A Wordbender Review: A Very Potter Sequel

A Very Potter Sequel

NOTE: This review contains unmarked spoilers. Read at your own risk.

I am a huge Harry Potter fan. I have read all the books so many times I can recite many passages by heart. My walls are plastered with posters from the movies. I love both fanfiction and fanart and spend way too much time on the Internet looking for both. I'm just as engrossed in the series as I was when I first discovered it ten years ago, and I imagine I will still be entirely devoted to Harry when I have my own children.

Sunburns and Sequels: A Story in Photographs

Today was my last day of work. Tear. I accompanied some of the Upward Bound students and instructors to Knott's Soak City in Palm Springs. I was really tired. Also, I forgot to put on sunscreen. Normally this is not a problem; while I don't really look Puerto Rican, I do have my mom's melanin. Boricua Wonder Shield, activate!

Well, darn. Guess that didn't work.

Curses! You have failed me for the last time, Boricua Wonder Shield!

Anyway, getting sunburnt kind of bummed me out. This is what happens when you wade around the wave pool at the water park in direct sunlight on an 100+ degree day, I guess, but my Puerto Rican powers rarely desert me in my time of need. Added to which we got back to IVC an hour later than we'd planned, and I still had to drive home in my dad's old manual transmission truck. I learned to drive on that thing, so I have no problems with stick shifts in general. We have owned that particular truck, however, since just before Joshua was born, and it is starting to show its age. First gear is especially unreliable; half the time it'll jump out of gear just as I'm trying to get going again after being stopped at a light, which is even more fun than it sounds when there are a bunch of impatient drivers behind you who are already annoyed because you actually go the speed limit.

Okay, cue forlorn Aida.

Sad pandas.

What could possibly cheer me up on a day like this?

That did the trick!

For the uninitiated, way back in ye olde 2009, a theatre group at the University of Michigan (known as StarKidPotter online) performed an affectionate musical parody of the Harry Potter series, cleverly titled A Very Potter Musical. That summer, they posted video of their play on YouTube. Somehow, the Harry Potter fansites found out about it, and, as a veteran of HP fandom, I can say from experience that once it's linked to on a major HP fansite, make sure you have a good server, or be prepared for a blue screen of death from thousands upon thousands of dedicated HP fans all headed for your site at once. If it's on YouTube, expect to get approximately 87 zillion more views. Case in point? See the Vlogbrothers. DFTBA!

Long story short, A Very Potter Musical became an overnight Internet sensation. It was hilarious, if occasionally a bit juvenile, the songs were catchy, the lyrics were solid, there was a surprising amount of content from the books considering it adapted many of the series' plotlines for a three-hour play, and Bonnie Gruesen's hair was far more Hermione-ish than Emma Watson's ever was. It was silly, but it was meant to be silly. It was also very much a play for college students, by college students, though the acting was great across the board. I loved it immediately, even if there were some aspects I didn't care for (their Dumbledore, for one. Also the one-sided Draco/Hermione, because what??? It did mostly follow the canon pairings, including Ron/Hermione (OTP yay), for what it's worth.)

Then, in January, the StarKidPotter team announced a sequel to their show was in the works. It was performed in Ann Arbor this past May, but it wouldn't go online until July 23. I waited impatiently for news, then kind of forgot about it.

So, when I logged onto my favorite HP news site, The Leaky Cauldron, what did I see but an announcement hailing the release of A Very Potter Sequel on YouTube. Joy! 

Small confession to make: I may or may not have used some poetic license in the telling of this story, because I may or may not have been up until 4 o'clock this morning devouring this musical in one sitting, right away, the moment I found out it was online. Well, what can I say? I like my new Potter experiences to be in the middle of the night. Minds out of the gutter, please. I am just a midnight-release type of gal. No, you are not allowed to follow that accidental double entendre through to its logical conclusion. Grow up, won't you? 

I jest, I jest. But if you're in the mood for first-class musical parody, and you don't mind fleeting profanity and sometimes slightly offensive humor, you're in for a treat!

Here is the video that started it all: A Very Potter Musical, Act One, Part One.

And here is the just released sequel, starting with A Very Potter Sequel, Act One, Part One.

Enjoy! My thoughts on the sequel will come tomorrow. I'm still too full of squee to write a coherent review.

