Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets

Intellectually, I feel like I prefer The Sorcerer’s Stone (Book #1) to this second book in the Harry Potter series. But emotionally? I finished this book and drew in my breath and smiled and thought, “That was even better than the last book! I love this series.” Okay, in the first half of the book, I felt a bit restless. I felt like Rowling kept telling me things about Harry and all that I literally just read in the previous book. I know that this is because readers might enter the series in any of the books, so she has to recap to keep readers from getting confused. But it was a little boring and repetitive for this reader in places. That might have simply been because I had the flu last week. I read the first couple chapters while I was healthy and loved them. The flying car, ha! The garden gnomes! I laughed aloud in several places. Then when I caught the flu, I read about the headless ghosts party on Halloween, and I think I was supposed to laugh but didn’t find any of it at all funny. The mystery, the repetitive recapping of the plot, eh. I wasn’t laughing and wasn’t all that hooked to the story. 

 

I thought the little elf was odd, and I started thinking, “Oh, no. Here we go with the elves. This is starting to feel like fantasy. Yuk.” And the weird little screaming babies that can kill with their scream? I thought that was really weird and didn’t feel at all interested in hearing more. Then when the second half starts, and I was recovering from the flu, and Harry and Ron go to the cave, and the little elf... Well, I was turning pages fast, and feeling all, “I love imagining that there is a Hogwarts under London! And that little Harry is trying to save the world! And that there are Christmas parties with such beautiful decorations and majestic Dumbledore sits there celebrating and it’s all so magical!” and stuff. Which means that when I closed the book I was fully satisfied and no longer minded all of the recapping of plot. I don’t feel like recapping here either. Instead I’m just writing this little entry to remind future me that this is a joyful story, and that I might look back on it in twenty years and think, “Hm. Maybe I should re-read, but really, it’s just Harry Potter.” But no! It’s so magical! And funny!

Emergency Department

Fabrice was clinging to the bedrail when the paramedics wheeled him into the emergency department. I watched from down the hall as a portly police officer struggled to keep up and glanced upward at the receiving board to learn the story. Another stabbing victim. In this urban ed, it was a common story, another young male caught up in gang violence and the drug trade. I slipped in quietly as Fabrice answered the doctor's questions. I was a silent shadow, there just to observe and to learn what I could. I watched the nurses move about with well-rehearsed choreography, each sure of his or her task. A resident poked and prodded as his attending arms folded tightly, watched every move. Monitors chimed their familiar tones and interrupted the steady whoosh of the ultrasound. A brand-new student, I hid in the corner, mystified by acronyms and lab values, unable to comprehend the snowy sonar picture. Eventually, all the tests were finished. Luckily for Fabrice, there was no serious injury, just a constellation of cuts that needed more than a few stitches and about an hour of the rushed resident's time.

As we sat down, Fabrice noticed my shirt and tie, glaringly out of place in this department full of scrubs and white coats. My badge, issued by the hospital just hours earlier, gave me away as an interloper. His eyebrow rose suspiciously and my cheeks flushed red. I explained myself as a first year medical student, just starting out and ready to learn. I asked it if was ok if I stayed to watch the resident sew his stitches. Fabrice's face lit up. He was excited to serve as a learning model, and insisted that I lean in closer so that I could see every twist of the needle driver. He presented either arm, proudly displaying the many rows of railroad track scars that bore evidence to no small familiarity with the sharp end of a knife. He insisted that I be allowed to place the last stitch, an unnecessary knot at the periphery of the wound, but a tiny indent that he'd be able to show as proof of his night as a professor. Fabrice walked out of the front door of the hospital and into the dark early morning. There was no great life lesson learned, no moment of realization or epiphany. Fabrice represented the constant story of the recurrent inner city trauma patient, and the tired resident sighed as he pulled off his gloves. And we were done.

A Trip at The Zoo

Don't you ever get tired of spending your weekends in the same old pubs, with the same old friends, telling the same old college stories? Last Saturday, I was pretty fed up myself so I decided to make a change. I chose to spend my day at the zoo! With biology classes being far behind me, I had to read something about some of these pretty awkward creatures before spending my whole day with them. There are some animal facts that will make you fear some of them while falling for the other ones: big or small, dangerous or friendly, they all have their own way of interacting with human beings. Well, you would never guess how happy I was to break my routine and make some new "friends". I wasn't able to buy them a beer or brag about my long time gone popularity but I did enjoy my time there. So, here's some funny stuff about animals I have discovered at the zoo!

