16: Rereading Harry Potter Brings Up A Lot of Feelings

Thoughts I have While Rereading Harry Potter

Everytime Scabbers does anything it is the creepiest thing in the world. Even though I read Scabbers, I think Peter Pettigrew.  

a.k.a.

It's terrifying. The first time you read Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone or Chamber of Secrets or even the first part of Prisoner of Azkaban, you think "aww fat little boring rat, what a Weasley pet". The second time you read it you can't help but see: 

Creepy creepy creepy. Only made creepier with Timothy Spall being cast to play him in the movies. Plus 1 in the creep factor! Maybe plus 2!

Why? Why you creepy old man? Why? Harry's not even your pretend owner. Stop cuddling up in his bed. Urgh, Peter Pettigrew rubbing his gross little animagus face all over Harry's linens. 

What is happening? You are a human wizard! You understand how sheets work, even Crabbe and Goyle seem to understand these basic household items! So now I am creeped out and frustrated. I know I was supposed to believe he was a common houserat and I did, but really now. Really. 

I need to go lie down. 

In other news, the shoes Lucy Hale wears in the newest episode of Pretty Little Liars pretty fabulous and Lucy Hale was the name of John Wilkes Booth's secret fiancee. Such fun! 

07. Old Outfit, Not Sure About It!

I FEEL LIKE SOMETHING IS OFF BUT WHAT IS IT? WHAT IS IT?

Lacey Shirt: H&M Black Skirt Thing: My Sister's Closet Boots: Idk Necklace: Banana Republic

The Same Rings I Wear Everyday: Pinky Ring from My Mom, Claddagh from Big Al

Ring That I Switch Up: Forever 21

And a close up of one of my most favourite necklaces ever! !

So I have recently been reading a lot! And not books for school! Just books for Nev! It makes me so happy and I have a 45 minute subway ride to work so I feel like I'm accomplishing something instead of just sitting. 

Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography by Chester Brown 

In grade four or whenever little Canadians start learning depressing historical lessons of oppression, our teacher told us that 75% of Canadians over a certain age (I can't remember, perhaps the age of twenty, perhaps twenty five, perhaps 20% of Canadians over the age of 75, it's hard to recall specifics) did not know who Louis Riel was. All of us ten year olds who had just read six whole pages about Riel in our textbooks were appalled. "There are Canadians who don't know who Louis Riel is? Horrific" we shuddered. After all, Canada became a dominion in 1867, we don't really have that much history to forget about and y'know, how do they not know who Riel is? Even us ten year olds knew and we would remember for at least a few months. 

So as soon as exams ended I started looking through my library holds. The beautiful thing about the public library is that you can make a list of hundreds of holds and keep them "inactive" and then as soon as you feel like reading one, you make it "active" and since you've had it on hold for so long you're now at the head of the hold line of over a hundred people (yeah, I'm looking at you, Hunger Games). So I made Louis Riel active and realized "I kind of know who he is. He was Metis, he spoke French, he started a rebellion against something and then he was killed". 

After reading this biography, I feel like a whole lotta Louis Riel was left out of elementary history class. All of that Christian prophet stuff, I do not remember at all and honestly, after reading the book I saw Kate Beaton's  comic strip about it and I feel exactly the same way. If Gabriel Dumont led the rebellion, that would have been an entirely different rebellion. Comic book wise, it was really good. It was interesting and informative and kind of made me hate John A. McDonalds. So uh, Bravo Brown? 

Nine and a Half Weeks by Elizabeth McNeill 

I haven't seen the movie. I have it somewhere because young Mickey Rourke is in it (be still my heart), but I haven't actually watched it yet. As soon as I find out that a movie is based on a book, I can't watch it until I read the book. It's just a thing that shouldn't be done (unless of course it is a book that I would never want to read, a.k.a. Ginnifer Goodwin and Kate Hudson?, yes I will see the negatively reviewed Something Borrowed, but no no no on the novel). 

I don't think I could ever read Nine and a Half Week again. I don't gravitate towards upsetting books and so I can't really compare it to others, but the only other books that made me feel so physically nauseous were Let The Right One In and Blindness. I knew it was about a sadomasochistic relationship, but I guess I didn't realize the extreme to which those relationships can go. It's interesting, it's well written, it draws you in, but when I got that far in I felt sad, I felt humiliated and I felt sick. I think I'm going to wait a little while before I watch the movie. 

And just for funsies, some more Happy Endings love:

“I cannot wait for you guys to meet Toby! Oh my God, we are into all the same things: the home shopping network, baby animals on the internet. He even thinks it’s cool that I needlepoint.”

