POTTER … OF LIES, DAMN LIES AND ‘PRECEDENTS’.

What is truly astonishing to us is the sight of supposedly ‘intelligent’ people such as editors, journalists, broadcasting people in general accepting unquestioningly the promotional pabulum dished out by Rowling’s media friends, bloggers et al. They have no problem whatever with that revolting hooey about “an idea on a train” or the carefully crafted myth of St. Rowling suffering for her art in the lonely streets of Edinburgh despite the fact that she had written nothing we know of and published nothing prior to Potter and, by her own admission, was no more interested in fantasy writing as a genre than Little her agent (who wrote to Will to tell him there was “no money in children’s fiction”) was in publishing it. You have to wonder who put who up to what?

            People, especially the English, WANT to believe it all. She’s their baby… hands off! That’s the problem. So, they swallow the bait, hook and all… and get to keep it. Nobody dare doubt that The Chosen One was born to the task. Who could? Nobody, that is, except us who know better.

            And if this article succeeds in any purpose may it be to make it abundantly clear to you the total contempt we have for the moral redundancy of Rowling-Little and all who support them, paid and unpaid. The mindset behind it is that of The Gadarene Swine not J.R.Tolkien.

             When news broke of the impending case of Willy The Wizard, Rowling’s bloggers and article peddlers got up an argument of ‘precedents’ that was distributed widely. Young people especially warmed to it as it put the cause within their reach and eased their consciences about copying eachother’s homework. The disseminators have since cooled off, perhaps because this blog made short work of it. The fact that they tried it on in the first place spells GUILT all by itself. A big mistake.

Ask yourself….why would you need to cite precedents if  your work is so genuinely original? What need would you have to convince anyone? Who would need to argue from Mozart’s Mass to precedents in Bach or Hayden by way vindicating that great work? Does it need vindicating? Mozart’s Mass stands by itself and is taken on its own merits. To put forward an argument of precedents in support of what you want people to believe to be simultaneously original creation, in defense of which you have brought many fellow ‘precedent harvesters’ to court is subterfuge and hypocrisy.

            Precedents are all very well if you arguing from the GIVEN. But Potter is NOT the GIVEN and never was. HE IS THE RIP-OFF. You can no more argue ‘precedents’ for him than you can argue ‘precedents’ for Sir Christopher Wren’s cathedral when it is common knowledge (now, that is) that he replicated the dome of St. Paul’s from Donato Bramante’s model for St. Peter’s in Rome. He thought he was safe because travel in the 1670s was difficult and for the well-heeled and Rome was way over there somewhere and London was way over here. Who would get to know? Wren basked in his ‘borrowed’ glory.

             Conversely, would anyone cite precedents in support of Van Meegeren’s delectable forgeries of Vermeer? They certainly would if they were sure you knew nothing of the existence of Vermeer’s paintings and they wanted you to believe their man Van Meegeren was the soul and brains of Vermeer - that unknown ‘also-ran’ he had, without scruple or conscience, forged.

            Now, at least, you know why precedents were hastily put forward in support of the central thrust of the Potter campaign viz; to reinforce the forger as the original creator, to make of Rowling what she never was and indeed never could be or could have been. The cap does not fit. Where did she get it from anyway? And I am not referring to the cap that she allegedly plagiarised with the rest. And if you are a journalist who has fallen for it all you might consider another profession where you will have the luxury of thinking for yourself and where you will be allowed to question consensus beliefs.

            Great works of art do not come from mere “ideas”, however wonderful: publishers’ slush piles are teeming with ‘wonderful ideas’. They come from an artist’s intellectual and spiritual confrontation with the reality and needs of his times. From the “Eroica” to “The Gulag Archipelago” this is the case and will always be the case. No amount of grafting ‘spiritual depth’ onto Rowling is going to convince anybody with half a brain that she was in the fray of the spiritual-politico maelstrom of the nineties that alone could have given birth to the series. She was in a flat in peaceful Clapham (we are told) and further from the action than the ducks in Clapham pond. By the time she was born, the sixties with their world-changing spiritual focus, were half-way to finishing.

             From the start then, what the Rowling team knew they had to do therefore was convince us all that such spiritual grapplings, frought with neglect and hardship, constituted her pre-Potter life. With the myth already established, this is much easier for them these days. But they are still at it. Lately, they have had to tweak it a little, show a fervent political bent on the part of the esteemed authoress. Rowling, of late, supports the Labour Party and makes profoundly informed political speeches in support of the poor one-parented Muggles who did not quite make it to the winner’s enclosure. It all helps. Later on, they may have to dole out some inventive romantic lore about her political engagement and ardent passion for justice while a humble college student, or anything else you can think of that nobody can prove ‘yea’ or ‘nay’. A mandatory stop at Africa maybe? There’d be ‘depth’ a là Jolie for sure, to authenticate her moral mission at Amnesty. Or maybe, she was just happy to find a job there? We pause to bite our tongues. 

           Indeed, we  shouldn’t put it beyond them to consult this blog to tell them what to do next. Why stop now? They may even dig out ideas from the preface of Travels with Li Po if they have not already done so. The mystical marriage maybe? Look out for them to appear in the next Potter movie. Our mentioning it or not mentioning it is not going to stop them by the way. So, tediously, it goes on. But the dough keeps trundling in.. and that is all that really matters and all it was ever about. The court cases surrounding the fiasco should tell you that much at least!

The truth is… Vermeer will go on being Vermeer and Ven Meegeren…..? Who is he? It will be interesting to see how long Rowling will get to go on being whoever she claims to be.

