This morning in Guergis

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, April 12, 2010 at 10:46 AM - 24 Comments

Nazim Gillani releases a statement. Mr. Gillani’s spokesman says Ms. Guergis met Mr. Gillani over dinner in Toronto. Ms. Guergis’ nomination may be in doubt. Conservatives are unimpressed. And a note of concern for Mr. Jaffer’s weight.

What were you doing on Sunday?

By Martin Patriquin - Monday, April 12, 2010 at 10:05 AM - 35 Comments

“Goddamned liar.” Photo Le Devoir

You were probably watching golf. Me, I was grouting the bathroom, with the help of these guys.

Meanwhile, in Quebec City, 50,000 people took to the streets armed with brooms, baloney sandwiches and pancartes in a bout of furious street theatre. They call themselves the ‘red collars’, because they are righteously peeved. At what, you ask? Jean Charest’s recent budget, a cornucopia of new taxes, user fees and spending slashes. On a Sunday. It’s somehow heartening to know that this sort of thing doesn’t really happen anywhere else in the country.

Apparently There's This Show Called Glee…

By Jaime Weinman - Sunday, April 11, 2010 at 9:50 PM - 5 Comments

From the promotional glut for Glee – let’s call it the Glee Glut ™ — you’d think that this Tuesday, the first man was going to walk on three hundred thousand moons at the same time, coinciding with the astonishing return of Jim Brown. But no, it’s just a network and production company trying very, very hard to make sure that the split-season format doesn’t turn out to be a mistake. This is, in a way, a test for the effectiveness of split seasons (which are going to become more common one way or the other). By promoting the return as if it’s a whole new season, Fox could, if things go well, get high ratings for the premiere and maybe even the episode after.

This would not guarantee continued success after the hype wears off, but it would at least help take the curse off the idea of putting a new hit on hiatus. The worry with Glee was that the hiatus would kill its momentum, making people forget about it. Fox is spending like crazy to prove that a hiatus can be a good thing: it gives the network the opportunity to plug the hell out of it, creating what amounts to two season premieres in the same “season.” Of course this probably works better for a show like Glee, which is basically episodic, than for a show that’s telling a more elaborate season-long story. Glee has lots of continuing story threads, but most of them are pretty easy to explain; the promotion for the show’s return can therefore focus on what is to come (hence all the promos about the cool conflicts and wacky adventures and Madonna songs), while another show would come back amidst confusion about what exactly happened before the hiatus, and how much the viewers need to be reminded. The Glee return spends a lot of time openly “re-introducing” the show, the characters and the concept, which is what shows always do after they’ve been off the air a few months. But they have the luxury of being able to aim the episode at newcomers without annoying the regulars.

The other thing that makes Glee so promotable is the famous multi-media aspect of it. This has always been consciously built into the show, and will be a key factor in not only keeping it on the air, but keeping it solvent. (The theory appears to be that the extra costs of the musical numbers, both in staging them and paying for the songs, can be defrayed with the help of non-TV outlets like iTunes.) Even the hybrid nature of the show, the way it basically mashes together every show that was ever made and allows you to interpret it with as much or as little irony as you want, seems calculated for the era of multiple formats and fragmented audiences. Not that it’s all calculated; some of it is undoubtedly about having three creators with somewhat different approaches. But I think some of it is calculated. It’s a show that is trying to work as a traditional prime-time show while also being easy to sample in bite-sized clips.

And most traditionally, when your show is built around performances of well-known songs (rather than originals, like Cop Rock) you can use those songs to promote the show all over the place. Talk shows need mass-appeal musical numbers, and they make more of an impact than a regular couch bit.

With music, you can even get on the evening news, as they did with the White House performance. All of this has been done before, but mostly to promote individual episodes: when Petticoat Junction did a Beatles spoof episode (with special guest star Zelda from Dobie Gillis) CBS put them on The Ed Sullivan Show to do the number from the episode. But that was one week’s show. Glee is making a whole series out of it.

