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Grindelwald the Elitist

This is just a random post that arose in reading a book on historiography (for one of my upcoming PhD comp questions). Grindelwald's first name, Gellert, is probably from a German root (fitting for his last name being, according to the HP lexicon, taken from a town in Switzerland, and the resemblance of his reign, and even some of his buildings, to Germany and particularly Nazi Germany). According to Langenscheit the meaning of the German word "gelehrte" (I'm grateful here, I think, for Jim Dale's reading, who, probably counseled by JKR I'm sure, pronounces Gellert in the correct way for German, which would be almost, if not totally, identical to the pronunciation of gelherte) is a learned person, a scientist ... reminiscent of legends of Nazi experimentation (the Nazi connections have all been noted long before me so I can claim no interpretational originality). But I ran into the word in a passage on the development of literary forms in the Ancient Near East, where an author was positing that history writing arose as a "gelehrte Gattung" - a "learned form" - once nations hit a certain "height of culture." So, I think the word means not only our sense of knowing a lot, but indicates a certain social standing ... the type of learning that in some cultures only the rich or upper crust can afford. So, Grindelwald's first name is a sort of veiled code for his elitist character.

Ghost-Town Gazette headline: Merlin Posts a comment on a Hog-Prof thread

For anybody who visit these haunted grounds, Pauli sent CCd me on an email to John Granger about a comments thread going on on a Hogwart's Professor post, which had touched on the issue of eschatology in Harry Potter. So for any who stumble back on this and would like to read (a long comment, but hopefully with some useful info or considerations), the link is: http://www.hogwartsprofessor.com/sacramental-world-of-harry-potter/#comments

You can't always get what you want, but sometimes ... you get what you need: Mirror bookends in Harry Potter

This is just a short one. I was just digging around in my travel bag in terrible need of some dental floss and noticing how much my travel bag (full of bandaids, old shaving, razors, a salve or two) amazingly resembles the state of Harry's trunk at the beginning of Deathly Hallows. I haven't yet found the floss and so am running to the corner drugstore, but I did notice I have a shaving mirror in there, and that reminded me of the two way mirror in DH ... and that started a thought rolling. In book 1 we have the mirror of Erised, which is of course "desire" spelled backwards, and shows the viewer the deepest, most secret and most desparate desires of their heart. In Book 7 we have the broken fragment of the mirror Sirius gave Harry. I would say that this latter could be seen as paired off against the Mirror of Erised as, rather, that which gives you what you need ... in particular in book 7 it is the path by which Harry reaches Aberforth and Aberforth sends rescue. I would even say that the broken mirror is sort of bookended itself in book 7. When Harry first sees the flash of blue in the beginning he thinks about what he desires ... to see and talk to Dumbledore again. and in the end of the book, with the second flash, when he is making no assumptions based in his longings, but simply crying out into the unknown (perhaps a symbol of the transcendant), then something happens. Of course there is also a possible death theme here - Harry is pining for DD, who has died and cannot be brought back, just as he pined for his family in the Erised mirror in book 1 ... and when the second mirror sends Dobby and Dobby saves them, he also dies. I would note two other things about the pairing (and here I am just tossing out associations that I don't necessarily have tied out ... but do seem rather promising to me). 1. The useful mirror is the one that is broken; the one which could trap you into wasting your life pining is the one that is "whole" 2. Communication: The mirror in book 7 is designed for communication whereas the mirror of Erised is not (in fact it implicitly, as told in the story, has anti-communicative qualities - namely that neither Ron nor Harry can see what each other see in the mirror). Here also there is a possible death theme in that in Book 5 Harry looks at the mirror, knowing he will not Sirius in it but still sort of hoping, the same as he does with the blue eye of (a) Dumbledore in book 7. In the end however, it is the blue eye that saves ... maybe there is a theme here of not trying to pin the dead down so that, who knows, they may be something involved when you cry out into unknown/transcendant for help (the shades from Voldy's wand in book 4 would seem to support this type of thinking - and if JKR has in fact done time in the chair and/or on the couch, as it seems from the language and imagery in many of the books, and supported by some information from public record on her life ... getting closure from the dearly departed is a very important theme there ... it is what frees one to really remember departed loved ones, as opposed to just being haunted by them [or rather our conceptions of them, how we perhaps tried to pin "them" down while they lived], and that is important for being able to grieve properly) ... but I think this would all be pretty latent stuf, a lot more of a psycho-analytic subconsicous reading of it. PS The mirror of Erised shares some qualities with the compass of Jack Sparrow as it gets developed in the second PotC movie - it shows you what you desire most in this world (in the first movie it is implied only that it shows the bearings to Ille de Meurta, but the screen writers said they felt they, fortunately, left enough ambiguity in the phrasing to make the transition possible). The settings are different, however. In Dead Man's Chest the problem is a person not knowing what they want ... which is a more "psycho-analytic" problem of things like the ego (in the Freudian system of Id, Ego, Super-ego) sublimated to an unhealthy level (among other things) etc

