September 29th

Sitting at my desk trying to invent a word yesterday brought back memories of the last time I did so. I had tried for days and days to hit upon the right name for 'the receptacle in which a Dark wizard has hidden a fragment of his soul for the purposes of attaining immortality.' Finally, after much transposition of syllables, I scribbled 'Horcrux' on a piece of paper and knew it was The One. But what if somebody had already used it? With some trepidation I typed 'Horcrux' into Google and, to my delight, saw what I was looking for: 'Your search - "Horcrux" - did not match any documents.'

So anyway, yesterday I Googled 'Horcrux' again. 401,000 results. As you might imagine, this gave me something of a lift as I went back to scribbling nonsense words on the back of a takeaway menu.


Friday 29 September 2006

Banned Books Week

Once again, the Harry Potter books feature on this year's list of most-banned books. As this puts me in the company of Harper Lee, Mark Twain, J. D. Salinger, William Golding, John Steinbeck and other writers I revere, I have always taken my annual inclusion on the list as a great honour.

"Every burned book enlightens the world." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

People have always seemed to be puzzled as to how someone like me, allegedly a artsy-fartsy sort of guy, could like something as juvenile as Harry Potter. For one, it is not just a fad, but rather a phenomenon. Anything that gets so many people to read can't be all bad. Granted that it's not the deepest thing every written, it is also far from shallow. Besides, depth can be overrated at times, especially when it is done for it's own sake.

These two short entries from JK Rowling's website reinforce the power of the written word. She has started to influence the way people use the language. Nearly anything in Literature that is banned, much more than popular, usually presents a fresh new idea that disturbs the minds of the stodgy old folks who determine what Literature allegedly is. Usually those people die off and these "radical" books enter the canon and effectively changing the literary landscape.

In fact, Harry Potter has already begun reshaping the English language. The Oxford English Dictionary, which has only been revised thrice in the last 149 years, has included the word, "Muggle" in its hallowed pages.

Muggle: invented by JK (Joanne Kathleen) Rowling (b. 1965), British author of children's fantasy fiction (see quot. 1997).
In the fiction of JK Rowling: a person who possesses no magical powers. Hence in allusive and extended uses: a person who lacks a particular skill or skills, or who is regarded as inferior in some way.

While far from Shakespearean in its scope and influence, it still speaks volumes of the nature of literature and the English language.

I passed the LET!!!

Okay, so what does it mean for me? Well, as far as my career in Xavier goes, it's a fulfillment of one of my requirements for tenureship. The other being, doing a good job this year. We'll see how that one goes.

The test itself was lousy. It was full of numerous errors that actually affect the outcome of the test. These range from typos that drastically alter the answers of the items to those which are conceptually flawed.

If you're interested, look up the list of those who passed here.

However, who cares?

I got my W.O.M.B.A.T. results!

W.O.M.B.A.T. or Wizards' Ordinary Magic and Basic Aptitude Test, is a test on J.K. Rowling's website, Grade 1 of which could be taken between 31 March and 3 April 2006 and Grade 2 of which opened on 29 September 2006 and ended 3 October 2006.

These tests are just like the O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s, but these can be taken by muggles like you and me. These tests pop up every now and then and a third one is coming in a few months.

You are assigned a student number and you get to access a special part of J.K. Rowling's site, which looks a little like this:



My first grade exam was well, just okay....



However, my second grade exams, well, were just splendid!



Can't wait for the next one.

Last Saturday, I visited 4C at their SM immersion. Granted I wasn't able to see everyone, (Kenn and the others were in the morning shift and Queerby was no where to be found) the ones who were there seemed happy to see me.

I lined up at counter 29 I think to buy a pack of gum. It took such a long time because it wasn't an express lane and the people in front of me had full shopping carts. I thought I was in line for Charles and Carlo's counter, but it turned out it was just Charles's. Poor service, it took forever. Hehehe....

One thing I didn't do with 4G (my 3I 2004-2005) last school year was to take pictures. One I didn't have a camera phone then, but the thought didn't cross my mind before.

Now I have a camera, albeit a sucky one, but a camera nonetheless. I snapped some candid photos of the boys, hard at work, and the results are here for you to squint at.

Some of these boys look like they were doing what they were always meant to do....





Engle, doing ijunno what



Carlo, dissatisfied



Carlo, calling for help



Charles, in deep thought



Pao, fumbling with the grocery bag



Teamwork by Alan and Rich



Pao, Koki and Edson, taking an illegal photo break

Who was the guy who first looked at a cow and said, "I think I'll drink whatever comes out of these things when I squeeze 'em!"? -Bill Watterson

Ten years later, Jonathan Larson makes it into the archives of (American) history.

I wish I could have seen this. Is it on YouTube anyone?

'Rent' Creator Gets His Due
Jonathan Larson's Papers Join Library of Congress Archives

By Peter Marks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 25, 2006; Page C01

It isn't often that the Library of Congress books a rock band. The emphatic pulse of drum and electric guitar filled the august institution Monday night, though, as it celebrated the induction into its archives of "Rent" composer Jonathan Larson's papers.

