like a fish needs a bicycle...

somewhat overdue

so, at long last, pics (and video!) from the second annual MOKA show. MOKA is a diversity performing arts show that we started doing on campus last year, and it has really taken off. we give law students a chance to express themselves artistically (a much needed outlet for people whose brains are being fried in legal academia), and we celebrate communities of color and cultures from around the world. this year, we had so many different kinds of performances--vocals, instrumentals, dances, hip-hop performances--and they were all so amazing. it was a night full of so much unity and diveristy and good energy and happiness.

of course, helping to plan and organize it, choreographing a dance, and performing in two dances was a more stressful experience than i ever plan to replicate. but the show was hot--bigger and better than last year in every way--so it was gratifying when it all came together, and we had so much fun doing it. but next year, i won't be helping to plan it--i'm just going to perform. so no logistics, no budgeting, no errand-running. basically, next year, there will be no madness and no pressure for me. just dancing. lots of dancing. it's gonna be fabulous. :)

until then, here's a little bit of this year's fabulous show.

harry, JK, and me

i fell in love with harry potter the summer before i went to college. the first harry potter book, the sorcerer's stone, happened to be on the summer reading list for the somewhat fluffy, pseudo-intellectual honors program i was about to start in the fall. at first, i was skeptical--i wasn't sure why a "kids' book" was on a college reading list (and an honors program one, at that). but i read it, and i was more than pleasantly surprised... i was hooked.

JK was one of the most creative, amusing, insightful writers i'd ever read, and she had this very rare and amazing ability to write in a style that appealed to all age groups. i knew i would be a faithful reader of all the subsequent harry potter books. what i didn't know is that JK would get increasingly less amusing, more tragic, and more ruthless to her readers with each passing book.

(i could do a whole separate entry about the atrocity that was the third movie and the continued disaster of the fourth movie... i could talk about how awful the directing was, what a bumbling idiot the new dumbledore is, how horrible and out of place the obviously new and deliberately depressing set, scenery, and ambience of hogwarts were, etc. but i won't. we'll leave that for another day, when i have the energy to pour out my frustration at how they're ruining the movies, and destroying any possibility of a well-made movie, even if based on a needlessly tragic book.)

truly, i don't know why she does it do us. i know harry, ron, and hermione are growing up, and that means they have to deal with tests and difficulties. i also know that with the return of lord voldemort, it is a trying time in the wizarding world and there is real danger. there's a certain element of "that's life" that probably needs to be present. but must she be so merciless with the plot line? is it really necessary? does it really add to the experience of reading the books? or to the richness or meaning of the story? honestly, i don't think it does. and these past few years, i find myself more and more depressed after reading each book. and i fear what the seventh book will be.

(spoiler warning! i will be discussing substance from here on out. if you haven't read the 6 harry potter books yet, you may want to quit here)

i LOVED sorcerer's stone (book 1). i fell in love with the characters, the places, and the whole of the separate, magical world she had created. chamber of secrets (book 2) was more of the same, and i love it as well. prisoner of azkaban (book 3) was also more of the same, but it started to get really interesting--sirius and the whole peter pettigrew saga were fabulous plot twists, and you could see the kids were getting older and things were getting more real. and actually, goblet of fire (book 4) was my favorite. it was long, it was intense (there was a duel between harry and voldemort, for crying out loud), and there was just so much there in terms of personal relationships. and yes, it was somewhat tragic, because cedric diggory died. i actually cried at that part--but it was OK, because he wasn't really a main or essential character. and that's how i think tragedy should be in books, especially books that are read by kids: manageable.

killing sirius in order of the phoenix (book 5), however, was not manageable. it was excessively, almost unbearably sad for harry, and what's more, it was a completely useless, un-glorious, almost haphazard death. why? why? personally, i believe he's not really dead, and that in the seventh book, he's going to magically resurface from behind that curtain. it seems quite possible that such things could happen, especially considering how many loose ends she left untied in both the fifth and the sixth books.

i also think killing dumbledore in half-blood prince (book 6) was just cruel and unusual. and it was also kind of a pathetic death, like sirius' death. my ex-roommate rachel and i have this theory that snape is still on the side of good, and he was just posing as part of the death eaters as part of dumbledore's plan--and he and dumbledore had a pre-arranged agreement that snape would kill dumbledore if (dumbledore deemed it) necessary. but snape was hesitant to do it, hence dumbledore's "please," which was really a plea for snape to carry out the plan, but which seemed really pathetic at the time. even if that theory is true, however, it's still just lame that she killed him. why did she have to go and do that to us? so uncalled for. dumbledore was potentially the best character in the whole harry potter world, and his death was so unnecessary--and it does not bode well for the rest of the storyline.

and now, i hear that she's going to be make the last book, deathly hallows (book 7), even more needlessly tragic. i have, of course, pre-ordered it, but i'm already ambivalent about reading it. apparently, she's going to kill of 2 main characters. (2!!!) i somehow have this feeling that one of them is going to be jenny, so that harry will suffer even more. but regardless of who it is, there remains the question: why? just why? what purpose does it serve? why does she keep killing everyone? killing a bunch of characters doesn't somehow make you an adult writer or a serious writer or a good writer. it just makes you mean--especially when the deaths serve no purpose. i mean, tolkien wrote perhaps the most classic fiction series ever, and he managed to get by with minimal deaths. and he didn't kill anyone that you really loved. but JK's killing people just for the sake of killing people. she's trying to be all emotional and tragic, but it's not working. she's really just being mean to us, for no apparent reason.

i feel like this was all a grand bait and switch. she got us hooked with a couple of happy, fun books about a magical world. and then she turned our magical little world into a parade of horrors. why do you do it, JK? why?