Hargid as the Rubedo

Here is yet another new random Merlin Post, this time brought to you by the society of "Merlin needs something constructive to do while his scanner takes interminably long to scan selected pages from a Jon Levenson book to put up in PDF format on electronic reserves for the course he is teaching this fall" This post sprung into my mind from something I was saying in the last one, on Gryffindor and Slytherin, and has to do with another John - not Levenson, but Granger - and alchemy in the Harry Potter series. Here particularly I am talking about Granger's notes on the last 3 books as conforming to the 3-stage description of the alchemy process: Black, White, Red. In Book 5 Black dies and in Book 6 Albus (white) dies. He wrote this before book 7 hit the stands and I was terribly afraid Hagrid was going to bite it in the final installment. Fortunately the big guy did not exit stage left in book 7, because I really like him. But then the question comes up: When the first 2 of the 3-stage series had characters with specific names tied to the respective stage and had something decisive happen to them (dying - to be more precise), and there is a character with a taylor-made name for the 3rd alchemy stage (Rubeus Hagrid = Rubedo/Red stage) ... but he does not have as decisive of an event - to the extent that you could say he does not even have an "event" in the same way as the other two - what does that mean for the use of that structure for the last 3 books? Well, I don't think the imbalance among the stages can be totally resolved (although, admittedly, I have not read what John Granger has on the 7th book as the Rubedo stage, and he is usually pretty insightful, so maybe he has), but I think things like that just sort of happen when a series is being composed over that long a span of time. BUT, in writing that last post some things sort of stuck out to me about Hagrid that may make him very siginificant as a characterization and as a symbol in the 7th book and the series. As I sort of connected (more free association than really planned), Hagrid is the one who brings Harry to Hogwarts for the first time in book 1, leading the boats, and Hagrid is the one who brings his body (as he believes it to be only his body) back to the castle in book 7. But the actual physical entrance to the castle is not the only "first time" Hargid represents for Harry. In a sense Hagrid is Harry's whole entrance into the magical world. It all begins with Hagrid knocking the door in at the hut on the rock in the sea (and notice, this is specifically mentioned in book 7 when Harry is talking to the Dursleys to convince them to take the Order's protection: he says something about "and if you remember what happened the last time you tried to outrun wizards, I think you'll agree you need help" - and then JKR specifically notes a silence in which you could almost hear faint echoes of Hagrid pounding on the door). Hagrid is also with Harry the first time he visits Diagon Alley. In fact, Hagrid is the one who gives Hedwig to Harry ... and Hagrid who is there when Hedwig dies in book 7. I believe it is John Granger who noted (in his first book) that St Hedwig is the patron of orphans. There is a sort of "openings and closings" thing with Hagrid in these scenes - an opening and closing of his life at Hogwarts; the orphan years gaurded over by Hedwig; the era of being one of "the abandonded boys" for whom Hogwarts WAS home (cf Deathly Hallows, Harry's thoughts as he leaves the castle for the woods the final time - that he wished he could go home, but this was the first and best home he ever had, him and Voldemort and Snape, the abandoned boys). After this Harry will build a new home with Ginny. But here Hagrid is with Harry at the ending of this stage, carrying his body to the castle, pairing with his stament in the Leaky Cauldron in Book 1: "Everyone starts at the beginning at Hogwarts."

