Heartache With Hard Work

A Delicate Sense of Balance – Pelican

Just a quick run through the world of politics – or at least what small part of it I’ve noticed over the past few days.

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I posted about the situation in the Horn of Africa the day after Christmas last year, and suggested it had all the makings of a major crisis. It hasn’t quite turned out that way, at least in the short run, with the Ethiopian attack quickly routing the Islamic Courts Union. The passage of time, however, has only served to demonstrate that the real problems in the region simply cannot be solved with military force. The fragile hold on stability is weakening, conditions are eroding, and the US may soon find itself faced with the question of whether to expand our presence in the region, or to distance ourselves and watch it fall apart.

Neither are appetizing, but I have a strong feeling that the decision will be made through the lens of the so-called “war on terror,” which will only serve to demonstrate the way that our terminology and ideological lenses can virtually blind us to the reality that the problems in the Horn run far deeper than any supposed links to Al Qaeda.

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I pretty much always agree with Scott Lemieux on abortion, but his post today documenting the many problems with the arguments in favor of banning the procedure is particularly good. I read that same essay he’s responding to and it infuriated me, so I’m glad someone took her to task. In particular:

Moreover, “leaving it to the states” makes no sense given Lopez’s moral premises, not only because it’s ridiculous to consider a fetus human life in Mississippi but to have this status disappear entirely when the future mother gets on a plane to New York, but the availability in abortion in some state would mean that you’re just banning abortion for women who can’t afford to travel, which makes no sense at all.

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

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An interesting Slate piece demonstrating how the Facebook is now a means of breaking a story: Rudy Giuliani’s daughter is supporting Barack Obama.

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A report on the bumper sticker primary from MSNBC.

Appalachian Trail plans have fallen through for a little while due to inclement weather, so here’s another post.

I first talked about The Moonbabies almost a year ago and mentioned that they were working on a full-length record to be released in 2007. Well, it came out a few months back and is called Moonbabies At the Ballroom (eMusic). My original description of them as purveyors of “twee mixed with shoegaze, sunny electronica-pop…whatever you want to call it” holds true with this record.

It features (by far) their best song, the one that got me into them in the first place, the magical twee explosion that is “War on Sound.” And while nothing else reaches those lofty heights, there’s still quite a bit to like here, from the (virtually obligatory) tone-setting atmospheric chamber pop of the opener “21st Century Heart” to the effervescent “Take Me to the Ballroom” to the perfect accidental cultural anticipation in having a song named “Ratatouille” released this summer, to the obligatory 60s girl group reference of “Shout it Out” (which lifts the line from “Then He Kissed Me).

All in all, it’s a fine feast of Spector-influenced sonics, acoustic guitars paired with electronics, and endlessly pure vocals. There is nothing enigmatic here – it’s simply a beautiful pop album.

MP3s:
War on Sound
Take Me to the Ballroom

Hunter says I need to update, which is a fair point. Though it’s not going to be anything particularly exciting today.

I’m back out in Hanover after a long, long drive from Michigan on Friday. A quick look at Niagara Falls (one of the country’s most impressive landmarks), a long wait at the border, a meandering effort to find something to eat in Syracuse, and a never-ending trek in the late hours of the night through upstate New York and Vermont.

It’s been a very relaxing weekend back home – kayaking and swimming in the Connecticut River, some Thai and Indian food, and a little Ticket to Ride. The plan for the next of the week is to go hiking on the Appalachian Trail, which should be pretty awesome, but does mean I’ll be slow about updating for the rest of the week, too. I apologize in advance.

In the meantime, here’s a few great road-songs. Some classic 90s tunes:

Goddess on a Highway – Mercury Rev
Car – Built to Spill

No time to post any details, but this one is good. Just trust me.

Driving on 95 – John Strohm

RIYL: rootsy singer-songwriters, power pop, alt-country-indie-rock, etc.

The album was released a couple months ago and it’s called Everyday Life.

