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Review: Harry Potter
I'm a latecomer to the Harry Potter phenomenon. A few friends recommended the books to me, but it wasn't until the local town of Zeeland, Michigan decided to push to have the book banned from school libraries and local book stores that I decided I had to read it. I read the first book and was just amazed. Here was a story that was fun, easy to read, had involving characters and a simply wonderful imagination. Quite simply, "The Hype" was warranted. In this era of the Internet, and playstations and old fashioned TV, this was just the book to get kids reading again. Hell, this was just the book to get me reading again. My schedule doesn't give me much free time to enjoy a book, but I made time, and read the first 3 Harry Potter books on my next 3 flights (I'm saving the 4th book for next time I fly ;) I don't read much. But I'm glad I read these books. They were great.
Of course by this time, the movie was already under construction so I kept a stray eyeball on it to see what would come of it. I wept when I heard Chris Columbus was directing (Home Alone? Mrs. Doubtfire? Stab me please). Why not Terry Gilliam? I thought he would have been perfect, except that I have no clue if the man could direct swarms of kids. Columbus could. And I'm glad to say that he did.
I won't belabor the plot. You know already unless you live in a coffin that Harry Potter is the witch hero brought from the world of Muggles to his true destiny at Hogwarts, a traditional English boarding school ... for witches. He meets up with a variety of friends including the giant Hagrid, the little-miss-perfect Hermione, the Headmaster Dumbledore, his best friend Ron. He also meets some bad guys, Professor Snape (played by Alan Rickman, who I always dig), Draco Malfoy. If you've read the book, you know the characters. If you haven't, you either don't care, or haven't been paying attention to every AOL Time Warner media outlet which has been relentless hyping the film for weeks.
The story is simply epic. Orphan Boy learns of true powers. Boy goes to train to master his powers. Boy fights monsters, comes face to face with true evil, and defeats it. Think Star Wars, but with broom sports instead of x-wing battles.
The kids are dead on. Harry, Ron, and Hermione are almost exactly what I'd expect. They are convincing actors and do an excellent job. And they actually act. Not like Phantom Menace where Jake Lloyd brings every scene featuring his dialog to a crashing halt with his wooden delivery, or The 6th Sense's Haley Joel Osment who just has to make that look at the camera half the time and this is somehow interpreted as being a great child actor. The grownups are good too. Robbie Coltrane's Hagrid is really excellent. Likewise the Dursley's are spot on. I would have liked to get a bit more of the teachers. Especially Dumbledore and Snape, but this is the story of the kids, not the grown-ups.
Since this is a special FX blockbuster kind of movie, I'll go into it a bit. The look of the whole movie is dazzling. The casting is right on the money. The architecture is skewed and bent, just like it should be. Hogwarts itself is dark, but the grounds are beautiful and colorful. Everybody visualizes books differently, but I gotta say they did a fine job creating a convincing world for our magical trio to get into mischief.
Many of the effects are subtle and seemlessly integrated. Keep an eye on the paintings and watch them move in the background. Where the effects really collapse is the people during action sequences. The troll battle. Kids falling off brooms. They cut back and forth between real kids and CGI kids. And the CG kids just don't cut it. They just look wooden and their skin has no flesh texture to it. Most of the shots are short, but at least for me they really pulled me out of the fun. Especially during the Quiditch match. I wanted to cheer and be excited, and certainly the seen as a whole was brilliant. But every couple shots it would be so obvious that the child on the broom was animated that I kept having the illusion spoiled. I kept thinking I was watching a Playstation 2 cut sequence instead of a feature film.
What got sacrificed from the book to make this a 2:30 movie? Well not much. The biggest thing is the details in classes. The books love to have little anecdotal stories in classes that often tie together at the end. A spell. Some child doing something that seems irrelevant, but later matters. But the kids are almost never shown in class. But thats ok. Things also seemed a little more slapsticky, but I guess Mr Home Alone couldn't pass up on that. And I'll forgive him. This is a kids movie. A few sub plots are axed. Many plots are narrowed down (notably the dragon sub plot which is reduced to one short scene)
In short, this the best for-all-ages movie I've seen since perhaps Toy Story 2. And I'll be there opening night for The Chamber of Secrets too.
I have come to the conclusion that Commander Taco is a 12 year old boy trapped in the body of one high-ranking mexican cuisine.
i got dragged to the theater at 12:01am Friday morning by my girlfriend. They did an awesome job at the special effects and who they selected as actors.
but the story was slow to develop, IMO. I actually fell asleep for about a half hour of the movie and when I woke up, the only stuff I had mised was the introduction of peoples names, and the plot hadnt been intro'd yet. so it felt like i didnt miss anything. i think maybe the reason i fell asleep is because i havent read teh books.
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
He's right about the books and the movie. I just wish the kid target demographic hadn't limited the length of the movie so. Another half hour would have done wonders. Oh well, maybe a "director's cut".
1Alpha7
Live to be Moderated
Because Terry Gilliam has imagination and originality.
The publisher and/or the studio wanted the film of the book to be a word-for-word replica.
---
http://slashdot.org/moderation.shtml
*cough* Pod Racing *cough*. Those sequences in SW:E1:TPM looked so cartoony and game-like that it couldn't have been an accident. I wonder if there's something of the same going on in HP:TPS (The Philospher's Stone, damn it). "Don't make it look too good, it'll just make the game spins off look like a pile of pants, and that's where the big bucks are."
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
did anyone else see dave letterman wednesday night? The kid who played harry was on, but I was too busy on other things to pay attention. but the djs on the radio the next morning were saying he was completely nervous and everything. anyone else see it? what was he like up there?
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
I'm surprised CmdrTaco saw fit to put down Haley Joel Osment's acting skills up there. I mean, did you see AI? That kid *is* a great actor.
-- If no truths are spoken then no lies can hide --
But until Harry Potter is on your completed reading list, it is impossible to truly understand. While maybe they are not the best written books ever, there is something else about them that takes children into this magical world, and then can take adults back to being children. I urge everyone, if its your thing or not, to try reading these books, and then the movie will really be impressive.
If witches practice witchcraft, do warlocks practice Warcraft?