Griffyndor vs Slytherin: Bookends in books 1 and 7

The following is brought to you (whoever is around who still stops by the Muggle Matters ghost-town blog) by the "Merlin needs (or at least wants) to take a break from studying for comps and prepping his syllabus for the fall" foundation. In prepping my syllabus for teaching an intro to Old Testament class this fall, I have decided to use the Harry Potter series in the introduction of the course to help explain some approaches in studying texts by applying them to a text college sophmores will have read (the course is one of several possible for fulfilling a core requirement text course - so I have to cover some of the "basics" of how texts in general are approached). Anyway, this has given rise to many "sideline" considerations of the material as a whole. This one is about the whole Gryffindor vs Slytherin tension, and in particular how it functions in books 1 an 7 as sort of "bookends" Pauli made a really brilliant observation once, to which I have been repeatedly indebted in how I think of some of the structural themes/aspects of the books (this one, dealing with the houses, which, as JKR said in interview is a straight lift from the medieval 4 elements cosmology, as John Granger reports in his books, is by nature a structuring mechanism). His observation was that Gryffindor house contains in it, precisely in Harry's year, all 4 houses, and so is a sort of melting pot. Harry (as John Granger and others, among them the sorting hat, have noted) has slytherin qualities. Ron is your straight-ahead hot-headed and fiery red Gryffindor. Hermione is the cool reason of Ravenclaw and Neville, with his knack for (and eventual teaching of) herbology, is a Hufflepuff nature. The fact that these will be "melting potted" together is evident from book 1, where, in the boats crossing the lake (contra the movie representation), these 4, and just these 4, wind up in the same boat together. That's the book 1 opening bookend. In book 7, after Voldy has Hargid (who also led, sort of carried, the troops across the lake in book 1) carry Harry in front of the Castle, Neville breaks through the silence spell and pushes through to shout something about Dumbledore's army forever. Voldy puts him on his knees and asks him if he wants to join the death eaters. Neville tells him where he can shove that idea and Voldy does the flaming sorting hat trick on Neville's head, which then gets transformed into the sword-in-hat trick (a thank you to John Granger here for noticing that great pun and for his pointing us to the Arthurian connections of it in book 2). The book 7 bookend here is the particular thing that Voldy says in this interchange: that there will be no m ore sortings; the house of his noble ancestor Salazar Slytherin, will suffice for all. So, in book 1 we have Gryffindor house "sufficing" for all in the manner of a sort of an umbrella house. In book 7 we have Voldy's alternative conception of what it means for one house to "suffice for all" - which is what we here in academic jargon land call hegemony (forced submission to a cultural etc identity). In other words, Voldy's is a plan of forced homogenization (everybody becoming exactly the same). The Gryffindor model, on the other hand, provides more room for people to maintain the traits that make them unique and interesting (Luna will always be SUCH a Ravenclaw), while still upholding certain universal ideals such as bravery and loyalty. PS: Granger had some nice stuff on Snape as the Slytherin/Gryffindor Androgyne (containing qualities of both, where we get "androgynous" from, which is the original use of the word, a character who has both male [andros] and female [gyne] characteristics) ... an interesting question would be whether or not Dumbledor would be right in sometimes "thinking we sort to soon" - Snape needs to remain a Slytherin for it to work. PPS: on a slightly related note to the last PS, I saw on Travis Prinzi's FaceBook feed that he has something at the Hog’sHead about Snape’s love for Lily: "Devoted, Sacrificial Love or Creepy infatuation)." I don't think they're the only two options. I'm sure different people, including Travis, will be weighing in at the HH with a more nuanced position, but I hope it goes beyond some mere 'middle-point' or 'mixture' theory because I don’t think those are even the only two possible poles in the matter. I think there is a lot more in there than meets the eye. I started thinking this when reading book 3 again recently – particularly in the part where Snape fills in for Lupin and Hermione is trying to answer the questions and Snape keeps docking house points on her for 'speaking out of turn.' And in the shrieking shack he is down-right abusive to Hermione, calling her a stupid girl (yelling it at her – all caps in American text). I think Hermione reminds him a bit of Lily (she certainly connects with Lily, via Slughorn and Harry, in book 6), and that this is like an open burning and festering wound to him. What she reminds him of is that he ruined a friendship. That friendship may have had possibilities of romance and marriage, and Snape may have even had specific conscious desires for that … but Lily was more than just a 'potential lover/spouse' to him … she represented friendship to him, a connection with somebody else, somebody to talk about hopes and dreams and fears and frustrations with (as little as young Snape wants to talk about it, I think it is important to him that Lily asks if his parents are still fighting). So I would add the possibility of not just deep, but, more-over, bitter remorse and regret (at points acerbically bitter, evidenced in his treatment of Hermione as the emblem of a still-open and festering wound). I never could buy the 'completely white hat' (or black hat even before book 7 came out) view of Snape … he's not an angel or a devil, he's a human – and there is a lot of ambiguity when it comes to humans. Anyway, that is enough of a break from studying and syllabus prep for now