Defying Gravity – Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth from Wicked

I saw Wicked a few days ago, thanks to a friend who had (literally) front row tickets. I expected to enjoy it, but was blown away by just how good it was. I’m no theater person by any means, but I’m having a tough time remembering any show I’ve ever been to that I enjoyed this much.

As much as I don’t really have any idea how to talk about music, I have even less clue how to talk about a musical, so I’ll just say that the effects were fantastic, the actors were great, the story far better than I expected, and the music numbers were a little kitschy but quite enjoyable. It’s convinced me to go buy the book and put it at the top of my reading list.

It was especially interesting because it was the traveling show (which makes me curious what the actual Broadway show would be like – though I have a hard time imagining meaningful improvements), and they had been staying at the same hotel as us for the previous couple weeks. It was pretty cool to see them up on stage and think yeah, that’s the person who lives two doors down from me.

Anyways, I heartily recommend seeing it if you get the chance, and maybe picking up the soundtrack while you’re at it.

Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came – Thomas Moran 1859

Alright, I feel like I’ve waited long enough to give people slightly less obsessed than me time to read the book. For those who have not yet finished, be warned, there are SPOILERS galore to follow regarding the final Harry Potter book.

First things first: I thought it was great. At some point in the future, I’ll re-read the whole series and try to reach a more firm decision about which is my favorite, but right now I would have to say she saved the best for last.

The majority of people I’ve read who have significant complaints seem to mostly fall into one of two categories a) people who never read “speculative fiction” but got hooked on Harry Potter and b) people who are OBSESSED with Harry Potter. The former find the ending confusing (Harry died, but he didn’t die? What’s up with that?), are not entirely satisfied with some of the explanations that seem thoroughly reasonable to me, and so on. The latter feel that X character who they really love didn’t get nearly enough time, and that the ending wasn’t exactly as they’d imagined it, and there are various places where (admittedly) there are some logical gaps and unanswered questions.

It’s not that either of those perspectives or wrong, but I certainly don’t share them. I think it’s a triumph, and about as good an ending as I could have wished for. I was actually partly hoping for a sad ending (with one of Harry, Ron, or Hermione dying) because I just wasn’t confident in her ability to produce a happy ending that didn’t feel fake. I was wrong. I found the whole final battle, the Pensieve, Harry’s walk to his death, his Limbo conversation with Dumbledore, Neville and the sword, and the final showdown to be about as perfect as could be.

In particular, I’ve always found the final battle part of series like these to be almost impossible to do well. These kind of books are about the search, the journey, and the final battle can never really live up to that, in part because it always feels so random. Why did the good guys win and the bad guys lose? Tolkien has one answer. Rowling has another, one that was perhaps even more satisfying. And I feel good that I sort of predicted it (expecting him to sacrifice himself so that another could defeat Voldemort). But her decision to give him a reprieve precisely because of that sacrifice was something I didn’t anticipate, and brought everything back full circle so perfectly.

I thought the various deaths were done well, for the most part. The scene where Harry digs Dobby’s grave was tremendous, and her willingness to kill people off quickly and without much fuss in some ways made it more affecting. The way we learn about Tonks and Lupin actually makes more devastating than if she had dwelt on it. It happens offscreen and neither we nor Harry are given any time to grieve. It simply must be noted as we rush on, trying to bottle up the sadness, knowing that tremendous things are going on all around.

The Deathly Hallows were a great innovation. I like the idea that they are the mirror images (very different, but also far too similar for comfort) of the Horcruxes, how they gave us a window into Dumbledore’s humanity and weakness, how they forced Harry into what was sort of a first for him: a relatively complete awareness of the situation long before the very end of the book. In fact, one of the things that’s always bugged me a little bit about the series was the way that it was 400 (or whatever) pages of stumbling along blindly and then a big finale. This time, Harry gets to make a conscious choice (whether to focus on the wand or the Horcrux, whether to try and get to the wand before Voldemort, etc.). He knows what he’s getting himself into going back to Hogwart’s, and walking to his doom with Voldemort. He is finally given the chance to take the path on his own terms (if not any particularly good options).

