Can’t say it better than this comment at the YouTube (although I never saw him in person):
@senorkaboom
6 years ago
Though Borge was known for his comedic piano schtick, he could play as well as any concert pianist. I heard him once play a piano piece with no comedy and was blown away. He obviously was well trained in piano to do what he did so effortlessly.
A friend who is an accomplished pianist said that Borge is the only pianist who made him cry.
One of the pleasures of being old is having seen him live multiple times.
Many a comedian would benefit from studying Borge’s timing and method.
As I mentioned yesterday in OT, the climate change cult is on the move especially in the deep blue states. Looks like NYC residents will see their electric bills double in a year and half due to “greening” by ConEd and the state. I know from living in CT @ 26cents/kWh, the bills were ridiculous. We were averaging $400/month (low about $180, high $900). Here in Florida, about $90/month. Not only will the people in NYC have higher rates, wait until there’s a cloudy, clam day in the middle of winter. Well, they voted for it, so I don’t have a whole lot of sympathy…suckers!
I would have loved to see Victor Borge team up with Peter Schickele (P.D.Q. Bach) for a joint performance.
Mike K,
+10000!
I was only able to see him live twice. Both experiences are very fond family memories.
Cheers!
… and some tears too …
How do you get it thru the heads of the average Democrat that ” fighting climate change” is really about making Western Civilization non competitive with China and ( MCGA) Make China Great Again.
“Fighting climate change” will also make ordinary people poorer, with the very poor suffering the most. Why people continue to vote for this is beyond my comprehension.
And thanks, Neo, for the Victor Borge memory.
NO SPECIAL COUNSEL!!
Why are we asking for a Special Counsel? Wouldn’t that just give justification the the DOJ’s favorite excuse: “Sorry, ongoing investigation!”
The obstructive conduct of the DOJ, and their transparently fraudulent plea deal of the century with Hunter Biden, is all the evidence needed that they would simply use a phony SC to stall!
Does Congress have the power to deny a Special Counsel? If DOJ appoints one, it won’t be to get to the bottom of the Biden crimes, it will be to make sure nobody else does!
Jon Baker: it is a major part of the plan to destroy Western civilization, along with the assertions about white supremacy and rioting.
Ray Van Dune: exactly my thoughts. Any investigation must be done by the House.
Jon baker on July 28, 2023 at 2:13 pm said:
How do you get it thru the heads of the average Democrat that ” fighting climate change” is really about making Western Civilization non competitive with China and ( MCGA) Make China Great Again.
>> Go back and look at who has been paying off Joe Biden for decades.
And consider how many other government and elite persons have been more discreet than to pick a coke-addict for their frontman.
Kate on July 28, 2023 at 2:29 pm said:
“Fighting climate change” will also make ordinary people poorer, with the very poor suffering the most. Why people continue to vote for this is beyond my comprehension.
>> Ah, but has a majority ever actually voted for this? Recall the history of electoral fraud, which extends decades into the past.
I haven’t seen if anyone has commented on Neo’s site about Mitch McConnell. He looks pretty far gone to this non-professional eye. Yesterday he just froze at the podium and was led off by another Senator, who is a physician. (Senior moment — I don’t remember the other Senator’s name.)
Any medically-trained commenters who saw what happened yesterday, and would like to comment? This is not the first example of him looking frail and out of it.
Followup on a thread not many days ago “COVID lab leak coverups, then and now” — and a news story that is quite bizarre — and possibly quite alarming.
In California, an unassuming warehouse is discovered to be a Chinese owned lab, researching human COVID-19.
According to court records, its labs held nearly 1,000 genetically engineered mice susceptible to the virus
It has been operating illegally since October 2022.
Take a look and tell me how normal this is!
AesopFan: “Ah, but has a majority ever actually voted for this? Recall the history of electoral fraud, which extends decades into the past.”
Just so. I’m reading “The Puppeteers” by Jason Chaffetz. Most of the climate policy is now being driven by big money people at Balck Rock, Vanguard, and State Street. They are pushing ESG, which is a way to force people to abandon fossil fuels. Energy companies, utilities, and manufacturers are getting low ESG scores, which lowers their ability to raise capital. None of this was ever presented to voters for their approval.
Whether these big finance people actually believe this is good policy is an unknown. It certainly gives them more control over the lives of the middle class whose money they are investing in the form of pension plans.
It’s all quite diabolical.
In the last few years Chaffetz says there has been $5 trillion invested in renewable energy. The result – more expensive, less reliable energy. How many natural gas or nuke plants could have been built with those dollars?
F–
The MD senator is John Barrasso (R-WY). From what I saw of the episode, it looks like McConnell had a transient ischemic attack (TIA, sometimes called a mini-stroke) rather than a full-blown stroke. People who have a TIA usually return to normal within an hour. I assume that if McConnell hadn’t recovered within a short time, Barrasso would have had him sent to the hospital. TIAs are, however, a risk factor for a major stroke. They can also be a precursor of dementia; I was with my mother when she had a TIA while playing cards with friends. While she never had a second TIA or major stroke, she was diagnosed with dementia several months later.
Thanks, PA+Cat. Yes. Barrasso. Talk about losing memory!
And yes, I have read about TIAs.
Next question: who would name a replacement?
F; PA Cat:
In addition to the TIA possibility, there are other possibilities that are more benign. One is a migraine aura. Another is dehydration. Another is a side effect of medication, perhaps overmedication for high blood pressure.
TIAs are warnings, but they are short and temporary. They could be a harbinger of something more serious to come, but sometimes they occur without bad things happening later. At any rate, all of these things would be temporary and not a cause for long-term disability or removal, unless something else happens to him.
Pentagon UFO Boss Fires Back At Whistleblower Allegations. Sean Kirkpatrick says “the central source of those allegations has refused to speak with AARO” in a fiery response the House’s UFO hearing.
Also, Kirkpatrick notes AARO regularly briefs Congressional Defense, Intel, Homeland Defense, S&T and others while this subcommittee never asked AARO for any updates before this hearing. Why McCarthy and Comer scheduled this hearing by a subcommittee that’s not in the loop is a bit of a mystery. Maybe this was really about was getting Gaetz, Burchette, et al read in rather than revealing the real truth of the X files stuff.
Neo–
McConnell suffered a concussion when he tripped and fell in a Washington hotel on March 9. That head injury might or might not be related to his freezing yesterday at the press conference, but I do hope he was at least persuaded to have a checkup.
PA Cat:
It is virtually certain he’s been medically examined.
And after that concussion (he also sustained broken ribs), he was hospitalized:
“Leader McConnell tripped at a dinner event Wednesday evening and has been admitted to the hospital and is being treated for a concussion,” McConnell spokesman David Popp said in a statement. “He is expected to remain in the hospital for a few days of observation and treatment. The Leader is grateful to the medical professionals for their care and to his colleagues for their warm wishes.”
There are all sorts of possibilities of what happened to McConnell. The link describes absence seizures, AKA petit mal seizures.
The judge in the Hunter Biden whitewashing case, Maryellen Noreika, is a real gem, smart and sophisticated. The US attorney David Weiss is a total sellout and a weasel. Both appointed by Trump. But it is telling that the Biden regime kept Weiss on. Here’s a great description of the shenanigans during the three hour hearing where Noreika pushed the attorneys from both Hunters’ defense team and US Attorney Weiss into a corner. Bravo Judge Noreika.
RE: UFOs—where do we go after the just concluded House Oversight Committee UFO Hearing?
The UFO issue has now had it’s profile massively raised, a lot more people are aware of it, and are discussing it, and there is now even some fairly serious coverage of this issue in some major news outlets.
In another development, it has just been reported today that a bi-partisan letter, signed by four members (Republicans Burchett, Luna, and Gaetz, and Democrat Moskowitz), has been sent to the Speaker of the House McCarthy, requesting that he immediately establish a select investigative committee–one outside the jurisdiction of any standing committee, and with subpoena power—to investigate all of the UFO issues raised in the Hearing. *
(I note that today both Houses of Congress also recessed, and left town for a scheduled 30 day summer recess.)
However, if you ask Richard Dolan–for several decades a very intelligent, perceptive and long term observer and historian of the UFO phenomenon–what he thinks will happen, Dolan believes that, over the next year or so, the DOD, the Intelligence Community, and their allies in the MSM and elsewhere will try to recapture control over this issue.