None of that will save the show if its whimsy and eclecticism cause it to burn out early. Having started as a collection of more or less depressing stories with a wacky happy coating, it quickly adopted a rather complicated balancing act, where we’re almost invited to use the show as a Rorschach blot: it’s as happy or sad, ironic or sincere, as we want to believe it is. Any ironic or stylized tone is difficult to sustain, but it can be even more difficult when a show has to be all things to all people.

Your next governor general

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, April 11, 2010 at 7:20 PM - 57 Comments

The Prime Minister leaks his pick via Twitter.

Analysts predict the move will anger the Prime Minister’s hipster base.

Rahim Jaffer's business associate "will continue to be purposefully silent"

By macleans.ca - Sunday, April 11, 2010 at 3:23 PM - 7 Comments

Nazim Gillani, the businessman who allegedly boasted to be a financier to the Hells Angels, is taking issue with the Toronto Star‘s report of his dealings with former MP Rahim Jaffer. In a statement today, Gillani urged the media to carefully examine reporter Kevin Donovan’s work instead of taking it at face value. On the advice of his legal counsel, Gillani will remain silent on the subject until an April 21 court hearing.

CNW Newswire

Curvy recession figures

By macleans.ca - Sunday, April 11, 2010 at 3:07 PM - 6 Comments

Two studies, one using American movie actresses, the other Playboy Playmates of the Year, show that in hard times, such as an economic recession, people tend to prefer taller, heavier, and more mature looking women. The studies tie the appearance of curvy women to certain personality traits—such as fertility, strength, maturity, and independence—which are desirable during periods of uncertainty.

Live Science

Thai protesters reject talks with government

By macleans.ca - Sunday, April 11, 2010 at 2:36 PM - 0 Comments

21 are dead and over 900 are wounded after a night of brutal clashes between Thailand’s military and anti-government protesters. After four weeks of relatively calm demonstrations in Bangkok, tensions erupted into violence, prompting a night of gasoline explosions, gunfire and tear gas. The anti-government group, the ‘Red Shirts’, have rejected a Thai government overture to end demonstrations and enter into talks, walking the streets today to mourn the dead. The so-named Red Shirts reject any negotiations with Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, and call for his immediate resignation. The group contends that Abhisit illegitimately came to power after the former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra was removed during a 2006 coup. Abhisit has offered to call elections by the end of the year, but protesters demand quicker action.

Hamid Karzai may shut down NATO offensive

By macleans.ca - Sunday, April 11, 2010 at 11:51 AM - 7 Comments

Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai has promised to delay or even cancel a major NATO offensive, in response to the frustration of tribal elders in Kandahar province. Last week, the president attended a shura of 1,500 tribal leaders and elders in Kandahar, attempting to rally support for a major NATO operation set to be carried out against the Taliban in the war-torn province this summer. Karzai was instead overwhelmed by complaints and accusations of corruption and misrule, and appeared to offer the group veto power. “Are you happy or unhappy for the operation to be carried out?” he asked. The elders shouted back: “We are not happy.” “Then until the time you say you are happy, the operation will not happen,” Karzai replied.

Times Online

Music: "…or was it your heart bursting?"

By Paul Wells - Sunday, April 11, 2010 at 9:05 AM - 12 Comments

By one of the odd coincidences a capital city sometimes serves up, the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra has long been scheduled to play a complete program of Polish music tomorrow night, Monday. The Polish embassy was already taking an active interest in the concert. I’ll be out of town but was already regretting the prospect of missing it. Now, given the tragic news from Smolensk, I thought I’d pass word of it on to you.

The program includes two of the most prominent Polish compositions of the 20th century — Gorecki’s Third Symphony, which has enjoyed a surprising but welcome pop notoriety since Peter Weir used it in the score for the Jeff Bridges movie Fearless; and Lutoslawski’s Concerto for Orchestra, as dramatic and imaginative as any piece I know. The third piece, which will open the concert, makes the coincidence of timing deeper, richer and eerie.

