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Open Door!
(The following post is about Harry Potter's author, JK Rowling's website. I have NOT written any spoilers concerning the books below, BUT if you don't like spoiled surprises about her website, then please discontinue to read.)
For those who might be interested to know...
JK Rowling's site has been updated. The "Do Not Disturb" sign has been removed from the door in the Room of Requirements. It does not directedly reveal any new information about "Book Seven" - though one might deduce that it could reveal things indirectly. If you have not read all the currently published books, you could still open the door and not spoil anything directly, though you would see words you may not recognize, be asked questions you couldn't answer, etc...
Still, that door only opens once in a great while, so the "honor" of participation would make it worth it to me - even if I hadn't read all the books. Like I said, there are no direct spoilers, but you might gather clues if you were very clever.
Here is JK Rowling's site.
Here are instructions if you can't figure it out (I needed help to finish it).
posted by Headless-in-GR @ 9/30/2006 01:11:00 AM | (0) comments
Imagination, Faith And Magic (Part Six)
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Part One Here
Part Two Here
Part Three Here
Part Four Here
Part Five Here
"Sorry, old girl. Didn't mean to startle you. It is a bit spooky and foreboding down here. But I suppose this is as safe a place as any - for the incunabulum, of course. Are you quite alright? Or do you need a moment?"
"I...what? I mean, yes, I'm okay. Is this...what did you say this place was?"
"Ah, place - space. An interesting reality - dimension - don't you know? It's in our nature to take space as a given...", and then more to himself than to Andi, "...it is, I suppose, for the best, though one might argue that naivete is no more desirable than evil, when it comes to naming things, at the very least..."
Her nerves still jangling, Andi was scanning the room while only partially listening to her English companion. It was a small room full of books, as she had seen on her long walk down the corridor, but the bookcases had sheets of glass across the fronts of them with some sort of locking device (at least that's what it looked like) on each pane. Each shelf was illuminated (though Andi couldn't see exactly where the light was coming from) and the books on the shelves were extremely old - with the odd exception of an occasional folder - or even more odd, what appeared to be picture frames stacked like books. In addition to the bookshelves, there was the haphazard collection of chairs - a couple of red leather ones with those gold buttons running up the arms and across the back, tattered old wooden chairs and cushy recliner in the corner - two tables and an old boarded up fireplace. The lights in this room were those awful four-foot long, fluorescent bulbs - bare, with nothing to hide their nakedness - and to her right there was a glass door between two of the bookshelves with "Authorized Personal Only" stamped across it - pitch black beyond.
"...so whether it is in our natures or not, one of the places this place is (dear me, it is difficult to talk about it, isn't it?) Well, it is a place of storage for the next exhibition. My ancestors, you see, have generously offered my personal collection to the Southcentral Circuit, but the local museum didn't have place or space to store them - or so they said - and thus they were brought here for safe keeping. But I suppose the more important place that this place is, is the library. You know, of course, what the library is? You have studied Rowling, correct?"
Andi was now staring at the English man with what she hoped to be a politely puzzled look, though the fact that he had just talked for two minutes straight only to conclude with the obvious fact - that she was in the library - did test her nerves a bit.
He was tall and slender, athletic built, with straw colored hair and blue eyes, but his face was not particularly handsome - there was something bird-like about it, though not menacing. Far from that, his face and demeanor seemed to suggest a bit of air-headedness, like someone who might look in every crook and cranny for their eyeglasses while they were safely perched on their nose. Not that he wore glasses - but still. That kind of face.
"Rowling, did you say? Um...no, sorry I guess don't know him. But anyway (she rushed on before he could start speaking again) it is the library, of course, so maybe I'll just take a look around."
She made to move towards one of the shelves, hoping to disentangle herself. Overhead somewhere, she heard another chorus of slow rolling thunder.
"It is difficult to casually browse the incunabulum as they are all locked up. Was there one in particular you'd like to see?"
"Umm..."
"Might I suggest one?"
Andi had no idea what incunabulum was - it sounded like a made up word. And she was half a mind now to just get out of there, but before she could think of how to make her exit, the Englishman spoke again.