And they will do this by ignoring the testimony of military pilots David Favor and Ryan Graves, but by trying to discredit the most damaging and knowledgeable witness, David Grusch, using the “death of a thousand cuts” approach i.e. by planting/encouraging a multitude of stories, here and there–each one chipping away at Grusch’ credibility. **
Thanks, windbag, I was going to suggest a seizure. A neighbor had these seizures. The symptom was simply going away for a short time. Could this happen as a result of McConnell’s head injury from his fall in March? Or, could the falls be happening as a result of petit mal episodes? It’s treatable; my neighbor takes medication and has no seizures now.
I just finished the last of the Harry Potter movies. It’s good to watch them within a few months. There are seven and the plots are more intricate than one might expect from children’s books.
I must say the series is quite moving and worth pondering. The grand themes of friendship, loyalty, love, courage and sacrifice are present in abundance. The series starts off as light-hearted fantasy, but by the end it’s practically Frodo/Gandalf battling Sauron as in “The Lords of the Rings.” Which I’m sure is not a coincidence, but JK Rowling pulls it off.
It’s strangely conservative and Christian-adjacent. I can see why Rowling is in trouble with today’s Wokeness. “Harry Potter” is also terribly … ahem … cis-heteronormative. Boys are boys and girls are girls and the twain indeed do meet and decently.
We may decry the many cultural trends serving decline. But I say we have been fortunate for Rowling. At my cafe I talk to the young people about Harry Potter. They get a bit misty and I can tell they were touched in a good way.
Huxley, I totally agree with your assessment of the Harry Potter series. Along the same lines I view The Hunger Games. It’s final message of betrayal by those seeking power is great.
Will such films be made now?
RE: Reaction to the UFO Hearing from Dr. Shaun Kirkpatrick, head of AARO
As might be expected, Dr. Shaun Kirkpatrick, head of DOD’s AARO–who says that, so far, he has seen no “credible evidence” that UFOS are of extraterrestrial origin–was not happy with what was said by witness David Grusch at this Hearing, and one of his major complaints was that Grusch had never contacted AARO with this information.*
This may be playing with words, since Grusch, in his original interview a month or so ago, mentioned that–
1. Grush had related some of the things he testified about to Dr. Kirkpatrick (who he has known for 8 years) some time ago–before Kirkpatrick became head of AARO–and Grusch said that, although Dr. Kirkpatrick had Grusch’ telephone number, he never got back to him.
2. Despite what Dr. Kirkpatrick was asserting in his letter of complaint–that he and ARRO had all the clearances necessary to investigate the UFO issue–in his interview last month Grusch mentioned that ARRO researchers did not have sufficiently high clearances to be “read-into” the secret crash retrieval and reverse engineering programs which Grusch was aware of.
Finally, while in his letter Dr. Kirkpatrick said that he welcomed anyone with relevant information to come and divulge that information to ARRO, it has
been said that a number of people with first hand information have not gone to ARRO with what they know, because they trust neither Dr. Kirkpatrick nor ARRO, seeing as how they are creatures of the very same DOD which has been responsible for bottling up and obscuring the information about UFOs for the past 80 years.
Regarding Harry Potter; I agree J.K. Rowling is a brilliant writer. What she did is so incredible it’s nearly inconceivable. Look at George R.R. Martin. He received a similar amount of fame and money before finishing his work and to this date has still be unable to finish writing his series. Ms. Rowling has talked about the difficulty of writing once her life was turned upside down by the immense popularity of the series (sometime around the publication of book 4), and she finished a little behind her original schedule, but not much. Truly one of the greatest feats by any artist, living or dead. History is rife with unfinished works by brilliant artists.
You’re right about the traditional themes in the story. One thing I like is it’s such a classical example of the need for males to be led to inspiration by the “hero’s journey.” Hermione is actually the heroine of the books. Ron and Harry are bungling and immature when she first meets them and it is her maturity and wisdom that nurtures them into the courageous men they are capable of being. It’s a story young women need to know also.
Ron, Hermione and Harry are essential to the successes in each of the books story arcs, but take away Hermione and Ron and Harry never get anywhere. I don’t think Rowling gets enough credit for the brilliant and subtle way she wrote Hermione’s character.
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Can’t say it better than this comment at the YouTube (although I never saw him in person):
@senorkaboom
6 years ago
Though Borge was known for his comedic piano schtick, he could play as well as any concert pianist. I heard him once play a piano piece with no comedy and was blown away. He obviously was well trained in piano to do what he did so effortlessly.
A friend who is an accomplished pianist said that Borge is the only pianist who made him cry.
One of the pleasures of being old is having seen him live multiple times.