Just to let everyone know we have updated our Travels with Li Po website. This website is devoted exclusively to the book written by one of us ( William) all about a young orphaned boy who is lost in a parallel world and doesn’t know he is a sorcerer. Yea, sounds corny and fantastical and we made it all up, didn’t we?  It is in fact all true and alarmingly so. We KNOW it to be true. Find out for yourself  by clicking on the book icon. Then, be astonished. Be very astonished; and when you are done being astonished see if you can answer the simple questions the book  poses by its sheer existence and why it is such a hot potato for newspapers in general. Here is a hint……starts with ‘p’ and ends with ‘tics”.

We have placed a button on the pages linking to an abridged version of the numerous similarities between Harry Potter and Wills’ book for your instruction – THE  SIMILARITIES – Synopsis  it’s called. This is in deference to modern readers who find it difficult to read more than two sentences in a row without getting dizzy. Pay particular attention to the brief introduction that goes with it. If you have any other questions feel free to contact us.

In the meantime, Adrian Jacobs’ posse  is preparing to begin its charge on Rowling and Co. for a mere half billion pounds, declaring, in so many words, that that is what the deceased would have been worth for his contribution (?) to the Harry Potter bonanza. De plot tickens, as they say down South.  Mind you, the Rowling boys have had a decade to prepare for just this eventuality. And with so much preparation and mini-rehearsals you have to wonder why they haven’t had a go  at us, as we have no doubt whatever that we are the main event, Rowling’s worst nightmare indeed, as you will quickly learn if you visit the site.  What are they afraid of? Evidence my friends. Evidence that would damn them all. It is a rhetorical question indeed, one of the best. And of course, the scandal. What would the neighbours think? Especially those American neighbours who have capitalized hand over fist on the Potter ‘phenomenon’ and its Britanic  pedigree that stretches all the way to the  corridors of  ‘smarter-than-thou’ Oxford, every Yankee egghead’s pet fantasy, albeit paling into nothing beside the enshrined American Dream…  Hugh Hefner’s throne.

It will be mighty interesting indeed to see what comes of it all, especially for us who are privy to the real truth that no English paper dare touch or Irish paper for that matter. Cowards all! So much for freedom of speech. As for freedom of the press…that depends on who can threaten the responsible editors most efficiently. The toy bear in that regard goes to Schillings, Rowling’s lawyers, based in London who have a knack of frightening the life-insurance out of everybody they go near in the manner of Darth Vader in a barrister’s wig.  We pause here to wonder if we got that right. Maybe Schillings  have jumped ship in the meantime and we get a letter from them in the morning telling us to recant our “inaccuracies’ and ‘false statements” or face ruin. Dat’s the way dem dudes work …. like a police-helicopter tracking a suspect vehicle, at night, all lights blaring, its deafening megaphonic words soaring over the rooftops. Pensioners awake in their beds searching for the lamp-switch wondering who the hell has the right, etc, etc.  One cannot be too careful these days.  

Scrutiny, all joking aside, is what the Rowling gang are avoiding, pure and simple. Incredible to us how this obvious fact, this necessary but deplorable, puerile bloody strategy they have been implementing for years  is either ignored or swept under the carpet by the  media in toto. But then, we are talking about jolly old England, old bean, Rule Britannia and all that…. and Harry The Prince Potter, of course, who is but John Bull Junior on a stick flying the old Imperial flag over the subdued and conquered with all the fatuous panache of an ageing Caesar in a squeaky chariot doing a triumphal circuit of the Circus Maximus just before the games, strapped to his vehicle in case he falls off.  What ever happened to good old TRUTH? we ask ourselves.  Has it been sacrificed in our ‘post-modern world ‘ to the shenanigans of Chaos Theory? Truth, like art, is whatever I decide it to be, or so we must subscribe to if we wouldst call ourselves ‘contemporary’, (fancy wording for ‘Trumpism’ or economic expediency-whatever-the-cost-to-others. “You’re fired boyo! Take up your dreams and leave the premises!”). ”Greed is good” indeed says Wall Street, even if on film, just as genocide is ‘ethnic cleansing’ effected with duster and polish and a nice clean apron…. and Harry Potter is the real deal.  Maggie’s ”ugly face of capitalism”, in other words, is whatever mask you choose to wear and whatever script you choose to espouse that will enable you to stash your pile  in the big steel box down at the bank. Our view is simple…. TRUTH WILL OUT, sooner or later. It goes on. It never goes away.  And we all  must stand up for it or cease to be human. 

Adrian Jacobs is the deceased writer on whose behalf his family seek justice for alleged plagiarism on the part of Christopher Little and Bloomsbury  – publishers of the Harry Potter word-spinning carousel beloved by the gullible. By all accounts it would indicate that the Harry Potter people were not able to even come up with their own fantasies. Zounds! We have little to say about any of this but to wish Mr. Jacobs ‘ people good luck from us whose position on this and related matters is well enough expressed on the main page of our blog.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the tourist season grinds to a close. Those competent artists among you who have something to express and know how to express it might consider showing at our illustrious gallery. During the summer season this is one of the most cosmopolitan and most visited galleries to be found anywhere in Ireland and elsewhere for that matter. It is funded entirely by ourselve and gets as much financial help in that regard as the upkeep of our murals. Zilch in other words. But then you have to understand the position of our council members. They cannot promote or market our murals without promoting us and to do that they would have to change overnight from game-playing biased ingrates to decent human beings. Hell will freeze over, as they say. We sail on regardless.