A Compare and Contrast Listening Exercise: which of the two beloved readers captures the text and the characters embedded in it more sympathetically?
‘Looking for God in Harry Potter’ (2004)
October 29, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Today is my 63rd birthday. I spent it talking with my children on the phone, looking at a church property in nearby Shawnee, and enjoying a quiet evening meal with my wife. She and I also packed up the yurt’s canvas cover in a Christmas Tree carry-all lest it get soaked in the rain storm we’re expecting. I didn’t think about my daily post here except to wonder, “Will I get to that today?”
Then I thought of the short tape Tyndale filmed in 2004 to share with Christian bookstore owners about one of their new titles, Looking for God in Harry Potter. It was the much revised version of my Hidden Key to Harry Potter that a dear friend and I had self published in 2002. Books that had pigeon-holed Harry Potter as a gateway to the occult, even Satanic literature, had been selling very well at Christian bookstores so Tyndale knew it had to create a tool of some kind to help their salesmen get this title with the opposite message a chance in a very important market.
By 2008, Looking had gone through two revisions and updates — and was put out to pasture as the last edition of the book was re-titled How Harry Cast His Spell. Tyndale decided to put up the four minute book-trailer video on YouTube then.
For a quick birthday post, the twentieth anniversary (sort of!) of the publication of the thrice-titled work that is far and away the best selling of my eight books and other anthologies, putting this up seems more than okay. Enjoy!
‘The Eyes of Deathly Hallows’ (2010)
October 28, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Out of the vaults of Black Eyed Lily at YouTube, I share for your viewing pleasure a 2010 lecture on ‘The Eyes of Deathly Hallows.’ The venue was a wood-paneled auditorium at one of the more regal branches of the New York Public Library (‘Gilded Age,’ for sure), the audience was ‘The Group That Shall Not Be Named,’ and the sound quality (almost certainly because I kept walking about rather than stand behind the podium with my notes…) is a challenge. It is one of my favorite talks and I think this five part posting on YouTube is the only recorded version of the lecture though I gave it many times 2008-2015. Enjoy!
Rowling Rejects Life Peerage in Advance
October 23, 2024 by 2 Comments
Last Sunday, Nick Jeffery wrote a post about Kemi Badenoch, a Conservative MP in line to be the leader of that party, who remarked in an interview that, if made the Conservative Party leader and if then becoming the UK Minister for Magic Prime Minister, she would recommend J. K. Rowling to the crown for a life peerage. That soundbite naturally made its way to Rowling via twixter and she responded:
If you read Nick’s post, The Rt Hon The Baronness Rowling of Killiechassie, you know that Rowling was already given an Order of the British Empire award and been inducted to the much more exclusive Order of Merit (Companions of Honour) of whom there are only sixty-five in the UK and Commonwealth nations. A life peerage, though, is a whole different matter because it would make Rowling a Baroness, someone referred to properly as Mi’lady, has a coat of arms, sit in the House of Lords, etc. P. D. James, the Baronness James of Holland Park, was a life peer and I’m guessing that Agatha Christie, though a Dame Commander of the Order of the Empire (DBE), two ranks above Rowling’s OBE and known as Lady Mallowan, was not.
I recall Rowling talking about this subject in her work, once in the Hogwarts Saga and once in the Strike series, and want to offer some speculation consequent to those passages about why Rowling would turn down the offer of a life peerage if offered it for a third time. Join me after the jump for all that.
Rowling’s ‘Harry Potter: Wizards of Baking’ Coming This Holiday Season
October 21, 2024 by 1 Comment
Friend of this Weblog Wayne Stauffer sent me the link to a news story from GoodHousekeeping.com (I kid you not).
I’m not sure if the news qualifies as evidence that Harry Potter has finally ‘Jumped the Shark‘ or if it is just another demonstration of the ‘Shared Text’ theory that the Hogwarts Saga and attendant Potter Mania is the common denominator of 21st Century life, one that cuts across all boundaries of age, country, creed, or sex (insert gender joke here). Or — is just a sign of desperation on the part of the actors and actresses in the original Warner Brothers film adaptations to cash in before the HBO+ teevee shows new stars displace them in the three ring Celebrity Circus?
The news, in brief, is that the Food Network will be airing a new cooking program this holiday season called ‘Harry Potter: Wizards of Baking.’ From GoodHousekeeping.com’s ‘The Food Network is Dipping into the World of Harry Potter with a New Food Series:’
The hit culinary channel is embracing the world of wizardry, spells and magical creatures in a new way, thanks to a new show coming this fall. In an announcement made on Instagram on September 1, Food Network announced they would be stepping into the world of the Harry Potter franchise with a baking competition inspired by the beloved books and movies.
Titled Harry Potter: Wizards of Baking, the show will follow a group of contestants as they bake and design desserts inspired by the fandom. And if that’s not enough, actors James and Oliver Phelps (who portrayed Fred and George Weasley in the Harry Potter films) will host the series with chefs Carla Hall and Jozef Youssef judging the creations on the sets where the iconic movies were filmed in London, England….
While details like when Harry Potter: Wizards of Baking will premiere are under wraps, the series will be available to watch on both Food Network and Max. What’s more, James and Oliver won’t be the only Harry Potter cast members involved in the competition.
Alongside Oliver and James, Warwick Davis (who played Griphook the goblin and Professor Flitwick), Bonnie Wright (who played Ginny Weasley) and Evanna Lynch (who played Luna Lovegood) will all be featured guests on various episodes of Harry Potter: Wizards of Baking. As for what they will be asking for? The bakers may need their wands and spell books at the ready in order to win the competition.
Where does this rank in the hierarchy of silliest Harry Potter knock-off fan servicing products and projects? I’m thinking ‘Wizards of Baking’ may have displaced Potter underwear and Hogwarts toothpaste. If it gets anything like the ratings that David Martin’s championship run for Hufflepuff on Harry Potter: Tournament of Houses, I expect that we’ll see a Price is Right version with galleons, sickles, and knuts.
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