Updated on August 31, 2014
Robin Lopez Is My New Favorite NBA Player
Give Deadspin their props, they hooked me in with their headline on this story: Robin Lopez Has Some Mysterious Beef With The Raptors’ Mascot. I don’t follow the NBA at all, and I have no idea who Robin Lopez is, but hey, I was curious. My curiosity wasn’t really satisfied, but at the end of the Deadspin article, a far more important thing was noted:
Anyway, go read the interview. In includes this wonderful editor’s note, on a question asking Lopez to list his three favorite wizards:
[A day after the interview, Lopez asked via his publicist to take Lupin off his list and replace him with Hermione Granger.]
I don’t know if y’all know, but not only am I a super huge Harry Potter fan of geeky proportions, Professor Remus J. Lupin is #2 on my list of favorite HP characters (he’s a very close second to my #1, Sirius Black, and yes I use “very close” to mean a variety of things). I flipped out, to put it gently, and I quickly shot the link to my BFF Alli who responded, “FUCK YOU, WHY ARE YOU TAKING LUPIN OFF THE LIST, YOU HACK?!” (Direct quote, with permission given before I even asked.)
Then, I thought about it a little. Given that Lupin tends to be a favorite of book-readers more than movie-viewers—not hard to understand when Lupin’s name isn’t even spoken in the 5th movie even though he has lines and everything in it—the fact that Lupin made Lopez’s list even for a day is pretty impressive in my book. And swapping out for Hermione isn’t horrible. But I wanted to find out more on why he made the change, and why he was listing favorite wizards in the first place, so I did some Serious Internet Research and clicked on the link to the actual interview.
What are your top three favorite wizards?
Gandalf’s definitely on the list. Trying to pick my favorite Harry Potter wizard, I can easily go with Dumbledore. I always liked Professor Lupin. I’ll put him on the list. [A day after the interview, Lopez asked via his publicist to take Lupin off his list and replace him with Hermione Granger.]
I got to pick a Disney wizard. Can I pick Angela Lansbury in Bedknobs and Broomsticks?
Given that the list is not STRICTLY focused on HP wizards (as I first assumed from Deadspin’s quote), and that he initially puts Lupin over Dumbledore, alongside Gandalf and Angela Lansbury’s character (Miss Price, and I adore that movie and her character, too), I find his decision to switch out Lupin for Hermione—another female wizard—quite acceptable. Hermione kicks ass and is super terrifying and if a pro athlete likes her enough to have clearly thought about his answer and decided she’s worthy? That’s cool. (Especially if you consider that Lupin and Hermione actually are very similar and play similar roles in their own groups of friends, so basically he just picked the same person in a younger generation. Hi, I did say I was a huge HP nerd, you can’t roll your eyes at me if you’ve read this far.)
Alli still is incensed that anyone would pick another wizard over Lupin—”I don’t care that she’s the brightest witch of her age and is utterly terrifying. LUPIN.”—but the fact is that both of us are now aware of Robin Lopez and a half-hour ago we weren’t, so it’s a win for him.
And fuck that Raptor mascot, too. He probably picked Malfoy.
Posted on October 17, 2013
Herman Graves: My Dad Pranks a 12-Year-Old
One of the most shocking things fellow Ranger fans learn about me is that I live in the Philly suburbs, in the thick of Flyers country. Flyers fans find it shocking, too, and their first assumption is that I was born elsewhere. I was, actually, but not in New York. My dad’s from north Jersey, with strong ties to New York State, which were passed on to both myself and my sister over the years in various ways. The biggest tie can be found upstate in the Adirondack State Park—I spent a couple weeks every summer for the first 25 years of my life. (Oh, how I miss the Adirondacks. Who wants to go camping next summer? But I digress…)
In the summer of 1994, I was a fresh-faced 12-year-old flush with the recent Stanley Cup win of my new favorite sports team, the New York Rangers. I’d given the Phillies an honest try the previous fall, when the excitement of a World Series run swept me up; but they totally broke my heart and we’re not friends anymore. But the Rangers showed up just when my heart was ready to fall in love again, and this time they didn’t disappoint. (Not that year, anyway. Future years, well…)
At the end of our yearly vacation, we had our traditional breakfast at the Muffin Patch in Old Forge, NY, before the long trip home. It’s a popular spot, and there were a number of other families waiting to be seated with us. One man in line was wearing an Adam Graves sweater. I never saw Rangers stuff at home in suburban Philadelphia! So I nudged my dad to point it out, and he looked over and told me, “Oh, that’s his brother, Herman Graves.”
Riiiiiiiiiiight.
I wasn’t an idiot. I probably gave my dad the stink-eye or rolled my eyes, was basically all “LOL okay Dad.” We got our party called to be seated, and as we ate breakfast and then headed home, I let it go.
I don’t remember exactly how long after we got home the next part happened, but I’m feeling like it was probably that same night, or the next day at the latest. My dad found an article online about Adam Graves, and he printed it out so I could read it. I really wish we still had a copy of this article. I was reading it happily, because #9 was one of my new heroes and I was so happy to read more about him. But then there was a line about his brother, Herman Graves, who recently spent time in the Adirondacks.
I didn’t exactly believe it was legit, but at the same time I didn’t quite believe that my dad would make all the effort to mess with an article to add that in there just to mess with me. I mean, the article looked real. This was mid-90s, so websites were still pretty simple, especially news sites.
But no. That’s exactly what he’d done. He’d saved the article to Word or whatever, and added a little line about Adam Graves having a brother who was vacationing in the Adirondacks. All to continue a joke that started 350 miles away.
Since then, whenever I see anything about Adam Graves, I call him Herman. Because my father pranked his 12-year-old daughter, and I will never let him forget it.
Posted on October 14, 2013
OUAT, We Are Fighting
SPOILER WARNING: The latter portion of this post will contain spoilers for 10/13’s episode of Once Upon a Time.
Last season, OUAT added a few new characters, two of whom are Aurora (Sleeping Beauty) and Mulan. And those two ladies had UH-MAY-ZING chemistry together. Kicking ass and taking names and being a pretty pretty princess and…! And I knew that they’d never get together, because it’s a ~family show~ and we alllll know that queer people don’t have families, so I just settled in to ship them like burning and curse Prince Phillip’s existence (or non-existence, at that time).
Then there was an episode where, like you do, Aurora literally lost her heart. And she got saved and all, but she still didn’t have her heart, and Mulan was like, “WHOA HOLD UP THERE I NEED TO GET PRINCESS HER HEART BACK”. And it was the most important thing to Mulan. And she got the heart back, brought it to Aurora, and literally put it back in Aurora’s chest. And it was HOT and INTENSE and the CHEMISTRY DEAR GOD THE CHEMISTRY.
And then Aurora was all, “Cool, thanks, let’s go find that man person I’ve had actually zero on-screen chemistry with!” And I raged. But, you know, what else is new? I’ve been seeing it in Rizzoli & Isles for years: two ladies with insane chemistry have a sexually-charged moment, and the first thing the writers do is remind the audience that MEN are the important thing here.
I let it go. I focused on the rest of the story (which was easy because the Mulan & Aurora part of the story faded away).
And then there was last night. (Spoilers start now!)