Many a comedian would benefit from studying Borge’s timing and method.
As I mentioned yesterday in OT, the climate change cult is on the move especially in the deep blue states. Looks like NYC residents will see their electric bills double in a year and half due to “greening” by ConEd and the state. I know from living in CT @ 26cents/kWh, the bills were ridiculous. We were averaging $400/month (low about $180, high $900). Here in Florida, about $90/month. Not only will the people in NYC have higher rates, wait until there’s a cloudy, clam day in the middle of winter. Well, they voted for it, so I don’t have a whole lot of sympathy…suckers!
https://www.foxbusiness.com/energy/ny-bracing-gas-electric-bill-shock-green-push-aware-burden-con-ed
I would have loved to see Victor Borge team up with Peter Schickele (P.D.Q. Bach) for a joint performance.
Mike K,
+10000!
I was only able to see him live twice. Both experiences are very fond family memories.
Cheers!
… and some tears too …
How do you get it thru the heads of the average Democrat that ” fighting climate change” is really about making Western Civilization non competitive with China and ( MCGA) Make China Great Again.
“Fighting climate change” will also make ordinary people poorer, with the very poor suffering the most. Why people continue to vote for this is beyond my comprehension.
And thanks, Neo, for the Victor Borge memory.
NO SPECIAL COUNSEL!!
Why are we asking for a Special Counsel? Wouldn’t that just give justification the the DOJ’s favorite excuse: “Sorry, ongoing investigation!”
The obstructive conduct of the DOJ, and their transparently fraudulent plea deal of the century with Hunter Biden, is all the evidence needed that they would simply use a phony SC to stall!
Does Congress have the power to deny a Special Counsel? If DOJ appoints one, it won’t be to get to the bottom of the Biden crimes, it will be to make sure nobody else does!
Jon Baker: it is a major part of the plan to destroy Western civilization, along with the assertions about white supremacy and rioting.
Ray Van Dune: exactly my thoughts. Any investigation must be done by the House.
Jon baker on July 28, 2023 at 2:13 pm said:
How do you get it thru the heads of the average Democrat that ” fighting climate change” is really about making Western Civilization non competitive with China and ( MCGA) Make China Great Again.
>> Go back and look at who has been paying off Joe Biden for decades.
And consider how many other government and elite persons have been more discreet than to pick a coke-addict for their frontman.
Kate on July 28, 2023 at 2:29 pm said:
“Fighting climate change” will also make ordinary people poorer, with the very poor suffering the most. Why people continue to vote for this is beyond my comprehension.
>> Ah, but has a majority ever actually voted for this? Recall the history of electoral fraud, which extends decades into the past.
I haven’t seen if anyone has commented on Neo’s site about Mitch McConnell. He looks pretty far gone to this non-professional eye. Yesterday he just froze at the podium and was led off by another Senator, who is a physician. (Senior moment — I don’t remember the other Senator’s name.)
Any medically-trained commenters who saw what happened yesterday, and would like to comment? This is not the first example of him looking frail and out of it.
Followup on a thread not many days ago “COVID lab leak coverups, then and now” — and a news story that is quite bizarre — and possibly quite alarming.
In California, an unassuming warehouse is discovered to be a Chinese owned lab, researching human COVID-19.
According to court records, its labs held nearly 1,000 genetically engineered mice susceptible to the virus
INCREDIBLE — and possibly horrifying.
https://midvalleytimes.com/article/news/2023/07/25/investigation-on-reedley-building-uncovers-bio-health-hazards/
It has been operating illegally since October 2022.
Take a look and tell me how normal this is!
AesopFan: “Ah, but has a majority ever actually voted for this? Recall the history of electoral fraud, which extends decades into the past.”
Just so. I’m reading “The Puppeteers” by Jason Chaffetz. Most of the climate policy is now being driven by big money people at Balck Rock, Vanguard, and State Street. They are pushing ESG, which is a way to force people to abandon fossil fuels. Energy companies, utilities, and manufacturers are getting low ESG scores, which lowers their ability to raise capital. None of this was ever presented to voters for their approval.
Whether these big finance people actually believe this is good policy is an unknown. It certainly gives them more control over the lives of the middle class whose money they are investing in the form of pension plans.
It’s all quite diabolical.
In the last few years Chaffetz says there has been $5 trillion invested in renewable energy. The result – more expensive, less reliable energy. How many natural gas or nuke plants could have been built with those dollars?
