Coded gray with green spots.

Monday 31 December 2001

Harry Potter books

Pic of the day: Yes, I have the Harry Potter books. I think it does not qualify as a dark secret anymore, do you think?

Harry New Year!

OK, so it doesn't stand up to my cosmic triplet and her "Pippin Christmas!". Ouch. To see such a pun and not have thought of it myself. But at least I get to wish y'all a Harry new year.

To be honest, I did not even watch the Harry Potter movie myself. I may buy it when it comes on DVD. I would have been happy to go see it with a friend or two, but going to the movies alone is just not my style. I would have to be really desperate to see it. I just might have for Fellowship of the Ring, but luckily I did not need to, as my best friend went with me (and two other girls too, so it didn't look like a date or something). I guess I ought to bring a kid to the Harry Potter movie, but frankly I have the books myself and liked them pretty well. Then again, this is not too far from the genre I used to write myself. (Obviously I didn't do it quite that well, though!)

I actually had a shareware program analyze my writing style once: Word length, sentence length, vocabulary, active vs passive, personal pronoun usage etc. It concluded that my fiction was pretty much ideal for children and young readers. Obviously that's not the same style I use here! But there's something to it. Even though I usually write about people around the age of 18, they rarely act adult really. Then again, neither did I at that age.

***

It is worth mentioning briefly that "harry" is used as an adjective here in Norway, about some people or the things they have or the things they do. Anything that is lacking in style is "harry": Going to town in sweaters is harry. Eating frozen pizza for dinner regularly is harry. Driving back and forth in old cars with big loudspeakers is harry, and especially if there are fuzzy dice in them: That is the essence of harry.

I wonder if Harry Potter will change this. The books are everywhere, and now the computer games too. (Look delicious, but I already have too many good computer games as is.) Somehow I don't think kids growing up today will inherit that adjective. But they will probably find a new. I just hope it's not "magnus" ...

***

On a more serious note, the year behind us. (I say so for convenience sake, even though there is no reason the random choices of long dead rulers should decide when the year starts and ends. I'm original enough even without my own calendar, I dare say.)

I wonder when a year comes around, if September 11th will be a national - or even international - day of commemoration. I used to refer to the horrible mass murder there as the Fall of the Towers, a phrase I picked up from Al Schroeder, of Nova Notes fame, and my other cosmic triplet. But it seems the world has standardized on referring to the event only as September 11th. This, it seems to me, will become inconvenient after a year or two. And do not imagine that this whole thing is forgotten in a year or two, unless some far worse horror is unleashed.

That is sadly possible. The USA could attack Iraq without the consent of its non-Christian allies, and without any resolve in the other Middle East questions. This would at the very best usher in another cold war, West against East. At worst, there is no limit to how bad it could be, depending on China and Russia, both of which have the capacity and the instability to end the world as we know it.

(On a far out note, a major nuclear war could be the best thing to happen, because it is probably the only thing that can stop the upcoming experiments in the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. In the off chance that this LHC actually manages to create microscopic black holes, nuclear weapons are New Year fireworks in comparison. A well placed black hole might make Earth vanish from the face of the universe, whereas a full scale nuclear war at worst would wipe out most multicellular life. But chances are that we shall not be able to create black holes on Earth. I hope to my God that we have not been given such power this early.)

The most likely nuclear war, however, is between India and Pakistan. It is weird to think that, since I have not listened to the news for a few hours, there may no longer be a New Dehli and Calcutta, a Karachi and Islamabad. It makes you shake your head and try to get it back in the world where it belongs.

Perhaps after all the best literature for such a world is not Tolkien's epic battle between good and evil, but the story of another kid who find himself with unexpected power on his hands. One who discovers time after time that black is not always black, white is not always white, and that sometimes when you try to do the right thing it still goes horribly wrong.

Harry new year, everyone.


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