The payoff on Snape was fantastic. I know some people are complaining that he had virtually no onscreen time, was killed rather pointlessly, and we only got to finally hear his story secondhand through the Pensieve. But I think all of those things are essential. The hero has never been, and was never supposed to be, Snape. I think it would have been too much for him to stare down Voldemort or something – his character is all about subtleties and the question of where, underneath it all, the truth really lies. He in fact played a tremendous role in the book (guiding most of Harry’s actions in the first half) – we just don’t find out about it until the end.

And the Pensieve medium is absolutely necessary. It would be completely out of character for Snape to ever willingly just tell Harry. He still can’t really face what he did or the part he played, and he still can’t get over the way Harry makes him feel. He could only reveal the final truth as he lay dying.

And it reveals something truly amazing about the arc of the story – the way Harry’s perception changes. We start with an eleven year-old’s perspective (an inexplicably mean teacher punishing him for no good reason), move on to an adolescent’s dawning understanding that Snape is tortured by his father’s bullying and is taking it out on him, and finally we have a young man who is able to understand how deeply and completely Harry’s history is tied up with Snape’s misery. It’s not just bullying from James and Sirius and Remus, it’s that James stole the one thing that could have tied Snape back into good – his one true love – who was then killed thanks to Snape himself. It is only once Harry has gone through everything that he could even begin to understand how much this must have tortured Snape’s sense of self.

Every time he saw Harry, he saw the living memory of Lily (“you have her eyes”) and every mistake he ever made. He saw someone he could almost love for being like her, but who he could never afford to show any affection for (even to himself), causing him to overcompensate, finding every fault, every way he was more James than Lily.

There is no happy ending for Snape, nor could there ever be. No final showdown or chance to make everything right. His mistakes were already too great for that, but it is an incredibly important message that he still chooses to try.

The larger theme that everything is much closer to gray than either black or white is very important, I think. I really enjoyed the treatment of Kreacher. It is an open question whether he is rehabilitated, or whether he is exactly the same but was just never understood. On a similar note, we begin to see the Malfoys in a different light. Narcissa is willing to sacrifice everything for the she has for her son. And, because Harry risked himself to save Draco, he is able to tell her the truth, that her son is still safe in Hogwart’s.

I Love You Too – S

For all of them, we see that love plays a tremendous role. I was a little skeptical of the “love conquers all” theme from Half-Blood Prince, because it seemed a little trite. But she gave it many more levels here. Love is not the answer by itself. But it is the force that ties people together, that shows them that there is always something more important than pure power. It doesn’t make people like the Malfoys good people, but it makes them better than we thought.

My minor complaints: I agree the period in the middle out in the
forest dragged a bit, and the similarities between the locket and the Ring from LOTR were a little too much. I both liked and disliked the epilogue. When I initially turned the page and saw “19 year later” I was baffled about why she couldn’t just end it where it was. And if she was going to add the epilogue, I really wish I could have found out what happened with the other people I care about. But, that said, I’m glad that it gave me the chance to believe that the four of them can be happy together. They deserve some years of peace and happiness, after all they’ve been through. And I enjoy the symmetry, the feeling that this is just one story among many, and that as each story fades and we grow up, more young boys and girls stand waiting for the Hogwart’s Express to come, anxious to find out what mysteries await them.

The Road goes ever on and on…

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The Dark is Rising (Black Session) – Mercury Rev

Last train of thought on this subject (and while I’m speaking about the joy of new mysteries), here’s my short recommended reading list for those going through Harry Potter withdrawal:

The Lord of the Rings and the Narnia stories, but you didn’t me to tell you about those.

The Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper. Before Harry Potter, this was the paramount coming-of-age story about magic. I first read it in 3rd grade and it remains one of my absolute favorites. “Over Sea, Under Stone” is the first book chronologically, but start with “The Dark is Rising” for full effect. Also, there’s apparently a movie adaptation, which has the potential (if well executed) of being truly awesome.

