to be in Michigan. The right hand of America

waving from maps or the left

pressing into clay a mold to take home

from kindergarten to Mother. I lived in Michigan

forty-three years. The state bird

is a chained factory gate. The state flower

is Lake Superior, which sounds egotistical

though it is merely cold and deep as truth.

A Midwesterner can use the word “truth,”

can sincerely use the word “sincere.”

In truth the Midwest is not mid or west.

When I go back to Michigan I drive through Ohio.

There is off I-75 in Ohio a mosque, so life

goes corn corn corn mosque, I wave at Islam,

which we’re not getting along with

on account of the Towers as I pass.

Then Ohio goes corn corn corn

billboard, goodbye, Islam. You never forget

how to be from Michigan when you’re from Michigan.

It’s like riding a bike of ice and fly fishing.

The Upper Peninsula is a spare state

in case Michigan goes flat. I live now

in Virginia, which has no backup plan

but is named the same as my mother,

I live in my mother again, which is creepy

but so is what the skin under my chin is doing,

suddenly there’s a pouch like marsupials

are needed. The state joy is spring.

“Osiris, we beseech thee, rise and give us baseball”

is how we might sound were we Egyptian in April,

when February hasn’t ended. February

is thirteen months long in Michigan.

We are a people who by February

want to kill the sky for being so gray

and angry at us. “What did we do?”

is the state motto. There’s a day in May

when we’re all tumblers, gymnastics

is everywhere, and daffodils are asked

by young men to be their wives. When a man elopes

with a daffodil, you know where he’s from.

In this way I have given you a primer.

Let us all be from somewhere.

Let us tell each other everything we can.

Bob Hicok

After pulling the sword from the stone but before becoming king, Arthur went on a cross-country road trip / vision quest. He crashed on friends’ couches or, on a few nights, the back seat of his car. He went to Burning Man, stayed in the mountains of Montana for a few weeks, and learned to build a cigar-box guitar from some guy on the street in New Orleans.

When he finally arrived home, a wiser man, he thought, “That shit was awesome. I gotta find a way to do that all the time.”

This is exactly how I feel.

Here was my belly laugh of today.  While helping my dear sister edit a follow up letter to her favorite medical school I made use of good old SHIFT-F7 to find a synonym of “thrilled.”  Most of the suggestions were pretty obvious: a “delighted,” “excited,” and “overjoyed.”  But “detective novel”?  That’s an unusual one!  Thoughts?

Lyra Belacqua – “Here’s what we think Lyra would battle Mrs. Coulter, deceive Iofur Raknison, and read the alethiometer to.”

Harry Potter- “Here’s what we think Harry would be moping about, Wronski Feinting, and saving the world to.”

Ender Wiggin – “Here are the songs we think he’d calculate, strategize and defy gravity to.”

Earlier this year I was inspired to a couple of my own.  The seed of that inspiration actually came not from “literature” per se but from a piece of Harry Potter fan fiction, albeit a very literary example of the type.  Amends, or Truth and Reconciliation is the epic tale (as yet incomplete at 300,000 words – some of which I needed to look up) of what happened to Hermione after the war.  Its complicated and dark,  turning over all the rocks in the Potterverse and looking underneath them.

Perspective is nearly everything in fiction.  Harry simply doesn’t pay attention to the complexities of the wizarding world the way Hermione does.  So although wizarding world has authoritarian governments combated by underground resistant movements, rebel forces on the run, pirate radio stations and break ins at highly secure official installations, the seven Harry Potter books feel more like the story of one boy’s heroic brush with fate.    Amends, told from Hermione’s perspective, is more complex and darkly nuanced and much more political.  I spent most of September steeping myself in her combative, question-everything point of view and thoroughly enjoyed it.  One of the results is this trio of playlists based on three of the main characters in the Amends plot line.

Wandless Incencio: Here are the songs I think Hermione would be time turning, writing code and plotting to overthrow the Ministry of Magic to.

Worth Twelve: Here’s what Neville would be pining, planting and pacing the Lancashire moors to.

House Arrest: And these are the tracks Draco would be stunt flying, sulking and re-evaluating his place in the world to.

8tracks doesn’t allow its users to list the songs in each mix (something to do with the legality of making music available for free on the internet – like Pandora there has to be an element of randomness).  But each of the songs on the mix was chosen for a specific reason and, if you care to, you can read the liner notes for Hermione’s playlist, “Wandless Incendio” after the jump.  Warning: it contains some spoiler alerts for the Amends plot line so beware.