"the fax machine is nothing but a waffle iron with a phone attached to it." - Grandpa Simpson
Then do what we're doing -- check them out from the public library.
We and our 8 yr old enjoyed it a great deal but I was rather surprised that the theatre was clearly less than full (even though it was a day that all the kids were out of school -- we showed up about 15 mins before starting time thinking we'd have to get tickets for at least the next show, but we walked right in and got good seats in the middle!
Judging from news reports I'm guessing that's an anomoly.
Shut up, be happy. The conveniences you demanded are now mandatory. -- Jello Biafra
(I'm saving the 4th book for next time I fly ;)
Hope you're flying around the world.
-- http://frobnosticate.com
Does anybody know why they changed the name (of both the book and movie) for the U.S.? Did they dub the movie as well to change the name of the stone?
I'm just curious because I can't imagine why they would go to so much trouble to eliminate the word "philosopher".
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
Warlock translates from gaelic (If I remember correctly) as Oathbreaker. So no, Warlock being a male witch is a falsehood that superstitious Christians made popular. Witch is Witch, regardless of gender, unless you follow the word back to it's roots, and then you have Wicca and Wicce to determine gender.
You thought that this sig was what you think that I thought you wanted me to think. I think.
You are technically correct, although Hogwarts claims to be for "Witchcraft and Wizardry".
I always though Harry was a Wizard, not a warlock. I'm uncertain of the finer points of the the difference, but I had always assumed wizzards were the "white hats" of the magical world (obviously there are evil wizzards, so I'm not sure what the true distinction is).
This movie is likely going to be the first successfully designed DVD movie. The theatrical release, by nature, is assured success from the start which allows for ample planning to release a vastly expanded version on DVD.
Not just deleted scenes, but fully composed add-ons that needed to be deleted to bring the film within a reasonable length for theater goers.
I hope to see this used more. Many adaptations fail due to the 2-2.5 hour length the average movie goers will endure at a cinema. DVD and what ever replaces it allow directoers to utilize their immediate resources to film full adaptations/stories that can have all the backstory added later to fully realize their vision of the story.
I admit, I have no concrete knowledge on HP, but given the trim and the quality that Columbas (surprisingly) pulled off here, I'm confident the DVD will be excellent.
The one reason I wont see the movie is i doubt it has those "adult jokes" like all of Pixar's movies have. You know, the sruff for the older crowd in the movie, thew stuff that flies over the kid's head.
Well, I certainly hope that you snuck into the theater to avoid paying money to the eeeeeeevil Warner Bros. I'd hate to see your money going to the ongoing hassles from the MPAA.
The most amazing thing about the Harry Potter phenomenon to me is the burst of censorship associated with it. This thing is just a plain good old children's fantasy and the fundamentalist Christians down South where I live have just gone rabid about it. If you believe in the First Amendment, then you've got to fight for kids to have the right to see / read Harry Potter. Check out this website for more on the Harry / censorship angle...
I substituted in a 7th grade classroom yesterday. I thought it would be interesting to ask them about Harry Potter.
The results surprised me. Only 4 or 5 of 27 were planning to see the movie this weekend, and only 3 or 4 more expressed any interest in ever seeing it.
I'm guessing its been over-hyped, so that cool twelve-year-olds are no longer interested.
It's the box office I'm worrried about!
tcd004
Then why don't you do what I did and buy the third one in paperback?
Think outside the... Hey, where'd the friggin' box go?
I knew that Harry Potter was a phenomenon. After all, the author was on Oprah.
Heck, the NY Times changed the criteria for its bestseller list because Harry was creaming the competition.
but...
Until a friend gave Goblet of Fire to my teenaged daughter, I didn't realize that Harry Potter was a PHENOMENON!
She now has 1-4 on her shelf with the Harry Potter bookends and assorted other Potterabilia.
She has made sure that even an uncool old muggle like Dad has a vague comprehension of the sorting hat.
And...
We are all excited about my mother coming up for a visit this week.
Why?
She'll babysit the little ones while Teenager and the two old fogies she lives with go to see the movie.
Guess it could be worse.
The littlest one likes TeleTubbies.
I went to a screening last night, and although my friends who hadn't read the book came out with completely enthusiastic reviews, I was somewhat disappointed.
The writers did an incredible job sticking to the true story - but maybe they did too much. The characters were fantastic (especially the kids), but I knew exactly what each child was going to do from minute one. The problem is that I never got completely engaged - there wasn't any mystery or spontaneity to the story. Now some people would support a movie true to its book, but I need some other compelling reasons to see a movie.
The CGI was pretty awful for the entirety of the movie. But watching the character portrayals made this movie worth my money. Everyone from Harry's awful aunt and uncle, to the other kids at Hogwarts, to the teachers was done magnificently. And a couple of those really surprising, frightful moments were nice (but I think younger kids would be quite scared).
My final suggestion: If you haven't read the books or seen the movie, put your money into reading the books! They are truly fabulous, and your imagination will create a more engaging and wondrous story than any director can portray. Now if that doesn't convince you, fine, go see the movie, you'll like it, you'll laugh, it's a fine time.
And if you have read the books, I don't know. You can pay to see the movie, but don't expect incredible things. I found myself thinking about other things during the movie (like how hot my feet were) because I was expecting everything. It's still fun, and good acting is always a nice change.
Final unrelated note: The new Star Wars trailer was AWFUL. Scooby Doo trailer was hilarious.
you're kidding right?
Highschool kids reading Harry Potter? Isn't that a little... well... beneath their reading level? Whatever happened to Antigony and Wuthering Heights? Even my twelve year old brother was bored by the books (and certainly not challenged by them) when he first started reading them a couple years ago.
No wonder kids are so stupid these days.
Dude, don't ever play the "dictionary" trump card. I'll bet that at least half of all dictionaries consider "hacker" to be one who breaks into computer systems. Basically, I'm saying don't take the word of a dictionary over the word of someone in the know.
Besides, if you do any research at all, you'll find that the roots you mentioned mean precisely what the previous poster said...warloghe and waerloga both translate to "Oath-Breaker".
Warlocks are what outsiders call male witches. Male witches call themselves witches.
"UNIX" is never having to say you're sorry.