The Dark Tower series by Stephen King. I’ve never been a huge Stephen King fan, but when he makes an effort he really is a pretty good writer. And since this is the work, out of all of them, that he cared the most about, it’s also (by far) his best. Books 2-4 are truly astonishing, and the introduction of himself as a character at the end bizarrely manages to only improve the story. Seriously.

The Amber series by Roger Zelazny. Not traditional fantasy by any stretch, but supremely entertaining. Zelazny’s unique voice and style is on fine display here. It’s a tale of countless alternate realities layered on each other and a mad family at the very center of it. Fittingly, you get equal parts Arthurian fantasy and murder mystery, car chases and unicorns, and everything in between. The first 150 or so pages told entirely in first person by a character with a serious case of amnesia is some of the very best writing I’ve ever read.

The Belgariad and Mallorean series by David Eddings. Perhaps my absolute favorite at 9 or 10 and still holding a firm place in my heart. Yes, the plots are somewhat predictable and he apparently only knows how to write one kind of female character, but you can’t deny that it’s gripping. In terms of sheer readability, these might even surpass Harry Potter.

So You Want to Be a Wizard by Diane Duane. Notable for featuring the single best introduction to wizardry plot device – a young girl browsing in a library and coming across a book called “So You Want to be a Wizard.” There’s a whole series based on this book, and the later ones are pretty good, but for the sheer joy in youthful magic tales, the first stands head and shoulders above the rest.

The Earthsea series by Ursula Le Guin. I only read these within the last couple years, and I have no idea why I waited so long. In just a few short books she develops a complete mythology and universe, and populates them with wonderfully complex characters and plots.

The Guardians of the Flame series by Joel Rosenberg. A bunch of friends sit down for a game of D&D only to find themselves actually drawn into the magical world. A premise that sounds ridiculous but works surprisingly well, and manages to develop into a surprisingly complicated story about slavery, morality, the role of technology in social development, and the power of sacrifices. The series has lost its way a bit in recent years, but the first 4 or 5 books are really quite good.

Takes on the Arthurian legend. T.H. White’s The Once and Future King is the gold standard on which all others should be judged. Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon is rightly considered one of the finest fantasy books of all-time. And the previously mentioned The Dark is Rising series includes some fascinating takes off these stories.

A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin. It’s a fantasy version of The War of the Roses. I burned through four books in about a week and a half last winter and was amazed at his capacity to let characters develop continuously. No one’s role is set in stone, and no one is safe (a good chunk of the initial “main characters” are dead by book 4).

Finally, I’ll recommend Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time with a gigantic caveat. The first three or four books are insanely good. The next couple are good, but about 500 pages too long. Books 7-10 seem designed for the sole purpose of infuriating dedicated readers. It’s about 4000 pages of endlessly expanding (and completely irrelevant) plot twists where virtually nothing of any significance takes place. But you have to read it because at this point you’re so invested in the characters that you just have to know how it ends. The thing is: it’s not yet over and I’m not convinced he’ll ever finish. So if you start now, you may be subjecting yourself to countless hours of suffering with no light at the end of the tunnel.

Am I missing any? People have said many good things about Philip Pullman and The Golden Compass, which has been added to my reading list. What else should join it?

The Con – Tegan and Sara
Dark Come Soon – Tegan and Sara

I mentioned Tegan and Sara a couple weeks ago when listing my top 10 records of the year so far. Their new record The Con came in at #2, despite my promise to myself that I was only going to list records that had been officially released – it was just too good to leave it off the list. Well, yesterday was the big day of the release, so I no longer feel any compunction against a little gushing.

Put simply, this is their breakthrough record. I don’t mean that in the sense of popular success (though I wouldn’t be in the least surprised if that happened), but rather that this is their first complete work, with a fully realized musical landscape, a sense of emotional urgency, and perhaps most importantly, with no weak moments.