It’s the Elegia by Peter Paul Koprowski, a Polish-Canadian composer who’s been retained as one of the NAC’s composers-in-residence for the next couple of years. It’s a setting, for solo soprano voice, of the poem Elegy on a Polish Boy by Krzysztof Kamil Baczynski. He wrote it in March of 1944 and, I discovered this morning, it goes like this:

They kept you, little son, from dreams like trembling butterflies,
they wove you, little son, in dark red blood two mournful eyes,
they painted landscapes with the yellow stitch of conflagrations,
they decorated all with hangmen’s trees the flowing oceans.

They taught you, little son, to know by heart your land of birth
as you were carving out with tears of iron its many paths.
They reared you in the darkness and fed you on terror’s bread;
you traveled gropingly that shamefulest of human roads.

And then you left, my lovely son, with your black gun at midnight,
and felt the evil prickling in the sound of each new minute.
Before you fell, over the land you raised your hand in blessing.
Was it a bullet killed you, son, or was it your heart bursting?

Four and a half months after he wrote those lines, Baczynski was shot to death in the first days of the Warsaw Uprising.

Masters weekend: assassins, stalkers, suicide bombers

By Colby Cosh - Sunday, April 11, 2010 at 5:27 AM - 2 Comments

The Masters news tonight is full of Phil Mickelson’s astonishing Saturday hulkout on holes 13, 14, and 15, where he went eagle, eagle, birdie-that-came-within-18-inches-of-another-eagle to carve five strokes off Lee Westwood’s lead in about the time it takes to eat a bowl of soup. It’s easy to overlook that Westwood is actually still the 54-hole leader at 12-under. Mickelson’s sequence was like a grenade going off in the middle of a tournament that is, otherwise, being decided on the greens—i.e., the most carefully tended real estate, square inch for square inch, that exists anywhere on planet Earth. (I once interviewed an Augusta greenskeeper who had learned turf science at Alberta’s Fairview College; he was bound by non-disclosure rules so strict that Augusta employees can’t even talk about how many Augusta employees there are, but I was left with little doubt that he and his colleagues are intimate with those greens down to the level of individual shoots of grass.)

Westwood is playing steady, confident, error-free golf. It’s a shame that Masters.com hasn’t preserved video of Westwood’s second shot at the par-4 7th. Off the tee, he put the ball in light rough with a stand of trees between himself and the hole, as many do there; most golfers most days would hem and haw over the ball and consult their caddies for a half-hour, especially with a green jacket in the balance, but Westwood stepped coolly to the ball (“Whoa, what? He’s hitting?”) and just schwacked it nonchalantly through the pines and onto the green, stirring nary a needle. He has apparently decided that the order of the day is no fear, no contemplation, no overthinking.

I had high hopes for the Lee Westwood-Ian Poulter battle that Friday’s round seemed to set up; the two Englishmen, the cut-rate James Bond and the eccentric fashion-victim, would have made an excellent Sunday pairing. Alas, Poulter carded a 74 on Saturday. He might still be reading the greens better than anybody, and a lot of men win majors by keeping their heads when all about them are losing theirs, but he doesn’t seem like a natural candidate to rally from six strokes behind.

Indeed, nobody does; 18 of the last 19 Masters champions have come from the fourth round’s final pairing, and Westwood and Mickelson will wake up with margins of four and three strokes, respectively, over their nearest competitors—the sturdy Korean bantam K.J. Choi and a certain philandering Cablinasian who, despite his high placing, seems to be having a tough weekend.

The Backbench Top Ten

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, April 10, 2010 at 11:40 PM - 18 Comments

Our weekly, and wholly arbitrary, ranking of the ten most worthy, or at least entertaining, MPs, excluding the Prime Minister, cabinet members and party leaders. A celebration of all that is great and ridiculous about the House of Commons. Last week’s rankings appear in parentheses. Continue…

Today in all that

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, April 10, 2010 at 8:37 PM - 70 Comments

Rahim Jaffer’s business associate has reportedly boasted of his connections to the Hells Angels. Helena Guergis’ constituents are unimpressed. The Globe and Canwest profile the now former minister of state. Guergis is reported to be “peripherally” connected to Jaffer’s business. The Star reprints her resignation letter in full. And the Toronto Sun manages to exceed all else in tastelessness.

