EPISODE 119: DUMBLEDORE'S ARMY (AKA WHAT WOULD RON WEASLEY DO?)

POP CULTURE SPIRIT WUH WHAT NOW?

So I said I wasn’t going to put out a newsletter this week, because I’m out of town. But then...stuff happened. STUFF.

And I spent yesterday writing a couple articles trying to get my head around...that. I don’t know if either piece will ever see the light of day, and it’s probably just as well if they don’t because they read like I’m a little kid who has just started down a slide for the first time, but doesn’t really understand how the whole thing works so turns back, desperate to return to where I was just a second ago. But it’s too late. And also the slide is actually as long as a skyscraper and at the bottom the ice skating rink at Rockefeller Center has been turned into a pool filled with pirahnas. And they’re not your typical buzzsaw, eat-too-fast-and-you’ll-never-feel-full pirahnas. These are new-agey slow food types, from fricking Oregon. They’re going to take their time and eat me forever.

And so as I’m starting to lose my grip and I’m fighting not to show that all the tears are rolling back behind my eyelids instead and have just filled up my body I’m half trying to bargain and half trying to talk myself into believing that this couldn’t possibly be as bad as it looks.

Yeah.

On the plus side, every time I type the word “election” my spellcheck is changing it to “ejection”. I don’t exactly know how to make sense of that, but it’s very satisfying.

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On Wednesday I hid at a Starbucks and read science fiction. It was nice.

Yesterday it all started to sink in, though. But in weird random flashes of insight. Like I’m coming out of the airport and for no apparent reason I suddenly realize, the new First Lady is a woman who publicly plagiarized her big speech from the current First Lady.

To be clear, I’m more than willing to assume that’s at least as much the fault of her staff, and that she is in other ways a wonderful person.

But still...the First Lady and plagiarism...What?

Or I’m reading something yesterday and out of the blue it hits me our new president is a reality TV star. Not hyperbole. An actual reality TV star. Put that together with his treatment of women and suddenly I see, we’ve basically become Italy.

Except for “Mafia” substitute “the KKK”.

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Now at this point let me say, if you voted for Trump, I very much want to echo what Seth Meyers said so well last night -- I hope that he addresses the issues that you have experienced and need addressed. I hope you saw something in him that the other half of the country missed, and that it works out.

I also hope that the end result of this situation is all of us having a greater empathy for one another. Not the big city folk appreciating Main Street U.S.A. or small town America appreciating people who are not white/straight/male/Christian, but all of the above. I don’t quite know how we get there, but on the other hand, what a hell of an unexpected ending to this crazy curvy story that would be!

Let me also say, this is a newsletter on pop culture and spirituality, and that’s what it will continue to be. Speaking of which...

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I don’t know what’s going on with me, but the Harry Potter stories might be my greatest source of solace right now. Like, for no apparent reason today I found myself wondering, what if this whole out of left field election result is just Dobby the House Elf once again trying to help in the most entirely inappropriate and counterproductive of ways. (As someone said to me in response, Somebody needs to GET THAT GUY A SOCK ALREADY!)

The Dobby theory is ridiculous. I know it’s ridiculous. (Although it can be used to explain why house elves are different colors depending on how fast they ruin everything.

Yep. That was a hard science pun. IT'S COME TO THAT.)

But you know, it actually seems like a better explanation than what actually happened. (Remember, even Trump himself didn’t think he was going to win. I mean, how does that even happen?)

Or during election night, as Florida once again pushed itself to center stage, I realized, the state is basically the Harry Potter of the U.S. electoral map. We get it, you’re important, Florida. But does it always have to be about you?

(In this analogy, btw, Hermione is Pennsylvania, Ron is Ohio – we’re disappointed in all three of you, 300 POINTS FROM GRYFFINDOR!--and the rest of us are Hufflepuffs.

And Dumbledore is California. We just legalized marijuana. It makes sense.)

Yeah you are.

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But more than anything it’s the world of the later Harry Potter books that seems so apt right now. Whether it proves accurate or not, this election has created a sense of menace and threat for many in our society. Already there are stories from around the country of women in hijabs being harassed, of Trump supporters referring to African-Americans in the most astonishing of terms or telling random Latinos that they’re going to be deported.

I keep thinking about my nieces, especially the oldest one who is close to college age. In a world where the president has been given a pass on such awful language and behavior towards women, what is she in for? Because, there’s undoubtedly going to be “value creep”. Things that we know to be wrong are now in some places going to be overlooked, or less protected. Maybe just a little bit. Maybe a lot.

And in other places, as the stories above indicate, people are going to feel more justified and emboldened to be awful.

All of which is exactly how Rowling described people behaving once He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named-but-his-name-rhymes-with-Moldemort regained a foothold.

