This thread is a focused discussion group. Please see the first post below for the current topic and upcoming book discussions. While natter will inevitably happen, we encourage you to treat this like a virtual book club and try to keep your posts in that spirit.
By consensus, this thread is reopened specifically to discuss Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It will be closed again once that discussion has run its course.
***SPOILER ALERT***
- **Spoilers for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows lie here. Read at your own risk***
And then there's the issue of the word being used in music. The music crosses shores, but the history of the word doesn't, which can result in awkward situations when a non-USian person hears the word in a "friendly" context in a song, and assumes a benign or even positive meaning.
I went to a friends wedding in Canberra Australia a number of years ago, and for whatever reason I hit it off with her little brother, and we became penpals. There was a time he was LOVING Eminem Rapper (sp?). I, not a big fan, was horrified, and told him thusly. "But I just love the lyrics". So I actually listened to them, and explained what he was saying "you realize he is saying this about his mom? Your mom is a sweet lady..." About 3 months later, he announced, "by the way, you'll be happy to know, I don't really listen to MnM anymore". So ya, slang will jump ship, but not the definitions.
And just to keep it sort of on topic, when I first read the Harry Potter books, when I pictured Mrs Weasley, I totally saw his mother.
Eminem's hot.
Okay, not in any practical way, but his anger can be infectious, and he has a decent sense of irony about his work, even though not his life, it seems.
I find Eminem very compelling. And sometimes he makes me want to throw up. On him.
Someone was talking about HP crossover fic upthread, right? Well, I found The End of the Beginning, which I'll admit I haven't read yet, but reading the description sounds...intriguing:
London, 1981. Rupert Giles and Ethan Rayne may not be wizards, but they thought they understood magic -- until the night they saw a glowing green skull in the sky above a quiet London street. Now they're caught up in a civil war in a world they never imagined existed. But can their "Muggle" magic really win the war? And for which side?
I love the author's very old (written between Gof and OotP) fic, "Harry Potter and the Polka Dot Plague," which is a pretty light fic that really nails Snape's character and dialogue.
Tangent warning. It's pretty much agreed that either Giles or Rayne would kick the a*s of The Boy Who Lived, right? Mainly 'cause of the fact Potter has to use a wand, whereas Giles/Rayne gets by with his hands.
Potter: Stay back. Or I'll...point this 12-inch long stick at you.
And then Giles/Rayne kills him with a flaming thingamabob.
Rayne/Giles and HP? Nifty.
But it starts the year that Harry is born - right?
Well, the year after--Halloween 1981 was when he got that lightning scar.
So the entire HP series takes place between the years of 1991 and 1998. Just now realized that.
So the entire HP series takes place between the years of 1991 and 1998.
Yeah, I just realized that when I was reading HP7 and saw the dates on James & Lily's graves. Which means Harry was born in July 1980, which means he's almost exactly my age. Weird!