Wait—it gets worse

By macleans.ca - Saturday, April 10, 2010 at 4:54 PM - 23 Comments

New allegations have emerged stating that Rahim Jaffer and a business associate claiming to be a banker for the Hells Angels tried to sell political influence, reports the Toronto Star. The new reports coincide with RCMP investigations of his wife, minister of state for the status of women Helena Guergis, who allegedly allowed Jaffer to use her parliamentary office to conduct commercial business, and may have sat in on meetings herself. These reports follow Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s announcement on Friday of Guergis’ resignation, and subsequent ejection from the Conservative caucus until the matter is resolved.

Toronto Star

Gilles Duceppe: Coming to a city near you

By Philippe Gohier - Saturday, April 10, 2010 at 3:32 PM - 98 Comments

Twenty years after the Meech Lake negotiations collapsed, leaving Quebec as the only province without its signature at the bottom of the Constitution, Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe is still looking for someone—anyone—in the rest of Canada who’s still interested in talking about Quebec’s plight.

“Canada hasn’t made any offers” that would entice Quebec to sign on to the Constitution, Duceppe said in an interview with Macleans.ca, “and I don’t think any are coming.” And that’s true, he adds, no matter what the federal government looks like. “When there’s a majority government in Canada, they say ‘we have a mandate and it’s to not make any offers.’ When it’s a minority government, they say ‘we’re not in a position to make an offer.’ We’re forced to conclude, then, that Canada is a take-it-or-leave-it proposition.”

Continue…

Brigade 888

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, April 10, 2010 at 12:49 PM - 4 Comments

Three years ago this month it was Graeme Smith’s reporting on the treatment of Afghan detainees that pushed this issue to the forefront, the government soon thereafter compelled to sign a new transfer agreement. Today, Smith tells us about the notorious operation of Asadullah Khalid, what Canadians knew (or should have known) and how Canada both defended the governor and may have helped fund his work.

A Canadian officer shrugged off a question about whether, in retrospect, Canadians should have monitored the interrogations to make sure prisoners weren’t tortured. “From the Afghan point of view, that would be like your mom sitting down with you on the couch while you’re trying to make out with your girlfriend,” the officer said. “It would have been awkward.”

Separately, Smith talks to a detainee held and tortured at Sarpoza prison.

A land too acquainted with grief

By Paul Wells - Saturday, April 10, 2010 at 9:39 AM - 14 Comments

The Gazeta Wyborcza “turns the rules” in mourning, publishing its website only in black to chronicle the astonishing death of the country’s president Lech Kaczynski and dozens of others in a plane crash in Russia. The great newspaper’s founder Adam Michnik, who came from the Catholic reform left and disagreed with most of everything Kaczynski was in politics to accomplish, prints a short and dignified appreciation (I’m linking to Google translations; Polish doesn’t robo-translate well to English, but you can get the gist).

Kaczynski was a controversial figure who put a broadly-brushed xenophobia at the centre of his politics. In a country with a long history of violent dismemberment at the hands of its neighbours, most recently by the parties to the Molotov-Ribbentropp pact, xenophobia can at times be forgiven and often politically profitable. But most recent accounts suggest Poland was tiring of Kaczynski’s  assorted resentments and that he’d have trouble winning re-election this autumn. Still, Michnik gets it right: Kaczynski was courtly and warm in his personal relations with friend and foe, and his constant motive was patriotism. A cornerstone of his personal legacy is the Warsaw Rising Museum, to which Kaczynski gave the green light and his strong support while he was the city’s mayor. (In a city full of museums, if you get into a cab and say “take me to the museum,” this is where they take you.)