That might sound way too dark and twisty and political for a children’s book—“Lord of the Flies” is really about friendship, whee!--but actually, even the early Harry Potter books have lots and lots in them about our human tendency to vilify and scapegoat and the social consequences that wreaks. And I’m not even talking about the bad guys; Harry and his pals are constantly misjudging Snape and Malfoy. ONE HUNDRED FIFTY POINTS FROM GRYFFINDOR.

And while both feed such misinterpretations to a certain extent—Severus, you have such a pretty smile, why don’t you use it more?--Rowling is also constantly giving us other information that paints these characters in a much more complicated fashion.

Malfoy, for instance, is just THE WORST. Agreed.

Pretty sure he actually said this.

But he’s also a kid, and one with a big and complicated backstory, right from the start. His dad is an overwhelming force of nature in his life. (Also, seriously, how is Draco supposed to contend with that hair.
It demands submission.) He’s desperate to please him. And he’s deeply insecure, always judging himself poorly against Harry. And, as we see more clearly in later books, he’s been raised in this crazy awful world of both prejudice and fear. Seriously, that kid was never going to be able to be daisies and sunshine. He was always going to struggle.

Really, we should all be thinking about Malfoy in the years to come. When you grow up in a universe that feels dark and scary, your choices can get pretty messy.

(Btw, we’re talking the books here, not the movies. Yes, the early films are wonderful, Chris Columbus brings that world to life so well and John Williams just cannot write a bad movie score, God he makes me so angry. FIFTY POINTS FROM GRYFFINDOR!

But even at 2 ½ hours and three hours, those movies have to paint in such broad strokes, much of the nuance still gets lost. Mostly Draco actor Tom Felton is asked to scowl and grind his teeth.)

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For those whose childhoods I have just annoyed, one further comment: as you probably know, there’s a whole new series of movies coming set in the earlier days of the Harry Potter universe. The first, “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”, debuts in just a few weeks.

And while it all looks very sweet-adventure-y and “Eddie Redmayne Smiles and Stutters His Way to Hollywood Money So He Can Do Accents, Indy Films and Oscars”...

In the words of "Last Week Tonight": How is this a thing?

...it turns out the series as a whole is going to be about the rise of Gellert Gridewald, basically Voldemort with charisma. Rather than terrifying people into going dark, Grindewald was the guy who appealed to their darker side and got them to choose darkness. In theory a far more insidious and dangerous villain. And from Rowling's perspective, one with inspiration in current world events.

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At the end of the day, I guess my feeling right now is that this is an era when we’re going to have to learn to stand up for ourselves and what we believe in. (For me, one of the biggest mistakes of the Obama Administration was that after he got elected on a campaign of “Yes We Can”, it never actually tried to mobilize its supporters to actually do anything other than reelect Democrats. Yes We Can What)

You want to see Muslims’ rights protected? Then stand beside them. You want to oppose the dismantling of our climate change policy? Then get in there and do it.

You want to help refugees? Then help them, like drop a little coffee money to the Cleveland Refugee Bike Project.

At the same time, we could all also use to figure out how to be kinder, how to have more empathy. You are not Harry Potter. I am not Draco Malfoy.

I am totally Hermione.*

No, we’re all Ron Weasley—nice enough, kind of adorable in a street urchin kind of way, but also kind of a total mess with at times very poor judgment. (Seriously, Ron, you get locked out of Station 9 ¾, where your parents currently are, but instead of waiting for them YOU STEAL THEIR CAR (AT AGE 12, MIND YOU) AND DRIVE TO HOGWARTS ON YOUR OWN? WHAT?

ONE HUNDRED POINTS FROM GRYFFINDOR.

Maybe that’d do it: we all stop thinking of ourselves as the victim-hero and everyone else as the villain and just assume instead we’re all kinda Weasley. And then judge based on that.

*FIFTY POINTS FOR GRYFFINDOR!

++ LINKS ++

Have you ever heard of John Lewis, the retail outfit? I had not. It’s apparently a major U.K. department store. And each Christmas season they release an advertisement that basically wrecks everyone that watches it. (Think of the feeling you get when you see the red holiday Starbucks cup, Americans, then add children, the aged or animals.)

This year’s advert is entitled Buster the Boxer. Prepare for tears.

And when you’re done, check out this parody, which captures exactly what I originally expected to happen.

Then, check out this description of how comedian Tig Notaro ended her show at Carnegie Hall. It is amazing.

And finally, fictional U.S. Department of the Interior official, former NBC documentary subject and small town waffle lover Leslie Knope writes on the election of Donald Trump.

Say what you will about current reality, the future, the internet, or the fact that every artist that has ever spoken to you or helped you understand the human condition is apparently going to be dead by December 31st. What a gift to live in a world where we can share our stories, our sense of wonder, beauty and heartbreak.

One day, one moment, one breath at a time.