This came from an exchange in the comments on bookshop's post about women in HP that I'm sort of elaborating on. Rowling has said, looking at the series that it is "a litany of bad fathers" because that's where she thinks "evil" tends to "flourish"--where people didn't get "good fathering."

( It made me think about mothers in canon. Longer than I expected, with weird stuff about Hagrid! )

I saw The Year of Magical Thinking last night, btw, with Vanessa Redgrave. I liked it better than I thought I would. Might write something about it later.

I dreamed last night I went to Bristol. And I was staying with the Stantons (as in Will's family from TDiR). In the dream Will's village was just a different part of the city from where the University was, and though I was supposed to be leaving soon I was about to walk the straight line from the large cathedral which was apparently near the Stanton's farm, straight down to the Christmas Steps. I think I was kicking myself for not going there more often when I lived there--before I woke up and remembered where Will actually lived in the book. Anyway, it was nice to be in Bristol again-wonder how it's changed since I was there.

I went to see Barbara Cook on Friday night. It's sad that I will never be as cool as this woman is in her 70s. She talked about being part of the "Golden Age of Musicals" and wondered if we were in a Golden Age now--because hey, she didn't know then. Maybe we are! She also told some great Elaine Stritch stories. Mostly she just sang incredibly well. Oh, and she did one song from Fiorello where she explained that she'd had to contact the lyricist and ask he write new lyrics because she didn't think the old ones would go over well. She shared the old lyrics afterwards, though:

"And if he likes me
What does it matter if he strikes me?
I'll fetch him his slippers with my arm in a sling
Just for the privilege of wearing his ring."

Yeah, it was probably good he changed them. The two of them were both just sort of horrified at how clever those lyrics seemed when they first heard them. I find people like Barbara Cook just make me incredibly jealous over their lives and the way they spend their time and who they know and what they create.

Also there are some great discussions of showing vs. telling, and it's led me to think about the way the Slytherins are presented--yes, I know everyone is shocked. You were all expecting yet another long treatise on Fudge, no doubt. This is kind of a sum up of things I've said recently in other places, so it's probably repetitive, but I figured I'd put it out there under this one point. ( And here it is. )