On the accident itself, it’s worth pointing out that for any politician, a decision about whether to land an airplane in inclement weather is an inherently political call and I’m a little surprised something like today’s tragedy doesn’t happen more often. To pick a relatively trivial example, during the stormy autumn of 1998, I rode in Quebec Liberal leader Jean Charest’s campaign plane as it made more than one reckless descent through freezing rain and high winds to get to campaign events.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk will surely cancel an Ottawa visit that was to happen this week. He and Kaczynski barely got along and had used airplanes as instruments to express stark disagreements over foreign policy before (I’m trying to track down an account of an airborne dispute between them that played out during the 2008 Georgia-Russia unpleasantness.) With a passenger list that included the country’s entire military command, its Olympic chairman, relatives of the Katyn murder victims and many politicians, the destruction of Kaczynski’s plane is tragedy on a scale Canadians can barely imagine. What makes this such a Polish catastrophe is that to many of the country’s older residents, it will all feel so familiar.

Polish President killed in plane crash

By macleans.ca - Saturday, April 10, 2010 at 9:35 AM - 2 Comments

The Polish leader Lech Kaczynski is dead, along with his his wife, the head of the Polish central bank, the army chief of staff, head of the National Security Office, and various other senior government officials. The high profile group’s flight, from Warsaw to the Russian city of Smolensk, crashed as it attempted to land in a thick fog, officials said. There were no survivors among the 96 people who were aboard the plane, a Tupolev 154. “We still cannot fully understand the scope of this tragedy and what it means for us in the future. Nothing like this has ever happened in Poland,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Piotr Paszkowski said. Poland’s parliament speaker has become the acting president, and has declared a week of national mourning. The group was traveling to Russia to commemorate the anniversary of the Soviet Union’s murder of thousands of Polish officers at the beginning of WWII.

CBC News

'Baseless allegations and unfounded assertions'

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, April 9, 2010 at 10:47 PM - 107 Comments

Canwest gets hold of Helena Guergis’ letter of resignation.

In the resignation letter she submitted to Harper, a copy of which was obtained by Canwest News Service, Guergis said: “I take responsibility for any errors I may have made, but at no time did I compromise my oath as a Member of the Privy Council.

“It has become apparent through baseless allegations and unfounded assertions made about my family that I need to step aside to allow for the good work of our government to continue serving Canadians,” she wrote.

CTV adds what it can in the way of details, including the curious observation that one of the allegations is so sensitive those who’ve heard it won’t speak of it.

David Simon: New Orleans is "An American Brigadoon"

By Jaime Weinman - Friday, April 9, 2010 at 4:13 PM - 0 Comments

That’s what he tells James Poniewozik, anyway. Time will tell whether this comment is all part of his plan to sell the Treme rights to Broadway.*

The interview also deals with something I mentioned in my previous post, the fact that Treme is, at least at this point, a show that doesn’t have a lot of melodramatic content. (Though he hints at the possibility that the crime content of the show might increase once the years pass, since the crime rate eventually did go back up in the city.) Before Katrina, he and Eric Overmeyer couldn’t even pitch the idea of a show about New Orleans because they didn’t have a sensational hook to hang it on, and even now, it may be risky to do a show about a world where gunfights and other TV crutches are not common:

If you can walk guys in the room with guns, it’s an instant crutch. I mean, I’m not saying we did it [on The Wire] because it’s a crutch, but whatever else it is–character nuance starting to lag? Have a guy walk into a room with a gun, have the gun go off… There’s a reason that 95% of shows are cops and emergency rooms and courtrooms. They’re the natural friction points of American life. To have a show where a guy picks up a horn instead of an automatic weapon–we may not last that long. But no reason not to try.

It reminds me a bit of something Hugh Wilson once said about M*A*S*H (which he didn’t work on but loved), pointing out that the writers had a big advantage in being the only sitcom set in a world of life-or-death situations: when they had trouble resolving a story, they could simply interrupt it by having the P.A. guy announce incoming wounded. With violence, or sick people, or people on trial for murder, it’s always easier to convince the audience that the stakes are high.

