Author: Harry Potter Virgin

Second base thoughts

Posted on by Harry Potter Virgin

8 years ago, I watched the 1998 Coen brothers classic, “The Big Lebowski,” for the first time. I was 12 years late to the game, but I didn’t even realize it until after watching the film. Whereas the day before I had only loosely even been aware of the film’s existence, suddenly, The Big Lebowski was all around me. It was in conversations at the bar. It was in pillow talk with strangers. It was in TV shows, articles and even other movies.

I have a tendency to tune out what I don’t understand. Which got me thinking, how many green toenail and shomer Shabbos-related bowling references had been flying over my head for 12 solid years?

As far as Harry Potter is concerned, I’ve spent 20 years willfully excluded myself from it all. Even still, when I decided to open myself up to these books and films, I did not expect to begin recognizing references to Harry Potter every day of the week.

The references! the references! So many references. For example:

  • The character on my favorite show hooking up with a guy who calls her vagina “The Sorting Hat.”
  • A dork on the subway wearing a yellow and maroon scarf.
  • “Hufflepuff” as invective.
  • Friends pictured pushing a cart against a wall on their London vacation. (That was months ago and at the time, I scratched my head and thought, “whatever floats your boat ladies, I’d be at the pub if it was me.”) Now I get it. First stop King’s Cross, then we head to the Leaky Cauldron.
  • Guys who got hot in adulthood being called “total Longbottoms.”
  • Cho Chang every day in the New York Times crossword puzzle.

The list goes on and on of things I am now grasping for the first time. Sure, I am not there yet, but as I round second base, I am already wondering what awaits me after my Harry Potter home run: More emotionally fulfilling Harry Potter experiences? Increased confidence when my experience is put to the test? Harry Potter in groups? In public? Role-playing?

(Sorry for all that: gross. And then the baseball metaphor piled on? Gross, lazy and incongruous. I promise more regularly scheduled programming next time.)

Looks like the Sorting Hat’s got a case of the Mondays

Posted on by Harry Potter Virgin

Sorting Hat, we need to talk about your latest song.

First of all, let’s get one thing straight: “pair” and “Ravenclaw” is barely a slant rhyme. I mean really, you have all year to get your song in order…

Then you spend a good amount of time on name dropping and star fucking. WOWEE you saw the founders of Hogwarts having a spat hundreds of years ago? Guess what? Wyclef Jean grinded on me once during the century we are currently living in! Look, we all have our little brushes with fame but we don’t need to keep telling everyone who will listen about them all the time.

Then WTF was up with that lyrical theme? Do you know that 300,000 UK workers are laid off each year? And here you are writing and performing an entire song about why the unique 30 minutes of labor you perform annually (that you are compensated quite handsomely for) should be made obsolete. You even go so far as to call yourself “condemned” to do your damn job.

Case of the Mondays?

I know that you are an ancient hat, and perhaps dreaming of a sunny, beachy retirement somewhere, but you have job security — which is a lot more than many of your fellow countrymen can boast, not to mention guaranteed healthcare that includes all necessary patching and darning with no referrals or co-pay.

Finally, you sort of roast Hufflepuff in there didn’t you… “Good Hufflepuff, she took the rest.” If I was sorted into Hufflepuff after that song, I would seek out the registrar directly after the feast and get a refund on the semester’s tuition and take the next train out of Hogsmeade. Honestly, those nice folks don’t deserve that shit.

Disorder of the Phoenix

Posted on by Harry Potter Virgin

“Darth Vader.” There I said it. That’s just the kind of thing you can say when you’re in the Rebel Alliance and you’re trying to have a reasonable conversation. The Rebel Alliance didn’t play games. They didn’t use euphemisms and they didn’t wince and shush each other up every time they were discussing their shared enemy, which was literally every day.

FYI the Order of the Phoenix is basically a really lame version of the Rebel Alliance. Except what is with these guys? They have been called together for one thing and one thing only: opposing Voldemort. They are supposedly the only crew not in denial of his return. And yet, they all cough and shift uncomfortably at the mere mention of his name.

This concept is not foreign to me. In Judaism, we have a custom of making noise during Purim every time Haman’s name is mentioned. Haman is dead though. That’s old business. This is new business.

If the Order of the Phoenix were the brains and brawn behind my chances of survival, I’d be pretty worried to be honest.

