So, we got into a discussion about whether or not Dumbledore is gay last night. My sister-in-law, the German lit professor, doesn't think it's 'textually supported.' Which I think is a load of hooey. Speaking as a writer (albeit a so-far unpublished writer, but a writer nonetheless), my point of view is that Mrs. Rowling, as the author, knows far more about the universe that she's created than anyone else. And just because there was no reason inherent in Harry Potter's story to reveal Dumbledore's sexuality, that doesn't mean that that's not a part of that character's makeup or background. Writers write all sorts of backstories all the time that don't end up in the actual story, for whatever reason. Most often because the backstory they write is irrelevant to the story they're trying to tell. But that doesn't mean that backstory doesn't exist or might somehow be relevant to the story of that character. In Harry Potter, obviously, no matter how important Dumbledore was, it was not the story of Dumbledore. It was the story of Harry Potter. I'm sure there's loads more about other characters that we don't know, simply because it wasn't important to telling Harry's story.

Anyway, my two cents worth, as an unpublished author. It's Mrs. Rowling's world, and whatever she says, goes. Also, she's not dead yet, and I'm sure we're not done reading stories set in that world.

In other news, and this is probably only of real interest to Mike (Hey, Mike, remember our Phonon Sounds idea? How about mailing each other a portable hard drive back and forth to each other? We could come up with some crazy sounds in no time, a few months tops. Let me know what you think.) and a few others, I've been producing (or attempting to) some psytrance, after seeing Goa Gil the other weekend. One of the techniques I've hit upon for making some very cool glitchy textures is to take an analoguish synth lead, any source, could be a VSTi, could be my Roland Juno 6, and then running it through 2 instances of Glitch, set to random, and then through some modulations/phasing/flanging and some delays. The result is always interesting.

Oh yeah, Phil Fucking Collins. This is some music made by taking Phil Collins songs and sonically deconstructing them. Very interesting. Compelling, in fact.

Playing with Jack this morning: