by Matthew
Hello and welcome to all.
Due to his expanded authorial duties (congratulations Travis!) Travis has asked me to become a moderator of Sword of Gryffindor. What an honour!
I will be trying to maintain the high standards and tone that Travis has established here. So, hopefully, you will not even realise that there has been any change. That being said please take the time to reacquaint yourself with the rules for commenting. The link is right there under the picture of The Boar’s Head.
And now some links:
- Suburbanbanshee has another response to Michael O’Brien.
- John Mark Reynolds writes about the longevity of the Harry Potter series, amongst other things.
- Did you even know that “Wizard Rock” or wrock was a music genre?
- Following in the steps of “Spoonboy and the Potentials”(The Matrix) a number of wrock bands have taken their name from characters in the series ie. Harry and the Potters, Draco and the Malfoys, The Whomping Willows. Have you thought of getting your own Harry Potter themed band together and what would you call it?
- And finally, some Harry Potter fans appear to have too much time on their hands.
Tom on 
Ashley on 
Arabella Figg on 
Helen on 
Lily on 
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{ 27 comments… read them below or add one }
As a matter of fact, my “Harry Potter and His Predecessors” university class studies wizard rock. I personally prefer Harry and the Potters (whose concerts I’ve attended), The Remus Lupins, Draco and the Malfoys, and, of course, Ginny and the Heartbreakers. I have the CDs to prove it.
I would love to attend that class Amy. I have the new CDs by Harry and the Potters and Draco and the Malfoys. I bought them at a concert they held in Astoria, Queens a day before Deathly Hallows came out. Awesome concert. Wizard Rock rules.
My son and some of his teenage friends listen to wrock…He has lots of it on his IPOD. A lot of it is cheesy but some of it is quite good listening.
Johnny – Thanks for the kind words about my class! And what a perfect time to have seen that concert. I bet it was fantastic.
Glad to see someone found the “Mysterious Ticking Noise” YouTube video (the “too much time on their hands” link) — On our recent trip up north, we probably spent a good 15 miles with my kids chanting it ad infinitum…!
Congrats on a fine opening round up, Matthew. Nice and eclectic. I had no idea that wrock was out there. I don’t know if I’m any better off for knowing, because now I will be lying awake trying to think of my band’s name…
I had seen the Potter Puppet things before, at least some of them. But I clicked on the link anyway, and laughed some more. Yes, they definitely had too much time on their hands, and apparently, so did I–I watched a whole bunch of them today.
Thanks, Matthew. Some good links–I did know about wrock, (but didn’t know it was called that). When I went to Lumos last summer with my daughter and her husband, we went in to listen to one of the bands the first night. The whole thing was just pretty fascinating, really. I didn’t know, however, that there are courses being taught on wrock though.
Pat
Band names…
Hedwig and the Hoots
Crookshanks and the Caterwaulers
Trevor and the Toads
It must be late…
Well done Scott.
I thought of a few band names:
- The Restricted Section (adult prog rock)
- Deathday Party (Metal!!!)
- Ratman, Wolfman, Dogboy and Buck (Hairy folk band)
- Veela Feeler (skank girl band)
Matthew
Hah, I’ve been watching Potter Puppet Pals since their beginning. I do like their animated episodes better, though
Luna and the Loonytunes.
The Crumple-Horned Snorkacks.
Xenophilius and the True Believers.
Great job, Scott, very well written, making us click on the links to find out what it’s all about.
Dudder and the Diddykins
The von Weasley Family Singers
The Moldy Voldy’s.
Hagrid and the Dementors
lol. I did like Luna and the Loonytunes. hehe…
Amy,
Your class sounds very intersting!
Who do you class as Harry’s predecessors?
Do you know any Lovecraft themed bands? What would you call a Lovecraft band, Fhtagn and the Sense Impacts or Innsmouthwash?
Matthew
Thanks, Matthew!
Here’s the course description: This course discusses the ancestors to the Harry Potter phenomenon, examines the specific works and traditions that inform the Harry Potter universe, and, most importantly, considers why the Harry Potter books and films are so popular today. In the process, students analyze 1) how the young readers’ fiction of a given historical period prioritizes certain lessons and values, 2) what this tells us about the way a culture conceptualizes childhood in a given era and how this changes across time, and 3) how the lessons and values of young readers’ fiction can reinforce and/or subvert the mainstream status quo. This course takes both a theoretical and historical approach to popular literature in general and J.K. Rowling’s works in particular.
I’m more than happy to send the syllabus (including the reading list) to you or anyone who is interested. Just drop me an email. (My address is available on my website: see above.)
Your Lovecraftian band names are a hoot! I vote for “Eldritch and Squamous,” personally.
Seriously, I do really love Nox Arcana’s album Necronomicon, the H.P. Lovecraft Society’s three albums (A Shoggoth on the Roof must not be missed), and I know the Darkest of Hillside Thickets have several Lovecraft-themed albums. As a matter of fact, there’s a fairly recent book called The Sound of Cthulhu that’s all about the Lovecraftian music scene.
s
Just a few wrock bandnames for you…
–The Managed Misfits
–Other Lover, or The Other Lovers
–The Screaming Readers
The Flaming Phoenixes?
PS to Matthew: I was so pleased to see John Wyndham on your list of favorite authors! I adore Heinlein, Herbert, and Lovecraft, too, among others, but I rarely meet fellow Wyndham enthusiasts.
Wrock on!
Amy,
Isn’t he great!
Somehow, his writing always gets me thinking- “What would I do in that circumstance?”
I really love The Kraken Wakes and Day of the Triffids (of course) and Chocky. Did you ever see the British TV series of Chocky?
Matthew
Has anyone here heard of Gnooks? It’s an off shoot of Gnod, a “self-adapting” AI system which creates “maps” of music, books and movies based on clusters of favorites. To see a “map” you enter the name of, for example, an author, and Gnooks shows you a “map” of other authors which people who like the first author also enjoy reading. The closer an author is to the first author “physically” on the map (actually a statistically calculated distance), the stronger the association. The web site is:
http://www.literature-map.com
For JKR, the closest authors are R.A. Salvatore and RI Stine and Philip Pullman, none of whom I’ve heard of. But Roald Dahl, CS Lewis, Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Agatha Christie, Tolkien and Anne Rice (!?!) are also there, as well as Orson Scott Card. I’m thinking some of this might be due to statistical artifact, based on the popularity of these authors, but some of it is interesting. One of the more interesting maps is the one you get for JRR Tolkien. Type that in, and you see a neat little picture of the constellation of authors people at this site frequently refer to, including Lovecraft, Card, Eco, Lewis, and of course, JKR herself.
Reyhan,
That sounds like an intersting site!
R.A. Salvatore is a writer of Dungeons and Dragons novels… Pretty ordinary stuff except for his Drizzt (a drow) character who is great.
On that site R.A. Salvatore is in orbit around himself 3 times?
I wonder if they get this stuff from google searches or amazon purchases?
Matthew
That site’s dodgy.
Search for “George MacDonald” and “CS Lewis” is distant. Search for “CS Lewis” and “George MacDonald” is almost touching.
Matthew
R.A. Salvatore also did one of the novelizations of Star Wars, I think Episode 3.
But yeah, he’s mostly known for his Forgotten Realms stuff.
Matthew -
The Kraken Wakes and Day of the Triffids are two of my favorites! I love The Midwich Cuckoos, as well. I’ve never seen (or heard of) the Chocky TV series. Wow!
The site is dodgy. The main reason is how the initial data is entered. The data is entered by users: further up the menu, when you first enter the site you are prompted to give the names of three of your favorite authors. Unfortunately, there is no reference dictionary to check the spelling you put in. So depending on how people spell the name, the same author can enter the calculations in different ways. For example, C.S. Lewis can be CS Lewis, CS. Lewis, or C S Lewis. The AI, Gnooks, “thinks” that these are all different authors, and uses them as different authors in its calculations. That’s the problem with computers: they can do a multiple-regression analysis in nano-seconds, but can’t figure out that CS Lewis is the same as C S Lewis unless told.
Scott, Salvatore did the novelization for Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones.
I knew it was one of them. Who did Ep. 3 then?