Oh, the Irony

I am now getting sleepy around 10:30 to 11:00 these days and waking up on my own anywhere from 6:00 to 8:30, far too early, really, for a self-respecting college student during the summer, especially on days when I don't have work or church. Which means that when I get back to Virginia, I'll only be falling asleep at 2 in the morning instead of 4. Lovely.


Great day full of West Wing watching with Jessi. Also, Jackie's coming home tomorrow. Yay!


Another short post today. Got to get my tutor on in the morning.

Guess What?

It's the three-year anniversary of the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows! My favorite book ever! Yay! Some fond memories, courtesy of the Vlogbrothers.


This is my way of saying I have nothing to write about today. Heh.

Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me, I Love You

Oh, my favorite weekly news quiz. Here's a bit from Saturday's show (listen here) that had me laughing until I couldn't breathe:

PETER SAGAL, host: Charlie, the New York Times reported on BP's long history of safety violations. It turns out they've been blowing stuff up for decades. But the company insists that safety is now job one. In fact, the CEO, Tony Hayward, recently instituted a rule preventing employees at BP from doing what?

Mr. CHARLIE PIERCE (Author, "Idiot America"): Dating Bristol Palin.

SAGAL: That's...

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. MO ROCCA (Contributor, "CBS Sunday Morning"): The other BP.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Ms. KYRIE O'CONNOR (Deputy Editor and Blogger, Houston Chronicle): The other safe one.

(Soundbite of laughter)

(Soundbite of applause)

Mr. ROCCA: Listen, listen, British Petroleum is an evil BP. Bristol Palin is a kind of a fun, distracting, silly BP.

SAGAL: That's true.

Mr. PIERCE: And both involved in drilling in their own way.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. ROCCA: All right, yes. And yes, but it's not Bristol's fault that the cap wasn't kept on the well. That was...

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. ROCCA: That's Levi's.

(Soundbite of laughter) 

And two weeks before that (listen to it here):

SAGAL: All right. Now for your first quote, we want you to listen to a very shocked resident of a New Jersey suburb, talking about her neighbor who was just taken away by the FBI.

KASELL: They couldn't have been. Look what she did with the hydrangeas.

(Soundbite of laughter)

SAGAL: So that woman was surprised her neighbor turned out to be what?

Ms. NYE: A deep undercover Russian spy.

SAGAL: Yes, indeed.

(Soundbite of bell)

(Soundbite of applause)

SAGAL: It's so cool. The FBI, they swoop in, they arrested 11 people living and working among us.

Mr. O'ROURKE: Yeah.

SAGAL: Our friends and neighbors, as spies. It's just like out of a movie. But as it turns out, it's a really dull movie.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. O'ROURKE: Russia has all our hydrangea secrets.

SAGAL: It's true. Well that's the question. Why would Russia go to the trouble and time to secret their agents in our suburbs? What could they possibly learn? We have infiltrated Montclair, New Jersey PTA.

(Soundbite of laughter)

SAGAL: And are destabilizing it from within.

(Soundbite of laughter)

SAGAL: And the Russian spymasters are like:, Excellent work, Agent X. Now, infiltrate Olive Garden and steal secret of never ending pasta bowl.

(Soundbite of laughter)

SAGAL: And this is one of their pass phrases, these spies. That, you know, you identify yourself to another spy. The first person says excuse me, but haven't we met in California last summer? And the response is no, I think it was the Hamptons. Which confirms the person you're speaking to is either a Russian spy or one of the "Real Housewives of New York."

Ms. SWEENEY: Right.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Ms. POUNDSTONE: Is that really what they were saying?

Ms. SWEENEY: Yes.

Ms. POUNDSTONE: They really said that?

SAGAL: Yeah, that was a real one.

Ms. SWEENEY: And they have other cities too. Because they had other ones where they'd say didn't I know you in Milan?

SAGAL: yes.

Ms. SWEENEY: No, it was in...

Mr. O'ROURKE: Moscow.

Ms. SWEENEY: ...Prague.

Mr. O'ROURKE: I mean...

SAGAL: No.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. O'ROURKE: Oh, did I say that out loud? I mean, Yonkers.

SAGAL: It's actually kind of hard to square this whole thing with our image of spies, you know like James - imagine James Bond getting married to Pussy Galore and settling down...