We don't really know; he's never been given the chance. Anyone who knocks his performance in Star Wars should first be required to do a convincing "Yippee!" themselves...
After reading the books, and then watching the movie last night, one major flaw made itself apparent. The movie shifts scenes too quickly. You can never settle down and simply enjoy all the little subtleties that made the books great. This goes on for 2:20, so it became a problem for me.
I do realize, however, that this is because of the very fact the movie is based off a book. They *had* to remain faithful to the story and at the same time keep a child's attention for that length of time. These two goals together contradict the ability to go indepth into character development or a particular plot scene. For example, I wanted Draco's goons to come out of the woodwork, and not just sit there and look dumb as they did in the movie.
All in all though, I enjoyed the movie. I wonder when the second one is due to be released. For some reason, I bet that this series will eventually become as big as "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", or even perhaps "Wizard of OZ".
One Ring to rule them all,
One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all,
and in the darkness bind them
Someone you trust is one of us.
It's been impossible to avoid the hype on this film.
I did manage to completely avoid the hype on this film, until some bozo wrote an article about it on Slashdot.
As someone who works with high school kids, I am glad for Harry Potter for one reason - they are getting kids to read.
Are the Harry Potter books getting kids to read books or are they getting kids to read Harry Potter? One is great, the other is a fad. One will last them a lifetime, one will die shortly after the last book comes out. (I also submit that it is probably too early to tell the long lasting effects.)
I would recommend that everyone read them, even if you pick them up from a library.
I find it very disheartening that someone who 'works with kids' speaks of the library as if it's a distant second choice. You express gratitude that the books are getting kids to read, then slam the greatest reading resource a child or adult can have barely a paragraph later.
I read the first two books (I refuse to buy the third and fourth in hardback), and they are a good read. Not the best ever (I have a difficult time comparing Ender's Game with Harry Potter), but a good read.
It's unsurprising you have a hard time comparing them. Despite the superficial points in common, (mistreated child Makes Good and Saves The World), they are very different books, aimed at very different audiences. It's comparing apples and oranges.
Warlock is etymologically "oath breaker" implying one who broke his holy oaths to God to make pacts with demons for unnatural power. As such it's considered offensive. References to "good warlocks" are rare, and essentially self-contradictory.
Witch, on the other hand, comes etymologically from wikken, meaning "to predict". So, despite any negative connotations that have grown on it, it was salvagable. References to "good witches" are common, and the word connotes strangeness, but not necessarily evil.
Witch has only gradually changed to referring primarily to women, most likely because women have been accused of witchcraft far more often than men. While most men went out into the world each day to work, women often stayed in the home and worked in secret, where they had no responsible witnesses and were naturally vulnerable to accusations of private crime (it should be noted that the vast majority of accusers were historically also women; witchburning was largely a woman-on-woman crime).
The gender-neutral applicability of witch has weakened, but never gone entirely away. Consider "witch doctor." Do you picture a man or woman?
Fantasy literature is particularly prone to using (and in some cases reviving) archaic meanings and choosing etymologically appropriate words rather than the most standard and well-understood words. So are fruitcakes who like to play at old religions. Don't try to apply normal language standards to either, it's frustrating and pointless.
I refuse to buy the third and fourth in hardback
Hardback? They've both been out in paperback for ages, at least here in the UK.
HH
--
I might be wrong, but I believe the term "Witch" is reserved for the female variety. I always thought "Warlock" was the male reference.
You are indeed wrong. Witches can be both male and female (I'm actually a male witch). Warlock means 'oathbreaker' (it's an Anglo-Saxon word).
HH
--
Another half hour would have done wonders
Total agreement. Another half-hour would have made it perfect. Though I do know adults who though it was too long (mainly for bladder-related reasons).
My advice: Pee just before seeing this film.
HH
__
So, one day, she gets a phone call from this horribly irate parent who claims to have a newspaper article detailing the link between Harry Potter and a rise in Satanism among children...
The casting was almost dead-on as to how I envisioned it... With ONE exception.
McGonagall is not supposed to be an old lady (see the books!). I had envisioned someone who looked kind of like Bebe Neuwirth in full Lilith Sternin mode.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Nice to see one of my comments get a 5 rating *WHEN SOMEONE ELSE POSTS IT*.
1 226 is my original comment.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?cid=2248277&sid=2
I am guess that is what you mean by "Reminds me of this classic prose"?
If you notice, my signature says that I claim a copyright on each post (in addition to the disclaimer at the bottom of each Slashdot page which says that comments are property of the poster).
You did not give me any credit for the post, nor ask my permission.
To follow-up *to my own post*, I purchased the third book in paperback and read it, along with a borrowed fourth book, and saw the movie yesterday. I will post another original comment elsewhere on the thread.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
I wonder if the Sept 11 events have thrown some people off so much that they no longer see magic where they would have seen it before.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
A newt?!?
....I got better...
Burn 'er anyway!
Sorry, couldn't resist!
You're using her as bait, Master!
Jokes are by their nature off topic. If it isn't funny then it shouldn't be rated up.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
i think my main concerns with the harry potter phenomenon are based around the comments that the books have got kids reading again.
Again? Don't know if reading was ever popular among the majority of children...
I read all four books and liked them. I did not think they were earth-shattering, but they were good, especially the fourth book.
I decided to go opening day just to get caught up in it. Trying to avoid children, I decided on the 1:30pm showing, before school got out. As it turns out, it was a 1:20 showing, so I arrived halfway through the previews.
There were about fiftenn people in the theatre, including two children. One of the kids sat right behind me. He must have been about five, but acted very well the entire time, better than a lot of adults I have sat in front of.
The movie was good. I would say that it was better than Mosters, Inc., which I saw last weekend.
The major problems I had with it was that it did not seem to "flow" very well. This, I think, is a result of my next complaint - the movie seemed to follow the book too closely. It is difficult to floow a book that closely when the books, as with most any books, involve a lot of characters thinking to themselves.
One good example was the Sorting Hat. In the book, Harry and the hat have an internal dialog. In the movie, this conversation takes place aloud, and completely changes the idea of it.
I was impressed at how closely came, image-wise, to my thoughts on what everything looked like. Hagrid's cabin was almost dead-on, as was the Gryffindor commons room could not have been more exact to the image in my head.