Wandless Incendio Liner Notes

Can’t Go Back Now – The Weepies

Sure it’s been a long time since anyone did anything for Hermione but I think she’s mourning her lost childhood at this point.  It’s been so long.  And now she’s even more isolated than ever before.  She needs to take a lot of steps all by herself.

Anthem, Pt.2 – Blink 182

Sure this a little teenager and yell-y but Hermione is (among other things) a very angry teenager.  And she is dealing with a mess she didn’t make.  If the DA generation is fucked up – and they most certainly ARE – then the Ministry is to blame.

Gold Medal – The Donnas

All those purebloods kept putting her down, telling her ‘no’ and generally standing in her light but that only ever made her work harder.  “I’m so sorry you never wanted me.  But that’s how you made me want the gold medal.”  She’ll get it, too.

Happier – Guster

She’s walking away from all of that now.  They should count themselves lucky she’s doing what was done unto her.

Iko Iko – The Belle Stars

Hermione is a child of the 80’s even more than I am and I think she would have been conversant with the pop music of the day – especially in her early years at Hogwarts.  I like both its actual backstory – about conflicting Mardi Gras Parade teams – and the reference to grandmothers (another reminder for her that everyone knows everyone in the wizarding world).

Tell Your Story Walking – Deb Talan

This one is for her new role as Recording Angel of the War Crimes Commission.  ‘Tell it to the judge,’ indeed.

Reason Why – Rachael Yamagata

Maybe she’s not sad about Ron qua boyfriend, but she is sad about the whole situation – leaving the burrow, losing that whole adoptive family and Harry by proxy as well.  And she’s lost without her place in the trio – she’s been defining herself against Harry and Ron for so many years.  As difficult as everything was for them during the war it feels nostalgically long ago at this point.

It’s Gonna Be – Norah Jones

I like both the sentiment and the lyrics here.

Nine in the Afternoon – Panic! At the Disco

Stage direction: Enter the timeturner.  “Losing the feeling of feeling unique,” indeed!

Three Ways – The Wallflowers

At this point Hermione is pretty much choosing the hardest way to do everything in her life and feeling not a little nihilistic to boot. making this the perfect atmospheric combo.  Burn it to the ground and walk away … real slow.

Suicide Blonde – The Weepies

This song is about identity crisis.  It’s about simultaneously being the one that everyone wants to be or be with.  And (spoiler alert) it’s about dyeing your hair Malfoy blonde.

Take What You Take – Lily Allen

Hermione is so sick of other peoples platitudinous advice.  I think this song resonates perfectly.  Also it has great word play which I think she would appreciate.

Pumpkin Soup – Kate Nash

This is not about smart choices – this is about being fed up with the situation and acting accordingly and breaking out of pre-established roles.  How will this work out?  “I hope you don’t think I’m unkind … I just want your kiss, boy.”  She’s not looking for anything serious here folks – but for a girl who’s middle name is “serious” it’s a bit hard not to get more involved than she means to.  Uh oh.

Break the Sky – The Hush Sound

And after Pumpkin Soup she needs to reassure herself that she is a totally independent individual with no connections to anyone.  She’ll do it all on her own, thank you. This is the ultimate Get up and Go song – guaranteed to make you run faster, work harder and smile under nearly any circumstances.  Hermione needs a long like this in her arsenal.

Sins of My Youth – Neon Trees

‘Hot like a smoking gun,’ no one has more dangerous habits than Hermione Granger at this point.  And she certainly does ‘do it on designer drugs,’ folks.  Now she really wants to know “Would you love me still?” It’s an urgent question – will he love her still?

Ballad of Mona Lisa – Panic! At the Disco

The sins you paid for, indeed.  This is a bit Neville’s answer as well.  I think he’s impressed and horrified as he watches Hermione set the world on fire.  And as much as he’s paying attention, he doesn’t even know she’s got a time turner – in his defense he probably never knew she’d ever had one and so wouldn’t be in a position to suspect.

Manifest Destiny – Guster

This is such a great Neville and Hermione song.  It’s not what they would do of course; neither of them is willing to shirk their responsibilities like that, but this is their dream – to just walk away from it all.  They would love to build a town and then secede.  Also “the Moon and Stars are ganging up on the Sun – rebellion.”  Indeed.

Invincible – Ok Go

I think everyone who loves Hermione would agree that she can be a little bit scary.  Her idea of a compliment is “earthly embodiment of the furies” and she means business.  The ministry will have to deal with her first indeed.  Neville could have told them what happens to people who stand in her way if they’d only asked him.  As it I think they may find themselves lying stiff-as-a-board on the floor of the common room as she walks over them and goes about her business.

