Mid-Week Linkage
Mugglenet reports that Bloomsbury Books is planning to release a "Celebratory Edition" of Deathly Hallows in October 2010. Strangely enough, the publisher's page announcing the book has a description of Half-Blood Prince along with a quote from Cornelius Fudge from "The Other Minister." Odd, that. Mugglenet writes that they are sure Bloomsbury meant to quote from Deathly Hallows instead. I'm pretty sure that another of their so-called "fact checkers" must have been out doing an interview about their accuracy that day.
JKR has been staying busy it seems. I missed this story at Oscar Time:
Daily Beast: J.K. Rowling Declines Oscar-Presenter Role
Did they really want JKR and Stephanie Meyer on the stage together? Good Lord!
But I'd love to see her Trophy Room. Probably has it's own wing at the castle.
She's won the Variety UK personality prize at the British Independent Film Awards
JKR One of the Ten Perfect Women in Scotland
Manchester News: Author is Top Entrepreneurial Role Model
And here's a bizarro world story! According to The Scotsman someone named "Elaine McGonigle" (yes, that's the real name) was working for a campaign called "New Pyjamas" to raise funds for a children's hospital. The campaign is now in ruins and Ms. McGonigle is Under Investigation due to possible unethical practices and money wasting. An absolute mess. She was criticized for not approaching any big-name donors, but it turns out she did ask JKR's people to help. However she was turned down by . . . JKR's people, not JKR herself. Funny wording there - whose making the decisions these days?
A statement from Ms Rowling's spokeswoman said: "Elaine McGonigle did contact JK Rowling's office about supporting the New Pyjamas appeal.
"But she did not have any direct contact with JK Rowling, and the requests for support were declined."
The BBC reports that a guy was roughed up a bit while trying to do some mountain climbing in the Scottish Highlands near one of the outdoor sets for Deathly Hallows:
Climber Pushed About At Harry Potter Film Site
SciFiWire has an article that spews some water on the rumors concerning A Fire on the set of Deathly Hallows. E-Online called it Voldemort's Revenge, while ScreenRant reported the set was Burnt to the Ground.
SciFiWire calls it "So much hufflepuff," and states:
A spokesperson for the production at Leavesden Studios in Watford, outside London, told SCI FI Wire that there was a smallish fire on an outdoor set on Friday, that it was caused by some special pyrotechnic effects used by a second unit shooting part of the battle scene at Hogwarts and that it was "put out almost immediately" by the studio's own in-house fire brigade. As a precaution, studio officials called in the local fire brigade as well, but there was no damage, no one was hurt (indeed, none of the film's cast were on hand), and there was no damage to any equipment.
The fire itself was so uneventful that the film crew kept shooting, and the fire itself will turn up in the final Potter film, the second of two movies based on the seventh and final book in the series by J.K. Rowling, the spokesperson said. As for the set? It represented part of the outdoor courtyard to Hogwarts castle and was schedule to be rebuilt anyway for further filming.
So what do you know? Snape would be pleased to learn that snark is good for the gene pool. And God knows a sense of humor is needed to survive as a Snape fan these days.
Thanks for the link to lemon_ashwinder
LiveScience: Sarcasm Seen as Evolutionary Survival Skill
Neurophysiologist Katherine Rankin at the University of California, San Francisco, has also recently discovered that sarcasm, which is both positively funny and negatively nasty, plays an important part in human social interaction.
...Sarcasm, then, is a verbal hammer that connects people in both a negative and positive way. We know that sense of humor is important to relationships; if someone doesn't get your jokes, they aren't likely to be your friend (or at least that's my bottom line about friendship). Sarcasm is simply humor's dark side, and it would be just as disconcerting if a friend didn’t get your snide remarks.
It's also easy to imagine how sarcasm might be selected over time as evolutionarily crucial. Imagine two ancient humans running across the savannah with a hungry lion in pursuit. One guy says to the other, "Are we having fun yet?" and the other just looks blank and stops to figure out what in the world his pal meant by that remark. End of friendship, end of one guy's contribution to the future of the human gene pool.
JKR has been staying busy it seems. I missed this story at Oscar Time:
Daily Beast: J.K. Rowling Declines Oscar-Presenter Role
Did they really want JKR and Stephanie Meyer on the stage together? Good Lord!
But I'd love to see her Trophy Room. Probably has it's own wing at the castle.
She's won the Variety UK personality prize at the British Independent Film Awards
JKR One of the Ten Perfect Women in Scotland
Manchester News: Author is Top Entrepreneurial Role Model
And here's a bizarro world story! According to The Scotsman someone named "Elaine McGonigle" (yes, that's the real name) was working for a campaign called "New Pyjamas" to raise funds for a children's hospital. The campaign is now in ruins and Ms. McGonigle is Under Investigation due to possible unethical practices and money wasting. An absolute mess. She was criticized for not approaching any big-name donors, but it turns out she did ask JKR's people to help. However she was turned down by . . . JKR's people, not JKR herself. Funny wording there - whose making the decisions these days?
A statement from Ms Rowling's spokeswoman said: "Elaine McGonigle did contact JK Rowling's office about supporting the New Pyjamas appeal.
"But she did not have any direct contact with JK Rowling, and the requests for support were declined."
The BBC reports that a guy was roughed up a bit while trying to do some mountain climbing in the Scottish Highlands near one of the outdoor sets for Deathly Hallows:
Climber Pushed About At Harry Potter Film Site
SciFiWire has an article that spews some water on the rumors concerning A Fire on the set of Deathly Hallows. E-Online called it Voldemort's Revenge, while ScreenRant reported the set was Burnt to the Ground.
SciFiWire calls it "So much hufflepuff," and states:
A spokesperson for the production at Leavesden Studios in Watford, outside London, told SCI FI Wire that there was a smallish fire on an outdoor set on Friday, that it was caused by some special pyrotechnic effects used by a second unit shooting part of the battle scene at Hogwarts and that it was "put out almost immediately" by the studio's own in-house fire brigade. As a precaution, studio officials called in the local fire brigade as well, but there was no damage, no one was hurt (indeed, none of the film's cast were on hand), and there was no damage to any equipment.
The fire itself was so uneventful that the film crew kept shooting, and the fire itself will turn up in the final Potter film, the second of two movies based on the seventh and final book in the series by J.K. Rowling, the spokesperson said. As for the set? It represented part of the outdoor courtyard to Hogwarts castle and was schedule to be rebuilt anyway for further filming.
So what do you know? Snape would be pleased to learn that snark is good for the gene pool. And God knows a sense of humor is needed to survive as a Snape fan these days.
Thanks for the link to lemon_ashwinder
LiveScience: Sarcasm Seen as Evolutionary Survival Skill
Neurophysiologist Katherine Rankin at the University of California, San Francisco, has also recently discovered that sarcasm, which is both positively funny and negatively nasty, plays an important part in human social interaction.
...Sarcasm, then, is a verbal hammer that connects people in both a negative and positive way. We know that sense of humor is important to relationships; if someone doesn't get your jokes, they aren't likely to be your friend (or at least that's my bottom line about friendship). Sarcasm is simply humor's dark side, and it would be just as disconcerting if a friend didn’t get your snide remarks.
It's also easy to imagine how sarcasm might be selected over time as evolutionarily crucial. Imagine two ancient humans running across the savannah with a hungry lion in pursuit. One guy says to the other, "Are we having fun yet?" and the other just looks blank and stops to figure out what in the world his pal meant by that remark. End of friendship, end of one guy's contribution to the future of the human gene pool.