Random Dumbledore-ish Thoughts

Having read some comments on the web responding to JKR's announcement that she has always thought of Dumbledore as gay (which I was totally there for, and am (bias alert) totally for) can I just say the following?

1. Gay does NOT equal pedophile. Sweet Jesus, people. C'mon.
2. I sincerely doubt that JK Rowling is concerned about boosting her sales numbers.
3. I was there, and, while we, in the audience, speculated about how long it would take to hit teh internets, the AP? BBC? NPR? Really? (And did I mention I was there).
4. The books are written from a point of view - specifically - Harry's. If Harry doesn't see something (with I believe only one exception - "The Two Prime Ministers" chapter) neither do we. Harry is prolly not real worried about Dumbledore's sexuality (perhaps because he has many other qualities?). Dumbledore can be gay and it can be something that wouldn't make it into the books.
5. It makes sense in context of the books, particularly book 7. (And, see 4 above).
6. There are pretty broad hints as regards bestiality in the books and THIS is what has people's knickers in a twist?

Dog with a bone

Honestly, you would think I was getting paid for this - many many years ago I was a chaperone/leader on the worlds most frustrating (particularly for a fundy survivor) high school church group mission trip - ostensibly to build an orphanage (or, apparently, an "orpahnge") in the middle of the freaking desert, Mexico. Of the rattlesnakes-were-killed-on-this-trip sort of middle of the freaking desert. And frustration? This trip spawned bi-monthly meetings of the local women survivors to drink and continue to release our venom until it was (mostly) containable.

At one of the 'tell me how you *really* feel about it' drinks-fests, we got to speculating about the money making potential of an orphanage that will never get finished and will never house children. (This thought was a natural spin off when considering that the buildings we mostly worked on were meant for staff and that the first priority in building the orphanage was to build a freaking wall around 27 acres of land. 27 acres!!!! That'll help the children.) (Oh, and I note that priorities remain oddly skewed - the website is currently over the moon because they finally were able to put up the - no - I can't paraphrase - I must quote directly - I won't even bother to put in the necessary sic - maybe it is a pun:

Our 600 lb. Granite Plaque goes up above the front doorway to the children's home. We've been waiting for 10 yrs. for this day! The plaque states; Solomente por la Gloria de Dios ~ Only for the Glory of God! It is a beautiful site to see!

needless to say, the plaque is beautifully mounted on an unfinished building.)

Considering that the project began around 1997 (or, at least, tax returns are available from 1997) and we went in maybe 1999? 2000? I block a lot of this out. And here we are at 2007 with a long 'to do' list yet to go - little things like the home for the orphans, a water supply, a septic system, a fund to support the orphans... (happily the US headquarters, U.S. warehouse and U.S. office building (where the founder and his family lives and works) has been completed - phew.)

So - back to the title - I've been making like a dog with a bone over the tax returns - and it was when I started delving into prior year returns, figuring out the 'overhead to services' ratio and filling up a page with notes that I realized I might still be just a teensy bit bitter about the whole thing, and it might be best to stop, blog it out, and go home!

Goose and Gander

As Ding ranted so elegantly about, over at Warner Bros., when a movie with a female lead performs below expectations it is due to the simple fact that there was a female lead. But what if there was a male lead in a tanker? Well, clearly, that was due to the competing release of a video game.

Argh.

Now, as a genre, I don't particularly enjoy comedies made post, say, Singing in the Rain (which I use as a benchmark because it was filmed in color, so I'm assuming it is close to the end point). 'Modern' comedies tend to be fraught with things that will just piss me off (and maybe if I wasn't distracted by the clever dialogue, more of the early comedies would piss me off - I mean, can I wholeheartedly get behind some of the ideas on infidelity in, say, The Women? Clearly I cannot - but I'll watch it repeatedly and consistently find it funny. (Even when I enjoy a modern comedy, it prolly isn't something I will watch over and over again - and I have a high capacity for re-viewing - the two modern comedies I will rewatch? Bring it On and Clueless (and I think I should get a Jane Austen High-Brow Bye on Clueless.))).

Anyway, there are broader-comedy modern outliers- I found Something About Mary funny, I enjoyed the Wedding Crashers, I found moments in Austin Powers pleasing and quotable. However at least two of these movies contain scenes where my gag reflex threatens to get away from me and I have to la-la-la-not-watch or, in one case, actually leave the theater temporarily (I have bodily-function-humor issues). But I also (and I don't think I'm alone in this) will not go to a non-vetted comedy - someone I know has to recommend it and suggest that it will not, in fact, piss me off.

So when A.O. Scott (who, happily, seems to have many of the same 'pissed off' triggers that I do - see Love Actually) suggests in his review that:

"[The Farrelly brothers'] squeamish, childish fascination with bodily ickiness, when crossed with the iffy sexual politics of the original, yields a comic vision remarkable for its hysterical misogyny."

the chance that I'll pay good money to see the movie? Zero. (Of course, the chance that I would see the movie for free are also just about zero.) (As a related aside the Tomatometer is at 29% so A.O. isn't alone in suggesting you might not want to plunk down $10.50 on this puppy.)

How nice it would be if the studio thought - 'hmmm, perhaps people don't want to see a 'date movie' that is infantile and misogynistic. Maybe the prized 13 year old boy demographic isn't enough, on its own, to make a hit?* Maybe we have to appeal not only to adult men in addition to adolescent boys** - we need to appeal to adult women as well?'

But, no, it wasn't that that screwed this touching date movie - it was Halo.

Argh!

*As a Hugo-esque or perhaps even Melville-like digression, can I also say how nice it would be if politicians believed that pandering to the Right Wing Nut Christian Voting Block aka 'values voters' weren't, if not entirely sufficient, at least necessary, to get one elected to high office? (OK, that wasn't Melville-like - but I could make it so by attaching a list of values-panderers, but, who has the time?)

**I assume, for these purposes, that studios actually believe that adult men are distinguishable from adolescent boys - something I wouldn't be prepared to entirely go to bat for.