Larson, who died of an aortic aneurysm in 1996 at age 35-- days before the premiere of his landmark rock opera -- is the first of a younger cadre of Broadway songwriters to have his manuscripts, letters and other materials preserved at the library alongside those of Irving Berlin, George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter and Leonard Bernstein. Library officials say that scholars already are inquiring about access to Larson's collection.

"It's a surprisingly rich collection for someone who died so young," said Mark Eden Horowitz, the senior music specialist who spearheaded the library's efforts to acquire Larson's papers, which consist of about 3,800 items. "I've never seen anyone who wrote down his thoughts as much as he did. There's just so much of the person there, what he was thinking and feeling about things."

The library's musical commemoration was an exuberant retrospective that featured a half-dozen Broadway singers -- including "Rent" original cast members Anthony Rapp and Gwen Stewart -- performing Larson's pop-inflected compositions from both his well-known and unproduced shows.

A large, particularly fascinating portion of the evening was devoted to songs that were either cut from "Rent" or completely overhauled before the show's off-Broadway opening in January 1996 at the New York Theatre Workshop. (It moved later that year to Broadway, where it won a Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize.)

The members of "Rent's" original onstage band -- Daniel Weiss, Kenny Brescia, Jeff Potter and Steven Mack -- reunited for the concert under the guidance of Tim Weil, the rock opera's music director, who put together the evening. Seated near the front of the library's Coolidge Auditorium were Larson's parents, Al and Nan, as well as his sister Julie, who -- using some of the long-running musical's proceeds -- formed the Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation, which supports budding musical-theater writers.

Horowitz said he approached the Larsons a decade ago about securing the composer's papers, which the family found in his Lower Manhattan apartment. (The flat, with a bathtub in the kitchen and a toilet in the closet, is alluded to in his songs.) The collection, which includes 651 sound recordings, arrived at the library in 2004, but the cataloguing of of such acquisitions routinely takes years.

An unusual aspect of the collection is that all of it was produced by a composer in virtual anonymity. (A long-ago letter to Public Theater producer Joseph Papp, pleading with him to see one of Larson's early shows, was among the items on display outside the auditorium.)

"I saw 'Rent' fairly shortly after its Broadway opening in '96," said Horowitz, himself a student of musical theater and composers such as Stephen Sondheim. "And I felt it was important enough and valuable enough that I wanted to make sure his papers were preserved in some way."

For the Larsons, "Rent" has always been a source of joy wrapped up in anguish, and sitting with them before the concert, one could sense that the occasion drew on emotional extremes. "It's a mind-blowing thing for me," Al Larson said. "I'd trade this, though, in a minute. Time does dull, but it doesn't change the facts."

"Rent"-heads, of course, were in their glory. Rapp, who befriended Larson during the musical's workshop productions, told the audience a story about inviting the unknown Larson to a party. Another friend walked up to Rapp and said: "What's up with that guy? I was talking to him and he said with a perfectly straight face, 'I'm the future of musical theater.' "

As Rapp recalled it, the friend added: "Like, dude, who would ever want to admit that?"

The poignant truth was that Larson did not have much future left. The talent, however, would endure, and Monday's concert gave Rapp, Stewart and four other big voices (those of Michael McElroy, Randy Graff, Natascia Diaz and Jeremy Kushnier) the opportunity to show that -- in the breadth of Larson's work from such early efforts as "Superbia" and "tick, tick . . . Boom!" to "Rent."

Rapp said that Larson wrote 386 songs in 20 years at the keyboard. On the basis of the library's concert, his songbook might make for a tantalizing revue even without "Rent." Larson's comic gifts were underlined in Graff's jazzy rendition of the song "Break Out the Booze," and in Diaz's impression of a neat-freak mom in "Hosing the Furniture." Larson's fluid way with a pop ballad was affirmed in Stewart and McElroy's "You Called My Name," and Diaz's "Come to Your Senses" showed off the power in Larson's ballads, too.

The concert's second half surveyed songs that Larson excised from "Rent" or rewrote extensively. As delivered by Kushnier, for instance, the driving music in the plaintive "One Song Glory" -- performed by the character Roger, the AIDS-stricken musician -- had been sung to the words of a song titled "Right Brain."

There was also "Over It," a song cut from "Rent" that is a duet for the characters Mark and Maureen, who break up after Maureen runs off with a woman. (The two were played by Rapp and Idina Menzel in the stage and movie versions.) The number was eventually replaced in the show by "Tango: Maureen," a song for Mark and Maureen's lover, Joanne. In a rendition by Rapp and Diaz, "Over It" provided a new layer of tension in one of the musical's key relationships.

At the end of the evening, the Washington-based gospel group the Ministers of Music joined the actors onstage for the signature Larson anthem, "Seasons of Love." Not only were the papers of a singular American talent there, but the spirit was, too.

This is my lastest obsession.

A two person play about a couple's relationship and eventual divorce. Brilliant music and witty lyrics keep the story of Jamie, a writer, flowing forward and Cathy, an actress, rushing backwards.

We see Cathy at the beginning of the play reading a farewell note from Jamie and she begins to recall their relationship. On the other hand, we first meet an ecstatic Jamie after his first date with Cathy.

Why should I tell you this when you can watch the entire play right here and now? Below are two embeded videos of the play. Perfect for those who have ever felt the pains and joys of love.

Watch the entire play after the jump.

(Read More)