This is a life and death situation we are talking about. It should be all hands on deck. But who’s on deck includes a two-bit crook who goes by “Dung,” this one klutzy witch who knocks over everything in sight, and this other witch who could be devoted to — I  don’t know — the cause? But instead wastes all her fire on overbearing helicopter parenting. Speaking of which — present is an only slightly under age trio that has faced off with Voldemort successfully on more than one occasion — and everyone’s like —  “instead of saving the world, how about tidying up the drawing room for me love.”

Anyway, I am going to assume these jokers get their act together since this book has another 700 pages and 2 more sequels.

Ok, ok we get it Harry!

Posted on by Harry Potter Virgin

Reading thousands of pages about someone who is a better person than you can sometimes be a little exhausting. Anybody with me on this one?

The Order of the Phoenix has commenced, and once again, Harry Potter is back on Privet Street facing the torments of his stupid muggle family. Only now, he is not a defenseless little boy, but rather, a despondent teenager experiencing major Ron/Hermione-related FOMO. (I suspect more of this to come.)

Dementors pay Harry a visit as he is headed down the street with his cousin Dudley, a creature who has gleefully contributed to his undernourishment and mistreatment these past 14 years; a child who could have, with one word, successfully demanded better treatment for his cousin Harry at no cost to himself and never does; a human rubbish heap who has spent literally every day of his summer vacation assaulting smaller children with rocks and fists.

In short, we are discussing an odious person to whom Harry owes absolutely nothing and who society would unequivocally be better off without. And yet, knowing there will be hell to pay either way, Harry protects his cousin against the Dementor’s kiss. But this was not a surprise. Was it?  Harry is just too perfect.

I don’t know about you people, but I would have left Big D there to his own defenses. After all, Dudley has always lived by a might-makes-right ethos. Why not let him die by the same philosophy?

Okay, I may be a little vindictive. I’ve been known to cleave to my anger for years over the most petty of grievances. But come on Harry! This kid would leave you for dead just for fun if given an opportunity. And he would certainly never put himself at risk to protect you. Ironically, it’s the slew of only bad memories that he and his family have inflicted upon you that makes you so singularly susceptible to the Dementor’s life-sucking forces.

And yet, you go and save Dudley’s little ungrateful bitch ass life. You know, some ethicists would say you did the wrong thing. Just sayin’.

Gah, this book has another 860 some pages to go. God help me.

 

 

Ginny Manson

Posted on by Harry Potter Virgin

Last night I subjected myself and my tremendously kind boyfriend to 4 hours of John Williams’ compositions. We watched the final two hours of Chamber of Secrets and were so inspired by the basilisk, that we immediately followed this up with Jurassic Park. Like the Jurassic Park scientists, “We were so preoccupied with whether or not we could, we didn’t stop to think about whether we should.”

…Does anyone else find it a supreme triumph of the human spirit that Hogwarts is this amazing majestic castle and the Slytherins have chosen to decorate their common room with a $100 gift certificate to Spencer’s Gifts? Yep we get our glimpse of the Slytherin tower when Harry and Ron pay Draco a visit in the bodies of Crabbe and Goyle. Worst spies ever, but I will say this, the actor who plays Crabbe is better at being Ron than Ron himself. I hope I am not wounding anyone when I say this and I am sorry Rupert Grint.

This Slytherin sleuthing required much time in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom haunt. WOW. WOW. WOW. Myrtle, I had diagnosed you with paranoid personality disorder when I read Chamber of Secrets. My vision of your bathroom home had been informed by my own school days and I thought you were punishing yourself. But now I can see that your drama is potentially an intentional attempt to keep living in a veritable palace spa rent free for eternity. Very clever!

One final note. As an armchair scholar of all things Manson Family, I would like us all to collectively dig this film’s Helter Skelter vibe. Voldemort=Manson. Don’t even need an anagram to connect these dots.

writingblood

Ginny, your parents love you a lot, I hope you know that!

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Butt hurt Draco gets his due

Posted on by Harry Potter Virgin

Started watching Chamber of Secrets last night, a little drunk, but too drunk to feel empathy for the Harry Potter franchise. I can’t imagine that the casting department foresaw that Daniel Radcliffe’s voice would tragically drop after just one year of him being a cute little kiddie.

Speaking of tragedies, Gilderoy Lockhart was not nearly terrible enough for me. Having worked in PR and journalism most of my career, I have been around a lot of press-hungry people, and this portrayal simply isn’t cutting it. Plus, Hermione, I know you are mature for your age, but um, interesting crush. When I was 12, my crushes were on boys my own age, and on footage of Paul McCartney in 1962-66. We don’t hear about your dad much. What’s going on there?

…And now that they’ve trotted out the Malfoy dad, I can see that wild hair care runs in the family. I have to say, I was a bit disappointed that the film version fails to have Arthur and Lucius duke it out in the bookshop, Jerry Springer style. Dads actually beating each other up is the very stuff of playground fancy and this seemed like an enormous and shameful missed opportunity.

Speaking of that horrible family that should just throw themselves into a ravine already — Draco really takes his cretin factor next-level while handling a mandrake. A mandrake, if you recall is the magical plant of the Harry Potter universe with human-like roots. When first planted, they cry like newborn children, but as they mature, they begin to shack up with one another in each other’s pots. They are pretty sentient creatures, as plants go.

Of course Draco wastes no time performing the Aziz Ansari sex move on his mandrake, which is a baby mind you, shoving his fingers in its unsuspecting mouth. [Side note: you can read my blog, analyzing the Aziz Ansari book “Modern Romance” here: modernromancerebuttal.wordpress.com]

Check out that repulsive date-rapey expression on Draco’s face.

mandrake 1

Don’t worry folks. The plant bites Draco, an action that’s the mandrake equivalent of that Babe.net article. Malfoy is so butt hurt about it too. mandrake 2.pngThis extremely satisfying moment aside, I only had time for an hour of the film last night. I will be back with more thoughts on Chamber of Secrets tomorrow.

 

Harry Potter and the Enneagram

Posted on by Harry Potter Virgin

I am the cheesy Bar Mitzvah DJ of the blogging world, as I have taken a request from a special reader.

I understand this post may not appeal to everyone, as it requires both an appreciation of the Harry Potterverse as well as personality typology. Also, unlike the well-trodden spiel of your corporate retreat leader, I will not be doing this through the lens of Myers-Briggs.

Bear with me. Instead, we will be discussing the Enneagram. Though on its face, it’s a bit more new-agey than Myers-Briggs, this system is not to be confused in any way with astrology. Celestial bodies have nothing to do with which type you are: only your own dreadful personality is a factor.

Most importantly, Enneagram is the personality assessment favored most by my circle of fellow navel-gazing friends. We are kind of obsessed with it and you should be too.

Here is the gist of the Enneagram. Each personality type is guided by their perceived role, and are moved to action or inaction by their basic fears and desires. A very rudimentary description of each of the 9 types, that comes verbatim from The Enneagram Institute is as follows:

1. The Reformer: The Rational, Idealistic Type: Principled, Purposeful, Self-Controlled, and Perfectionistic

2. The Helper: The Caring, Interpersonal Type: Demonstrative, Generous, People-Pleasing, and Possessive

3. The Achiever: The Success-Oriented, Pragmatic Type: Adaptive, Excelling, Driven, and Image-Conscious

4. The Individualist: The Sensitive, Withdrawn Type: Expressive, Dramatic, Self-Absorbed, and Temperamental

5. The Investigator: The Intense, Cerebral Type: Perceptive, Innovative, Secretive, and Isolated

6. The Loyalist: The Committed, Security-Oriented Type: Engaging, Responsible, Anxious, and Suspicious

7. The Enthusiast: The Busy, Fun-Loving Type: Spontaneous, Versatile, Distractible, and Scattered

8. The Challenger: The Powerful, Dominating Type: Self-Confident, Decisive, Willful, and Confrontational

9. The Peacemaker: The Easygoing, Self-Effacing Type: Receptive, Reassuring, Agreeable, and Complacent

(One more thing to note is that all these types can present in both Healthy and Unhealthy ways.) So without further ado, let us begin.

Harry Potter, our titular hero, is basically the healthiest Challenger to live. Harry seeks out and confronts his most loathsome enemies with a no-to-low-fear approach that catches even the most ruthless off guard. However, due to his childhood of intense deprivation, he’s got a bit of an Enthusiast streak in him. (Full disclosure: I am an Enthusiast. We are fun.) In any case, Harry’s not quite over the fact that his life no longer totally sucks and he is making up for lost time. This can be distracting and is the reason he often buys too much candy, is late for class and procrastinates solving life or death egg-based riddles until it’s almost too late.