Us – Regina Spektor

Hermione (and co) are all too aware that everyone is ready to build a statue to them and later say it’s all their fault.  And the wizarding community certainly does seem like living in a den of thieves.

My sister visited for the weekend and we indulged in a holiday baking extravaganza making caramel blondies, eggnog muffins and coal cookies (the undisputed favorite).

These “lumps of coal” are simply delicious.  If you have to be naughty to get them … it’s well worth it.  The only difficulty is that they are so sinfully chocolaty that each one you eat earns you another.  A dangerous cycle.

Kids, DO try this one at home.  Recipe  after the jump:

Coal Cookies

1/2 cup (4 ounces) unsalted butter
1 1/3 cups (10 ounces) brown sugar
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons espresso powder
1 tablespoon (1/2 ounce) vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
2/3 cup (2 ounces) Dutch-process cocoa
1 1/2 cups (6 1/2 ounces) King Arthur 100% Organic White Whole Wheat Flour or King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
2 cups (12 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips*

*Or a mixture of raisins, chips, and nuts.

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease two baking sheets, or line them with parchment. Or lightly grease a mini-muffin pan. Or use a combination of pans: the recipe makes 36 cookies.

In a medium bowl, cream together the butter, sugar, baking powder, espresso powder, vanilla, and salt. Add the eggs, beating until smooth. Stir in the cocoa powder, then the flour; the dough will be stiff. Mix in the chocolate chips, or the chips/raisins/nuts.

Drop the dough by tablespoonfuls (about 1 1/2″ balls, about 1 1/8 ounces) onto the prepared baking sheets, or into the mini-muffin cups; a tablespoon cookie scoop is the perfect tool for this. Bake the cookies for 12 minutes (on a baking sheet); 15 minutes (in an aluminum mini-muffin pan), or 21 minutes (in a silicone mini-muffin pan); they’ll look not-quite-done in the center. Remove them from the oven, and allow the cookies to cool for about 10 minutes; or the mini muffins to cool for 20 minutes. Gently squeeze and shape the cookies into uneven balls, to resemble chunks of coal. Yield: 3 dozen cookies.

Note: Cookies stay fresh at room temperature no longer than a week. For extended storage, bake, then freeze immediately to serve later.

recipe via kingarthurflour.com

We tried adding bits of caramel to these but had to pick them out of the second half of the dough as they just melted all over the parchment paper.  A better idea might be dried cherries.

NPR has created a list of the top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy novels.  This as awesome.  Still more excellent is the  funny (and very functional) flow chart of NPR’s selections created by SFSignal.    ENJOY!

You might also want to check out Monkey See’s analysis of the final list with suggestions for how to be a winner including:

1. Write it a long time ago.

3. Be a dude.

4. Be British.

There are plenty of quibbles.  But still its a very comprehensive list – I’ve only read a third of the books on it – and a great jumping off point for a fun reading adventure.

Starting from the top:

On the Fantasy side:

Or for Science Fiction:

I said earlier that I wanted to come back to Neville after having re-read further into the books.  I never made it to the end of the series with my posts last time so I didn’t get to his shining moment at the end of the series.  Now I want to come back and explore how he grows from the toad-less boy in book one to Voldemort-defying BAMF in book seven.

Note: I’ll stick to Neville as characterized in the books for this post although I should note that I’m as pleased as anyone that the movie characterization finally allowed Neville to grow from walking punch line to the Sword-of-Gryffindor-wielding hero we knew him to be.  It hasn’t hurt at all that the actor who plays him, Matthew Lewis, is a great candidate for Witch Weekly’s Most Charming Smile Award these days either.

Neville is so great!

Unfailingly kind.  Determined.  Adorably self effacing.  Morally upstanding.  Loyal.  Nerdily enthusiastic.  I could wax poetic on the subject – is my crush showing?  Neville doesn’t always see the value in himself but he is quite capable of making friends who see it for him.  I love the moment at the opening of Order of the Phoenix when he meets Luna:

‘And I don’t know who you are.’
‘I’m nobody,’ said Neville hurriedly.
‘No, you’re not,’ said Ginny sharply.  ‘Neville Longbottom – Luna Lovegood…’

The DA (part the first)

“Nor had he said anything on the subject of Bellatrix and her fellow torturers’ escape; in fact, he barely spoke during D.A. meetings anymore, but worked relentlessly on every new jinx and counter curse Harry taught them, his plump face screwed up in concentration, apparently indifferent to injuries or accidents, working harder than anyone else in the room. He was improving so fast it was unnerving and when Harry taught them the Shield Charm, a means of deflecting minor jinxes so that they rebounded upon the attacker, only Hermione mastered the charm faster than Neville.”

