Ed’s corner of the web

Wasn’t quite sure how to react to this little tidbit when I saw it, buried at the bottom of CNN’s homepage.  Evidently Dumbledore’s love interest was Grindelwald, that brilliant-yet-megalomaniacal wizard who played such an important supporting role in the last Harry Potter book.  I say I wasn’t sure how to react because it came as a total surprise.  J.K. Rowling revealed it only in a Q&A at Carnegie Hall this last Friday night.  While some fans (reportedly) may have wondered about Dumbledore’s sexuality, I can’t say that I did, any more than I did for Minerva McGonagall or Kingsley Shacklebolt.  It simply wasn’t important for the story.  If it were, then I imagine Rowling would’ve been a little less subtle.  But outing Dumbledore in this way, at this time, feels a little cheap to me.  If Rowling wanted to make a statement about sexual tolerance, then she should have made it a little more clear in her books.  Now it seems like an afterthought, a distractor, or perhaps something that Rowling wanted to avoid having to deal with in the book itself.  Of course, the far-right groups who already hate Harry Potter for promoting witchcraft now have even more to hate, but that’s hardly a big loss.  My fear now is that Dumbledore will only come to be recognized for his sexual orientation, and not for the moral, yet flawed and conflicted character he so richly represented in the books.  It’s a bit of a shame.

Link to CNN

Flu season is approaching, which means that flu shot season is here.  Get yours.  Now.  There’s really no good excuse (and those of you who really do have good excuses know who you are).

You absolutely cannot get the flu from the flu shot.

Many flu vaccines are thimerosal free, and even if you happen to get one with thimerosal, the total mercury dose is roughly equivalent to a can of chunk white tuna (and less than a can of albacore tuna).

And for all you hale and healthy folk who don’t feel they need a flu shot for themselves: remember that you don’t get a flu shot for yourself.  You get it to help protect the young children and elderly around you.  Isn’t your cute little baby cousin or your sweet grandmother worth a little stick in the arm?

I consider myself an big fan of fairs, even the ones spelled with an extra “e”. They’re a great excuse to get outside, spend too much money trying to win crappy prizes, laugh at people spending too much money trying to win crappy prizes, and eat all sorts of bad-for-you food. Out of all the fairs I’ve had the pleasure to attend, one of my favorites is the Eastern States Exposition, or just the Big E. It’s basically the state fair for Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Maine, and Rhode Island. I’ve been to bigger fairs, but the food at the Big E is my favorite. Of course it’s got all your typical fair food: curly fries, fried dough, Italian sausages, cheesesteaks, cotton candy, turkey legs, etc. But what sets the food here apart is the Avenue of the States. Here, within scale models of the six state houses, you can get Maine lobster rolls, Vermont cheddar cheese, Rhode Island quahogs, apple pie, loaded baked potatoes, maple sugar everything, ravioli, flatbread pizza - just writing about it makes me pine. Honestly, the rest of the fair has become secondary for me. I go now for the food. That being said, the rest of the fair is pretty damn fun, too. Great livestock shows, big-name musical performers, parades, butter sculptures - highly entertaining and highly recommended.

Enormous rabbit. Saw it for free, unlike the enormous pig and enormous horse.

Some Ukrainan women I met at the fair.

Everybody wants beads at the Mardi Gras parade

Our new friend Ginger

The midway at night

I don’t have to tell you that the U.S. Open is a great event to visit.  Carisa and I have been going yearly with Lana - Carisa’s sister - and John - Carisa’s dad - for several years now over Labor Day weekend.  Carisa’s dad has been going for decades.  Since we were rained out last year, we had high hopes for the tennis this year, and we weren’t disappointed.

I think the best way to enjoy the Open is not to pay big bucks for a seat in Arthur Ashe, but to buy a grounds pass.  This is all you need to make a day of walking around the field courts, watching some quality tennis (especially doubles, which you almost never get to see on TV) close up.  This year, we watched almost entirely doubles matches - men’s, women’s, and mixed.  The all-Indian mixed doubles team of Mahesh Bhupathi and Sania Mirza had the Indian contingent going nuts.  Bob and Mike Bryan were a pleasure to watch.  Unfortunately, Morariu and Shaughnessy rolled over their opponents too fast for us to see them.  Our last match of the day, though, is where the story lies.

We trundled over to the Grandstand court well after dark to watch Andy Murray play Hyung-Taik Lee.  We were all a little cold and a little tired, but we wanted to get one more match in, and with Andy Murray being an up-an-comer none of us had seen, and with Hyung-Taik Lee being from South Korea, this was the obvious choice.  After we sat down, none of us were too sure whom to root for.  The crowd didn’t help much either.  There was a small South Korean contingent there (surprising to me, since I had never seen one before at the Open), but there were probably slightly more Murray fans scattered among the crowd judging from the cheers.  Then again, Koreans aren’t the most boisterous people in the world, so it was anyone’s guess as to who had the stronger backing.  I knew Lee was one of “my people,” but I hadn’t heard much about him save for a good run to the 4th round of the 2000 U.S. Open (where he eventually lost to Pete).  Still, he had one of those smooth, flowing games (like Gaston Gaudio) that made him fun to watch.  Maybe I would just sit back and enjoy this match without choosing sides, I thought.  But then, something happened that completely polarized the crowd.

Andy Murray chased a short ball down and ended up having to stop himself from running into the chair umpire’s podium.  After the point had ended, he suddenly and without warning kicked the trash can located there, sending empty ball cans, paper, Gatorade bottles, and all other sorts of trash flying.  Murray sulked slowly back to the baseline.  The poor ballboys ran to the podium to pick up the trash.  The crowd sat in stunned silence for a brief moment, surprised at the unnecessary anger of the act.  Then the stadium broke out in one loud boo.

All of sudden, Lee had more fans than he had probably ever had during a night match at the Open.  The chair umpire had to get the crowd quieted down.  Once everyone settled, what was a wind-up match for the day became a chair-gripping, hair-wrenching battle involving our very sense of right and wrong.  There was no way Andy Murray could win after that crap.  Not if there was any justice in the world.  Not if we had anything to do with it.

After every close point won by Lee, we were on our feet.  The Koreans were on their feet.  Black people were on their feet.  White people were on their feet.  It was awesome.  I was getting hoarse.  My ears were roaring.

We cheered Lee to breaks.  We cheered Lee to holds.  We cheered him after losing tough points.  And then finally, we cheered Lee after he won a match point.  High fives were passed around liberally.  Lee had won.  Justice had won.  Those ballboys had won.  We had won.