Fine, fine, fine, I'm thankful for Leslie again...sheesh

Anyone who thinks I can be easily won over by a mere gloss of titillation has another thing coming. In this case, the other thing is roughly 10 inches long with a diameter of 2.5 inches. White stuff comes out when you squeeze it and it tastes like crap when it's got one of those wrapper things on it. I call it Mowgli. As I'm sure you all have guessed, it's the banana I just spit at the screen while reading Leslie's XXXmas entry. By the way, lest anyone gets the wrong impression, I did not spit Mowgli out because I was particularly shocked or amused--though I did find Leslie's entry enjoyable, but rather because I'm allergic to bananas and shouldn't have been eating Mowgli in the first place. This got me thinking: what's the deal with food issues? In our group, in order to please everybody (okay, just Chris and me) we have to construct meals that are meat-free, gluten-free, plantain-free, onion-free, slimy-disgusting-mushroom free, and--when Giles was around--nut-and-green-pepper-free. We also opt out of eating bugs, dogs, brains, feces, urine, and other foods that other cultures and creatures happily ingest all the time. Which brings me to today's topic: Harry Potter.

Here is a list of things that, for the bulk of my life anyway, I've meticulously avoided and in many cases despised: wet mushrooms, smelly and/or ugly feet, greasy man-on-man action, conservative Republicanism, trophy hunting with automatic machine guns, fish-gutting, burqua wearing, worshipping the "literal" God of the bible, animal sacrifice, penis-splitting (Morgen knows what I'm talking about), certain vowel sounds, life without threesomes (again, Morgen knows what I'm talking about), industrial slaughterhouses, standing in spilled beer while in line for the bathroom at a sporting event, righteous ignorance, Cleveland steamers, and the Bush administration. What do all of these things have in common? If you guessed "Karl Rove," you're almost right. Actually, the real answer is: every one of my aversions--with the possible exception of penis-splitting--is based more on a notion than on any real physical harm that would result from the subject or item named. Indeed, these notions are, along with a huge pantheon of others--bad and good, the intangible spirits that direct my life.

Todd has often talked about his desire to bring magic back into the world. I would argue it's already here in force. When someone told me Richard Gere had a thing for stuffing gerbils up his rear, I not only stopped liking Richard Gere and all of his otherwise fine movies, but I also found a strange web of associations radiating outward and muddying my respect for other otherwise pure notions and individuals. The Dalai Lama...isn't that the guy who's so beloved by the guy who lathers up rodents in Vaseline, cuts off their claws and teeth and stuffs them--bleeding--up his smelly anus. Come to think of it...I've seen pictures of Richard Gere and the Dalai Lama shaking hands. Did Richard Gere wash first? Do the Dalai Lama and Richard felch together? What really goes on beneath those flowing red and yellow robes?

Obviously, my example is a little ridiculous, but if a few brief words with absolutely no tangible evidentiary support could wreak this kind of havoc on my balanced and educated mind, what's happening to children in the mountains of Pakistan whose only educational option is the local hate-spewing Madrassa?

If we were reading a fantasy novel in which an evil wizard standing on a mountain top used only words to tear down two giant towers, kill thousands, and strike fear into the hearts of millions, thus fundamentally altering the course of history, we would have no trouble calling that magic, and yet we call Osama a simple terrorist (assuming it was him and not Karl Rove behind 9/11). What's the difference? Is it because Osama used men who used box cutters to terrify pilots into turning over their airplanes? If the wizard used eye-of-newt and spells of coercion to enchant his associates, would that make him any less magical?

Every thing that Harry Potter did in his fictional existence has been recreated by movie makers such that audiences the world over could see his magical acts brought to life in the same medium by which we see other, ostensibly "real" events take place. Would an aborigine untutored in modern cinema find the Harry Potter movies any less convincing than Iraq war footage? More to the point, is there anything Harry Potter did that can't be done by modern man? We can all fly ultralight single-passenger vehicles, we can all strike opponents down from a distance, we
can all transform our looks, we can even--in the near future anyway--put cloaks on that make us nearly impossible to see. These talents and the countless ones still to come are all the product of mere thoughts thunk by imaginative human beings.

The point--although I suppose I have several, none of which am I clearly articulating--is that magic is alive and well and we writers have every opportunity to be magicians. If you--like I do--believe that the first commandment (you shall have no other gods before me) is the single most violated one of the bunch (even more so than the anti-covet-covenant tenth), than we are not only magicians but god-creators. What other than gods could force me to not only forego but also revile the healthfulness of mushrooms, the fun of mowing down forest creatures with an AK-47, or the (theoretical) pleasure of greasy man-on-man action?

Leslie, I'll be sending Mowgli your way by Fedex. Between my saliva, the dead skin cells and dust mites he picked up after being spit out on my desk, and the natural vitamins and minerals created when he first grew on his Panamanian tree, it should be a very nutritious snack. :)