Buzz Aldrin on the Moon, Movies This Week: Harry Potter, The Horse Boy & Autism, The Devil’s Queen Audiobook, Journal of the Society for Scientific Exploration, and more…

Buzz Aldrin On The Moon.

He may not have been the first man on the moon, but he's got another historic first under his belt, so to speak: first person to pee on the moon. Marking the 40th anniversary of the first manned moon landing this month, the U.S. astronaut reflects on his moonwalk, his embrace of Twitter, his hopes for the future—and that hallowed lunar leak, accomplished on the lander's ladder, into a special bag in his space suit.

We met Buzz and his fabulous, outspoken wife Lois at Tom Clancy’s very private 60^th birthday party. Within minutes, Lois was telling me family secrets and Buzz’s financial situation. (Photo of Tom – in white dinner jacket - and his gorgeous wife Alex walking the red carpet on the battleship New Jersey, where the exclusive party was held.)

Movies This Week

The Hurt Locker (YES)

(500) Days of Summer (YES).

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (NO),

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Should kill the franchise, but that’s not possible. Too many foolish, ancient wizards and HP, Hermoine and Ron are shallow extras.  A crushing, muddy bore.

If you are not a fan of the books, this one is a crushing bore! I was hoping for a real nasty wizard fight, now that HP has come of age, a Hogwart’s auto-da-fé or at least a Muggle burnt in effigy.

No such luck. Instead we have The Death Eaters 3 swirling through London destroying the Millennium Bridge. Does that set up the evil that is to come? Nope.

Does J.K. Rowling ever explain why wizards have unkempt too long, bushy beards? What’s up with that?

If I were a wizard I’d shave all my hair. What if another wizard or witch got hold of a strand of my hair and used it to put a nasty curse on me?

Why is HP only wearing jeans and a hoodie now that he has accepted his role as The Chosen One? Neo went the Cossack Monk route after being The One Without A Second. Why is Hermoine so dull? Why is Ron such a loser? Shouldn’t an intern witch have a better wardrobe?  

HP, Hermoine and Ron are background players: vapid window dressing without personalities. Did Rowling intentionally sabotage her Billionaire Goose or is director David Yates to blame? Most of the long film, these 3 stand around.

(Rowling must love Yates. This is his second Potter movie and he’s going to ruin the next 2.)

Once again, Professor Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) plays the nosy aunt with a hair-brain scheme to enlist HP (Daniel Radcliffe) to seduce wacky wizard Horace Slughorn (Jim Broadbent) to return to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and teach the art of magic potions.

What happened to sexy wizards with big wands and temptress witches?

I liked Slughorn better as a loveseat.

Only HP can get Slughorn to reveal a secret about his former pupil Tom Riddle, who became the meanie Voldemort. (You’d be angry too if you lost your face in a bar fight!) This Riddle kid is the most interesting person in the movie. You could just tell, if his life’s path went another way, he would have grown up to the UK’s Ted Bundy.

But before we get to the wizard-works and whispered about soul-separating shenanigans, there is the dullness that is wizard teen romance by way of the Mormons.

HP likes Ginny Weasley (Bonnie Wright), but Ron keeps interfering.

That boy is jealous, if you ask me.

Hermoine (Emma Watson) has an improbable crush on Beatle-haired Ron (Rupert Grint), who hasn’t yet been liberated himself from his awkward looking stage. And, for some unfathomable reason, Ron has a comedic stalker, Lavender Brown (Jessie Cave). She keeps mistaking Ron for a rock star.

Fighting his homosexual love for HP, Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton) is still glowering. This kid needs some therapy or, may I suggest, Zoloft? The Dark Lord has assigned extra-credit work for Draco. It has something to do with a Vanishing  Zero-Point Energy Cabinet that kills birds.

Finally, Draco’s nostril-flexing mother Narcissa Malfoy (Helen McCrory) goes to Professor Severus Snape (Alan Rickman) and gets him to make an unbreakable vow to help her son achieve his purpose in life. The Dark Lord promised him a car. Mrs. Malfoy is aided by wild witch Bellatrix Lestrange (Helena Bonham Carter, pictured), also known around my house by the nickname Lucie “Mad Hair” Fur.

Shouldn’t I name my future kitten Lucie Fur?

Too many old wizards and witches are back. Doesn’t anyone retire from Hogwarts or go on a cruise? In fact, the old-timer wizards are trotted out like Vegas has-been celebrity greeters. All that magic and not one beauty potion! These witches never heard of Botox or dermabrasion. Shame on them. I’m not impressed.

I don’t care what sacred ground I’m peeing on, this was one big yawn.

There is a final confrontation between Dumbledore, Malfoy and Severus, with Dumbledore preaching his insignificance in the wake of HP’s ascendancy to The Chosen One Throne of Nonsense.

Journal of the SSE.

The Journal of the Society for Scientific Exploration has several book reviews by members. John reviewed dear friend Jacques Vallee’s new book. And I was kindly mentioned in Jerome Clark’s review of Intermediate States: The Anomalist 13, edited by Patrick Huyghe and Dennis Stacy. Jerry was kind enough to mention my contribution to The Anomalist 13. He wrote:

“Other notable contributions include Victoria Alexander’s extended inquiry into Medieval Mysticism and Its Empirical Kinship to Ayahuasca.” Alexander’s charmingly good-humored tone, I presume, is intended to sooth the reader’s stomach. Some of the appallingingly unappetizing practices described - vomiting figures prominently, and it’s almost the least of it - may generate distress in the more susceptible digestive system.”

