Welcome to Fall

Hello from lovely San Francisco!  Work sends me to some nice cities sometimes, and while this isn't a hotel I'd plan to visit again (sorry, Radisson), I do welcome the opportunity to sit down and enjoy television premiere week on the major networks.  Here's what's on my mind, pop culture wise:

1.  Undercovers from J.J. Abrams.  Currently playing on my TV, and halfway through the pilot episode.  First, the man who created Lost, one of the most spine-tinglingly great shows ever made, is pretty much a genius, so this show already has a lot going for it.  Second, what a fun premise!  Two married former spies are running a catering business, having a nice but unexciting life, when they get pulled back into active duty to find a missing friend.  You get world-wide travel, attractive people in exciting situations with a taste of danger, and how refreshing that it's about an already committed couple who clearly still love and enjoy each other.  You so rarely see that in movies or TV -- the journey often seems to end when they get married.  And for an especially great third, the lead actors are both black and it's not a big deal.  A major show with a lot of money behind it anchored by two charismatic leads who happen to be minorities not usually given major roles in primetime: extremely cool.

2.  A new trailer for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows!  How I cannot wait for November, and not just because of a certain birthday.  This. Looks. So. Good.

3.  The novel One Day by David Nicholls, now in paperback.  My love of all things British continues with this laugh out loud funny, moving, and altogether engrossing book.  College students Dexter and Emma meet on the night of their graduation, and although they don't initially seem like natural friends, the relationship continues and each chapter revisits them on the same date for two decades.  True to life in the way we don't always progress in the straight line we envisioned, and how random chance can have such enormous impact.

Let the "Harry Potter" machine start up again...

With Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince about to be released on DVD, the magical Potter PR machine is kicking into gear again. ABC Family will have another marathon weekend of the first four movies, complete with teases of the new film and other nerdy extras like Luna Lovegood visiting the costume department.

Check out this article for the first official photo from part one of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, as well as a little bit of description of how this film differs from the others in the series.

Japanese trailer for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

This is a combination of completely weird and geekily exciting -- new glimpses of the next Harry Potter movie, out this summer, combined with Japanese voice over and subtitles.

New Daniel Radcliffe Interview

Kevin Sessums interviews Daniel Radcliffe at the Daily Beast. The once and future Harry Potter is about to end his Broadway run in Equus, and discusses his homesickness for Britain, things he loves about the U.S., and even invites Sasha and Malia Obama to the set for a personal tour of Hogwarts. Even if it is a persona, I really like the way he comes across in an interview.

Gaaah

I'm late in posting this (and since almost no one reads my blog except maybe my mom, then no one cares) but Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince has been pushed to next summer. Maaaaan! I was so excited for November.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Trailer!

I avoided the Harry Potter bandwagon until 2000. In the interview for my first post college job at a then-popular game show, my future boss said that if I had any love of books or pop culture I simply had to read Harry Potter. As soon as I got back to Pennsylvania I ran out to Borders, bought the first three, and immediately fell in geek love.

As the series progressed and deepened into serious examination of friendship, bravery, loyalty, the responsibilities of a government towards its people, and basic human rights (yes, I think J.K. Rowling is addressing all those subjects), Harry Potter came to be one of the most meaninful reading experiences I've ever had.

So while the series is over, each new movie sends me into fandom overdrive. This trailer looks perfectly creepy and scary and makes me oh so happy.

Fun Fact! The director has the same name as my uncle.

I'm obsessed with pop culture

I can admit it, I'm addicted. Ask me to solve a simple algebra equation and I may fail, but if you need to know what Scarlett O'Hara was originally named in Gone With the Wind (Pansy) or what's going on with Britney's custody battle (she just had visitation rights restored), then I'm your girl. With this blog, I plan to exercise my writing muscles and comment on things that are interesting to me now: the books I'm reading, music I'm listening to, movies that stick with me, and, on a more personal note, even my puppy Stella.

On to my first real posting: I first began reading the Harry Potter books in 2001, when the man interviewing me for my first post-college job said that anyone who wanted to write should read them. Before, I dismissed Harry Potter as being a bandwagon I had no interest in jumping on. But I wanted that job and went out and bought the first three books the next day, and lo and behold, I was hooked like millions of other readers.

Through my growing obsessive attention to detail in that series, I never once suspected that Professor Albus Dumbledore was, in fact, gay. Rowling's announcement of this takes me by complete surprise.


One of the strongest and most enduring messages of this series is of tolerance, fairness, and equality. House elves, werewolves, giants, goblins, pure bloods, Mudbloods, merforlk and all the rest of the fantastic people and creatures in the wizarding world -- they all deserve respect and Dumbledore was the most vocal supporter of that idea. But I have to admit this feels a bit tacked-on to me. Why does this come out now? I always interpreted Dumbledore as asexual if anything; he didn't seem to have much of a personal life at all, although Harry even laments that at the beginning of Deathly Hallows. He'd only asked his headmaster one personal question in all the years they knew each other. Perhaps that is the best way to interpret this development.