I’ve been listening to a Harry Potter podcast, and it inspired me to reread the series. But then I thought, why would I do this alone!? How much more fun if people read along with me and we got to discuss the amazingness that is Harry Potter??
One of the best parts about Harry Potter is the communal fandom that exists. This section will feature interviews with Potter fans so that we can get to know each other!
Here I will reveal memories of some of my favorite Harry Potter moments in my life. Hopefully this will grow to include the memories of others who want to write in!
A few months ago I recommended some of my favorite podcasts (and received some great recommendations back!), because there is rarely a time when I don’t have a podcast playing in the background. While all of my previous recommendations (especially Dear Hank and John, Overinvested, and The Liturgists Podcast) are still high on my priority list, I have since added some new ones to my queue!
Big thanks to blogger Jesse for recommending this one to me. Sofie Hagen and Deborah Frances-White are European comedians who record their shows about “the feminist ideals we hold and the insecurities and hypocrisies that undermine them.” They start each show with a series of “I’m a feminist, but…” confessions that create a safe place to laugh about all the ways we fail to be as body positive and self-confident as we profess to be. They’ve done shows about exercise, apologizing, femininity, and many more, and I look forward to each new episode every week.
Always the land of diversity, we here in the US have not one but TWO wizarding schools (one official, one made up in the wonderful world of the Internet, which is…very American): Ilvermorny and Eaglecrest. I wanted to sort myself in both and see what happened!
On Pottermore, J.K. Rowling recently announced that the United States has its own wizarding school, Ilvermorny. While it is AMAZING to have a Hogwarts of our own, the school has been pretty controversial. Each house is represented by Native American legends, which could be cool if it were coherent or based in a narrative where Native Americans created the school. Instead, Irish wizards created Ilvermorny and adapted Native American culture as they saw fit, which is…pretty problematic. Continue reading →
Guillermo del Toro did an interview with The Mary Sue about Crimson Peak and his habit of making movies with competent women taking up most of the screen time. I was initially interested in the movie because of Tom Hiddleston, but now I have an even bigger reason to get over my fear and watch the gothic horror/romance film!
The Toast is a new website I discovered because of my friend Elizabeth. They cover a lot of topics, but this article by Nicole Cliffe about becoming a Christian and falling in love with prayer. This is exactly the kind of Christian blogging I want to emulate, because she writes with passion and clarity, but never once alienates her potentially non-Christian audience.
Prayer has been one of the pleasant surprises of becoming a person of faith. It’s something I truly enjoy, and has been weirdly transformational to my life, I guess? I wish neither to oversell nor undersell it to you as something to do (I’m not a particularly talented or motivated evangelist, you may have noticed.)
When I first became a Christian (July 7th, 2015, The Jesusversary), Mallory’s dad told me that he thinks God gives a spiritual starter pack to new converts, like how sometimes you can get a way better deal on your phone plan if you’re a new customer instead of an existing one. That there will be long seasons in your life where you feel like God is ghosting you, and you’re just plaintively texting into The Void. That you just won’t feel like there’s anyone on the other end of the line. And those times will come and go, in the average life of a believer, but for this first six months to a year, many people get to feel great nearness in their prayer life, and it’s a gift.
I met Stephanie on a college trip to Turkey. I made a lot of friends on that trip, but she was a soulmate. She was weird, creative, spontaneous, and always optimistic. When we returned to Tennessee, we kept hanging out, and she quickly became my college bestie.
2010
Having started our friendship while traveling, we continued to roadtrip together – short trips to Memphis, longer trips up I-55 to my hometown, and longest trips to Savannah where we both had family to visit. Long car rides with Stephanie were easy. We shared a love of 90s pop songs and modern musicals. We were both obsessed with A Very Potter Musical, and we perfected our duet to “Granger Danger.” We also used those long rides to craft the most absurd and delightful iMovies of our adventures. We loved over-documenting ourselves, with pictures and videos and dumb clips, and we proudly showed our creations to anyone who was unfortunate to be around us for more than five minutes. The most tragic thing in the world is that I cannot seem to find our 1-55 Adventure video, which was at least 15 minutes long and was totally awesome. Continue reading →
Every other event of my road trip will just have to fight for second place, because I cannot imagine a better day than today. Elizabeth, her sister Natalie, and I drove two hours to Chestertown, a real life Stars Hollow that went all out to throw a Harry Potter Festival. We parked on the outskirts of the cute bay town, and freaked out when we saw the “Hogwarts Express” sign on a train, with a Platform 9 3/4 nearby. Little did we know what awaited us when we got into the town proper.
The Hogwarts Express – compared to everything we were about to see, this was nothing.
Dozens of local businesses participated in decking out their storefronts with wizarding goods, and the town square boasted a market of Harry Potter-themed foods and merchandise. There were hundreds of people there for the celebration. One of the things I love most about the Harry Potter fandom is that it is ageless. There were kids, teenagers, young adults, and seniors there in varying stages of costume. Families and friends walked the sidewalks, some with babies dressed up as owls. Continue reading →
I’m trying something different! Instead of my StumbleUpon Sunday series, I’m going to branch out and talk about anything that has caught my attention on the Internet over the previous week. If anyone else wants to do it, grab the picture and link back to ItIsTrish.