As with all of their albums, my sympathies lie mostly with Tegan. Indeed, until this one, I would really have to say I was a Tegan fan who liked a couple of Sara’s songs. And while that dynamic hasn’t shifted completely here, even those songs from Sara that don’t quite hit their mark with me still lend a critical balance which I can fully appreciate.

This is clear from the first four tracks. Three of the four are richly textured songs from Sara, characterized by a number of deft melodic touches. Each is more about the journey than the destination, the buildup more than the payoff. In contrast, Tegan’s one track is the rambunctious pop masterpiece “The Con” which is packed with more pop hooks than anything you’ve heard from the New Pornographers since “Letter From an Occupant.” It pays homage to the same 80s bands that have recently inspired folks like The Killers and Franz Ferdinand, with more than a couple flourishes from keyboards and synthesizers, but it only works because there is such a strong melodic structure underneath.

Another New Wave throwback “Back in Your Head” has been getting a lot of press, and it’s certainly catchy, but it’s really nothing compared to the two tracks that follow it.

“Hop a Plane” is as perfect a slice of breakneck, guitar-driven pop you’ll ever hear. It’s a testament to the impossibility of love, the confusion, the madness – a plea for an end to the pain of uncertainty. She is insistent, firm, but underneath it you can just sense that she is on the verge of completely losing it. “Soil, Soil” provides the perfect counterpoint. A short (under 90 seconds) acoustic missive: simple, forthright, genuine, terrified. Here she waits silently, alone, desperately grasping for that one thing that will restore stability, wide-eyed and terrified. It’s a magical combination. Each feels more complete back-t0-back with the other.

Another highlight is “Nineteen” which is as close to a traditional pop song as they get (if they needed one track to send to Gray’s Anatomy, this would be the one), but which is made unique by those voices. I know a number of folks who think these sisters can’t sing, and while I agree they don’t have classically beautiful, dulcet tones I feel like this song exemplifies everything that makes their songs so compelling.

The final must-listen track is the penultimate “Dark Come Soon,” which contains one of the finest moments in the recent history of pop music when she exclaims “so what, I lied? I lied to me, too.” And, as brilliant as that section is, it’s almost outdone by the moment around 1:20 when the “you, too” bleeds into that little cascading riff. I’m really a sucker for that sort of thing, but few could even come close to the passion felt here.

I’ve avoided talking about the two more experimental tracks “Are You Ten Years Ago” and “Like O, Like H” because they are the two tracks I could live without. They add texture both musically and lyrically (the opening line of the latter, for example: “When I was 8 I was sure I was growing nerves / Like steel in my palm”), and play an important role as breaks in the flow of indie pop, but I can’t really imagine listening to either outside the confines of the album.

But as far as complaints go, that’s all I’ve got. This album should be embraced in equal parts by pop-loving teenagers and jaded indie-snobs. It’s a New Wave masterpiece, and far more complicated than most critics will give them credit for. It’s charming beyond belief, sensitive, swaggering, anxious, and compassionate – most of them simultaneously. It is the sound of coming to terms with a world that may never make sense and which is always on the verge of slipping away. It’s also simply an album about love, all the good and all the bad. And it is, without a doubt, one of the finest records of the year.

The Man Comes Around – Johnny Cash

In my experience, the most common name people resort to when they are trying to communicate the idea “some random country way off in Africa” is Zimbabwe. I understand why: it sounds vaguely exotic and no one really knows enough about it to differentiate it from their general idea of Africa.

I would certainly count myself among those with little more than a few vague ideas, but I spent awhile this month researching what’s going on there, and it’s really a situation deserving a lot more attention from the West than it’s getting.

Colonized by the British, it became known as Southern Rhodesia after that noted colonialist (and racist) Cecil Rhodes. After a series of internal uprisings, wars, and a protracted struggle for power, Zimbabwe finally emerged out of the wreckage of Rhodesia in the late 1970s, with its new leader Robert Mugabe winning a landslide victory in 1980.