Mr. O'ROURKE: Let's just wreck it all, in Yonkers.

SAGAL: ...in Montclair, or wherever. It'd be like, it's James Bond, view to a cul de sac.

(Soundbite of laughter)

SAGAL: He'd have a minivan, but it'd be a special minivan from Q. It would instantly transform into a riding mower.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Transcript from NPR. Oh, Wait Wait. Don't ever change.


EDIT: The font is a little wonky on the computer I'm using at work. I'll see if I can fix this when I get home.
EDIT DEUX: Fixed!

Conversations with My Brother

NOTE: This post contains spoilers for the Harry Potter series. I tried to hide them as best as possible, but they are still slightly visible through the black highlighting. Continue at your peril - or finish reading the darn books already!


Tonight, after finishing our daily Order of the Phoenix reading (this time, Chapter Twenty-Eight: Snape's Worst Memory, and Chapter Twenty-Nine: Career Advice):


Me: So was there anything in particular that you found interesting or funny?
Josh: Oh yeah. I so want a Pensieve right now! Then I could go into your memories and ride the Tower of Terror in Orlando.
Me: ...
Josh: Because you've been on it and I haven't!
Me: ... Okay. But what about the part where [SPOILERS - highlight to read] James turned out to be a bit of a bully?
Josh: Yeah, that was a bit surprising.
Me: What do you think made it Snape's worst memory?
Josh: Duh. It was embarrassing.
Me: Okay, but what in particular?
Josh: Umm... he used Sectumsempra!
Me: Yeah, but what else? I mean, you'll find out in book seven, but that wasn't the first time Snape had been bullied. What do you think made this time different, extra intense?
Josh: I don't know. I can't figure it out! I really want to find out!
Me (headdesking a little on the inside): I guess we'll just have to keep reading, then!
Josh: Yeah! Hey, can you tell me about the MGM Studios Tower of Terror? What was it like?
Me (thinking): Not again!


I can't wait 'til we get to Deathly Hallows and Nagini pops out of Bathilda Bagshot's rotting corpse. That'll be a barrel of laughs to read about. Oh, eleven-year-olds.

On the Animation Age Ghetto

Last night as I sat down in the living room with my mom, she asked me what I'd been sent from Netflix lately. 

"Oh, you know," I said. "The next disc of Gilmore Girls, A Bug's Life, and Coraline."

"What's Coraline?" she asked.

"It's this movie that came out a couple years ago. It's based on a book. It's about this girl, and it's animated..." I trailed off. I've never read Coraline, and I'm waiting until Jackie gets back from Notre Dame to watch it with her, so I don't really know much about it. 

My mom made a face and turned back to Practical Magic on the television.

"Hey, what's wrong with animation?" I said. "It's just a medium used to tell a story. "

She shrugged. "I prefer my stories to be told with real people," she said.

"But that's the wrong attitude to have," I insisted. "Very serious stories can be presented through animation. We had to watch Persepolis in my French class this year. It's about a girl growing up during the Iranian Revolution, Mami!"

My mom shrugged again. I sighed, crossed my legs, and watched the rest of Practical Magic with her. (Did you know that Abbey Bartlet is Gracie Hart's aunt? And also that she went by Rizzo when she was young? The wonders never cease.)

This conversation with my mom does raise an important point, though. Don't get me wrong, I love her dearly, but she's certainly not alone in this line of thinking. The prevailing view is that somehow animation is inherently less valid than live action, perhaps even childish. This, my friends, is known as the Animation Age Ghetto. You can find a very good post on it here, as well as the TV Tropes article I've also linked to above. I admit that I am somewhat biased; except for a brief period when I was roughly twelve to fourteen (and tended to buy into the animation-is-for-kids ridiculousness), I've always loved animation as a storytelling device. If you've talked to me more than a few times, you should know that I absolutely swear by Pixar Animation Studios and I've recently become obsessed with Avatar: The Last Airbender (not to be confused with that terrible movie that came out two weeks ago. I'm talking about the Nickelodeon television series). But if you've seen any episode of A:TLA or anything produced by Pixar, you should also know that the animation-as-childish argument has no merit.

I dare you to find anything more touching and heartbreaking than this sequence from Up, for example. Or tell me that this scene from The Incredibles isn't just as dramatic as the most recent live-action blockbluster. Or say that this clip from The Lion King is an example of subpar, childish storytelling.

Now, if you genuinely just don't care for the medium of animation, that's your preference and there's nothing I can do to convince you otherwise. At the risk of seeming a hypocrite, I generally don't care for anime; the storylines are usually very strange and the art style does nothing for me. Why does that girl have blue hair and no one comments on it? If her hair is actually supposed to be black, why isn't it colored black? It's kind of like Fauvism in that respect - why are the mountains pink? I don't get it! But I digress.

Still, even if you dislike a medium, you can't dismiss its storytelling qualities. Richie watches enough anime for me to know that much of it is incredibly complex, character-driven, and immersive (and not, as Dragonball Z would lead me to believe, full of people shouting at each other over a split-screen). The same goes for animation. You may not care for the look of a character or the physics-defying way that she moves, but you can't deny that she has a well-developed arc, if her creators have done their job correctly. Nothing about a story is less meaningful just because it happens to be told through hand-drawn or computer-generated characters rather than actors in costume. Sometimes, in fact, the story works much better in that format! Can you imagine a live-action Ratatouille? No, I didn't think so. How about one of my absolute favorite songs, "Colors of the Wind" from Pocahontas (as anyone who lived remotely nearby me in Brown should know)? Would it have been a better piece of filmmaking with actors frolicking in the woods?

And speaking of Pocahontas, I seem to recall that James Cameron's Avatar is currently the highest-grossing movie of all time. I'm pretty sure that about 90% of that film was computer animated. So why is it taken more seriously by the general moviegoing public than, say, WALL-E, which had a far more original storyline? Why is it okay for adult fanboys to rave over FernGully with Smurfs, but Finding Nemo is dismissed with a handwave as "just for kids"?

Animation is just as valid a form of storytelling as live action. If you don't believe me, watch these clips from a Best Picture nominee we all know and love (the last link is the movie's ending, but I think I can safely say we've all seen it). How is that not just as worthy of an Oscar as Slumdog Millionaire or Forrest Gump? 

The History of the Barnes Family Road Trips

We're all waiting rather impatiently for my dad and Richie to return to Casa Barnes. For one thing, they got to see Chicago and our grandparents. For another, they took our brand-new Toyota Camry with them, which means I have to drive my dad's old Chevy pickup to work. Oh, and we miss them like crazy, of course.


Now, for our family, driving to Illinois and back is not out of the ordinary. For as long as I can remember, we've taken road trips. When I was a baby my parents drove from Iowa to Maine, going up through Canada for at least some of the journey. I know of at least one occasion when I was about seven when we drove from Massachusetts, where we lived then, to Wisconsin, where my parents would be attending a conference. We often drove from Massachusetts to Pennsylvania to see my titi (that's Puerto Rican for aunt - tía is very formal there) and her family. When we moved to Costa Rica for a year, we put our things in storage at my uncle's house in Maine, and when we moved to California, we set out the following summer to get our things. By car.


That was also the trip when I walked straight into a tree at the Grand Canyon, but I'd rather not discuss it.


So, as you can see, both from the map above and my own account, road trips are nothing new for la familia Barnes-González. Our most recent one as an entire family was last summer, as a matter of fact. I was moving to college and had about six boxes of stuff to bring with me. So into the Suburban we got. I liked that trip especially because I got to do about a third of the driving, and we had some excellent stops along the way; we spent a couple of days near Kansas City, and I got to see the hospital where I was born and where my parents had gone to seminary; we watched Half-Blood Prince at a theatre in Des Moines before continuing on to the little Iowa town where I had spent the first four years of my life; and we had a lovely dinner with Ellen Brown in Ohio. Then we had the longest drive ever (or at least it felt like it) to my titi's town in Pennsylvania - we didn't get there until about three in the morning.


You'll notice, however, that the states I haven't been to are concentrated in two major areas: the Southeast and the Northwest. I'm rather hoping that going to college in Virginia will help me take care of the South, especially as I'm hoping to do beach week in North Carolina at one point. I'd love to see Georgia properly; technically, I've only been to the airport in Atlanta, which really shouldn't count, but I also like to say I've been to South America when I've technically only been to airport in Caracas, Venezuela. So I'm counting Georgia (and Kentucky, where I've only been to the Cincinnati-Covington airport) anyway. I'm also dying to see New Orleans - it sounds like such a wonderful place, even post-Katrina.


