Eighteen Come April

You probably haven't heard of the English folk song "Seventeen Come Sunday." I hadn't until I played it as part of Ralph Vaughan Williams' English Folk Song Suite in concert band. On a side note, this is one of the best wind band pieces I have ever played or even heard... incredibly complex counter-melodies, "hummable" melodies, intriguing dynamic and solo work. If you have heard and liked Holst's Suites for Military Band, Folk Song Suite is more of the same, and probably better.

And even if you have heard of "Seventeen Come Sunday," probably by means of Folk Song Suite, you probably didn't know that it had words. I didn't, until one of those famous Wikipedia binges, where you start on "hydrofuran," end up on "Voltaire," and pass through "Mythology in Final Fantasy X" in the process. On one of those excursions, I discovered this, which lists all the lyrics to this song. They're absolutely hilarious. I figured that if it had words, they would probably be about war, because it was a march. Given that the title was "Seventeen Come Sunday," I figured it had a coming-of-age theme, and so I assumed that the narrator of sorts was off to join the army as soon as he was old enough. Turns out that's not exactly incorrect...

Here's the Reader's Digest version: some guy is walking through an English village one morning, and he sees a cute girl.
Guy: Hey, what's up?
Girl: Oh, not much, just doing some errands for my mom.
Guy: Right... how old are you?
Girl: I'm seventeen come Sunday.
Guy: Yeah, about that... do you really want to be doing errands for your mom?
Girl: Well, I guess not. Let's screw.

And now we turn our attention to the lovely Miss Emma Watson, who plays Hermione in the Harry Potter movies. She, of course, is eighteen come April.

Now, Emma Watson being not quite eighteen, I obviously don't have a thing for her. Not until April 15 2008, that is. This is an unfortunate temporal arrangement, but it doesn't preclude me from planning for the future. Interestingly, hers is a very badly-written and edited website. It needs someone else to maintain it... me, for instance. And if I'm going to be applying for this job in 38 weeks, I'm going to need to do a little background research. Here are a few of Emma's favorite things, taken from the website, and with my own commentary added below.

1) Colour: pink
Fabulous. This suggests that she's girly, and that's instantly attractive.
2) Band: the Postal Service
Amazing. She likes good music, too. I'm holding out hope that she too detests the Black Eyed Peas.
(skip a few that I haven't heard of)
5) Musical: Chicago
Acceptable. I might have preferred something satirical like The Producers or Spamalot, but at least it's not something totally lame like South Pacific.
6) Actor: Johnny Depp
Excusable. For all the overhype he receives, the man actually does know how to act.
(skip a bunch about which I'm unqualified to comment, like fashion)
14) Food: spaghetti
Delicious. Who doesn't like spaghetti... and yet putting it as your favorite food is sort of gutsy.
15) Comfort food: Toast and hot chocolate
Intriguing. I'm going to have to try this.
16) Drink: orange juice and lemonade
Imaginative. As long as it's not "cheap beer" I have no objection.
17) Car: I don't know anything about cars.
Fine. Neither do I.
18) Holiday destination: France
Disappointing. Hopefully this is a product of "lack of worldly experience" and not "genuine love of France." Unless she's flutently bilingual, which would be totally hot.
19) Sport: field hockey
Unusual. Though not entirely bad. I wonder what she thinks of good old American football?
20) Animal: cat
Adorable. How can you not love cats?
21) TV show: Friends
Unfortunate. There's a lot out there that's a lot funnier.

And finally, she is apparently artsy, too, having drawn an illustration for her own website. Lovely. Of course, we already know that she's a sort of artsy, being an actress and all...


Review: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Let's be honest here, seeing the movie was not the primary reason I went to see the movie. It was so I could go the wonderful Utopolis theater in Luxembourg, which it turns out is an amazing little slice of America. Liter of Coke for 3 Euros? It just doesn't get any better than that. Well, okay, it does, but only in American grocery stores. In super-expensive Europe, that drink price is even cheaper than American theater drink prices! Add theater-style (read: drenched in butter) popcorn, and you've got a great reason to skip Thermo.

And even so, the movie turned out to be pretty good too. Primarily, I think it was as true a 2 1/2 hour adaptation of an 800 page book is going to be. And that's going to be the main reason anybody is going to want to see the movie. They're not expecting astonishing cinema; they want an adaptation. The movie had its strong points--the wizard duels were particularly convincing, and the Department of Mysteries was exactly as I think it should have been. It had its weak points, too--I take issues with how the centaurs are portrayed. In the books, they're supposed to be incredibly intelligent and rightfully offended when Umbridge calls them "creatures of nearly-human intelligence." In the movie, they're portrayed as just that; merely grunting and shooting arrows at her.

I don't have an eye for good/bad editing, but even I saw a few clumsy transitions and the like. A few scenes I think really should have been in the movie, like Harry's emo rage when he smashes all of Dumbledore's crap in the office, or when Harry finds Sirius's mirror, or when Harry and Cho start screaming at each other on Valentine's Day. Finally, the whole Cho thing seemed a bit odd; making her out to be the traitor tidied things up cinematically... except that it didn't, because of the equally as bizarre use of Veritaserum. In the end, though, that's probably a minor point.

I get it from a reliable source that Rupert Grint is supposed to be attractive, and I get it from an equally reliable source that Daniel Radcliffe is supposed to be attractive. My feelings on the matter? Rupert Grint looks sort of dorky--how else do you describe a guy whose hair comes down to his nose? And Daniel Radcliffe looks sort of geeky. Yes, there's a difference. A little more on casting decisions: my feelings regarding Emma Watson are well known. I think that Luna was cast perfectly (apparently Rowling thinks so too). She's young, but has lots of attractive-potential, possibly more so than the character warrants.

Next post, of course, will be the fourth Harry Potter-themed one in a while, where I very carefully discuss the new book without spoiling anything. Or completely open the floodgates on what happens and give my opinion on all of it; I haven't decided yet. At any rate, there's no point making predictions at this stage, when spoilers are probably abounding all around me anyway.


Currently listening: Love, The Juliana Theory