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

• ReverbNation | Myspace | YouTube

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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.