Harry Potter and the Grownup World

        Something happened to my generation this weekend.  Something that can never un-happen.  And it's frightening and sad and intangible and a little unexpected, but it unquestionably happened. 
And this thing is the end of our collective childhood.  What makes me so sure of this cutoff?
That would be the real end of the Harry Potter saga.
True, they're just movies, and true, I'd known the ending of the story for years, but there's no question that when those credits rolled after the epilogue, something was done.  This story we'd all grown up on was at last done being told.  Some of us are young enough that we were read the story at first.  Some of us are old enough that we stooped to "children's books" to read this story that everyone else was talking about.  I was personally above the stupid story about the nerdy kid who was actually a wizard-- until, that is, I actually read it.  Wherever we were when it happened, The Boy Who Lived is the story of our childhood.  Its the story of a child who was totally unremarkable being pushed forward into a big world that was alluring and unfamiliar.  This world was a magnificent place, full of wonder and excitement, but not without danger.  Truly in 2003, when I was reading of a faceless enemy attacking the home of the heroes I'd come to see as Us, when I read of parents unsure whether to send their children back to school in dark times, I couldn't help but realize that Order of the Phoenix was a story of my own time.
I saw an ordinary boy dragged by chance into the grandest adventure told in my lifetime, saw him grow as a hero and a person while he juggled exams and relationships, and finally saw him confront an enemy that literally was a part of himself.  And the next thing you know, the three children I grew up with are adults.  The credits closed to black and one thing was absolutely clear. 
The mythology of my childhood was finished.
Now what are we supposed to do?  We can't find a new legend like Harry Potter to throw our whole culture into-- such devotion and delusion are unbefitting people who have reached adulthood.  We've lost the ability to be told a story.
And the music swells in minor, running helplessly down the slow strings of a violin. But all hope is not lost.  Because, you see, when we become adults we may lose the ability to be held rapt by tales of magic.  But we gain the ability to live our own high adventure.  Children sit safe in their rooms and live vicariously through bedtime stories-- adults travel the world.
Do I honestly think actually just going somewhere in the real world is equal to the magic and adventure of the Hero's Journey of Harry Potter? 
Without a doubt, yes.
There is mystery and wonder for lifetimes out here.  Anyone who knows about what happens inside the Large Hadron Collider knows there is magic.  If it's adventure you're after, take a trip to Komodo- the dragons there may not breathe fire, but they're much more likely to stalk you for days for a taste of your flesh.
So, class of '11, the point that (Hogwarts class of '11) I'm struggling to make without sounding like a graduation speaker is this: 
My generation hasn't lost anything with the end of the Harry Potter saga.  They were wonderful stories.  And some day I will pass them on to children (or flush with pride some night when I catch my children reading Harry Potter sitting by their nightlight because I told them "lights out" an hour ago).  But those stories are confined to the page, an imitation of a real adventure.  There's real adventure out there to be had.   Harry Potter has taught me a few things about how to meet that adventure, but I don't need yearn for his story- mine will be be real.
Have a look into the Pensieve for a moment.  Eighty years before Harry Potter, in a time that had very little in common besides the popularity of round spectacles, there was another literary character who surged to popularity in the English-speaking world.  Hopefully the longevity of this character says good things for the unforgettable Harry Potter, but it's what this character had to say for himself that I want to share with you now.

 Let me live deep while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content. Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.

These words come from Robert E. Howard's character, Conan the Barbarian in 1934.  I learned recently that this story is coming out as a new movie this year.  I'm not surprised.  The message here is clear, universal, and endlessly part of the human spirit:  No story can be told that is greater than the experience of life.
 And we only get one shot at that.
 It's my turn to step into the night, with or without Dumbledore, and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure.


Jeff-Teacher

(I realize this was a little short on Korea-stories.  Don't worry, the adventure continues next time as I'll tell you what Korean history has taught me about how I should live to become a legend.)