“I gotta tell you, it sounds like you’re dating my grandma… This guy’s a hipster, Penny. All those things you like, he likes them ironically.”

So sad. So accurate. And mostly sad. They're not letting her dance or have fun or be enthusiastic. All of things that I like about television characters! 

06. Uncle Shelby!

“Anybody can write a realistic account of his first post-graduation summer of growing up and making love, but to make such a story the stuff of legend, as Chabon has done here… takes something close to genius.” – Playboy

This isn't a post about Michael Chabon; it couldn’t be, I haven’t even read the book yet. 

This is a post about Playboy.

I have incredibly mixed feelings regarding Playboy: it’s this giant contradiction that I can’t help but love. I never look at it as a magazine or as porn, it doesn’t feel like either. It feels like a fantastical ridiculous lifestyle. “Once a playmate, always a playmate.” 

And it is, it’s the perfect contradiction: nude pictures of “girl next door” types. The archetypes of “boy next door” and “girl next door” are epitomized by Becky Thatcher and Tom Sawyer in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. What mental imagery! Playboy is a fantasy of what if the Becky Thatchers of the world wanted to pose in magazines. There are old interviews with Hugh Hefner about the “good girl” image the playmates were required to maintain and the rules concerning their dating habits. I can’t even describe how that makes me feel, but it sure as hell interests me.

Three ridiculous reasons why I love Playboy:

1. The girls. Clearly not all of them. I do not know who all of them are, but there are several who just come across as so kind and rational and Canadian (and the whole not being ashamed of your sexuality is a big plus). Now I realize the Canadian thing might just seem to come out of left field, but being Canadian is something worth bragging about. Not all the playmates I like are Canadian. Bettie Page wasn’t, Jayne Mansfield wasn’t, Holly Madison isn’t, but Shannon Tweed is and Pamela Anderson is and reality television’s greatest shit disturber Jayde Nicole is. The main reasons I like them are fairly stupid: the house Pamela Anderson lived in when she was on MtV’s Cribs is the reason why I like her, it was so floral and lacey and throw pillows everywhere, it was like she was living in her great grandmama’s house. It was awesome. Shannon Tweed doesn’t even need to be explained, watch Family Jewels, watch Detroit Rock City, watch that episode of Murder She Wrote that she was on. She’s a badass.

2. Old Playboy issues. If you find a used book store that sells them, pick some up. The hairstyles alone are worth a gander, the jokes and comics are just as bad as they are now and the advertisements are superb. Both the general product ones (“Four out of every five doctors, prefer the smooth taste of Marlboros”) and the specifically Playboy ones: ‘What sort of man reads Playboy?” Answer: jetsetters.

Two Examples of Playboy humour

A smoking advertisement.

WHO KNEW?

3. How else would I find out what to read? Popular book lists never help, I don’t want to read Dan Brown or SMeyers; Oprah lies to me all the time and the last time I asked the public librarian for a recommendation she gave me Stargirl. I was seventeen and completely insulted. Playboy has/d great authors writing for them.

A list of contributors of one issue of Playboy. Nabokov! Bradbury! King! Kerouac! Wodehouse! Shelby!

Illustration by Robert Andrew Parker that accompanied The Eye by Vladimir Nabokov

Visually, it's pretty stunning. 

The left is an article comparing Lincoln to JFK. The right is from the collected book of Shel Silverstein's travels for Playboy. Oh, this is slowly going to turn into a love letter for Shel Silverstein, but how can it not? A big part of why I like Playboy is really Shel Silverstein. I love that I grew up with his poems and that while his work for Playboy is different, some of it really isn't. I bought one issue just for his fable Lafcadio: the Lion Who Shot Back. His first children's book! Published in Playboy. Amazing. 

I read all of his books and poems when I was younger and I remember the day that the vice-principal came on the PA to say that Shel Silverstein had died. Whenever someone says "I should have...", in my head I hear ("all the would coulda shouldas laying in the sun, talking about the things they woulda coulda shoulda done, but all those would could shouldas all ran away and hid from one little did."). Shel Silverstein is a big deal. Shel Silverstein can make you like Playboy and let's not forget...

let's not forget. Shel Silverstein wrote "A Boy Named Sue". Do you hear that voice? It's like Allen Ginsberg unique and crazy good. If Shel Silverstein = Playboy, then I'm listening to what Playboy has to say about authors. So, come at me, Michael Chabon. I'm taking you on. 

Oh and back to that Canadian thing. Best (and least Scandalous) Issue Cover Ever: