Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Revised Ending: Take 1

Final Battle Harry by Laura McCandles

I rather enjoy the Harry Potter books, enough so that the books are a frequent topic of conversation. I laud the series as a whole, Book 6 in particular, and above all the series' devotion to friendship and love. So when Deathly Hallows ends in Voldemort's defeat by a wand technicality, with only slight nods to love and friendship playing their part, I was upset. Rowling disposes of her central and powerful theme and gives her readers and the story short shrift. So keeping in mind that I have never written anything of note, never been published, and I whole-heartedly respect and praise Rowling, I offer an alternate ending plot outline to the Deathly Hallows that appeals to the storyteller in me.

continuing the Discordian Society "Mythology"

In addition to the longer bio I wrote for the Roanoke-based Discoridan Society, they asked for a piece of a length better suited to press releases. Considering the mercurial character of the band, I went with a completely new version of the band "mythology," one inspired by Jorge Luis Borges story "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius," a Philip K. Dick speech, quoted below, and White Wolf's role-playing game Mage: The Ascension, of all things.

Discordian Society Links

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In theme parks there are fake birds worked by electric motors which emit caws and shrieks as you pass by them. Suppose some night all of us sneaked into the park and substituted real birds for the artificial ones. Imagine the park officials’ horror when they discovered the cruel hoax. Real birds! And perhaps someday even real hippos and lions. Consternation! the park being cunningly transmuted from the unreal to the real, by sinister forces.

--Philip K. Dick, "How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later"

THE DISCORDIAN SOCIETY

excerpt from The Second Encyclopedia of Tlön entry “UR.”

The Discordian Society, which made its first appearance in this unreality in 200X, is perhaps one of the finest examples of an ur. The conscious universe, aware of the suffusion of creative fakery by mass markets, manipulated the series of superstrings required to unveil this hoax. This apocalypse manifested when Davz 'not here' Annarelli began plucking at bass strings, the vibrations of which caused the collapse of the ersatz music's wave function. Once observed to be fake, it could no longer sustain itself, and instead the Discordian Phenomenon (DP) was given form. Delighted and intrigued, Dave added more sounds--guitar, vocals, keys, rhythm, truth, horns--forming the Discordian Society, and the synthetic fabric of popular music not only continued to pull away but rip.

To the listener, the sound of the Discordian Society is simultaneously familiar and alien, a common association with urim. It is perceived as having proceeded from jazz, prog rock, and funk, yet also “remembered” as their progenitor. Most fascinating to sociologists, quantum physicists and psychologists studying the DP is that as the listening audience accepts as real the apparent counterfeit of the familiar, fake music. This then punctures a small hole in perception, and the larger acceptance of the false unreality is slowly unravelled and replaced. It is conjectured that as the influence of the Discordian Society's sound spreads (the Society has been observed in collusion with artists Larry Keel, Yonrico Scott, Ozric Tentacles, Hot Politics, Col. Bruce Hampton, The Mantras and Ani Difranco), what we falsely consider as reality will be accepted as merely an elaborate fiction, and the mind will be transfigured to the true reality that is.

late night poetry

silken cords drawn tight and bite my skin,
bind my limbs, your words a spider's thread
hold me, steal my breath to panting, gasping.
I drown in your slow penetrating venom,
at each pulsing, pounding heart's beat--
the rhythm in your eyes, your promises, presence--
I deeper sink; this laced blood rushes through veins,
flushes skin, pinpricks eyes, and the roar of you fills my ears:
philosophies and dreams, your phantasies.
I cannot fight--I crave surrender--these bonds
embrace my flesh like lovers' hold or a drowned man's shroud
exquisite pleasure in the pain of surrend'ring self to be in you.

Helena Silence, Professional Psychic

Helena Silence is a professional psychic and best friend of Cosmo Grove, the tabloid reporter from my murder mystery project. Beautiful and kind, Helena uses her gifts to help others, and has on occasion lent Cosmo a hand in his investigations, though the extra set of arms and legs and corporeal eyes are generally more useful than her third eye ...

Aaron Tupelo - The Donut King

Meet Aaron Tupelo, 'the Donut King,' a character from my latest fiction project--a murder mystery! Aaron Tupelo is the owner and operator of the Donut King, and may or may not, be Elvis Presley, alive and well and serving fresh doughnuts and coffee 24 hours a day/6 days a week.

The Questing, Pilgrim Way

Inspired by Bill Griffin's "Sojourner," John Masefield's "Sea-Fever" and Sam Seaborne's "What's Next" speech.

The Questing, Pilgrim Way

We must out to the black again, to the roads beyond the sky,
And all I ask are soaring ships and stars at which to aim
the rockets whose cheering roars, emboldened flame,
Launch us to the sea of silver stars whose beauty makes us sigh.

We must out to the black again, for aeons now have shone
the beacons' summon to beyond the sea, the sky, the stars.
And all I ask is a solar wind to the legacy that's ours:
To explore is human destiny, to pursue the great unknown.

We must out to the black again, to the questing, pilgrim way,
To find new holy lands, new stars, new worlds, and realms
For countless souls on gleaming ships, brave pilots at the helms--
All for sunrises of stars unknown, new worlds' glorious day.

Discordian Society

Band "Biography" written for Asheville/Roanoke-based band The Discordian Society.

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This and none of the following are a lie.

I.

The Discordian Society has no definition.
--Principia Discordia, 00032

There are conflicting accounts of the birth of the Discordian Society:

ONE PUNGENDAY, the 23rd in the season of Confusion, Davz "not here' Annarelli consulted his pineal gland:
a vision of musical notes randomly played upon the ebon æther--out of this chaos of sound, patterns emerged, Mandelbrotian fractals of notes and chords, scale-regressions and apophthegms--a golden apple falls: to the pretty one--players and singers. Out of discord came harmony; then harmony merged into discord. Revealed was a cabal of musicians in anarchy anointed by Eris. From harmony there is DISCORD, from anarchy there is SOCIETY. Dave awoke, took a leak, smoked, went back to sleep.
The Second Account

IN THE PROPHECIES of Saint Gulik, it is revealed that in this Age of Bureaucracy--when we are ruled by a piece of office furniture--Eris shall call for the sound of a new prophetic nonsense, hidden in the patterns of form and harmony. Step back, and it is cacophony; step in, and it is discord that encodes the music of the sphere-incters. It will be music for the end of the world or the beginning of a new one. In this time, the mad piping of the Crawling Chaos plays on, even through the Balanced-Balance which is Stagnation. The vessel of sound which is the band will shape the notes, give rhythm to the piping with chthonic tones that shift and pause and stop the endless drone of static noise, unbalancing the balance, and thus usher in the Age of Disorder: a Discordian Society.

Meditating on these prophesies, Dave said "Screw that, I want to form a band."

II.

The Classical Greeks were not influenced by the Classical Greeks.
-Principia Discordia

A) Some Episkoposes have a one-man kabal. Some work together. Dave never explains.

B) The Discordian Society can be described by the quantum thought experiment known as Schrödinger's Symphony--the orchestra exists within the pineal gland of the Cosmic Embryo. If you crack open its skull, a symphoton fires; it will either strike and shatter the pineal gland, and the orchestra will play, or it will miss the pineal gland and the orchestra breathes fitfully in silence. Until the skull is opened, the orchestra exists in a state simultaneously playing and silent.

C) Frank Zappa was a prophet of Eris; Mr. Bungle sups from the Primordial Soup; Les Claypool subverts the Technocracy; John Zorn is a fantastic name; Jaco Pastorius was not influenced by Jaco Pastorius.

D) [This space intentionally left blank to conserve paper and electrons]

E) You've only one life, you might as well do everything that you want to do; if you're going to reincarnate, and if that's your state of belief, you might as well do everything that you want to do and try to do it while being a good person at the same time, so you don't come back as a fly or something crappy--no pun intended. Go live. Every person should have to sleep under a bridge on a cold night, once.

III.

I am chaos. I am the substance from which your artists and scientists build rhythms.
I am the spirit with which your children and clowns laugh in happy anarchy.
I am chaos. I am alive, and I tell you that you are free.
--Principia Discordia, 0009

The music breaks forth from the Region of Thud and draws a path out of pattern leading back to Oblivion. No two elements of the music are interlocked, but all five elements--destruction, creation, change, square, circle--interlock.

The music is a constant ritual of Baptism into Discord. The audience::the neophyte, stands at the centre surrounded by the five: guitar, keys, rhythm, horns, chaos. The music is naked to demonstrate that it is human and not a cabbage, expanding and contracting; swells and breathes in, exhales notes and chords in a Brownian Motion of music; reveals itself as an organism in symbiosis with the audience. The sound is a mirror that reflects and distorts the apostles who listen but do not sing out; who do not move, but dance.

It says little,
does less,
means
nothing.

Listening to it would probably make you Philosophically Illuminized if that weren't so funny.

IV.

It is my firm belief that it is a mistake to hold firm beliefs.
-- PD, 00013

Confirmation Bias is the tendency to focus on data which confirms or supports our existing beliefs & discount data which doesn’t fit. In your brain, the thinker thinks, the prover proves. Random neurons fire & the Thinker comes to the conclusion that the sound of the Discordian Society is jam-band, jazz, prog-rock, or R&B; you are right-for the Prover develops patterns from the chaos that prove you are right. Converted to your own bias, you write theses & theological tracts proving the jazz label is wrong & the jam-band label, correct. The music is the original Rorschach Test of sound. You are also very, very wrong--you premises are false & random, created to confirm your presupposed conclusion, for actually the sound is [redacted - FNORD].

V.

Is this the beginning of another cardboard day
Or is it the first day of the rest of the universe?
Will nothing happen or will everything happen?
--WEREWOLF BRIDGE, Robert Anton Wilson

Heard at the verge of a lucent dream: "Today the world, tomorrow the solar system."