Yes, sudden “pooping” is also a problem for many, but not for those of us who eat so little and keep to a watery bowl of oatmeal while doing an ayahuasca retreat. There is usually a toilet somewhere and attendants to guide one to it, but the toilet rarely functions at all. It is best to keep this in mind when thinking about an ayahuasca experience. Of course, I invited Jerry (pictured) to join us, next month or in the future, to experience ayahuasca for himself!

What I’m Reading.

While I’m still reading the mesmerizing “Inquisition: The Reign of Fear” by Toby Green, my other interlibrary loan came in. So I’m also reading “The Sex Life of Salvador Dali: The Memoirs of Carlos Lozano” by Clifford Thurlow.

I’m not liking vainglorious Dali or Lozano! But I do like Gala, Dali’s angry, nymphomaniac wife.

I just finished “The Horse Boy: A Father's Quest to Heal His Son” by Rupert Isaacson. This book came highly recommended by a friend who has spent a great deal of time in Mongolia. I am praying for a trip to Mongolia. The shamans are calling me!

When Rowan was diagnosed with autism, Rupert Isaacson was devastated. Though his wife Kristen, a professor of human development, noticed their two-year-old was “different”, they refused to accept the obvious diagnosis of autism until it was too late.

Isaacson, refusing to believe Rowan was doomed to be autistic, decided that, since Rowan showed improvement when riding a neighbor’s horse, he would take five-year-old, temper-tantrum prone, incontinent Rowan across Mongolia for four weeks, where horses and shamanic healing intersected. Isaacson, Kristen, and a film crew went to Mongolia to seek shamanic healing. Following the documentary (to be released later this year), a feature film is in the works.

The many shamans that saw Rowan told Isaacson he would become a shaman. In fact, Isaacson opined, weren’t all shamans kind of autistic?

Rowan’s biggest accomplishment was becoming somewhat toilet trained. Shockingly, the leading authority on autism in the UK, Simon Baron-Cohen, director of the Autism Research Center at Cambridge University, is quoted as saying that in the near future, autism will be considered normal.

So children will be classified as extroverted, introverted, or autistic!

This is what happens when middle-class and upper-middle-class families have autistic children. Wasn’t Albert Einstein semi-autistic? What about Mozart? And now we learn that Michelangelo may have had Asperger’s, or high-functioning autism! Well, he was known to be temperamental! Michelangelo was also said to be 'aloof, a loner and had few friends.'

But he did hobnob with popes and Italian aristocracy. Not too shabby for an aloof loner with no friends.

According to an article about “The Horse Boy” in the New York Times, “Mr. Isaacson is already working on a new proposal for a book tentatively titled “The Gifts of Autism.” Is autism a gift now?

It was once thought that autism was caused by a “cold mother”. The term "refrigerator mother" was coined to describe a parent whose cold, uncaring style so traumatized her child that he/she retreated into autism. The expression was originally coined by Leo Kanner, who gave autism its name.

Kanner and fellow autism pioneer Hans Asperger both believed that the mothers of many of their patients seemed "cold" and assumed that this added to the condition.

Last month at the CineVegas Film Festival, I saw the movie “Adam” about a young man with Asperger’s. I highly recommend this movie.

Dr. Bernard Rimland, now the director of the Autism Institute, is credited with debunking this myth. By the early 1970's, the idea of "refrigerator mothers" was no longer accepted.

Parenting a child with autism is difficult and stressful. One of the hardest aspects is the feelings of guilt that come with the diagnosis. Did the parents cause the problem by allowing vaccinations, or by exposing their child to a toxin, or by passing along the wrong genes? Parents are expected to be doing more to help. Perhaps by mortgaging the house and trekking across Mongolia?

The Devil’s Queen.

Written by Jeanne Kalogridis, the hardcover edition will be published tomorrow by St. Martin’s Press.  Luckily for me, I’ll be taking the audiobook (available from Macmillan Audio) when I go to Ecuador in two weeks.

I love Showtime’s The Tudors (and I just spent an hour filling out Nielson’s online survey about The Tudors – finally, I found a place to bitch about Henry’s lack of red hair and girth, but praised the costumes and sex!),  so I can’t wait to pass a long plane ride, sitting in a middle seat, with “The Devil’s Queen”.

Confidante of Nostradamus, scheming mother-in-law to Henry’s daughter, Mary, Queen of Scots, Catherine de Medici is one of the most maligned monarchs in history. Novelist Jeanne Kalogridis tells Catherine’s story—that of a tender young girl, destined to be a pawn in Machiavellian games.

Born into one of Florence’s most powerful families, Catherine was left a fabulously rich heiress by the deaths of her parents. Ophaned, she found herself imprisoned and threatened by her family’s enemies before being released and married off to the handsome Prince Henry of France.

Overshadowed by her husband’s mistress, the gorgeous, conniving Diane de Poitiers, and unable to bear children, Catherine wisely resorted to the dark arts of sorcery to win Henry’s love and enhance her fertility—for which she would pay a price. Who could blame her? The stakes were high!

The audiobook comes in two editions: Unabridged, 16.5 hours/$34.95 and abridged, 5.5 hours/$29.95). http://us.macmillan.com/thedevilsqueen.