This is one of the reasons why, in answer to a question about which shows I consider non-melodramatic dramas, I can’t think of a whole lot of examples — at least in long-running U.S. series TV. thirtysomething, I guess, stayed relatively small-scale in many of its storylines, even if people cried a lot, and Men of a Certain Age is a show where the characters have a lot of problems that recognizably belong to everyday life. The difference between “drama” and “melodrama” is sometimes sort of like the difference between sexual content and pornography; we know it when we see it, but we can’t easily define it. Any television show will have to give the characters more spectacular problems (or just more problems at once) than we would normally see in real life. But if an hour-long drama involves crises that are sort of down-to-earth, as opposed to sudden injections of violence, threats, deep dark long-kept family secrets, and so on, it at least feels kind of like a change of pace from the average drama, because most dramas are about a heightened reality where spectacular things happen all the time.

*I did a show or two or four
That dealt with the problems in Baltimore,
And made myself a name,
Though the Emmys rarely came.
But Baltimore provides no plot
Or place I can shoot where I haven’t shot,
I’ll tell you what that means:
I’ll go down to New Orleans.
Go down, go down, go down to New Orleans.
Go down, go down, I’ll go down to New Orleans.

Harper and Ignatieff on Guergis: variations on a set-piece scandal

By John Geddes - Friday, April 9, 2010 at 2:58 PM - 154 Comments

Faced with scandal in their circles, political leaders can usually be counted on to adopt an air of wounded self-righteousness. For an extreme example, think Brian Mulroney. He never missed a chance to act the part of a man so honourable that he can scarcely believe it when perfidy is revealed around him.

I fully expected Stephen Harper to try on his own version of that familiar guise today when he had to announce, in the foyer of the House of Commons this afternoon, that Helena Guergis has exited her job as minister of state for the status of women, her unspecified missteps now the subject of probes by the RCMP and the government’s ethics commissioner.

Continue…

'Serious allegations'

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, April 9, 2010 at 2:50 PM - 32 Comments

Helena Guergis is no longer a cabinet minister. Indeed, she would appear to not currently be a member in good-standing of the Conservative caucus. The Prime Minister’s announcement is as follows.

“Last night, my office became aware of serious allegations regarding the conduct of the Honourable Helena Guergis. These allegations relate to the conduct of Ms. Guergis and do not involve any other minister, MP, senator or federal government employee,” Harper said. ”I’ve referred the allegations to the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner and to the RCMP. Under the circumstances, I will not comment on them further.”

A copy of Ms. Guergis’ farewell e-mail is here. Video of the Prime Minister’s press conference is here. Video of Michael Ignatieff’s response is here.

Vanity Fair takes note of the juiciest Canadian political scandal they’ve ever heard of. Our John Geddes considers the official reaction. Don Martin surveys the wreckage and glee. John Ivison identifies the lesson to be learned here. And reviews of today’s turn from the Canadian Press, Globe, Star and Canwest.

U.S. magazine encourages boycott of Canadian seafood

By macleans.ca - Friday, April 9, 2010 at 2:43 PM - 10 Comments

“I pledge not to buy seafood products produced in Canada—such as snow crabs, cod, scallops, and shrimp—until Canada ends its commercial seal hunt for good,” reads the first paragraph of a petition by the U.S. Humane Society. The petition has been around for over five years and encourages Americans to pledge to not buy Canadian seafood “because it’s working.” Friday, The Nation, which calls itself the “flagship of the left,” published a letter to its readers once again calling attention to the issue, urging them to sign up. “A small group of commercial fishermen in Canada kill seal pups for their fur to a devastating effect. This year, the Canadian government abetted the process by increasing the year’s quota of allowable seal killings.” The letter was signed by Peter Rothberg, associate publisher of The Nation.