"The Mind of the Maker. By my favorite author of all times - at least, to the one who has my loyalty. I enjoy other authors as well. She wouldn't have it any other way."
"Oh, I've read that one."
"Read? Or read?"
"I did read it already..." Andi said, feeling slightly confused about her verb tense.
"Time is another one of those dimensions we take for granted. Don't worry, now. I'll spare you the lecture, but of course, as you know, in some sense The Mind of the Maker shouldn't be here at all. In another, it is the only thing here. I see you are confused. I'm afraid it gets more and more confusing until it gets better. But see here, that is the one you are looking for, I'm sure. Would you like to have a go?"
Not totally familiar with English phrases, to "have a go" at a library book seemed a bit odd. But there was something compelling about the offer. She was, after all, the one who had searched out the Arm of God, and it had just now occurred to her what a similarity there was between the Arm of God and The Mind of the Maker.
"And it happens to be out for a bit of minor upkeep, so you will be free to...erm...Peruse it. Shall I show you?"
"Sure" said Andi agreeably.
"Marvelous! Just through this door here..."
And he guided her toward the glass door with the red "Authorized Personal Only" stamped across it. From somewhere she could hear those first big, fat, slow raindrops hitting glass.
"If you'll just get the door..."
She pulled the door open, the sound of rain suddenly louder than before, and stepped in. It was colder in here. The Englishman followed her in and began muttering "lights...lights...lights..."
"Try on your side" he said.
The door closed behind them.
Andi stretched out her hand for the wall. It was rough cut stone, as opposed to the smooth concrete blocks of the rest of the library. She ran her fingers along the wall, it seemed impossible in the dark -
"Why is it so dark?" she suddenly exclaimed. For she had just realized that a glass door should not block out the light in the room they had just come from.
"Not to worry, not to worry! Just keep looking!" came a cheerful answer.
But now her heart was pounding like the raindrops above. In fact...she couldn't quite tell...that drumming in her ear...was that the rain or...was it...her...heart?
Her hands flew to her neck, seeking her pulse. She just needed to know what was what. Just one guard against the disorientation that was flooding her. Just one thing to be sure - just her pulse - where was her pulse? She couldn't feel her pulse!
She switched sides. Nothing.
"Andi?"
She grabbed her wrist.
"Andi? You need the light..."
No pulse. No pulse! Darkness all around!
"Andi, just keep looking for the light. You'll be fine."
The drumming increased, louder and faster in her ears. She threw her hands out in front of her in the darkness. Fear was constricting her windpipe - or was it death - she was wheezing, her hands flailing about in front of her, banging against the stone, cutting her flesh.
"The light Andi, find the light."
His voice came from just over her right shoulder. She could feel his breath on her neck. Andi wheeled around with her arms outstretched, seeking him, but there was only air.
"HELP ME!"
"Turn back to the wall" came his voice, this time in her left ear.
"WHERE ARE YOU!?"
She swung her hands toward the voice - gasping,wheezing - the pounding in her ears louder than before.
Faintly this time, she heard him, "You alone can turn on the light, I cannot turn it on for you. The light is your salvation Andi. Turn on the light."
She threw herself at the wall. Her mind seized on one thing - the light! He said the light was her salvation! She must find the light! Frantic fingers flew over the cold stone, she pressed her body against, stretching out, panic like a fire in her brain...
"LIGHT! LIGHT! LIGHT!
Cold metal brushed her right hand - the switch! She threw it -
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!"
You know the feeling you have when you flip the switch headed into the bathroom - your mind on other very important things - and the light bulb blows? How there is light and then darkness so quickly that you really only "see" the light as a memory? You know how there's that "pop" sound? Well, imagine all of that multiplied by 100.
There was a tremendous explosion - a sound like thunder and a brilliant flash of white heat - like lightening. And then? A ringing, piercing silence.
She was frozen in a wide-mouth scream. Her mind just now remembering the light. What she had seen in the light...
To be continued...
posted by Headless-in-GR @ 9/28/2006 11:29:00 AM | (1) comments
Quotes I Like
This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.
~Dorothy Parker
"I have left orders to be awakened at any time in case of national emergency, even if I'm in a cabinet meeting."