While it is common to hear complaints about “corrupt dictators” in Africa, Mugabe is pretty clearly a cut above the rest. There is far more Mobutu in him than Nyerere. From the beginning of his regime there have been complaints of violent suppression of dissent, torture, state-directed ethnic violence, suppression of the free press, and intense corruption.

In spite of this, for quite a long time, Zimbabwe looked to have a bright future. Literacy rates there are among the highest in Africa, they have a decent supply of natural resources, and were long able to stay self-sufficient in agriculture and most other essentials. However, a good framework means little if it is managed by a incompetent and corrupt government.

The current crisis has been long in developing, but truly came to a head in the late 90s over land-use issues. Thanks to the legacy of colonialism, land distribution remained extremely unbalanced, with white farmers in possession of a majority of the country’s commercially viable farmland despite comprising only 1% of the population.

Clearly, this situation was unsustainable. Unfortunately, Mugabe’s attempt at “reform” was to institute compulsory land redistribution from rich whites to those loyal to Mugabe, replacing one group of powerful land owners with another, but doing nothing to resolve the underlying rich/poor divide. While the white farmers were clear beneficiaries of an unjust history of colonialism, they quickly became scapegoats, persecuted to justify a series of crackdowns.

Moreover, at least in the years prior to the reform, those on the land were capable and committed to the project of agricultural production. The new owners were far more concerned with political control than with the country’s production needs. This expansion of corruption and the patchwork implementation of the land reform caused a sharp decline in agricultural production, turning a country that once was a virtual breadbasket of sub-Saharan Africa into one facing serious food shortages. And, the more that the essential daily needs were in the hands of those loyal to Mugabe, the more such necessities became a political tool. Those who spoke out found themselves without access to food or basic health services.

Many have suggested that this scheme was concocted in part to divert the populace’s attention from Zimbabwe’s expensive, bloody, and unjustified involvement in the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Dwindling domestic production contributed to rising inflation, a problem which has expanded enormously in the past couple years. Inflation has turned into hyperinflation, which has turned into a virtual economic shutdown. Official statistics put current inflation rates at several thousand percent, but most unofficial estimates put it at somewhere above 10,000%, a virtually unimaginable rate. Stories abound of people literally running to the store with their paycheck to buy food before the value of the currency collapses, of stores changing prices by the hour, of medical workers barely making enough to cover their bus fare,

The government’s “solution” has been price controls, which would be laughable if the consequences were not so dire. I’m no master of economics, but even I can tell you that creating a price limit for goods in a hyperinflating economy is simply a recipe for forcing stores out of business, if they are only allowed to charge, for example, $5 for a loaf of bread that cost them $10 to obtain. It should not be surprising that virtually the entire economy has therefore gone underground – any hope of getting the basic necessities most likely requires some knowledge of the black market.

The terminal result: collapsing health care system, an 80% unemployment rate (yes, 80 percent!), empty store shelves, decaying public works system, and severe food shortages have combined to bring the average life expectancy of 37 years, down from 60 in 1990. That is the lowest in the world, and is the most shocking of all of these statistics. This is a country that is simply collapsing in on itself.

And the worst part is, it is difficult to even know what we could do. It’s easy to rail about Darfur and demand that we simply commit to making a serious effort, but the problem in Zimbabwe has no easy solution, apart from a committed effort by powers in the region (South Africa, in particular) to oust Mugabe and institute legitimate regime. But even that can hardly been seen as particularly encouraging. Africa is filled with countries with well-minded leaders that quickly fell into the countless economic and political traps. Without a sustainable economic foundation, any long-term political hope for Zimbabwe is weak. And without a strong and well-minded regime, there remains little chance for long-term economic reform.

The small ray of hope is that, in spite of a virtual economic meltdown, the informal economy of barters and trades has filled in to some extent. And, there is some thought that the scale of the crisis will finally be enough to unify a populist backlash and undermine Mugabe’s nationalist support. Moreover, it is possible that as the crisis expands and begins to impose serious costs on even the richest of the society, Mugabe’s support among the elites will crumble.