Every animal resembles one of your friends, relatives or accountancies. It is not always at their advantage. Monkeys are mean, you cannot imagine what they are literally capable of doing in exchange for food and attention so thank God I came loaded with biscuits, bananas and good will. Giraffes are actually kind of fast (it wasn't the impression I was getting from old Marty, one of the animals in the Madagascar movies). It's enough to watch the lion sleep in order to be scared to death. Can't imagine what it's like when it's wide awake and roaring. Bears are big, really, really big. Before going to the zoo, I read about the differences between the African and Indian species of elephants. Well, I didn't understand what small elephant ears look like. They looked pretty big to me, even if the brother of Dumbo I saw was coming from India. You have to go to the zoo, it is not just a place for school trips. Animals can be pretty great to hang out with when you want to try something different. How about next weekend?

Notes from the Box

Some of you out there in stopmo-land may remember a very inspirational blog that vanished from the web a year or so ago. Yes I am speaking of course about "Notes from the Box" which was the passionately keyed stopmo ramblings of animator Misha Klein. Well- for anyone out there that might be wondering, the blog may be gone but Misha's project (previous known as "Bad Bullets") is in full production. What started in his little one room studio in San Francisco years back is now nearing completion in another cramped box here in Los Angeles. I've seen some of the most recent shots and all I can tell you is that fans of stop-motion are in for a treat. Misha is crossing over into some juicy acting zones and really putting it all into the performance. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Mish, check out the teaser scene for his film. Visit Misha's Web Site. The reading has paid off, he is definately following "The Way of the Actor". Keep rockin' it Mish!

Hurakan Project

Hurakan part 4 is over... long live Hurakan part 5! Okay, maybe that was a bit cheesy, but I'm getting really excited about wrapping up this challenge. Note to self, long arc challenges are informative, but they are looong! Not to mention, if you caught my post the other day concerning my changing role, then I've got a new focus, and I want to focus some of the challenges towards finding artists that can help me in that role (nudge, nudge). New Challenge. Concept name Hurakan, God of storms. Concept Description. Do you remember the description of Hurakan? If not, swing by and check out the original post. An in case you don't remember the steps in the 5 part process we are using. Here's how the challenge arc is going to go. Phase 1 character silhouettes (completed). Phase 2 character thumbs (completed). Phase 3 Black and White detailed character drawings & compositional Book Cover thumbnails (completed). Phase 4 Character color roughs & Black & White Book Cover detailed drawings (completed). Phase 5 Final color Character development & Book Cover color rough. Phase 6 Book Cover Final. Were moving into phase 5. This part of the challenge has two parts to it. Character, final color and Cover, color rough.
 

Part 1. We coming down to the end of the line with our characters. It's time to pull out all the stops and do the final render on our character. Do you remember the dwarf that Kieran Yanner was working on last week? Well, he took his tight drawing and his color palette, and gave me a tight render. Now I've got myself a solid concept piece. Something that I can either develop further, drop into a style guide, or use for the basis for further explorations. In case you missed it, here was the progression, rough, tight drawing, color palette, final render. Part 2. So we've played with our composition, we've looked at the details of the image, now it's time to take the lessons learned and start looking at the palette of the image. While you working on this portion of the challenge, remember that our marketing professionals from cartoon coloring pages have told us that they think that blue and green will be big colors next season. Think about how you will let this information influence your color decisions. It is also very important to think about how hue and contrast will affect the visual impact of the image. It will either enhance, or detract from your composition and overall image quality.

Details. For part 5, I would like to see the final character render, and the detailed cover drawing with it's color palette in a single file, no larger than 1600 x 1600 pixels. Arrangement and presentation is up to you. Requirements. Image should be submitted as RGB, jpg format files. A link to the image should be sent to Hurakan challenge Part 5. Do not send attachments! The Judging. There will not be any judging, per se. I will select submissions for discussion and critiques only. The goal of these challenges is to build towards the final judged book cover challenge. Speaking of, keep your eyes peeled for upcoming announcements concerning our judging panel for the final segment of the challenge! From ArtDrop. I've been seeing a lot of stellar submissions at ArtDrop lately, and it feels like a great time to grab a submission and throw it into the spotlight. I've been watching this artists work for a bit, and she keep stepping up her game. One of the things I appreciate about Nicole, is that she updates her website pretty often. There's nothing I hate more than to get a note from an artists about the "great work they are doing", and when I go to their website it hasn't been updated for two years. Shameful! Go forth and Create!