~Ronald Reagan
"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read."
~Groucho Marx
"I was a vegetarian until I started leaning toward the sunlight."
~Rita Rudner
"Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society."
~Mark Twain
"I do not want people to be agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them."
~Jane Austen
"From now on, ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put."
~ Winston Churchill
"My favorite animal is steak."
~Fran Lebowitz
"In the beginning there was nothing. God said, 'Let there be light!' And there was light. There was still nothing, but you could see it a whole lot better. "
~Ellen DeGeneres
"Don't forget about what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he ever wanted. He lived happily ever after."
~Roald Dahl
"She always says, my lord, that facts are like cows. If you look them in the face hard enough they generally run away."
~Dorothy Sayers
posted by Headless-in-GR @ 9/23/2006 01:44:00 PM | (1) comments
Imagination, Faith And Magic (Part Five)
Part One Here
Part Two Here
Part Three Here
Part Four Here
It is difficult to see a cloud properly.
It's a bit like H2O. Having been taught that they are mundane, we tend to forget that they are highly combustible. At least, we forget until lightening strikes.
How she came to be standing in that small library on that stormy day in late September is a thing I can't seem to remember. No doubt but that she had been driven there like the leaves and the newspapers and the various bits of odd trash before the dark, rushing clouds assembling in the sky. How she got there, I don't know, but nevertheless that's where she was.
It was a library like the way libraries are suppose to be, not the way they are now. Today, libraries are long on technology and and short on shelves. Today, they clear out books to make room for computer labs. Today, teenagers on cell phones laugh and talk with their friends while IM'ing someone in China. But that's not the way libraries used to be. And that's not how this library was.
It was an old red brick building with a flag flapping in the wind outside. There was a dark grey monument as well - perhaps to some Civil War soldier. When you opened the door, the smell of thousand mysteries swirled about you and gave you tingles down your spine. Closing the door behind you, the silence utterly engulfed you in its ringing energy. And oh! Books, books everywhere! Joy of the longing soul! And in the center of the first floor stood a real, honest-to-God card catalog - made out of mahogany, no less! Looking up from there you could see into the second floor - a catwalk with the wooden ends of the bookshelves just peeping through the railing, taunting you to come up.
Well, it's not like it took a lot to tempt her.
Starting in the far back corner, an old stairway ran along half of the back wall, ascended up to the second floor. The carpet on the stairs was a relic of some decade past, kind of a grimy green-grey, worn down in the center by years of hard labor. (It is hard, you see, to be a path of learning.) Andi walked toward the bottom of the staircase and put her hand on the rail. As she swung around facing the stairs to begin her climb, she saw them - it - the other stairway.
Dark, dusty wood with cardboard boxes stacked haphazardly on the first couple of steps going down - it was a descending staircase running parallel with the ascending one. The second staircase had been hidden by a wall, which ran between the two staircases. It was this wall Andi had assumed to be the back wall of the library, but obviously it wasn't.
She lingered there for a moment, staring down the badly lit stairway that clearly wasn't for public use. It felt like peering into a tunnel, for it didn't open up at the bottom, but just continued - a skinny corridor running underground, disappearing in darkness. Thunder grumbled outside. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end - just like yours and mine when we get a little creeped out in the dark for no apparent reason. Just like our hairs would stand on end if we were about to get struck by lightening.
I don't know why she did it, but she did.
Down, down, down she went. Goosebumps all over, prickly feelings on her neck and back. At the bottom of the stairs, the corridor continued. There were several doors on either side and very far away, at the very end, there was a tiny room, dimly lit, with more bookcases.
She walked silently along the corridor, barely breathing. The farther she walked, the more her skin prickled. Her imagination was racing, creating images of every door she passed opening noiselessly for some strange creature to peer after her. But she wouldn't look back - wouldn't do as Lot's wife did - she just kept walking forward, towards the little room at the end.
She hesitated for a moment, and then took one slow step in the room, and almost screamed.
"Ah, there she is!" exclaimed a distinctly British voice.
To be continued...
posted by Headless-in-GR @ 9/13/2006 09:24:00 PM | (0) comments
Imagination, Faith And Magic (Part Four)
Part One Here
Part Two Here
Part Three Here
What transpired was this: she left.
