bubonic plague? Actually yes, yes they were. Bad analogy. But the point is that the phenomena defies identification. On the simplest level, they are just really, really good books. Yet, human history is fraught with really, really good books, and next to none have transcended cultural, generational, and personal taste-tional boundaries like Harry Potter has.
Sad thought: It is the Iliad of our day, and J.K. Rowling our homer.
Well, one thing is clear: J.K. Rowling has one hell of a task ahead of her in trying to create any other fictional work. It's like if Prometheaus, not content with gifting humans with fire and the ability to heal, decided to try his hand at inventing the plow. Gee thanks Big P, but I think you peaked a little too early.
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