Jia Lin’s Weblog

It seems there are always some highbrows to critisize Harry Potter everytime the new book comes out-It used to be Harold Bloom at WSJ, and now Ron Charles at WP. I think it really condecsending. I dropped the book after 15 pages of it-many years ago, I don’t see how it can be love by so many. Now Ron Charles pointed out where you find the enjoyment and the danger of such pleasure.

” Consider that, with the release of each new volume, Rowling’s readers have been driven not only into greater fits of enthusiasm but into more precise synchronization with one another. Through a marvel of modern publishing, advertising and distribution, millions of people will receive or buy “The Deathly Hallows” on a single day. There’s something thrilling about that sort of unity, except that it has almost nothing to do with the unique pleasures of reading a novel: that increasingly rare opportunity to step out of sync with the world, to experience something intimate and private, the sense that you and an author are conspiring for a few hours to experience a place by yourselves — without a movie version or a set of action figures. Through no fault of Rowling’s, Potter mania nonetheless trains children and adults to expect the roar of the coliseum, a mass-media experience that no other novel can possibly provide.”

In the article, he started by the recount of his experience of reading the book with his daughter-at the third book, the 10-year-old aksed:” do we have to keep reading this?”. I really hope Fifi will have that kind of good judgement by that age, so I don’t have to read, or watch,  Harry Potter with her:)

The last movie that left me in tears is March of Penguin-and I blamed it to hormone, since I was about 8 months pregnant then. However, this is indeed such a sad movie that reminds you how cruel and futile life can be, no matter how selfless and determined maternal or paternal love can be- in the movie the mother penguin was killed by seals the moment when she dived  into the water to feed themselves, after three-months of march in storm and hunger and finally reached the ocean. I burst into tears when I thought of the baby penguin hundreds of miles away will be starved to death under its’ father’s wings. The movie is full of such cruel moments that imply the hopeless future lying ahead of the baby penguins, and it tears my heart apart. Then I survived a few good movies that almost made me cry, like Painted Veil (love didn’t conquer death), Blood Diamond (young African kids were turned into senseless guerrilla killers), or Children of the man(when dying Clive Owen taught the young mother burping her baby)…now the second movie that moved me to tears, is, surprise- Dreamgirls! I was on treadmill most of time since the upbeat music kept me moving energetically, then all of sudden, Jenifer Hudson’s role was betrayed and abandoned  by everyone she loves,  she turned to Jamie Fox, the men who she loved dearly and who hurt her so much, and she sing in a deep voice, almost in a whisper, that “And I am telling you, I am not going”, with so much wounds and so much dignity. Man, she is so good-pulling out so much real feelings from such a cheesy-most-of-time movie. Now what it is about these two movies that make me cry? One is a documentary about the bird, one is a musical with, well, a lot of singing and dancing. One is so white (I mean the Antarctic, one is so black (I mean the skin). Acting is certainly important-Penguins are natural-born stars, so is Jennifer Hudson. They certainly connect with human emotion, so do a lot of other good movies. I guess more importantly, it has to connect with each individual audience’ personal experience and feelings-like when a baby was on the way or a sad memory of younger days when loved one turned back on you. 

I started to watch  a lot of Mad Money since I started to work a lot from home. In the winter, it rained so much and sun went down so early when not raining. I was alone in the empty house all day long-CNN or CNBC kept me company in the afternoon. Jim Cramer is the best companion-he’s loud, he’s entertaining and he’s shinning head look so good on the Screen. I had never seen any show like that-presenting numbers and charts in such insane way. I still hated when he and callers “Booyaw” each other which sounded like “no! I don’t want it!” in Chinese; but I accept that it has be some weird ritual even for a modern cult. I admired that Cramer can always come up with something to say about any combination of English letters (I mean the stock ticker symbols). Certainly I like how precisely he can hit the right sound button (including “buy buy Buy”, “sell Sell sell”, cow moos, bear howls, baby cries and Handel’s Halleluiah, etc.). Indeed he has every reason to be, or appear to be, arrogant, at least for his fabulous shining forehead and cup-like brain. He’s so successful for creating a pretentious, self-indulgent and often narcissistic personality that can be loved by audience even when he shamelessly praise his wisdom and vision or when he kissed his own portrait like a fool.  Narcissism certainly works the best in front of the camera- however only in front of camera-it can be seen as, at least slightly, abnormity in real life. I think it’s wise that his show is mostly his monologue.  I saw Cramer painfully balanced his TV personality and social norm in two of his shows with live audience. It just doesn’t work, a conscious and less cynical Cramer is like a leading actor practice his script behind scenes-but I am glad that he is actually not a maniac in real life.