I also did not like the toning down of a lot of the adult characters. Dumbledore was apparently re-written as a very minor character, despite the role he plays in the book.
In all, I was impressed with the movie and will probably end up buying it on DVD. One of the better movies made this year, but, given the competition, that does not mean much.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
>Nice to see one of my comments get a 5 rating *WHEN SOMEONE ELSE POSTS IT*.
;)
>http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?cid=2248277&si d=21 226 [slashdot.org] is my original comment.
Sorry to break it for you but don't aim too high, If you post only for Karma, you're in for a big surprise: Karma tops at 50, after that, you'll be like me, trying to find another reason to life for
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
I think the reason your brother was bored of Wuthering Heights is because it's so goddamn dull. Having to look up every second word in Coles Notes just to figure out what everyone's saying is highly irritating.
Perhaps something written within the last century might be just a tad more relevant for teaching english literacy.
Hunter S. Thompson and Oscar Ascosta running around in an drug frenzy trashing Vegas hotel rooms to Harry Potter and Hogwarts. That would be a rather broad recent career arc for Mr. Gilliam wouldn't it? Though I suppose whatshisname of LoTR fame (Pete Jackson?) did 'Meet the Feebles' so I suppose its not without preceedent that directors can do both very 'ugly' works and mass marketable blockbuster fantasy style material. However if Jackson did upleasant works it was more to do a self parodying exploitation type film - there really wasn't much creative or thought provoking in that movie, it was just the new path down exploitation film making that you probably weren't expecting.
I think there is maybe the impression that because Gilliam did well known 'fantasy' films like Munchausen and Time Bandits that he is a superb fantasist. However despite those accomplishments I think the type of movies he tends to gravitate towards are generally too dark and unsettling and overly cerebral to be commercial grade fantasy. Though he nearly exclusively deals with fantastic subjects the flow of his movies generally don't follow an escapist mold at all, rather they tend to dwell on the absurdity of escapism and the plots tend emphasis how unromantic and far from the 'fantastic' mold actual life can be. For instance, look at how much trouble he went to showing how arbitrary and upoetic most of the deaths in Time Bandits were, and Munchausen only stayed afloat by constantly emphasising its own absurdity and the complete unreality of the events it described - the fact that the story of Munchausen was not real but nonetheless emotionally appealing was one of the main thrusts of that movie. In fact in every one of his films it is the psychology of fantasy and how it is used to get along in life rather than an exploration of the actually fantastic that is of primary thematic importance. Most of Gilliam's work is more about dealing with the fact that people's dreams and fantastic notions are by nature almost always contrary to what will actually happen in their lives rather than just reiterating the rather trite stereotypes of escapism. There is a reason that Brazil is considered his cornerstone work, and its not because his baroque visual style was first fully realized in a movie with that film, rather it was because the movie was about the nightmare of being psychologically dependant on fantasy that will never come true.
So I agree that Gilliam would not be a good director for this film any more than he would be a good director for Star Wars and LoTR even though Harry Potter is a little more self consciously surrealistic in nature. The simple fact is that Gilliam does not do fantasy for its own sake, rather what he does tends to usually gravitates more towards drama where the primary tension resides in the disparity between character's fantastic notions and the more unromantic situations of their actual lives.
i honestly I think if there was a major director who would be good on this project it would be Tim Burton. He is much adept at doing atmospheric fantasy while staying much more true to mainstream entertainment values than Gilliam.
-K
I thought the point of the review was not to hype the movie, but to present an assessment of the substance. I'm as suspect of "hype" as the next guy, but an absolute negative prejudice is just as foolish as an absolute prejudicial adoration. And it seems that Taco was saying he liked the books and movies despite the hype, not because of it.
While -most- mass-marketed entertainment of the Harry Potter sort ends up being sterilized, condescending, manipulative, and uninteresting, not all of it is. Sometimes you find entertainment that has value beyond the hype.
Personally, I think the movie came close. It was entertaining, and fairly rich for something made by Chris Columbus. It wasn't a great movie, or a classic, but worth my lousy $6. Like a lot of the other people who have posted here, I didn't know much about the Potter phenomenon except that the books were selling very well. Just before a recent cross-country drive, I had a pair of well-read, intelligent friends suggest that I read one. They said it wasn't great literature, but still entertaining stuff, even for adults. So I threw one of the books on the reading pile. Sure enough, it was imaginative and fairly entertaining. Maybe if I had been more in tune with pop culture and known about the phenomenon I'd have avoided it. But what the hell, it was a fun, quick little read.
The movie was a faithful, meticulous adaptation, and I think the reviews I've read got it basically right - a pretty good film, overall, with a lot of imagination and not overboard on the cynical, empty manipulation you'd expect from that director. But because it's such an exact replica of the book, it's lacking it's own artistic heart. Kind of like a photocopy rather than a piece of art.
I dunno, maybe I'm as brainwashed as everyone else, but it seems like plenty of thinking, critical adults are able to enjoy the stories despite the hype, not because of it. It is true, though, that the stories are kind of Frankenstein's monsters cobbled together from most every hero fable and archetype that you've all read before. Not to mention Raold Dahl....
sig semper tyrannis!
So...did these guys hire a satanist for their web page design, or what? :)
Get him to read the Lord of the Rings
I wonder if Taco has seen the size of the 4th book? All I can say is I hope its a very long flight. Rumours are that the 5th book come complete with a wheel barrow and the 6th with a shopping cart.
A journey of a thousand miles starts with a brutal anal raping at airport security
... it would be science.
And given that, in this series, magic IS reliable and repeatable (and thus is really a science and its asscoiated technology), the rest of the story becomes:
- Child from broken home is abused.
- Child escapes from broken home through institutional opportunity for children like him to enter higher learning institution.
- Child enrolls in a "science/technology" degree program, in a "science" for which he has a talent (and which is thus fun).
- Child grows up, learning about good and evil, human relations, etc., making friends (and enemies) and having a good time along the way.
- Child breaks rules (as adolescents must do at least once), getting in an appropriate amount of trouble and finding an appropriate amount of opportunity as a result.
- Child learns more family history.
- Child and friends solve serious adult-world problem.