Incheon: it's French for 'Dark', I've heard

Two weeks now since we seen the sun.  You'd think it got up in the morning, took one look at this city and called in sick, every day.  Whadda we get?  Rain. The kinda rain that runs in rivers for miles, and never cleans anything off the streets of this concrete jungle.  And the people all hide away from it, like it'll dirty them up next.  It's like everyone out there traded in their heads for these awful black umbrellas.  City that never smiles.
Yeah, I been gone a month or so, who's askin?  Why?  There was this dame.  We boarded a plane, ran for Jeju-- the Island of the Gods--that's what they called it, see.  The place where three gods in some story came outta holes in the ground and started the country or something like that.  Started by gods, run by politicians.  Somewhere in that history book, there's gotta be a mistranslation.   After all, how do you live with a history like that?  Sure, if you told everyone nowadays your great-grandpa popped out of a hole in the ground and said "let there be Korea", they'd put you away!  Nothin.
The island was a lovely place, if you like your fish and you like it still smiling at you.  Pretty enough to be in pictures, yeah it's somethin.  But it all comes from a volcano, and they know it.  That the world itself said "to hell with this place, let's see what kinda pretty fire it can make!"  and just like that, *pow*, a million postcard shops were born.  The attitude stayed, though.  One night it was, the lady and I were hoping to find a nice place, inside somewhere, where the jazz was free and the drinks were smooth.  Or the other way around, either woulda been nice.  Whatever it was, the two of us walked in arm in arm, and it was like the piano itself went out for a smoke break.  The room got quiet.   Only the ice in a glass moved, and even that got itself a dirty look for its troubles.  A waitress sauntered over, all painted up like she was the best tourist attraction in town.  Her co-workers had taken one look at us and dropped outta sight.  Guess she'd drawn the short straw.
"Sorry," she quipped, with a downright admirable imrpession of sincerity, "we don't serve your kind."  Figures.  Isn't that how life goes?  Just when you think you'd found a nice place, it turns out you found a real place instead.  We eventually did find a place that'd let us in from the rain.  The steaks were better there, too.
But life never stays away, like you'd hope it would.  A week of fine food, music, and that crazy-cold mist that even tropical islands can set into your bones come nightfall...and work was calling me back.

Name's Jeff M. Davis.  I'm a teacher.  It'd say that on my door, if I had a door of my own.  Trouble is (and believe me, trouble always is) the world isn't as kind to us private folk as it used to be.  A man hardly can get to work without the calls coming in already- dissatisfied customers, outraged clients-- you're never half the teacher they wanted you to be, and they're always payin you half what a teacher outta be paid.  I spend my mornings and evenings in the gyms- daytime on the nice side of town, nighttime in a place where little old ladies don't walk their poodles alone.  In a world like this, a man's gotta know how to do for himself if some toughs jump outta an alley.  Got myself one black belt, and may even have two in a month.   But who am I kiddin?  Nothing exciting ever happens here in the rain.

Oh and don't forget, if the rain doesn't get ya, the heat will.  Times like these, the summer even drives the flies indoors.  Tough luck for me.  Tougher for the flies.  Air conditioners and freezers gasp like a chump who got given the long walk off a short pier, if you read what I'm sayin.  So when this dame showed up at my door, all the way from America with a proposition, I was all ears.  Pictures, it turned out, was what she had in mind, the kind you see in the cinemas.   Somethin to do indoors when the summer's waiting for you outside with a Chicago typewriter and a lousy attitude
"Sweetheart," I questioned her, "where am I supposed to get the money to buy all these movies you're talking about?  What would ya have me do, knock over Fort Knox?"  She laughed dangerously, leaning across the doorway to answer.  The single bare lightbulb cast her shadow into the hall, throwing off curves that'd make a major league pitcher cry. 
"Who said anything," she came back with a half a smile and even less conscience, "about buying?" 
Turns out I'm in the best place in the world for movies, and not the kind you can see on the silver screen.  No, in a place with a connection this fast, and copyright laws as loose and wild as they are, seems a fella couldn't ask for a better time and place to try his hand at downloading.  So she just has ta ask, and the films come flowing in.  Now I'm doin pretty well, I see her on the weekends, when she's finished her classes, take her out to a nice restaurant, then hold the umbrella while she gets in a cab.  After that I catch the last midnight train to Incheon, my city that never smiles, back the the apartment with the bare bulb swinging and the computer humming as the tide of movies creeps higher.

Well, that's the truth, or near about as I can make it.  I may have embellished a few details, but that's my job, after all.  I'm a teacher.  Says so on my door.  Or it would, if i had one.




P.S. This fourth of July, have a bourbon for America.  Make it a double and have one for me, too.