F–
The MD senator is John Barrasso (R-WY). From what I saw of the episode, it looks like McConnell had a transient ischemic attack (TIA, sometimes called a mini-stroke) rather than a full-blown stroke. People who have a TIA usually return to normal within an hour. I assume that if McConnell hadn’t recovered within a short time, Barrasso would have had him sent to the hospital. TIAs are, however, a risk factor for a major stroke. They can also be a precursor of dementia; I was with my mother when she had a TIA while playing cards with friends. While she never had a second TIA or major stroke, she was diagnosed with dementia several months later.
Thanks, PA+Cat. Yes. Barrasso. Talk about losing memory!
And yes, I have read about TIAs.
Next question: who would name a replacement?
F; PA Cat:
In addition to the TIA possibility, there are other possibilities that are more benign. One is a migraine aura. Another is dehydration. Another is a side effect of medication, perhaps overmedication for high blood pressure.
TIAs are warnings, but they are short and temporary. They could be a harbinger of something more serious to come, but sometimes they occur without bad things happening later. At any rate, all of these things would be temporary and not a cause for long-term disability or removal, unless something else happens to him.
Pentagon UFO Boss Fires Back At Whistleblower Allegations. Sean Kirkpatrick says “the central source of those allegations has refused to speak with AARO” in a fiery response the House’s UFO hearing.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/pentagon-ufo-boss-fires-back-at-whistleblower-allegations
Also, Kirkpatrick notes AARO regularly briefs Congressional Defense, Intel, Homeland Defense, S&T and others while this subcommittee never asked AARO for any updates before this hearing. Why McCarthy and Comer scheduled this hearing by a subcommittee that’s not in the loop is a bit of a mystery. Maybe this was really about was getting Gaetz, Burchette, et al read in rather than revealing the real truth of the X files stuff.
Neo–
McConnell suffered a concussion when he tripped and fell in a Washington hotel on March 9. That head injury might or might not be related to his freezing yesterday at the press conference, but I do hope he was at least persuaded to have a checkup.
PA Cat:
It is virtually certain he’s been medically examined.
And after that concussion (he also sustained broken ribs), he was hospitalized:
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/petit-mal-seizure/symptoms-causes/syc-20359683
There are all sorts of possibilities of what happened to McConnell. The link describes absence seizures, AKA petit mal seizures.
The judge in the Hunter Biden whitewashing case, Maryellen Noreika, is a real gem, smart and sophisticated. The US attorney David Weiss is a total sellout and a weasel. Both appointed by Trump. But it is telling that the Biden regime kept Weiss on. Here’s a great description of the shenanigans during the three hour hearing where Noreika pushed the attorneys from both Hunters’ defense team and US Attorney Weiss into a corner. Bravo Judge Noreika.
https://thefederalist.com/2023/07/27/how-a-federal-judge-turned-the-tables-on-hunter-bidens-plea-deal/
RE: UFOs—where do we go after the just concluded House Oversight Committee UFO Hearing?
The UFO issue has now had it’s profile massively raised, a lot more people are aware of it, and are discussing it, and there is now even some fairly serious coverage of this issue in some major news outlets.
In another development, it has just been reported today that a bi-partisan letter, signed by four members (Republicans Burchett, Luna, and Gaetz, and Democrat Moskowitz), has been sent to the Speaker of the House McCarthy, requesting that he immediately establish a select investigative committee–one outside the jurisdiction of any standing committee, and with subpoena power—to investigate all of the UFO issues raised in the Hearing. *
(I note that today both Houses of Congress also recessed, and left town for a scheduled 30 day summer recess.)
However, if you ask Richard Dolan–for several decades a very intelligent, perceptive and long term observer and historian of the UFO phenomenon–what he thinks will happen, Dolan believes that, over the next year or so, the DOD, the Intelligence Community, and their allies in the MSM and elsewhere will try to recapture control over this issue.
And they will do this by ignoring the testimony of military pilots David Favor and Ryan Graves, but by trying to discredit the most damaging and knowledgeable witness, David Grusch, using the “death of a thousand cuts” approach i.e. by planting/encouraging a multitude of stories, here and there–each one chipping away at Grusch’ credibility. **
* See https://townhall.com/tipsheet/spencerbrown/2023/07/28/lawmakers-ask-speaker-mccarthy-for-a-select-committee-on-unidentified-anomalous-phenomena-n2626339
**See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCxw0bK1y6A
Thanks, windbag, I was going to suggest a seizure. A neighbor had these seizures. The symptom was simply going away for a short time. Could this happen as a result of McConnell’s head injury from his fall in March? Or, could the falls be happening as a result of petit mal episodes? It’s treatable; my neighbor takes medication and has no seizures now.