She left the little coffee shop with books and the Used Tire Salesman and went home.
I know, that's not very exciting, but then despair never has been.
The really good thing about Andi Arthur, though, was this: she had the tenacity of a brindle bulldog - that fearful creature that has been known to sink its teeth into the flesh of a 2000 pound raging bull with rolling eyes, slashing horns and steel hoofs and never let go - even in death. That was Andi.
For months, there was nothing. Silence. Space. An empty void of dull sunlight. Everything being exactly what it appeared to be. All things behaving exactly as they were suppose to.
At this point, I am suppose to say "and then the clouds broke" but of course what I really must say is that the clouds began to gather, rolling in from a direction not found on a compass. And if you had been there and had laid down on your back in the middle of field and tried to make out shapes in those clouds, you would have seen the strangest things. And once you had gone away, you would only be able to shake your head and say that you had seen, what could only be described as, well, a great cloud of witnesses.
And indeed, you would be right.
To be continued...
posted by Headless-in-GR @ 9/13/2006 07:03:00 PM | (1) comments
Imagination, Faith And Magic (Part Three)
Part One Here
Part Two Here
When she was in Brussels, she watched a hair pin fly through the air on its own accord.
She hadn't thrown it. Nor had anyone else. The bobby pin just leapt straight off the sink and landed on her cell phone, which was laying on the back of the toilet.
Well? What would you have called it?
She called it magnets. "Magnets", she mumbled and then spit toothpaste into the sink. The only hint of curiosity came when she wondered - in mumbled words again - how it got magnetized.
She watched a hairpin fly through the air in the bright, cloudless, sunny light of day. Too bad it wasn't raining. If it had been raining, and she had already seen the Used Tire Salesmen, she might have called it magic.
What? You don't believe in magic?
You don't believe in magic, but you do believe in magnets?
So you believe in something about electromagnetic fields and poles and the properties of metals all cooked up and served as "magnetism"?
And if I believe in something about moonbeams and sacred stones and golden imps dancing together in the twisted shape of a bobby pin, and cook it all up and call it magic, would you begrudge me? Would you say I'm not being reasonable? Would you call it "just my imagination"?
Magnetism? Just my imagination? I pray thee tell me, what is the difference?
Here is the difference. Magic tells me there is a Magician. Magnetism tells me there is a force. Magic tells me there is a Person. Magnetism tells me there is nihilism.
And so it is in this little corner of the time. The bird builds a nest out of instinct. But in the time that I come from, the bird builds a nest because it took lessons.
Instinct? The bird took lessons? I pray thee tell me, what is the difference?
Here is the difference. If the bird took lessons, then there is a Teacher-of-the-Birds. If the bird follows its instincts, then there is "survival of the fittest". If the bird took lessons, then the universe is open - it is permeable and there is One who comes down among us. If the bird follows its instincts, then the universe is closed - it is impermeable and we are left utterly to our own devices.
And on and on it goes - if the Earth goes around the Sun because of gravity, then we are subject to impersonal forces. But...if the Earth goes around the Sun because they are dancing, then we are free to dance as well and somewhere out there, there must be a Choreographer.
If flowers bloom in the spring so that they may mindlessly reproduce, then giving flowers to your true-love is an insult. But if flowers bloom because there is a Gardener, then flowers are a symbol of your lover's true nature.
Leaves changing colors in the fall, the sunset and the sunrise, light, fire, water - oh my, water! Do you realize that water is made of hydrogen and oxygen? Hydrogen! A highly flammable gas! Oxygen? Highly necessary for flames. So we combine hydrogen and oxygen and...put out fires with it.
And you think you understand water by saying "H2O"?
But alas, I have made my point with many a florid word, and back we must go to our heroine in the coffee shop to see what will transpire.
To be continued...
posted by Headless-in-GR @ 9/10/2006 11:43:00 PM | (5) comments
Imagination, Faith And Magic (Part Two)
Part One Here
Her name was Andi - I mean to say that is what people called her. Her real name was Agia Andromeda Arthur. Yes, triple A's...and with names like that, it might have been unbearable, if anyone had found out. But as it was (and as you likely know) full names are rarely known except among the most intimate of company and so, for that reason, most everyone knew her as Andi Arthur.