Hermione is a classic healthy Reformer. She is our freedom-fighter. Personally affronted by injustice, she is almost always more than willing to sacrifice some social capital in battling evil. However, let’s get real, Hermione is not of wizard stock and has something to prove, both to herself and to her peers and professors. This anxiety gives her a bit of an Achiever streak, and she spends many hours of her time at Hogwarts pursuing academic excellence.

Ron is an unhealthy Achiever. But who can blame him? He has big ambitions but no specific talents. He is surrounded by boy and girl wonders both at school and in the Weasley household. The only fight he has with his best friend in the world is when his resentment of Harry’s fame bubbles over and gets the better of him. What does he see in the Mirror of Erised? Himself as Quidditch Captian and Head Boy of course, two things he will never be or even work to be, but secretly desires, just ‘cuz.

Voldemort is a deeply unhealthy Loyalist, obviously. He extracts pledges of allegiance from his followers using torture and coercion, and even when they make ultimate sacrifices, he is never totally satisfied. We all know some people like this and they are total nightmares.

Draco Malfoy is a run-of-the-mill unhealthy Challenger, as are many Slytherins. Machiavellian to the core, Draco’s got a lot of sleazy tricks up his sleeve, believing he can only win when those around him fail.

Hagrid is a happy healthy Helper, which is a lucky thing for the magical creatures in and around Hogwarts. Humble and self-sacrificing, he is not happy when those he loves are in pain.

Dumbledore is a healthy Investigator. He lives alone in an isolated tower, mixing his thoughts up in the Pensieve and primarily keeping his own counsel. Probably hasn’t taken a lover in years, but who knows for sure? If he did, we’re not going to hear about it. Investigators don’t kiss and tell. But, he’s contented with this status quo and these qualities make him the powerful visionary and just headmaster that he is.

Snape is an unhealthy Individualist. His grade school grudges still feature prominently in his psyche and his expectations of isolation are a self-fulfilling prophecy. He is his own worst enemy and doesn’t even know it.

All right, that’s all I got in me now, but happy to discuss this or do more character assessments by request. Hit me up here or on social media. I can talk Enneagram all day.

You call that a Sorcerer’s Stone?

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Rumor has it that Steven Spielberg was approached about directing the Sorcerer’s Stone, but his intention was to create an animated feature with Haley Joel Osment providing Harry Potter’s voice. This proposal was rightfully rejected.

I hope this little tale is true because it makes me happy. People like Spielberg need to know they can’t just do anything they want because they are Steven Spielberg. Plus, Osment would have been all whispering in his American accent, “I see dead people,”  and everyone would be all like, “Yes, we can see them too buddy. They are called ghosts.”

In any case, they wisely went with the inimitable Chris Columbus instead. Columbus, of Home Alone fame, did a fine job bringing the first book to the screen for eager audiences.

You may recall that I had dreaded the Quidditch match scenes, not being much of a sport-o myself, but even this was entertaining to me, Snape’s robe on fire notwithstanding.

Speaking of Snape, I failed to address him in my last post. He is especially noteworthy to me as being particularly sympathetic on screen relative to his literary counterpart. When Hermione set his robe on fire, I wanted to extinguish it myself and then ask him to attend a Sisters of Mercy show with me.

As for other personality discrepancies, how about that Sorting Hat? I had envisaged the Sorting Hat as nurturing and jolly. Maybe in a pinch, the kind of enchanted object you could leave the kids with for a couple of hours while you take the wife on date night. What we get instead is sneering and sinister. Like. if a dude with that voice and general demeanor approached me in a bar, I’d be like “hello, you are the most obvious date rapist in history. How about fucking off?” In short, I had trouble suspending my disbelief that the great Dumbledore would heed the sneering proclamations of such a vile object.

That said, Hogwarts itself is far more majestic than the visuals my own brain was capable of generating on its own, from the M.C. Escher staircases to the lush grounds. The only disappointment within its walls was the unremarkable titular stone. Looks like something you might win at Chuck E. Cheese.

Final thoughts. Everyone should always read a book before they watch its adaptation. No one must ever do the reverse or skip the book entirely. If you do those things you are a bad person and you deserve bad things to happen to you.

 

 

 

Hairy Potter

Posted on by Harry Potter Virgin

Film one down. Here are some first impressions.