That Familiar Feeling

There was a familiarity to this day, the kind you never want to be familiar with. The breeze was cold, my lungs struggled to breath the chill of the morning during my run. I am again in this city I have come to relate with emergencies, tragedy, doctors, hospitals. A large contrast to what it has always been fun, runs, laughs, friends. The heaviness in my eyes, the result of less hours of sleep than I need, is also familiar. I turned a corner and see people busy with their day, kids walking to school, cars barely stopping at red lights while I cross the street. There is a large feeling of impotence to this new turn of events in the life of someone I love dearly. I have to get my run in before going back to the hospital. I had to stop at a light to compose and continue my run. Funny how we relate places and moments with feelings and emotions, there are memories that bring back anxiety, tears, sadness. Today my mind is remembering moments like that, remembering that months ago I ran these streets awaiting the passing of my aunt. I am remembering that day. And when one strong emotion invades me others of similar nature follow. Other memories assault me, some totally unrelated. I am remembering the days when I would rush to a bathroom to hide my sadness. Sadness is a powerful emotion and not a very useful one. It renders us worthless far longer than any emotion should. But there are times when we can't do anything other than feel what we need to feel. Today seems to be one of those days. Today is familiar, way too familiar. 

Asteroid Collisions

In recent years, astronomers, paleontologists and geologists have given us one more thing to worry about. That a large meteor or comet may strike the earth and destroy humanity or at least a good portion of it. If a collision occurred between Earth and an asteroid a few kilometers in diameter, it would release as much energy as several million nuclear weapons detonating simultaneously. This would be enough to trigger a nuclear winter. Those who survived the blast might starve to death as all plant life died. Recently we have seen a spate of science fiction movies with this theme, and it has been a staple of SF and doomsayers for a long time. How real is the threat? That is the question I intend to answer here. Note: Much of the information I gleaned from a Wikipedia article entitled Impact Event. The Wikipedia has a lot more information about possible asteroid collisions with earth and other planets in the solar system. Throughout recorded history, hundreds impact events have been reported, with some occurrences causing deaths, injuries, property damage or other significant localized consequences. An impact event in an ocean or sea could create a tsunami that would cause destruction both at sea and on land near a seashore. Small objects frequently collide with the Earth. There is an inverse relationship between the size of the object and the frequency that such objects hit the earth. Asteroids with a 1 km (0.62 miles) diameter strike the Earth every 500,000 years on average. Large collisions, with 5 km (3 miles) objects, happen approximately once every ten million years. 

The last known impact of an object of 10 km (6 miles) or more in diameter was at the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event 65 million years ago which wiped out the dinosaurs. Asteroids with diameters of 5 to 10 meters (16 to 33 feat) enter the Earth's atmosphere approximately once per year, with as much energy as the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, approximately 15 kilotons of TNT. Usually they explode in the upper atmosphere, and most or all of the solids are vaporized. Objects with diameters over 50 meters (164 feat) strike the Earth approximately once every thousand years, producing explosions comparable to the one known to have detonated above Tunguska in 1908. At least one known asteroid with a diameter of over 1 km (0.62 miles) may collide with Earth on March 16, 2880. Objects with diameters smaller than 10 meters (33 feat) are called meteoroids (or meteorites if they strike the ground). An estimated 500 meteorites reach the surface each year, but only 5 or 6 of these are recovered and made known to scientists. The most significant recorded impact on earth in recent times was the Tunguska event, which occurred in Siberia, Russia, in 1908. This incident involved an explosion that was probably caused by the air burst of an asteroid or comet 5 to 10 km (3.1 to 6.2 miles) above the Earth's surface. It caused an estimated 80 million trees over 2,150 km2 (830 square miles) to be knocked over. In my latest Morgaine novel, Morgaine and the Necromancer, this event plays a part in the plot.

Numerous science fiction stories and novels center around an impact event; possibly the best-selling was the novel Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. In 1992 a Congressional study in the U.S. led to NASA being directed to undertake a Spaceguard Survey with the novel being named as the inspiration for the name to search for Earth-impacting asteroids. This in turn inspired Clarke's 1993 novel The Hammer of God. Jack McDevitt's 1999 novel Moonfall, in which a very large comet travelling at interstellar velocities collides with and partially destroys the Moon, fragments of which then collide with the Earth. Several disaster movies have also been made: When Worlds Collide (1951) dealt with two planets on a collision course with Earth, the smaller planet a "near miss," causing extensive damage and destruction, followed by a direct hit from the larger planet. Meteor (1979) features small asteroid fragments and a large 8 km (5 miles) wide asteroid heading for Earth. In 1998 two films were released in the United States on the subject of attempting to stop impact events: Touchstone Pictures' Armageddon, about an asteroid, and Paramount / DreamWorks' Deep Impact, about a comet. The prophesies in the Book of Revelation in the Christian bible seem to indicate that part of the devastation of the Apocalypse will be caused by objects falling down from the sky. I used this scenario in the fifth book of my Morgaine series of novels, Morgaine and Armageddon. Whether a catastrophic asteroid collision with earth will occur within our lifetime is problematical. What is certain is that sooner or later, one will strike the earth. Will we be ready to either divert it or deal with the consequences?