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince Movie

Wow ... has it really been more than a year since I posted anything on here? Life gets busy but I have not in any way "moved on" from the Potterdom. I just got back from movie 6 ... way too much to process. I have actually given up on trying to compare the movies with the books but I did have a few thoughts about this movie, one in particular in relation to theories I have mentioned on this site. (well, first, the scene at the beginning with Harry and the muggle girl in the diner in the London underground station was completely gratuitous. Not gratuitous in the sense that it gets used of certain very specific types of movie scenes ... the movie maintains its PG Rating ... but it just made me go "what was THAT about or what did it have to do with ANYTHING?"). The theory I have talked about before here involves the unbreakable vow IN RELATION to marriage Imagery and THEMES (NOT that the UBV directly symbolizes marriage in a one-to-one structure). In this movie when Ron explains the UBV to Harry it is on the train going back to the Burrow for Christmas holiday (I know ... there is nothing in the book about the Hogwats express EVER being running outside of the beginning and end, but, hey, it's the movie). The convo begins and then is interrupted slightly when Lavender breathes on the glass of the compartment door and traces a heart and "R + L" .. then Ron goes on to explain that you die if you break a UBV and as he does this the message on the door is in the foreground prominently. In movie language, as I understand that language at least, this pretty strongly connects the idea of romantic love and the UBV, or at least hints strongly at some intersection of themes. (I realize some could say "well, that is just what the movie makers got out of it and they are botching stuff all over the place anyway, but, hey, I think it's in the book and the recent movie image provides a nice point of entry to bring in one of my pet theories about how the literary "meaning" is working ... I'm not necessarily trying to use the movie image as an "argument" for this reading of the book) In terms of what goes on in the book, I would translate the intersection as "what is it about romantic love, and even the desire for it (like, say, Merope's desire for love and marriage, and in the end even desire for TRUE love, causing her to cease the love potion) that brings people to enter into a desire for conjugal love and using the words 'till death do us part'? and what impact does dysfuntion have on that (dysfunction like, say, Merope's state of extreme psychological duress from living her whole life under the thumb and mentality of Marvolo and Morphin Gaunt) ... AND, how does that whole question impact Tom Riddle becoming Voldemort" If I were to put it terms of philosophical argumentation, particularly from a Catholic theological standpoint, for this set of themes being a possible question and fitting into this book (and here I am making more of an official argument"... for the possibility and fittingness), I would appeal to three things: 1. Decina and Vanhooser's talk at Lumos in 2006 where they did a very good job of tying out Voldy's character traits to anti-social personality disorder 2. the Roman Curia's instruction to annulment tribunals entitled Diginitatis Conubii (sp?), in which, while cautiously, the Curia instructs tribunals to pay heed to findings in the field of psychology and their relationship to the shape of full consent in entering marriage (particularly at issue here is the impact of personality disorders on the ability to "choose"). 3 The fact related by Decina and Vanhooser that JKR has, according to public note, gone through clinical depression episode twice - one of the times being with the divorce from her first husband. In the end, in HBP, I think these are questions the book poses, rather than "answers" it "offers." But there is something important in the asking. A final question would be: Why Snape and Narcissa? (there is NEVER any hint of romantic inclinations there AT ALL ... not to mention the fact that she is a married woman). I have just re-read book # 4 and there is a STRONG theme there of fathers and sons (in many different avenues, for instance: inthe pensieve Barty Crouch Sr says to JR "I have no son" and moments later DD relates to Harry that the Longbottoms do not recoginize their son. Ovviously the latter denotes what we usually call recognition, but in close conjuction with the other I think it echoes Crouch not recognizing his son in the sense of acceptance ... It all points to one thing: one of Voldy's legacies is many instances of estrangement within families .. which Harry pretty much says not too long after laying in bed thinking about Neville, that it all comes down to Voldy, he's the one who has torn all these families apart). In HBP I think it is a tale of mothers and sons, particularly mothers in extreme psychological/emotinoal duress. The two themes (romantic love with UBV, and mother love with UBV) may seem a bit unrelated, and I have not tied them together as tightly here as I would like (but do not have time to) ... but my final line, appealing to artisitic ways of thinking beyond strict "logic,'" would be a line from John Mayer's song "Fathers" "Girls become lovers who turn into mothers" (we are, after all, talking about a story written by a girl who became a mother, and a lover along the way ... not by an academic publishing for a trade journal - or more importanly I think she wrote it as more of the former, rather than trying to put out something that would tie together so nice and "logically") A son (Tom Marvolo Riddle) was born from the union of a psychologically very duressed woman who coerced the man she "loved" into marriage and then maybe really fell in love with him and set him free and was dashed by the fact that he had no inclination to love her, so dashed she gave up living ... not even the sake of her baby could convince her to keep living. Another mother is so desparate for the safety of her son's survival (against threats brought on by the "failure of service" of her husband - however, within a system of bigotry and violence to which she herself has willingly committed) that she willingly binds another to penalty of death to protect him. Another mother cast down her life to save her son, but in doing so also left him without her in a cruel world. Another mother recently cried on television upon revisiting the flat in which she lived as a single parent with her daughter after a divorce, while she took a chance on writing a book she at the time had no assurance would become even profitable, let alone one of the best selling series of recent publishing. In the end I think the question in all of this is: where does the pain, and sometimes malady, come from and how does it affect the magic that is life (especially at its source: marriage and family)? These things are beneath the surface, to be sure (I would be highly surprised if JKR had even heard of Diginitatis Conubii, let alone read it ... an in-house communication of guidance between juridical entities within the Catholic Church just doesn't seem like the type of thing a lay-person in the Church of Scottland is likely to have on their shelf), but I think they are there none-the-less. Most of all just thought it was interesting that the movie makers' subconscious seems to be running in the same direction, at least in so far as making some connection between the UBV and romantic love (although, like I said, I realize that in the minds of some this may be a strike against my theory ... but, oh well, it's all good fun in the end)