Now, as for the Northwest... I really don't know when I'll get to see any of that. I haven't even been to most of Northern California; I've never been to San Francisco (although I'm trying to change that this summer) or Berkeley. In fact, the farthest north I've been (in California) is a small town called Ceres, very close to Modesto (which is where George Lucas grew up, by the way). One of these days I'm going to have to convince my parents to take a trip to Washington, just so I can knock another couple of states off my list. I've not been to Alaska or Hawaii either, but I'm thinking that seeing them anytime soon is probably a longshot. Hey, I've been to Puerto Rico at least five times, so I'm not complaining.


So there you have it! A very abridged history of Barnes Family road trips. Has anyone been to all 50 states? All of the lower forty-eight? Just the state you were born in? Let me know!

California Dreamin'

It's a sunny, hot day here in Southern California, and nearly half of la familia Barnes-González is in Illinois (or perhaps Indiana, on the way to Illinois), helping my grandparents move. My brother, Joshua, is undoubtedly playing with his new Nintendo DS, which he paid for himself, and which took its sweet time getting here. He's eleven, and such a boy sometimes. He once waved a dead cockroach in front of me on a stick and threatened to chase me around the house with it. But we're also reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix together, and he puts up with my constant attempts to teach him French, so I guess he's all right in my book.

El Centro is a sleepy place. Maybe it's because it'll be 115 today, or we're about two hours away from the nearest big city (San Diego), but there's rarely anything of consequence happening here. When I was finishing up my first year at the University of Virginia I couldn't wait to come home, but now that I've been away from school for two months I'm impatiently counting down the days to go back. I miss the bustle of college life, with friends just a portal away, and always someone to watch movies with at midnight. True, I don't have to pay three dollars to do my laundry when I'm at home, but I also can't run across the street and frolic on the Lawn in a Regency dress. Well, I suppose I could, though I'd rather not incur strange looks from the neighbors.

I do love some things about El Centro. For one, there's real Mexican food here, not the Tex-Mex they insist on serving us in the dining halls. As much as the idea of vegetarianism appeals to me, there is nothing more delicious after a long day than a steaming sincronizada (a quesadilla with carne asada inside of it, preferably made with flour tortillas). My mom also makes (and is teaching me to make) excellent Puerto Rican food, so I'm not lacking for tastiness at mealtimes. Many of my closest friends live here, although I've seen surprisingly few of them this summer. Still, I've managed to surprise Sadie and Katherine at the mall, have Starbucks with Andy and then Priscilla, go to the movies with both Fink twins, Alyson and Sara, rock Disneyland with Jessi, have an enjoyable chat with Mariana at Andy's party, and see several people from high school (Randall and Jonathan, just off the top of my head) while I'm working at the community college. There's also been lunch with Pastor Suzi, who is one of my favorite people, and a couple of Sundays of youth group, with Mrs. Tyler and my brother Richie's friends. I might get to see Gabby on Monday. And of course, I've spent plenty of time with Jackie, though she's currently away at Notre Dame for a summer program. I miss you, mi amiga!

I've recently come to the conclusion, however, that even the enjoyable aspects of El Centro don't really feel like they're a part of my life anymore. I've moved on. I love my family and I'm always happy to spend time with them. I love my friends and the company they provide. Church at FUMC is still interesting, and the congregation is as welcoming as ever. But that stage of my life is over now. It's nice to come back for a visit, but it should only be that. I'm returning to Charlottesville in a month and five days, and right now, it's where I belong. I have to get back to studying government, and my beloved Harrison, and Jane Austen Society, and informal worship at the Wesley Foundation. I have to start precinct captaining in earnest for University Hall, because we have a congressman to re-elect in the Fifth District (Perriello! Perriello!). I have to watch shooting stars at one in the morning with Sara and Maria, and have an Avatar marathon with Pooja, and finish up season one of The West Wing with Kathryn. I'll be twenty in November, and as much as I appreciate the slow days of summer (my last as a teenager), it's time to embrace adulthood now.

Or, at least, adulthood as it is in college.