I mentioned that she came from the farm, the country, the woods. This is correct. But she grew up twice, and that is worth noting. The first time she grew up, it was among the rolling hills of Appalachia. The second time, she had chased a dream - or nightmare - and then I suppose we beg the question of who was chasing who - but anyway, she found her way to the land of her mother's ancestors, Belgium.
The Universite Libre de Bruxelles. Or, as the Americans call it, the University of Brussels. She studied history - more specifically, she studied European history. She was looking, you see, searching for something - the seen and yet hidden, the mysterious knowing. She was searching for the Arm of God.
Now that was an adventure.
Unfortunately, that is not the story we are telling anymore than was the story of Love with a Used Tire Salesmen - though I guarantee it is much more interesting. Maybe some day I will tell you the story of the Arm of God, but for now, I mention for two reasons. The first is that when one searches for anything which includes the word "God" in its nomenclature, one must be prepared for the possibility that the finding of said item may take an eternity. For if you seek what is eternal, finding it is only the beginning. And so it is for Andi - sitting in the coffee shop, napkin against her mouth.
The second reason I mention it is that, by and large, her search for the Arm of God as a university student was (as is to be expected) full of study and books and logic and reason and research and methodology and debate and argument. In otherwords, it was fought on the grounds of intellect. And therefore, it transpired within the clearly defined boundaries of intellect and amongst those who played by those rules.
But Toto, this ain't Kansas no more.
To be continued...
posted by Headless-in-GR @ 9/10/2006 04:10:00 PM | (0) comments
Imagination, Faith And Magic (Part One)
Perhaps it's the difference between country folk and city folk - but then again, perhaps not. She could not say why some people disliked rain. And, truth be known, she never even troubled with the question long enough to stand in the Rain-Haters' galoshes - much less, under their umbrellas. For her, those who ran for cover at the first sprinkle, those who grumbled and complained when the game was cancelled, those who worried and fussed with copious quantities of hairspray were utterly lost - thrown, if you will, into the outer darkness of a perfectly cloudless day.
She came from farm-stock. She came from the gardens and the meadows and the woods, and for her, rain was the sweet wine of the gods. No galoshes allowed - we tread this wine with our bare feet. No umbrellas allowed - we throw back our heads and drink in the life. We toast the trees and the grass and the tomato vine, and with all God's creatures, we close our eyes, breathe in deeply and sigh with satisfaction as the dark, curvaceous clouds dance overhead.
Which is why the sudden brokenness of her deep, rain-induced contentment startled her on that cloudy day in May in the little coffee-shop with books.
It was a man.
"Ah", you say, "love!"
No, no - that is not the tale I am telling. This man came hurrying across the street from the Used Tire Store and bounded into her coffee shop. He wore khaki pants and a denim shirt with a tie - yes, a tie. A very sensible tie - navy blue with deep red swirls. His hair was perfect - copious amounts of hairspray she was sure. His smile was perfect. His tan was perfect.
And, for all her effort, she could not help the gag reflex which further caused the hand reflex which promptly caused the napkin to fly from the wooden table and press itself against her mouth...just in case.
Doom and despair descended on her.
No, it wasn't that he was a Rain-Hater. Those people were everywhere, and as I already mentioned, she barely gave these people a thought. It was something else.
And now, how to describe to you the leap our heroine makes from a used-tire salesmen to her most insightful conclusion? Truly, that is such a stony, thorny, convoluted path I doubt the nimblest mountain goat scampering over the Rockies could navigate it.
So.
So, I beg of you, let the salesman be painted on the backdrop and now focus your attention down center. For you see, what she came to realize was that she had pushed reason as far as she could.
Not that she had pushed reason to reason's limit, mind you. Though she was quite arrogant, she wasn't quite that arrogant. And she didn't claim to have reasoned all things to her limit, only some things. But she suddenly saw these some things at their dead end - a dead end darkened by perfect, cloudless sunlight.
To be continued...
posted by Headless-in-GR @ 9/09/2006 04:20:00 PM | (0) comments
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