Travis Prinzi's New Book: Harry Potter & Imagination: The Way Between Two Worlds

So, what does someone do if he/she likes Muggle Matters but are a little bit sad that the frequency of writing seems to be about once every six months at best? I suggest buying Travis Prinzi's new book, Harry Potter & Imagination: The Way Between Two Worlds. You can pre-order it here, and I just did. Travis is as smart as he is a dedicated Harry Potter fan and blogger, so I am sure the book is going to ROCK. Another thing: I notice that the colors of the book cover go very well with the color scheme here at Muggle Matters. But I'm sure that is 100% coincidental.... Or is it??

Hogwarts's Ghosts

This summer while our family was on vacation in Maine, I received this email from a wise Catholic friend concerned about some of the themes in Harry Potter. I have a question. We read Sorcerer's Stone as a family we are half way through Chamber of Secrets as a family. I see that there is good, but it is hard to get around some of the dark stuff. Like last night we attended a Deathday Party. It seemed a bit creepy for creepy's sake. I am still pro-Potter but how do I get a Christian message out of it? That's a really good question. The following was my initial response: Note that the ghosts are Wizards who refused to move on from this earth. Later in the series they are described as "imprints". Their entire existence as it remains is suffused with vanity in all senses of the word: note Nick's desire to be a real "decapitee" and the vain attempt to derive pleasure from rotten food without a physical body. The headless hunt is nothing more than a moribund fraternity of wannabes and braggarts at having their heads lopped off. Some achievement. Also there is undue attachment to the things of this earth, e.g., the Fat Friar is a good enough fellow, but he's fat, symbolizing an attachment to food. The ghosts play a bigger role later in the books. Ron is always shown as being "impolite" whenever he mentions the fact that Nick is dead. But he's correct in this bluntness and candor! Nick is the one who is rudely invading the world of the living. Harry condescends to Nick's level out of respect for him and attends the party, but doesn't really enjoy it beyond an amused bewilderment. In book 5, Nick tells Harry, "I am neither here nor there," admitting that he probably made a mistake in his vain attachment. I agree with you that it is creepy, but the question is why so. The creepiness is due to the moribund vanity of en-souled creatures who refuse to move on to the next life. I believe this can be one way of seeing the ghosts at Hogwarts. I had meant to post on this earlier; I just thought of the email again today in reference to an idea Merlin mentioned to me once. He stated that the Potter series has an existential dimension, i.e., how the good characters become good as a result of their actions, and likewise for evil characters and those somewhere in between, that is not found so much in other mythopoeic literature (e.g., Lord of the Rings, etc.). The ghosts seem to be living out the essence of their decision to remain on this plane of existence although it is no longer their proper mode of existence.