Neville is determined.  He insists that he, Luna and Ginny go with Harry to the Ministry at the end of Order of the Phoenix reminding Harry that its not all about him – they all have lives and loved ones at stake in this war.  He’s also the last man standing with Harry at the end in the department of mysteries and defiant to the last despite a broken nose and wand.

And then … a new wand.

Ok, Wizarding World, WTF!  Its explained ad nauseum in the books that “the wand chooses the wizard” and Harry can’t be the only person who has ever had to work with another person’s wand and found it doesn’t do the trick for him.  Why are these wizarding parents setting their kids up for failure by sending them off to Hogwarts with poorly matched wands?

Its always been clear to me that part of Ron’s difficulty with school comes from spending two years with the wrong wand.  No wonder Neville thinks he’s a squib when he did his first five years of magical education with someone else’s wand.  Poor kid.  I think getting his own wand finally would be instrumental to his re-birth as a confident Gryffindor and leader of men (and women).   Its fine that he keeps his dad’s fugly sweater collection though – that’s quite sweet.

The DA (part the second)

“It helps to stand up to people.  I noticed that when you used to do it.”

There’s relatively little of Neville in the seventh book compared to what we are told he’s been up to but even what little there is shows how much he’s changed.  Its not clear when that happens.  Suddenly he’s (still self effacingly) leading an army of child soldiers and acting as guardian angel of the whole school.  Since no one (or at least not Harry) was paying much attention to him during all that time, it’s unclear when he made the transformation from Round-faced Toad Loser to Understated Underground Resistance Leader.

It was there all along.

But has he really changed?  Sure he’s grown up, stutters less, knows more spells, has a new wand.  But I think he’s largely the same person all along.  Still slightly self-effacing but ultimately ready to get the job done.  JK Rowling in an 2007 interview:

“And he really was The Boy It Could’ve Been, because as you know, as I made clear, he was born hours before Harry, he was born on the 30th of July, Voldemort singled him out as the other possibility. But the great thing about Neville’s story for me, the over-arching story about Neville, is that he proves himself to be a boy who could’ve done it too.”

I couldn’t agree more.  Three cheers for Neville Longbottom. Hip hip, hooray!!!!

Aren’t these great?  I found them here but think they originated here.

There wasn’t one for Ginny, which I thought was such a startling oversight that I made one myself.  Thanks for the inspiration pink-martini!  I hope you don’t mind.

Click here for more Harry Potter.

The last Harry Potter Weekend has come and gone.  I enjoyed it to the max; I went to a midnight release with friends and dressed up as a Ravenclaw in uniform skirt, blue and grey striped tie, wand and robes adapted from my graduation gown.  My sister came over from Madison to see it with me again on Friday after work.  I quite enjoyed … but didn’t entirely love the movie.  I haven’t really processed it yet.

Uncertainty about the movie not withstanding, we celebrated Harry Potterdom to the max by discussing it ad nauseum while watching movies 5 thru 7a, preparing British foods  for dinner (Bubble and Squeak is great) and experimenting with Pumpkin Pasties for desert.  The recipe, as we executed it, was basically pumpkin pie filling cooked in a casserole dish until firm and then scooped into 4″ circles of pie dough, folded and crimped, then baked till brown.  They were delicious, if not very seasonally appropriate.

We also celebrated our favorite character with a mixed drink we’ve christened the “Strong Neville” adapted from the Backyard Bartender’s HP themed coctails.  We slightly upped both the lemon juice and simple syrup in an effort to make it slightly less alcoholic but no less delicious.  The result was, as promised: “a little fussy, quintessentially British, and unexpectedly strong.”  Her recipe:

Neville Longbottom
1.5 oz tea-infused gin
1 oz Pimm’s
.75 oz fresh-squeezed lemon juice
.75 oz simple syrup

Combine all ingredients in a shaker. Shake and strain into an ice-filled glass.

Tea-Infused Gin
In an airtight jar, combine 1.5 cups of gin and 1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon of loose English Breakfast tea leaves. Seal the jar, shake once, and allow to sit at room temperature for two hours. After two hours, open the jar and strain out the gin.

It was, all in all, a lovely weekend of fan fun.

Click here for more on Harry Potter.

via the New York Times