Not About [Him]

I refuse to post anything about Harry Potter. I'm an unfan. Yes [forcefully], I went to that Harry Potter Party in St. Albert. But, listen, you. Me posting this is me not-posting this. After a long ride through the dusty mesquite and the high plains, and before striding grimly through those folding doors to face the double-dealing hog-stealer who shot your best girl, could you loop your horse's reins around this post? No? No, then. Because this isn't a post, and not about Harry Potter.

Reading: Not Harry Potter, that's for sure. Late last night, different prose, sturdy prose, kept me awake, Lewis fabling on about the human condition. No, that's glib. Lewis wrote a wonderful book, clear and strong, unequivocal. There's a criminal, her crimes are terrible, her wrong-doing is against herself. You feel pity for the stubborn girl (I feel pity for her). You wish (I wish) she had made easier choices, not nearly-revelled in hardship and jealousy. This a book about barbarian thought, Greek dialogue, Christian culture. This is a book about life. Life is hard. Those who make it harder are sorrowful criminals. The heroine of this story is a wrong-doer. I am a wrong-doer. Everyone who reads this book is a wrong-doer. A brilliant novel, and the author a brilliant author, articulate, examining, honest, a pleasure to know through his novel. Till We Have Faces + Clive Staples Lewis

Listening: This is the saddest song ever written "Napoleon, like anyone can even know that." Don't quote Dynamite dialogue at me! Who gives a care, this song is wonderful and sad, and disheartening, but also very beautiful. "Look at me, girl, and sing me a song/ I'm longing for words, cause mine are all gone/ But we'll be alright, after all, it's just a nightmare." Oh, but the nightmare doesn't end, though, does it? The man's upside-down in illusion. He's hiding from himself, can hide from himself no longer. Does he want the girl, really? He had her once. Or is what he's longing for something differently edged, not the girl but a life in which he truly desires the girl? She's singing in the background for him, but his lonely hating voice gets louder and louder, nearly drowns her out. Sadly, in the video, the bare-footed jagged-toothed singer never even looks at the girl behind him. The last line lingers after the last notes have passed, "Why can't you just wake me up?" Maybe, maybe later, but not now, not with the dark water rising across the mud, not in the cruellest months, not this "April & May" + David Fridlund