Fear and Hope

First, let me make the obligatory sponsor notice: this random Merlin thought is being brought to you by a reading of a chapter from a book one of my professor's is working on the apocalyptic book "4th Ezra" ... for a class with her tomorrow (and thus it is also being brought to you by my persistent procrastination). Anyway, In 4 Ezra 10:38 the angel Uriel says to Ezra "Listen to me, and I will teach you about the things that you fear" Of course, as mentioned in my last post, on my last trip to PA I listened to Prisoner of Azkaban, and so the theme of fear was running through my head anyway, in conjuction with the material from that book (side note: to fans of the Dune series by Frank Herbert, to which Pauli introduced me the year I began a 3 year break from undergrad - I recently put back up on my wall the "fear mantra: "Fear is the mind killer Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration I will face my fear I will permit it to pass over and through me And when it has gone past me I will turn to see fear's path Where the fear has gone, there will be nothing Only I will remain") In his conversations and lessons with Harry, Lupin could well speak those same words that Uriel the angel speaks to Ezra "listen to me, and I will teach you, and tell you about the thing that you fear." For example: your boggart is a dementor and this, as a good thing, means that the thing you fear most is fear itself (I would call this a little of an inaccurate phrasing though - if what you fear most is fear itself then you are a Greek stoic - I think what he means is that fear is your biggest concern, including the fear of fear - the point is not to eradicate fear but to work towards not letting fear dominate and control you, again, including the fear of fear itself). But this post is not going to be a big long rambling free-association post as per my usual. What I wanted to put up is one small observation from book 3 on the level of structure. I think there is an intentional pairing of the boggart and the patronus, and I think this primarily based in the concrete language of the text. I think the thought process on this started a while ago when somebody said something about Hermione's boggart and I went back and checked the scene in the first class with the boggart in the wardrobe and thought "that must person must be off their rocker ... Hermione doesn't face the boggart." Fortunately I did not say such a rude thing ... because I was flat-out wrong. In listening to the book again I saw that Hermione faces the boggart in a wardrobe as part of Lupin's DADA final exam ... and there it is indeed (as whoever had been commenting said ... and as Ron conjectured earlier in the book) McGonnegal tearing up her work with failing grades. The specific connection that pairs the boggart and patronus (fear and hope) in opposition to, but also, in the self-same relation, in intimate connection with, each other is the possessive pronoun "your" ("your boggart/patronus") or the possessive "so and so's boggart/patronus." I had not really noticed it before, but the boggart and the patronus are spoken of in exactly the same way in the books (and I do mean plural "bookS" - of course patronuses [actually good Latin would be "patroni" ... but whatever] are mentioned all the way through all the following books, but the boggart is specifically used again in book 5 with Mrs Weasely's boggart ... that was a really gripping scene too; Rowling is SO good at writing pathos that just sort of steals your breath in a quick punch). I think the significance of the pairing is that both things call on and project something, in the one case our greatest fear, and in the other our greatest hope. To return to that thing of not being dominated by fear, even the fear of fear itself ... hope is not hope without a fear to hope against. Anyway, just another random thought from the brain-pan of Merlin as he bounces back and forth between procrastination and feigned diligent study. See you in the funny pages ...