I just finished the last of the Harry Potter movies. It’s good to watch them within a few months. There are seven and the plots are more intricate than one might expect from children’s books.
I must say the series is quite moving and worth pondering. The grand themes of friendship, loyalty, love, courage and sacrifice are present in abundance. The series starts off as light-hearted fantasy, but by the end it’s practically Frodo/Gandalf battling Sauron as in “The Lords of the Rings.” Which I’m sure is not a coincidence, but JK Rowling pulls it off.
It’s strangely conservative and Christian-adjacent. I can see why Rowling is in trouble with today’s Wokeness. “Harry Potter” is also terribly … ahem … cis-heteronormative. Boys are boys and girls are girls and the twain indeed do meet and decently.
We may decry the many cultural trends serving decline. But I say we have been fortunate for Rowling. At my cafe I talk to the young people about Harry Potter. They get a bit misty and I can tell they were touched in a good way.
Huxley, I totally agree with your assessment of the Harry Potter series. Along the same lines I view The Hunger Games. It’s final message of betrayal by those seeking power is great.
Will such films be made now?
RE: Reaction to the UFO Hearing from Dr. Shaun Kirkpatrick, head of AARO
As might be expected, Dr. Shaun Kirkpatrick, head of DOD’s AARO–who says that, so far, he has seen no “credible evidence” that UFOS are of extraterrestrial origin–was not happy with what was said by witness David Grusch at this Hearing, and one of his major complaints was that Grusch had never contacted AARO with this information.*
This may be playing with words, since Grusch, in his original interview a month or so ago, mentioned that–
1. Grush had related some of the things he testified about to Dr. Kirkpatrick (who he has known for 8 years) some time ago–before Kirkpatrick became head of AARO–and Grusch said that, although Dr. Kirkpatrick had Grusch’ telephone number, he never got back to him.
2. Despite what Dr. Kirkpatrick was asserting in his letter of complaint–that he and ARRO had all the clearances necessary to investigate the UFO issue–in his interview last month Grusch mentioned that ARRO researchers did not have sufficiently high clearances to be “read-into” the secret crash retrieval and reverse engineering programs which Grusch was aware of.
Finally, while in his letter Dr. Kirkpatrick said that he welcomed anyone with relevant information to come and divulge that information to ARRO, it has
been said that a number of people with first hand information have not gone to ARRO with what they know, because they trust neither Dr. Kirkpatrick nor ARRO, seeing as how they are creatures of the very same DOD which has been responsible for bottling up and obscuring the information about UFOs for the past 80 years.
* See https://twitter.com/ChrisUKSharp/status/1684929834659540992?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1684929834659540992%7Ctwgr%5E16a2bca7774f49b762ca7a9b9c10f52b40588cbb%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.redditmedia.com%2Fmediaembed%2F15c206o%2F%3Fresponsive%3Dtrueis_nightmode%3Dfalse
huxley,
Regarding Harry Potter; I agree J.K. Rowling is a brilliant writer. What she did is so incredible it’s nearly inconceivable. Look at George R.R. Martin. He received a similar amount of fame and money before finishing his work and to this date has still be unable to finish writing his series. Ms. Rowling has talked about the difficulty of writing once her life was turned upside down by the immense popularity of the series (sometime around the publication of book 4), and she finished a little behind her original schedule, but not much. Truly one of the greatest feats by any artist, living or dead. History is rife with unfinished works by brilliant artists.
You’re right about the traditional themes in the story. One thing I like is it’s such a classical example of the need for males to be led to inspiration by the “hero’s journey.” Hermione is actually the heroine of the books. Ron and Harry are bungling and immature when she first meets them and it is her maturity and wisdom that nurtures them into the courageous men they are capable of being. It’s a story young women need to know also.
Ron, Hermione and Harry are essential to the successes in each of the books story arcs, but take away Hermione and Ron and Harry never get anywhere. I don’t think Rowling gets enough credit for the brilliant and subtle way she wrote Hermione’s character.