The target is 2008, when plans have been made to institute a transition government away from Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party. Of course, this relies on Mugabe accepting the inevitably of his removal from power. This is one area where international pressure may have some force, though it’s difficult to say. He fears of prosecution for crimes against humanity, and of being forced to admit the abject failure of his regime may convince him to hold onto every bit of power he can until the day he dies.

As I said, there is no promise that a post-Mugabe regime will be any better, but at least it will be a (somewhat) clean slate, and will have the credibility to ask for international assistance with some ability to promise that the aid might go where it is needed instead of directly into the pockets of Mugabe’s cronies. It’s a slim chance, but it’s better than nothing.

It was an exciting weekend for English imports. First, Harry Potter (which I think turned out to be the best book of the whole series, amazingly enough), then David Beckham. What’s next? Prince Harry and pasties for everyone? Anyways, today I want to talk about a less-hyped but no-less wonderful import, this time from Sweden.

I first wrote about Bedroom Eyes back in November, and then declared the incredible song Dancing Under the Influence to be one of my favorites of 2006. Well, Jonas Jonsson, the man behind the band, has been kind enough to make another EP available for free download. This one is called Valentine Vacancy, and while it doesn’t have a song quite as perfect as Dancing Under the Influence, it has more than enough sparkling, wistful, jangly pop to keep you satisfied.

It also lend further support to my belief that Bedroom Eyes might very well be the best of all the great, great artists coming out of Sweden these days. Check out this song to hear why:

(Here’s One for You) Underdog

And then head over to the Bedroom Eyes website to get the rest of the EP.

This Magic Stuff – Nina Hynes
La Ritournelle (Mr. Dan’s Magic Wand Mix) – Sébastien Tellier

The big day is finally here. About an hour ago, I made my way down to Barnes and Noble to pick up a numbered bracelet to secure my spot in line. It’s pretty amazing that six hours before it actually goes on sale there were hundreds of people there. I can’t even imagine the mob that will be there come midnight.

My hypothesis is that this is the single biggest cultural event of our entire generation. It’s the closest thing we’re going to get to a “Beatles on Ed Sullivan” moment. And I, for one, am very excited.

For the record, I will record here my predictions for the book. Now, I realize some of these are somewhat contradictory, but it’s just my list of things that I think have a decent shot of happening. The stuff at the beginning is my “serious predictions” and the stuff at the end is my other thoughts, which if they come true I won’t really try and take credit for predicting:

Draco ends up playing a crucial role for the good guys. Potentially even turns out to be the “hero”

Snape is good…

…but, in helping to kill Voldemort, he does something really awful (like using Hermione as bait and getting her killed or something)

Hagrid dies

One of Ron or Hermione dies

At least one fairly significant (if not one the two “main characters” she says will die) deaths happens relatively early, and kind of pointlessly, potentially even offscreen.

Harry and Ginny are together at the end (this may by my hopeless romantic side battling it out against the clear impression that she’s building toward a dark ending, but dammit, Harry’s secret power is love after all, plus he and Ginny deserve it)

>>>

Slightly less firm thoughts:

I realize that it is kind of weak given my earlier prediction, but I’m also curious about the idea that Snape made an Unbreakable Vow to Dumbledore to be good, which he never meant to follow through with, and in the end he kills Harry and then dies himself because of the Vow, leaving the supporting folks to actually take out Voldemort.

Another Snape thought. I may have read this somewhere, but I can’t think where, so maybe I made it up, but I have kind of an idea that he does something heroic to save Harry, gets killed, and his final words are “you have her eyes.”

Harry is the last Horcrux

At odds with my Harry/Ginny prediction above, I think there’s also a chance that Harry basically does the same thing his mom did (only for Ginny or Ron or Hermione) sacrifices himself for them, and closes the circle, which makes Voldemort killable (leaving Draco or Neville or someone to actually get him).