It is only right to begin with Privet Drive. When baby Harry is lain on the doorstep, it is heartbreaking, and this does not abate in the next scene, which takes place in the same setting, 10 years later as Harry is awoken in his cupboard bedroom. The Dursleys are as every bit horrendous as they are in the book, however, their cartoonish milieu seems relatively subdued here, even as Dudley is awarded a tail. Perhaps it is the persistently doleful expression of Daniel Radcliffe in these early scenes that lends it all a tragical air.

Skipping ahead past the back-to-school shopping experience and Harry’s first encounters with his soon-to-be besties, I would like to address a very important matter.

It’s not often that “I can’t even,” but “I can’t even” when I look at Draco Malfoy. Why does this 11 year old child style his hair like his evening plans are to listen to Huey Lewis and the News and murder a couple dates? I mean it’s great, but ultimately distracting. Every time he’s on screen, I can’t stop giggling.

Speaking of hair, let’s draw our attention to Emma Watson’s. Is the ever so slight 80s style crimping in effect here our cue that Hermione is not supposed to be a pretty child? What effective movie magic. Truly. I suppose I can’t blame the studio for ditching the buck teeth and plain face described in the book. Casting an actual homely female lead in a blockbuster would have caused the Hollywood sign to crumble.

One last note about hair. Harry’s hair — much-discussed in the book as wild and unkempt, is about the tamest mop top in history. Any mother in 1962 would have allowed their daughter to date a boy with this hair cut. Also, it’s funny that everyone is always like “o-m-g you are Harry Potter” but the scar is never actually visible. What gives there?

Anyway, more to come. Sorry for the ramblings, I’ve got a life to live. (“Life to live” = going to the library before it closes.)

 

Voldemort’s risen and I’ve got a headache

Posted on by Harry Potter Virgin

The exposition overload of the last couple chapters made me feel like it was my own lightning shaped scar giving me a migraine. Too many villains in the potion-making kitchen I suppose, each with his own tiresome speech prepared about how he plans to take over the world.

I eventually got the silence I was longing for, as The Goblet of Fire is now complete. My main take-away: trust no one — especially over the age of 30.

While Book 2 had us believe that Polyjuice Potion — a concoction allowing its consumer to take on the form of someone else — is a tremendously challenging  one to construct (think most complicated cocktail on the menu), by Book 4, the stuff is flowing as freely as Bud Light at a kegger.

In short, you can never be really too sure to whom you are speaking and whether or not he or she is aligned with Voldemort. Think that’s your elderly dying neighbor? Nope that’s her convict son under house arrest. Think that’s your professor? Nope. Think again.

And when you’re not trying to figure out who is on the dark side, you are simply identifying who is a run-of-the-mill scumbag.

Scumbagman that is. Fred and George reveal in the final pages that Ludo Bagman has ripped them off of their life savings. The esteemed Head of Magical Games and Sports, is not aligned with any dark forces beyond his own inner demons — Bagman’s just a problem bookie and a wannabe fixer. A very disheartening addition of insult to injury.

Cedric may be dead, Harry in desperate need of a PTSD specialist, but who I worry for most is Percy, whose world view is about to be turned on its head when he discovers just how many members of his beloved ministry are utterly worthless. What will become of our striving sycophant? I suppose the scene is set for him to ideologically part ways with his family in the fight against Voldemort, aligning himself with Cornelius Fudge, a career politician too afraid to rock the boat by taking bold, swift action when it’s most needed, preferring instead to live in denial of the early warning signs that shit’s getting real.

What that ideological parting of ways is shaping up to be is a battle between those who place emphasis on “what someone is born,” and those who care only “what they grow up to be.”

In short, we will have a progressive, inclusive party pitted against a regressive one. Sound familiar?

All in all, I am happy that the foreign delegations taking part in the Triwizard tournament have been redeemed and that Hermione has Rita Skeeter in her pocket, quite literally. Keeping that pest an insect is both befitting and the perfect punishment for her wrongdoings.

Now onto next steps. Since I am consuming my Harry Potter for the first time in the same order that everyone else did, I will not be picking up Order of the Phoenix just yet, but returning to Hogwarts year one, in film format.

I want you all to know that only those sleeping under a rock the past 17 years could have avoided the dorky visage of Daniel Radcliffe, so I know what I am getting into there. Beyond that, my visual knowledge of the Harry Potter universe is rather sparse. I will be awaiting the discovery of how all my favorite characters have been rendered for the screen with the same level of anticipation as a gaggle 12-year-olds circa 2001.

See you on the other side.