A Secret Link?

I was watching "This Is Spinal Tap" recently (OK now you know how I spent my Labor Day weekend), and in between laughing noticed something truly odd:

Two lines from that movie are the core of J.K. Rowling's Hogwarts concept.

Here's a scene early on, discussing the appalling mortality rate of Spinal Tap drummers (from the transcript here):

Nigel: And....it was tragic really...he exploded on stage.
Derek: Just like that...
David: He just went up...
Nigel: He just was like a flash of green light...and that was it, nothing was left...
David: Look at his face .... it's true, this really did happen.
Nigel: Well, there was a little green globule on his drum seat.
David: Like a stain, really.
Nigel: More of a stain than a globule, actually, and...
David: You know several...you know dozens of people spontaneously combust each year, it's just not really widely reported.
Nigel: Right.

There it is: the core idea of the Avada Kedavra curse -- green flash and that's it. Not to mention that it happens all the time "it's just not really widely reported" -- wizarding secrecy.

And near the end, discussing "where they are now" we learn:

Marty: Denis Eton-Hogg, the president of Polymer Records...
Ian: Yes.
Marty: ...was recently knighted, what were the circumstances surrounding his knighthood?
Ian: The specific reason why he was knighted was uh for the founding of Hoggwood, which is um, a summer-camp for pale, young boys.

With only a little modification, that's the core, the nub, of Hogwarts. "Pale young boys" -- a perfect description of Draco Malfoy.

So this is how it started in 1982: J.K. Rowling watches "This Is Spinal Tap"; death by green flashes and Hoggwood and pale, young boys get thrown into a pot of bubbling fantasy. It percolates in the mind for years until in steps into her imagination Harry Potter, who like Bilbo Baggins in Tolkien's Silmarillion cycle proves the key to somehow turn the developing mythology in a new direction.

And don't you think Dudley would be a Taphead?

"He can, but he can't want what he wants"

I saw Lawrence of Arabia last night. Who knew that it was not just a great movie, and not just a brilliant exposition of the treacheries of politics, but also a profound meditation on the bondage of the will too?

Another Arab: Ghassem's time is come, Lawrence. It is written!
Lawrence: Nothing is written.

After Lawrence succeeds against all odds in rescuing Ghassem, his Arab comrade Ali acknowledges:

Ali: El Aurens. Truly for some men, nothing is written unless they write it.

But in the end El Aurens himself has to execute Ghassem with his own hand -- and finds he enjoys it. Later after a fool-hardy dare in the belief in his own destiny ends with him beaten and sodomized by a sadistic Turkish officer, he concedes his fleshliness. Rescued by his comrade Ali, he despairs:

Lawrence: Look, Ali, look. (He pinches the white, fair skin of his chest.) That's me. What color is it? (white, fair, the color that means he can't be an Arab, the color that attracted the loathsome attentions of the Turkish officer.) That's me, and there's nothing I can do about it.

Ali: A man can do whatever he wants, you said.

Lawrence: He can, but he can't want what he wants. (Pinching his chest, again) This is the stuff that decides what he wants. You may as well know. I would have told them anything. I would have told them who I am, I would have told them where you were. I tried to.

Of course, those reading the NIV, where sarx is translated as "sinful nature" not "flesh" will not get the point.

By the way, this is a wonderful expression of cintamani (or chindamani) governance (here and here:

Auda abu Tayi: I carry twenty-three great wounds, all got in battle. Seventy-five men have I killed with my own hands in battle. I scatter, I burn my enemies' tents. I take away their flocks and herds. The Turks pay me a golden treasure, yet I am poor! Because I am a river to my people!

(From the almost complete, but occasionally incorrect script here. See also the more accurate but less extensive memorable quotes here).