- Child and friends make progress exposing and combatting the plans of evil/psychopathic persons.
etc.
Substitute "science" for "magic", and the whole thing turns into a real-world growing-up success story, with lots of useful lessons about attitudes and behaviors useful for achieving success, morals, and social standing. But using the technology of magic allows the young reader to easily transfer these lessons to the real-world without the distraction of technical particulars from the author's understanding of a PARTICULAR technology's CURRENT state-of-the-art.
Meanwhile it's a very fun read, keeping the reader engaged and encouraged to continue.
So in addition to teaching kids to read, this series seems likely to teach a lot of good stuff, all the while making it LOADS of fun (as learning SHOULD be).
I'm glad to hear it made it to the silver screen with its guts intact.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Then you're missing out. So far each successive book in the sequence has been more ambitious than it predecessor, and so far (for my money) each has been better. We don't have children so we can't even pretend we're buying them for the children. We buy them for us - and we are eagerly anticipating the next.
We're also booked to go and see the film next week - something we don't often do.
Just one thing puzzles me: why have they retitled the film 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone' in the States? Don't Merkin children know what a Philosopher's Stone is?
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
I think that would make me a "starlock"... or something.
Yesterday a coworker went to www.netscape.com to check the news. Right there on the home page, a GIANT Harry Potter ad came sliding down from the top of the window and covered 75% or so of the screen real estate. Clicking on the close button made it slide back away.
And you thought Pop-ups and pop-unders were bad...
Mark my words: this is going to be the next wave in annoying advertisements.
What bugs me the most is that you'd pretty much have to be living under a rock to not know about the movie coming out. Yes, hype is hype and Harry Potter has had more than the usual, but this just seems excessive.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
The word "philosopher" doesn't have any supernatural connotations here as far as I know (I'm British), but the Philosopher's Stone does (well, if you count alchemy as supernatural). It was (at least mythically) what medieval alchemists tried to find, and depending which version you read, it either turned lead into gold, or gave you eternal life (occasionally both).
Whilst Antigone is the more prevalent spelling, as the original was in ancient Greek either spelling is acceptable.
Blaming GW Bush for the Iraq war is like blaming Ronald McDonald for the poor quality of food.
Female Prison Rape in NY
I think it's far more likely that the American marketing department of Time Warner et al thought that Americans wouldn't recognize the Philosopher's Stone. One thing top-tier marketers in America never do is overestimate the intelligence and knowledge of their audience...
Anti-gone? That would be here?
All this litterary snobbery is ridiculous. If you don't like the prose then don't read books that were written for twelve years olds.
Equally a film aimed at the pre-teen audience is not going to have the action adventure impact of 'die-hard', 'Rambo' or 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre'.
I suspect that more than a little of the carping is being organized by the Religious right. They have realised that they look silly attacking Potter as being 'Satanist', so they are organizing people to call into talk shows to dis Potter.
One of the ways you can tell this is going on is that the same phrases keep being used, 'Thin and Hollow' turns up on one of their 'talking points' sheets, I have heard it repeated on three separate chat shows. Then they plug some piece of 'christian' propaganda (which most christians would not recognize as such).
Of course Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell haveto do something with their time after the used the WTC attacks for gay bashing. It would be nice if they had the guts to do this sort of thing in the open rather than using an astro-turf campaign.
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Funny thing is that the books are self published and nobody seems to be able to prove that they existed before the first Harry Potter book came out.
Meanwhile J.K.Rowling was touting her book outline before the Stouffer book was published.
Like the plaintiffs inthe case I don't think it is a coincidence, however I think the explanation is rather different than the one they alledge.
Sounds rather like patent law when someone files a patent after the invention has been published by someone else.
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In a word: Yes.
At least here in the Netherlands there is a culture that says that children's literature must be in the first place educational, or pedagogical or any such buzzwords as are spouted by those purveyors of that soul-destroying pseudo-science that is called 'child psychology'. From what I've heard (I haven't read the books yet) J.K. Rowling hit on exactly what kids want: a good story.
Incidentally, the secondary (or even tertiary) importance of story, plot and likeable characters is what is considered vogue among so-called 'serious' adult literature too. Perhaps that is the reason that adults latch on to Harry Potter with the same fanaticism as kids seem to do.
Mart"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
Female Prison Rape in NY
As a "Merkin", and slightly older than a "child", I'll say that I don't know what a Philosopher's Stone is. (I'd be interested in knowing if somebody wants to follow this post up, or I'll just go google it.) I'm familiar with philosophers, and I'm familiar with stones, but I've never heard of a stone having any special significance to a philosopher.
In addition, we may be thinking of a different denotation or connotation of the word 'philosopher'. To me, and most Americans I know, a philosopher is a thinker, someone like Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, Nietzche, Kirkegard. A sorcerer is a more mystical figure, one who deals with magic (white/good or black/bad).
When I think of "Sorcerer's Stone", I think of the stone from the Arthurian legend of the sword in the stone, but I don't know if that's a common relation to many Americans.
Yes! That guy!
Well, you don't *have* to read it at all. Nobody's making you, just suggesting it, as they've enjoyed it. That said, it's probably more beneficial to someone who has or interacts with kids than for someone who does not ever see or deal with kids. (And to that person, I say you're missing out; kids are great)
Yes! That guy!
It's a British boarding school, so that goes without saying.
I have a difficult time comparing Ender's Game with Harry Potter
You know, I recently finished Ender's Game, and I must say, I don't know what the big deal is about that book. Everyone seems to think it an outstanding work, but I don't see it's greatness. As a military/strategy type book, it fails at giving great details of the battles. As a story about Ender Wiggin... eh, it's good, but not great. The ending, while cool, was not as amazing as others I've read.
From what I understand of Card's intentions, the 2nd book in the series (Speaker for the Dead) was intended as the "main" work of the series, not Ender's Game. I'm almost done with the 2nd book, and I still don't see what all the praise is about.
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
Are the Harry Potter books getting kids to read books or are they getting kids to read Harry Potter? One is great, the other is a fad. One will last them a lifetime, one will die shortly after the last book comes out. (I also submit that it is probably too early to tell the long lasting effects.)
The way to get kids to start reading regularly is to get them to realize the enjoyment that can be obtained from books.