Time trumps Space

So, I am right now finishing listening to Prisoner of Azkaban read by Jim Dale, having listened to the majority of it while driving back to PA this past weekend (for the baptisms of our friends Nathan and Julie's newest child and also of another couple friends' newborn ... and a relaxing time hanging out with Paul and Lissa and my nephews, who were also at the baptism) ... and I noticed something that fits into my own thinking on the Harry Potter works, particularly in the area of my definition of narrative (as a kairotic chronology) Basically this relates to that good ole term you hear a million times in every Sci-Fi movie or book: the "space-time continuum." Once Harry and Hermione have saved Buckbeak and Sirius and made it back to the hospital wing and Fudge and Snape et al have discovered the escapes and Snape vehemently insists that Harry and Hermione must have been involved, Dumbledore patiently but emphatically and thoroughly rehearses the facts (the locked door etc) that dictate that they could not have been in involved ... unless they have found a way to be in two places at the same time. Of course we know that they have indeed been provided with a way to do just that, with the time-turner. My interest lies in the fact that the "rules" of physical space can be "bent" by manipulating chronos, "clock time" - which in this case is done for the sake of kairos, the mystery laden time of special meaning (that "moment" when "time stands still" for something weighty, or to quote Marty McFly in Back to the Future, something "heavy" or in the translation used in Galations, the "fullness of time" - or to quote Paul Simon from the Rhythm of the Saints album: "you're born at the 'right time'") - in this case that of deliverance of the innocent and good. (side note): I know that that phrase "heavy" is in no way unique or original to BttF movies ... I use that instance because, aside from my obsession with throwing in movie lines every chance I get, Doc Brown here responds with the typical scientific question of whether something has gone wrong with the earth's gravitational pull in the future - which points up the contrast between scientific "factual" discourse and poetic language, which is pretty much the same differance as that between chronos and kairos) SO, this leads me to a sort of hierarchy of elements: Kairos highest, Chronos second and space last. There are two steps/point I want to emphasize 1. Chronos is maleable: That is basically just what the time turner is for, to mess with Chronos. Of course, there is a certain respect due to Chronos, lest one go accidentally committing suicide (killing one's past or future self, as Hermione says). Of course there are a myriad of possible "symbolic" nuances in that whole thing, of how the past and the future are at war, or at least in tension etc. But my main point in bringing it up is to say that I am not saying that chronos sucks altogether and should be utterly bagged ... it has its place and messing with it is VERY dangerous - although sometimes the rewards of that risk are very wonderful - especially for Sirius and Bukcbeak. The point is, though, that chronos can be meddled with. And here is is meddled with in such a way that the "hard rules" of the physical space half of the whole "space-time continuum" thinga-ma-bobby are superceded ... trumped, so to speak. 2. Time Trumps Space: Descartes Debunked The whole thing I have just said about "trumping" has a specific historical referent. Renes Descartes is known as the father of modern philosophy. He developed a very particular definition of what I will call (well, following the standard lingo in all the people whom I have had to read on the matter, all much smarter than me) - "physicality." Descartes' term is Res Extensia - or "extended reality/thing/matter." This means basically that physicality is defined primarily by the extension through the 3 dimensions (not meaning here any "other" dimensions that academics etc might talk about - simply meaning the three that we speak of in something like a 3D movie ... btw, U2-3D rocked). This is very different than the way that physicality had been thought of before, and (in Rowling I think) since. The Jewish concept of the "body" was as a mode of relation: one relates to others through the body in speech, touch, smiles and the like; one relates to God through liturgical observance or keeping the commandments through the body; one relates to God's creation in bodily ways (tilling the ground etc) . On the Rowling side, Steve Vander Ark (and I really hope they got all their differences sorted out) had some really good comments at Lumos in 2006 in Vegas. He talked about "wizarding logic" - the fact that by apparition and other magical means everything is about only 40 seconds away. I forget exactly how far he took that in the direction I am going here, so he might have said everything I am about to say (in which case I REALLY need to mention him, so as not to plaigerize), but the whole thing remains the same either way in how it fits into what I am saying here. Time is not ruled by space in the wizarding world: it does not take longer to get from Seamus' house in Scottland to London than it does to get to Hogwarts from Chez Finnigan (that's the specific example used by Vander Ark ... although I came up with the witty use of French :) ). Seamus takes the Hogwarts Express like everyone else because that is a part of what it means to be a student at the school. Through "wizarding logic" (magic) life on earth is freed up, in the physical side, to show so many more things, like aspects of relations etc. Not even Chronos, clock time, is ruled by "space"; and Kairos time is ruled by neither ... it rules them. The meaning of living life, including even simply being physical, it not ruled by "scientifically verifiable extension." Kairos must also respect Chronos and scientific space, but in the end it rules them and not vice versa, and the whole thing begins by pointing up, in the instance of the time turner (as perhaps the most apt representative of Vander Ark's "wizarding logic"), that even Chronos is not ruled by space. By it's link with Kairos, both being types of time, it trumps space even though it is ruled by "special time." PS: I should make a note here on the "debunking" of Descartes. I'm not saying "scrap the bugger and give him up as a bad job." The thing is that you can't ... to quote Riley in the first National Treasure movie: it's not just that it shouldn't be done ... it simply can't be done. We can't get back there no matter how hard we try ... our way of thinking (what Foucault would call an "episteme") is simply what it is. We may think we should "turn back the clock" but in our case, unlike Hermione and Harry's, we simply can't ... no matter how arduously we try to get back there we always approach that material as who we are where we are ... and that is as people whose thinking has been formed in a post-Cartesian world. Our better hope is to understand where we are, take the good and see if there is a way to transform the not-so-good (I think Descartes system works somewhat in so far as it goes, but to define what it means to be "in the body" or "in the flesh" solely, or even primarily, by the whole 3D extension thing is a MAJOR gype).

