Hogwarts Professor

Rowling’s Twitter page header is going through some turnover. Last week we were treated to a statue of Robert Raikes:

Read about that at Farting Sofa. Yesterday? A picture of Freud’s desk at the Freud Museum in London:

New picture, new cameo, the latter with The Presence sporting some new Potter-esque specs — or are the round glasses and pensive look a pointer to the round glasses on Freud’s desk and the couch in his office? Is that the look of a Freudian analyst or analysand?

That’s one crowded desk. You can read about the desk and a few of its pieces here, again from the Freud Museum. A clearer shot of the statuettes he looked to for inspiration while writing and speaking with patients:

There’s been a book written about this Garden of Idols in miniature.  The video produced for the book launch has an even better view of the desk top collection:

I’m really not into the Twitter header Hunt-for-Clues game. It’s an over-crowded field and, frankly, it’s a little demeaning to be salivating and meditating over each new breadcrumb that Rowling-Galbraith has dropped from her table in playful fan servicing.

That being said, here are my obligatory three thoughts, oblivious to what fandom has already revealed about Rowling’s relationship with the desk. I ask your forgiveness in advance for my cluelessness if the Twitterati among Serious Strikers have already broken the code on this header.

First, in that menagerie of gods, goddesses, and jade Chinese screens, there is a lot of Eros, seven statues if you’re counting. Venus rates another four. One might think that Freud was a Jungian (ho!) or upset the Jungians by noting that Carl was certainly a Freudian, albeit one one in-recovery for the greater part of his life.

Second, the obvious idea about Freud’s desk appearing in the inter librum period before Strike 9 is that we’re going to make a trip to the Freud Museum sometime in Sleep Tight, Evangeline (it’s in London) or meet a Freudian. Pretty clear candidate for that, right?

Ever since the publication of Hallmarked Man in which Robin asks Prudence to recommend a psychologist for help with her disintegrating mental state, it’s been my working assumption that Dr Donleavey, a Jungian analyst, recommended another Jungian analyst. Maybe she didn’t. Maybe the full-spectrum Prudence urged Robin to consult with a Freudian psychoanalyst. The swearing makes sense if that’s the case as well as the direct approach Prudence says she’s noted for.

Third and last, why the quick turnover in Twitter headers? I have no idea. Well, that’s not true; I have an idea but it’s pretty silly.

Louise Freeman Davis concluded a post early yesterday with the note, “Wouldn’t it be cool if Dr. Broccoli is a Jungian like Prudence and actually talks with Robin about alchemy?” I commented, “I share your hope that Robin’s analyst ‘goes there’ in Strike 9.” And almost instantly Rowling posted the picture of Freud’s desk.

Correlation meaning causation, voila, cause and effect: Rowling wanted us to know that we were way off track and moved her posting of Freud’s desk up on her marketing-breadcrumb-posting queue to send the message post haste.

I suspect that Rowling may have posted the new header before I was sent word about it (5 PM US Eastern Time) which of course would blow up any possibility that my absurd conjecture, whose premises include one about Team Rowling following Strike fandom postings closely, is true. But it was a seeming fun-coincidence synchronicity.

Analyze all that, please, in the comment boxes below.