The Humane Society

Harry Potter: The Exhibition (PHOTOS)

By Andrew Tolson - Friday, April 9, 2010 at 1:46 PM - 0 Comments

Heaven for Harry Potter fans

By Patricia Treble - Friday, April 9, 2010 at 1:43 PM - 2 Comments

The Weasley Twins (James and Oliver Phelps) ‘sort’ a young fan. Photograph by Andrew Tolson

Picking a favourite item from the myriad movie artifacts in the new Harry Potter exhibit at Toronto’s Ontario Science Centre is difficult, even for an actor in the series. James Phelps, who plays the mischievous Fred Weasley, paused for a while before deciding on the Gryffindor displays near the beginning of the exhibit, “mainly because it has the Marauder’s Map, which was a big part of Fred and George’s influence in the movie when they gave it to Harry.” Then he mentions the tiny four-poster beds used by Harry Potter and best friend Ron Weasley in the first few films. “See how small Ron and Harry were,” he comments. “They couldn’t get in them now.”

PHOTO GALLERY
Harry Potter: The Exhibition — Inside the exhibition that brings Hogwarts to life

This is the only Canadian stop for “Harry Potter: The Exhibition,” which offers Muggles an up-close look at the magical world created by J.K. Rowling and so beloved by millions. What will amaze visitors to the exhibit, which opens on April 9 and runs through Aug. 22, is the detail that went into every prop. Harry’s bed has a faded “G XXV” stenciled on it, signifying that it was the 25th bed in the Gryffindor dorm. Ron’s bed is covered by a knitted patchwork blanket. Nearby is Ron’s collection of Chudley Cannon souvenirs, including a T-shirt signed by members of the famous Quidditch team. And in front, in a glass case, is the famous Marauder’s Map.

There are so many items, large and small, in the exhibit—including 17 wands and 25 sets of wizarding robes—that going back to take a second or third look at the displays is a necessity. Otherwise fans might miss the sound of a tiny beak pecking on the inside of a dragon’s egg in Hagrid’s hut. Or a note pinned to Hogwarts’ notice board announcing that a student had found a false Merlin’s beard.

Eddie Newquist, who created the exhibit, explains that the layering of artifact upon artifact was deliberate. Even chandeliers, hidden high up in the rafters, were those used in Gryffindor common area. After Warner Bros. agreed to a traveling exhibit of movie props from the first six movies—they are still shooting the two-part Deathly Hallows conclusion—Newquist, who’d already read all the books, sat down with his staff to outline what they, as fans, would like to see. And their fantasies came true in the exhibit. The attention to detail extends even to smells. While the outdoor area, which houses Hagrid’s hut and Quidditch memorabilia, has the scent of grass, the Dark Arts section, with ‘Wanted’ posters of Death Eaters and Lord Voldemort’s robes blowing in the wind, is musty and dank. Even the exhibit workers, all OSC employees, were picked for their British accents. The fact they’d all read the series is a bonus.

Alas, those hoping to catch a behind the scenes look at the movies, will be disappointed. While the exhibit, put on with the approval of Warner Bros., will have Harry Potter fans squealing with delight, the series’ scientific and technical prowess isn’t on display. Even Lesley Lewis, CEO of the Ontario Science Centre, falls back on “craftsmanship” as a reason for its presence at a scientific educational centre. And, in an era in which interaction is key to any exhibit, there isn’t much to do but ogle, reminisce and dream, though fans can get “sorted” at the beginning, and will inevitably end up in Gryffindor. And, if the security at the exhibit’s stop in Chicago, is any indication, don’t even think of taking a picture. In the windy city, workers, apparently channeling Dolores Umbridge’s pink-camouflaged dark soul, were observed confiscating phones and deleting pictures. Those caveats aside, “Harry Potter: The Exhibit,” is going to be a smash hit. The gift shop, dressed up as Diagon Alley, will sell out of wands and mugs, and every Harry Potter fan will leave the science centre in a good mood. Because, let’s face it, that’s the magic of Hogwarts.