Rowling and Tom Waits

No official news here - just something fun, and an argument in support of my once statement that the closest thing I can think of to the way the weird sisters are portrayed (as distinctly different from the banal teeny-bopper movie four punky-grungy-poppy-gothy band) is Tom Waits. I was piddling around this evening and pulled out my guitar and a sheets of Waits lyrics and chords I made up once from books of his songs I like. One that I always like to play is called "Tango till they're sore." The opening line/verse goes "well, you play that tarantella, all the hounds will start to roar, the boys all go to hell and then the cubans hit the floor, they drive along the pipeline, they tango till they're sore, they take apart their nightmares and they leave them by your door." Now the song as a whole shares certain themes with Ms Rowling's work, such as death ("make sure they play my theme song, I guess daisies will have to do, just get me to New Orleans and paint shadows on the pew"" ... but what caught my attention was that word "tarantella." I thought, I have read that recently ... while I was listening to book 2 coming back out here. And indeed I had. There is that spell Draco hits Harry with first in the dueling club in book 2 and also with which somebody (Dolohov I think but can't be sure without looking it up) hits Neville in the DOM in book 5 (remember, that is how he breaks the prophecy). Tarantallegra. If you look up tarantella on dictionary.com you read: a rapid, whirling southern Italian dance in very quick sextuple, originally quadruple, meter, usually performed by a single couple, and formerly supposed to be a remedy for tarantism. Which is pretty much what happens to Harry and Neville: Neville's legs are kind of flailing around and "the next second Harry's legs began to jerk around out of his control in a kind of two-step" (CS 192). In connection with the theme/image-set of psychological malady, the "disease" which the tarantella was though to be a cure for, tarantism, is described thus on dictionary.com: a mania characterized by an uncontrollable impulse to dance, esp. as prevalent in southern Italy from the 15th to the 17th century, popularly attributed to the bite of the tarantula. In addition we all know of Rowling's love of Italian Renaissance (cf John Granger's work) ... Now of course, for what I now refer to as the "proof-mongers" (those who focus on "proofs" instead of reading a piece of fiction/art for the beauty of the rough edges and nuances) - no, neither of these mention have anything to do with the band the weird sisters - and so I can't say "hey, everybody, I have proof that I have a real world referent for that band ... I can prove it! come and look!" - which was never my aim. My point is ... Waits would be a good match for what the music of the Weird Sisters sounds like for two reasons: 1) compare Waits music and instrumentation with the same elements described of the Wierd Sisters in book 4 (I think DD is described as doing some funky sort of waltz with Madam Maxime at the Yule Ball); and 2) They think of the same things, like the tarantella. My real point is ... this is damn funny. Rowling has a very wry and great sense of the humorous. A jinx that disables your opponent by making them dance a funky Italian quick-step dance ... now THAT is downright hilarious. UPDATE 1/26/08 Ok ... so I am reading Foucault - no small task in itself lol ... and way too long to explain, but he does mention Campanella - and in trying to track down stuff on origins of Abracadabra/Avada Kedavra I came across a book tracing development of theory in medieval magic, big emphasis on Campanella, a souther Italian (like the tarantella) monk ... I have had some friends cast aspersion on whether or not Rowling is really that intelligent and eductated ... she knows her stuff ... I really have to get more into this realm BUT, since that last was sort of not not necessarily really tightly connected with the first part of the post, this other thing presented itself to me while I was listening to book 2 while riding the recumbent bike in the gym (new years resolution, another long story) ... speaking of how funny this whole "jinx of dancing" is ... the spell that Harry hit Draco with first was "rictum-sempra" - the last part of course being the sempra we discussed so much in the Sectum Sempra as "ever cut - but here it is "ever laughing" - make the unable to stop laughing as a weapon - effing ingenious.