Articles
1| Harry Potter Post-It Notes
#PotterItForward Fans of Harry Potter are leaving post-it notes in the HP books to future generations, briefly sharing the impact of the series on their lives and wishing new readers well. This is…so cute. My heart hurts.
2| Review of Ryan Adams’ 1989 Cover
The Atlantic helped me sort through my feelings about Ryan Adams’ cover of Taylor Swift’s 1989. I like his album, I’m glad it gives me an excuse to listen to her songs for ANOTHER year without stopping, but it’s missing some of Taylor’s magic.
The general trend on the album is for tracks that once communicated confidence in the face of uncertainty—Swift’s big, brash pep rallies for the soul—to become tentative and sad and wistful….
Another example: “Out of the Woods,” stretched here to six minutes and adorned in REM-ish guitar chiming. It presents the lyrics’ desire for stability as passive pining—moving and relatable, yes, but the kind of emotion we’ve heard in rock ballads for decades. The original, though, was truly weird: booming gated drums, stentorian backup chanting, Swift’s jumbled, repetitious chorus, all of which conveyed a blend of hope and neuroticism—the feeling that bliss is so close yet so elusive that you can’t stop thinking about it. Next to that, Adam’s campfire profundity feels generic. Maybe that’s why she left the likes of it behind.
3| A Spiritual Discussion of Busyness
Sometimes being an American Christian feels like a whirlwind life busy with ministry, service, and no free time. Relevant’s article insists that this is a wrong way of living, and encourages us to imitate Jesus’s slower pace, because
Jesus was never rushed. He wasn’t overwhelmed by life, even though He had an enormous mission to complete in a very short period of time.
Fëanor is now High King and, more because his jewels were stolen than that his father was killed, he goes into a rage. He blames the Valar for Morgoth’s deeds, which is convenient since one could just as easily argue that if he hadn’t been such a paranoid, covetous douchecanoe, it would have been a lot harder for Morgoth to manipulate him and get his hands on them jewels. In any case, Fëanor rallies a great deal of the Noldorian elves to go to Middle Earth to get back three rocks he refuses to share with anyone. So it had to have been some speech.
If you don’t want to read The Silmarillion after these recaps, you’re a lost cause.
Videos
This music video from Lady Gaga and director Catherine Hardwicke is SO IMPORTANT. It’s hard to watch, not shying away from college sexual violence, but internalized messages (made external with markered messages scrawled on their bodies) transforming from damning to empowering is so beautiful. Kudos to Gaga for taking on such a hard topic, addressing it with sensitivity, and offering hope in a dark situation.
I am an Apple girl, but this Windows 10 commercial (as seen repeatedly on Hulu) is perfection. The inclusiveness of this video astounding, both in showing children from all over the world and in showing talents from a wide range of skills. I am in love with the scene of the girl deciding not to jump off the diving board while the narrator talks about future leaders, reminding us that bravery doesn’t come all at once. And I LOVE the deliberate choice to have the narrator say, “We just need to make sure she has what she needs.” Male pronouns as the default are subtly limiting, and I love that little girls might see the commerical and imagine themselves as “the ones who will do great things.”
Day 26: If you could be able to work one spell without a wand what would it be?
(image referencing A Very Potter Musical by pettyartist)
Accio everything! Listen, I’m a lazy person, and I cannot think of anything better than crawling into bed, realizing my book is still on the desk, and whispering, “Accio Harry Potter” in order to avoid getting up again. And if the real Harry Potter happened to zoom into my room, well. All the better.
Today is the second-to-last day for the Harry Potter 30 Day Challenge!
Day 21: Pick one character to bring back from the dead.
Just one!? If Lupin had survived the Battle of Hogwarts, I would choose Sirius. I want them to be BFFs for the rest of their lives. But I can’t bring back one without the other, because they’ve already spent so much of their lifetimes alone, and I hate that for them.
I would bring back Dumbledore, but let’s be real. He’s old, he lived a good long life, and he walked into death with his eyes wide open.
I’m a monster, and I never really cared all that much about Dobby. I could maybe get on board with bringing back Hedwig, but in the end there’s only one choice: Fred Weasley.
GEORGE NEEDS HIM. I NEED HIM. He died too young and too funny. Continue reading →
Day 16:Expecto patronum! What form does you patronus take and why?
I took the Patronus quiz on Zimbio and they said my patronus is a wolf!
I’m not sure I would have chosen that on my own–the quiz assumes I’m far more of an assertive leader than I really am. However, those ARE qualities I am trying to develop in myself (much like I think I earn my spot in Gryffindor by wanting to be brave more than I actually am). So I’ll take the wolf!
The more I think about this, the better it is. Imagine a swarm of dementors attacking, shouting “Expecto Patronum!” and a silvery wolf appears, leaping at them and snarling to keep them away. I can’t imagine a better patronus.
If I hadn’t taken the quiz, I might have said a cat. Not so much to fight dementors, but just like, for a peaceful companion. But I already have a cat companion, so I guess a wolf patronus would balance things out. One for fighting, one for resting. Continue reading →
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It Is Trish 