Harry Potter, redux:

At the risk of turning this into the Harry-Potter-blog, I'll add a few more things to yesterday's thoughts on Harry Potter. First comes this article by A.S. Byatt (of Possession fame). I can't say how persuasive many people find Byatt's literary analysis, but I am not particularly convinced. The application of Freud seems almost like a strange parody of literary analysis (and maybe it is intended as parody), and the allegation that Rowling lacks serious literary merit that Terry Pratchett possesses? All the same, Byatt writes very well and is impossible to effectively quote. Read the opinion.

A reader also writes in to underscore the difference between Rowling and Snicket-- the former is a brand of fantasy, the latter a brand of magic realism.

jkr has to bring in all this magic and weirdness to explain what goes on; snicket simply tells you, with a straight face, that sunny climbs up an elevator shaft with her *teeth* and doesn't bother to explain it with spell x y or z. it just is. i'm a MUCH bigger fan of this attitude.

Flattery:

Waddling Thunder gives us undeserved praise and also reveals his not-so-secret lust for ferocious power.

Eliciting Responses:

As readers know, I'm fundamentally opposed to putting "comment" javascript in blogs, especially group blogs. This is not because I don't like feedback, but becaust I really like blog-related email. So if anybody has any advice about how to elicit more emails from readers on anything at all, please let me know.

Although you probably don't need to mention the irony of soliciting blog-related emails about blog-related emails.

Strategic Dating:

Game theorists and sleaze-hounds will enjoy this Slate piece on how movie stars choose their public dalliances.

At the top are "major royalty" (that is, Prince William). Next are movie stars, then TV stars, then minor royalty. At the bottom: rock stars. (Rock stars, after all, will date anyone. Rock stars date porn stars.)

Gossip:

Ahh, this blog is not really the place to spread teacher-gossip, but I've just learned that my one of my most formative teachers has gotten married, and is leaving academia. . .

Fun and Games:

CNN is shocked, shocked, to discover that lots of people who play college computer games are not dorky guys at all. Indeed, their study suggests that 60% of girls and only 40% of guys play computer games. If that statistics is true, it surprises me too.

The blogosphere has just gotten its feet wet on this one-- Dungeons and Dreamers thinks this has to do with "Thinking digitally"; Voyage to Mars points out games have been mainstream for twenty years; and Meatless Wieners is just angry (and angry at MSNBC too).

I'd just like to note that true gamers, i.e. the Dungeons and Dragons, funny colored dice and late-night orog party sorts, know that college computer games are nothing in dorkiness compared to real gaming. And I'm going to pretend I don't know that to be true.

What's the distinction between running a swingers' club and holding an orgy?

According to Montreal Municipal Court Judge Denis Boisvert, a door. A father-daughter pair were convicted of running a bawdy house, on the grounds that the swingers' activities were visible to those not actually taking part. They were acquited on a prostitution charge since while admission to the club wasn't free, according to the evidence, the sex was.

The defence team, while unhappy about the convictions, is pleased that the court held that swingers' clubs themselves were not illegal. They view this as a continuation in the trend established by the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. Tremblay [1993] 2 SCR 932, which held that peep shows don't constitute bawdy houses.

One more NYT Article:

To continue the absence of much productive blogging for the day (side question: is "productive blogging" an oxymoron?), I add this last article, via Eliana Johnson.

It's about a tall, redheaded model wandering around in her underwear and Henry Kissinger. No joke.