My own love of reading really started with "The Great Brain" books when I was in 5th grade. I enjoyed them so much that when I was done with them, I eagerly looked around for more books to enjoy, so I moved on to "Tarzan" and Piers Anthony.
In order to enjoy books, you first have to get over that intimidation factor associated with reading. Early in a child's life, reading is difficult. It's so much easier to be engaged in a story by flipping on the television. Building up the proficiency at reading in order to be able to enjoy stories of an equal or greater value than what kids get on TV takes time. If HP books are providing that first step toward the realization that reading books can be more fun than watching the toob, then that's awesome.
I certainly don't understand the implication of your post that somehow a good book or two might be a negative factor in cultivating a child's love of reading.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
I don't think it's all that funny actually, because if they bothered to brush up on their research they'd have found that there has been a large rise in children, especially teenagers becoming involved in the occult and in things like witchcraft. The Pagan Federation has had to appoint a youth officer to handle all these inquiries from children and teens who want to learn how to cast spells and learn witchcraft. And guess what, every time that a new Harry Potter book comes out they get a resurgance in the number of inquiries. What gets me most about Harry Potter is that the author uses real occult references instead of harmless made up stuff as was done in Bedknobs and Broomsticks and the Wizard of Oz, etc. So, yeah, if you want to teach your kid about witchcraft you ought to take him/her to see this movie, but I as a Christian would not take my child to see it if I had a child. As a side note, I am NOT even CLOSE to a right-wing extremist so don't even TRY to rope me into that category. There's lots of things the right wing extremists say that I am completely against.
Fluffy (the giant three-headed dog) was quite fuzzy, typical of bad special effects. The background and arena of the Quidditch match was not well-done (though the Quidditch players themselves were great). The troll was terrible - Shrek-style animation in a live-action movie? Bad move. It's kinda strange - it looks as if part of the was done by a team that didn't have anywhere near as much experience as stuff done in the rest of the movie. Makes me wonder...
Don't they teach any history of science in US schools? (not sarcastic, genuinely interested)
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
Medieval alchemists theories about the nature of matter predicted that the Philosopher's Stone could transmute any substance into any other substance and produce the elixir of life (and that it would have several other interesting properties to, including the ability to cure all diseases).
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
1) Keep writing good books
2) Get word out about good books from the past. I am still into the works of Alexandre Dumas, Robert Lousi Stevenson, Jack London, and Mark Twain, not to mention Issaac Azimov, Robert Heinlein, uh,oh, better stop now.
Good movies of Good books in some way help. My introduction to a life long relationship with the works of JRR Tolkien begain with the animated version of the Hobbit.
Books that got me into reading:
1) Andrew Henry's Meadow. God I loved that book. way back in kindergarten, too. Has anyone else read it?
2) The Hardy Boy's series. The first "Big Books" I read. (All words, a few scattereted illustrations, and standard novel height as opposed to 10-12" height of little kids books.
3)Alexandre Dumas. All the books ofr the 3 Musketeer Series (20 Years After, the Viscompte de Bragallone[sp?], the Man in the Iron Mask) and The Conte of Monte Cristo (Is that Banderas in the movie posters?) These books, that my grandfather gave to me in Leather Bound Hardbacks from the turn of the Century. They were Huge, something like 500 pages each, and Filled with words I had never read before and couldn't understand in 3rd and fourth grade (Didactic and Dogmatic?) but they dragged me in.
(I am an addicted reader. I've ruined more mornings by reading until the wee hours the night before.)
Make books available to kids, read to them and let them follow along with the words. Encourage their "Reading Habits " by feeding them anything they will consume. Doesn't metter if it starts with Harry Potter and the Fellow ship of the Ring. Yes, they will be Nerds, Sci Fi Geeks, book worms. Yes, they will support the Pulk Paperback industry by buying...Hey, I just realized I am probably describing the target audience of Slashdot.
Open Source Identity Management: FreeIPA.org
Has anyone heard about how Harry Potter is supposedly just a ripoff of another book about Larry Potter? Any information would be greatly appreciated.
Engineering and the Ultimate
Ok, besides the fact that you were shameless enough to take credit for Singularity's work, I have to say it: not all video games are bad!
Why not get kids to play Chrono Trigger or Legend of the Dragoon or one of the many Final Fantasies? Not only do they have excellent plots which would make great fodder for an English essay, but they require that kids read. It doesn't matter what you read, the fact is that you still read.
In fact, I would argue that the internet keeps kids reading all the time. You can't do anything on the internet without reading. I don't remember the last time I read a book, but I read all the time -- fanfiction, RPGs, espository and persuasive essays, even rants -- all without books.
If you don't want to fork out money to buy Chrono Trigger or the like, why not just point the kids at a few MUDs? That is the ultimate in reading, because there are no visuals; it's all imagination. In fact, MUDs should be better for developing brains not only because of the reading, but because roleplaying demands that the kids place themselves in someone else's shoes.
I'm all for reading for the same reasons as Frederick Douglass, but please don't tune out anything that isn't printed on paper. Reading is reading, and reading is what's important.
Join the Slashcott! Stay away entirely Feb 10 thru Feb 17! Close all tabs to prevent autorefresh!
We get some science history, and even mention of alchemy, but mostly how it paved the way for future exploration and experimentation. We mostly learn names of influential scientists, like Rutherford, Boyle, Dalton, etc. and what each contributed. I'd never heard of the Philosopher's Stone as an object of alchemists' search, rather that they were just looking for "a way" to transmute substances into gold.
(I suppose when I say 'we', I mean 'I'...but I'd think it's similar for most Americans)
Yes! That guy!
I had very little interest in seeing the movie, I still don't have much... and after this review, maybe when it comes out on video, or hits tv... maybe, if there's nothing else on. Then I caught what these whackos are saying about it, particularly the interview (currently on their frontpage or tv) I had to watch while waiting to get my car fixed this morning. The best part is probably the bit at the end where he claims Tolkein and Lewis were both "Christian fantasy" authors. And the part that tells parents to explain to their kids that "they understand" how it feels to not be able to see the film, and that they should "give the child something they've always wanted, a gift or a vacation" instead. Oh, and don't forget to check out "Pat's Age-Defying Antioxidants" while you're there.
Try Vegas. If you want a movie that will keep adults and children interested based on plot, try Harry Potter.
One of the interesting things I noticed was that during the movie, the kids in the theatre (most likley outnumbering the adults) were really quiet, no yelling or squirming! And I really didn't notice any adults looking bored either.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
That sums up my feelings about the movie. I've sort of been looking forward to it -- what geek, of any age, can fail to identify with a disrespected little boy who has the sole power to defeat he-who-must-not-be-named? But I'm not sure I want to see a CGI Quiddich match, or Fluffy reduced to some Disney-Henson-IL&M puppet.
And how much HP can we take? I just read the third book (recently out in paperback) and it seems to me that premise is already beginning to wear thin. I have to wonder if the magic can hold together for 4 more volumes, not to mention endless tie ins, adaptions and spin-offs.
Sometimes you wish your favorite entertainment was a little less successful. I remember when I thought a beagle with aviator fantasies was funny, when Dilbert actually had something to say, and Star Trek actually took me out of myself. Much as I miss C&H, I wish more creators would emulate Bill Watterson and quit while the concept is still fun.
Oh well, at least the movie is something people can do with their kids.
"Tom Brown's School Days" is the title of the book i think he is referring to. Hey, just trying to be helpful :)
Never fight naked, unless you're in prison...
Can I put you in the category of "Nutter" then?
It's ALL harmless made up stuff. It's a lot more harmless made up stuff than some of the made up stuff in the world. Wicca or whatever you choose to call it is no more or less made up stuff than any other religion. Admittedly it was made up largely by wannabe poets in the early 20th century, but it's still all made up.
"Information wants to be paid"
No. They only pretend to be because they think it sounds cooler..
"Information wants to be paid"
Pagan traditions are a perfectly valid religious tradition in and of themselves. Harry Potter books are mere fantasy, they have little to do with any existing pagan religious such as Wicca or Druidism.
Perhaps more teenagers are turning toward pagan religions because of the smug intolerance towards other religions (think of Reverend Lovejoy from "The Simpsons") they see from their "Christian" neighbors, who generally exemplify very, very little of Christ's teachings. Perhaps in a genuine search for a meaningful spirituality, they look into and find out more about other religious traditions such as those found in many of the neo-pagan traditions. Perhaps they end up becoming atheists, perhaps they end up joining Opus Dei. Perhaps they end up running through the woods nude under the full moon. Perhaps they end up eating bread that turns to flesh and wine that turns to blood. At any rate, Christians have not cornered the market on ethical or moral behavior, developing an interest in the modern adaptations of pre-christian religions is hardly the road to perdition that most bible thumpers would have us believe.
The system has failed you, don't fail yourself. --Billy Bragg
At my school we have to wear academic gowns to eat in the very Hogwartish dining hall - Oak ceiling, stained glass, gilded rails, long oaken tables, tapestries, that kinda thing - every evening. So some girls spent all friday wearing their gowns around campus all day in a show of dedication to their magical hero, raising the ire of the less formal colleges. Then at night, they just put on some fan accoutrements and ran over to the theatre.
-- "Is this death or is this Ohio?"
j00 r rit3 d00d. I learned to r34d & rit3 on the net, and I 0wn3d 4ll my b00ks 0nlin3 t00. 3v3r r34d th3 h4ck3r's c00kb00k? Frickin' A, man, frickin' A!!
... I'm getting shivers just thinking about it..
:-P
The advantage of the written word is that it is generally spell and grammar checked, and that the stuff that gets printed is usually half-decent. On the internet, you get a lot of stuff, and it's hard to filter out the crack.
..er, I mean crap.
That having been said, anyone who thinks "Harry Potter'll bring kids back to books!" is a complete twit. "But kids like it!" They like porn too; I say that if you really want to reel the kids back in, give 'em porno novels.
No, the Harry Potter books don't suck; I'm with all you rabid fans on this one. They're fairly decent. From the first one, which I've read, I think they're well written, have some involving characters and a reasonably deep plot. But that's no reason to force kids to read the books. Or to make it a core novel for a grade-school level course.
The last thing we want is teachers teaching kids how they should think about these characters. It's only a matter of time, parents, before your kids are being taught that Harry's uncle was obviously abused as a child, or that Ron was an Irish immigrant whose parents should learn to use birth control. Your teachers will have invaded yet another fun place where your child's imigination used to reside, and mold it to match their own. I'm all for molding youths into upstanding citizens, but leave their frickin' imaginations alone, willya?
Teachers love this kind of book because it "gives them something new to work with."
Children hate this kind of textbook because it's "arbitrary."
And it is. "What does the owl represent? How about Harry's scar? What is the signifigance of the flash of green Harry remembers from his childhood?" *shudder*
So please, don't make it a required read, with questions and the like. Let kids enjoy a book for a change, without having to be taught the prejudices of their forefathers as fact.
I've also heard this "making reading fun again!" poppycock so many times, and it's really starting to wear thin. I doubt this'll put any respectable dent whatsoever in illiteracy in America. People who want to read will continue to read. People who don't, won't. And any parent who can't get their kids to read has bigger problems than finding a book like Harry Potter to hold their attention.
Although.. now that I think about it, it kinda makes sense. Assume for a moment that you are an illiterate parent. Your kid doesn't want to read either. You really don't know what to force them to read because you keep giving them crap, or whatever, because you have no experience to base your reading selections for them on. And you don't want to ask for help, because you're too proud. (..or you ran your phone bill too high and it was disconnected.)
Then Harry Potter shows up, and all your troubles are solved. You buy your kid some books, and spend the rest of the month watching Jerry Springer re-runs on television.
Amazing. Harry Potter will solve the problem of white trash. Whoo. I'm sold.
didnt read the books too well did you?
He's a wizard not a witch, and the entire bookline and world is as far from wicca as you could get.
Geeks have a freak-storm when people say hackers are crashing the internet....
well, A good fantasy lover will cringe when people try and stick their world into the light that causes fundamentalists to freak, band and burn books....
It's a wizard dammit, the harry potter world is very much like D&D and we didnt have no stupid witches...
keep your religion out of my fantasy entertainment.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I'm afraid you've revealed more about your vocabulary level than that of the book.
Please pardon my low education for not having a mastery of the intricaces of ancient British farm slang. Damn my english teachers for trying to instruct me in the ways of modern spoken english! Damn them!
There is no escape.
A few humbly-submitted links for supplementary reading:
Harry Potter Premieres, Becomes Soul-Sucking Eddy of Ubiquity
"Hairy Potter" Adult Film Franchise Already on 7th Sequel
Yeah, I agree with that. But then go see "Monsters, Inc." and be amazed at the perfection that is Sully's fur. Absolutely perfect, and hair has been one of the hardest things to do in CGI. Now they need to work on human skin, and they'll be able to do most anything they need to do. I wouldn't worry too much about the orc in LOTR yet - until you see it in the final movie, on the bigscreen, there's no telling how good it really will be.
Wow.
-m
Yes, Harry Potter has some weird fans. I was out there with a bunch of them, robes, pointy hats and all. We convinced a local theater to let us promote our SF club by raffling off a gift basket of Harry Potter stuff in their lobby on opening night. It was a great ice breaker. I met some wonderful people who I might never known otherwise, including one of the elves who runs the FictionAlley Harry Potter fanfic site.
We'll be doing something similar for the Lord of the Rings opening night next month. I'm just glad that getting a job, owning a house and having kids didn't mean that I forgot how much fun it can be to just throw myself into doing something weird. I laughed, I talked, I posed with my friends for a news crew. It was fun. Go ahead and be weird. There's a good chance you'll make some friends, or put a smile on a kid's face.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
So, let me get this right... you "honor and respect" dirt?
Or did you mean, "Earth" instead of "earth."
Gee, if you honor and respect "her" the least you could do is capitalize your pagan god's name.
Honor it all you want, I am striving to leave this mudball ASAP and tour the rest of the universe. Alas, it is a hobby that has not yet paid off.
You claim you are "practicing a religion whose members are generally accepting of other religions." Funny, you don't seem very accepting of other religions in your post. Most major religions are "narrow minded" about the fact that they are the one true way to salvation/enlightenment/etc. Are they "evil" because they seek to prevent people from straying down the path of destruction (as they see it)? Isn't it the right thing for them to warn other people not to take a path that they believe to be dangerous, as long as they stick to persuasion and argument (as opposed violence or the force of law). Is it now "evil" to openly question other people's beliefs and engage them in peaceful debate? If it is, then that is all the more reason for me to move to a less crowded planet (and one without delusions of divinity). Or by "accepting of other religions" do you mean just a few other fruitcake, feel-good, new age superstitions that don't challenge your world view?
I can't believe this is 2001, I don't have a flying car... and people in the industrialized world are still shelling out good money for witch doctors to read Tarot cards and chicken bones for them. That was not what the sci-fi novels promised me!
Yes, I have Karma to burn why do you ask?
I'm an author. But thanks for your condescention.
But learning remains optional. You made two spelling errors and one punctuation error in a single sentence. This rather makes my point about mediocrity in writing not being something to aspire to. The relevance to Potter is that the writing and editing is so sloppy that the name of a character changes half way through a book. The contempt that this shows for the readership mirrors the laziness you display in your post.
If you don't care enough about your readers to spell or punctuate correctly, why should your readers bother to care about what you have written?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
At the showing I saw, the whole theater went nuts when the broom hit Ron in the face. It was just such a slapstick surprise, it just *worked*.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Indeed, this is one of the few things Rowling did in her books that really annoyed me. She uses "witch" for females and "wizard" for males, while both terms are sex-neutral. ("Gender" is a late 20th century euphemism for "sex" in this case. "Sex" in the late 20th century has become a euphemism for "coitus". Fooey on neologisms.)
I suppose she was following common usage. But it did take away from the believability of the story, which in other respects is amazingly believable for a fantasy (okay, that's a weird statement too). I'd rather have seen her use the words correctly, perhaps helping correct common semantic misunderstandings.
The only use of "warlock" I can think of in the books is "Warlock's Assembly", presumably a legislative body of the magical world that meets maybe every century or so. If "warlock" is taken to be male, which she does not actually imply, then the story would imply a lack of female suffrage. But Rowlings' magical world is remarkably non-sexist: Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff houses, for instance, are named for the female co-founders of Hogwarts, and women seem to be treated rather equally. But the leaders of the Ministry seem to all be male.
hawk
hawk, whose father worked with a british mechanic who scared off a problem customer when he said he'd get a "torch" to go look under her car.
Haven't seen the movie yet though I've read the books a couple of times. Reading the Wired
online article about people trying to get the books banned from schools because they promote witchcraft, I was struck by 1) the unlimited gall of fundamentalists in the U.S. and 2) that this would be a great way to boost kids' self confidence for those who need it. I mean this is the ultimate nerd movie, and seems to have a message for non-nerds that nerd is cool. Best at this I've seen since Animal House and Buckaroo Banzai. This could be a good force for stopping the shootings in American schools. In these stories, as mentioned in other messages, there are lots of good morals stories but also it shows a kid who regularly gets picked on becoming a hero for use of his head and inner talents. Educators should get as many kids to see it as possible!
Let me make it easier for you: the L^HHarry Potter books contain plagiarism. If Blade Runner had been set a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, if Dekard had been a hot headed young farmboy orphan named Duke Skywalker with an Aunt Berru, if it had contained characters called Jawas and if he had used the Force, then I would (and you would too) have said it plagiarised Star Wars. Let's compare oranges with oranges.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
According to her and her publisher, who both have extremely vested interests.
You think that Stouffer plagiarised Rowling? That's an... interesting... series of events you're postulating there.
To be fair, you might be postulating meddling by alien God Like Beings, the Star Trek excuse for having a low budget universe full of near-humans. That makes about as much sense.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Karma tops at 50, after that, you'll be like me, trying to find another reason to life for ;)
;)
Aww, maaan...and I just hit 50 this weekend. (After hitting it some time ago, only to get knocked down to high 40s by a few neg mods.)
<sigh> So...how long does this period of angst last before I accept this little fact of life?
Do a google search for "The World Inside the Crystal" by Stephen Savitzky. Cool song along these lines.