Daniel Radcliffe and The Trevor Project

Daniel Radcliffe, the rapidly maturing, title-role star of the series of movies based on J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter novels, is putting his celebrity to good use by supporting and endorsing The Trevor Project, a foundation that helps gay kids deal with adversity.

According to a news release posted today on PR Newswire:

The Trevor Project, the non-profit organization that operates the only nationwide, around-the-clock crisis and suicide prevention helpline for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) youth, today announced that it has received a major donation from Daniel Radcliffe, the critically-acclaimed star of the "Harry Potter" film series and Broadway's "Equus." The 20-year-old actor joined The Trevor Project's Circle of Hope, a community of major donors which plays an essential role in providing the financial leadership that makes the organization's lifesaving work possible.

The Trevor Project was founded in 1998 by three filmmakers whose film, "Trevor," a comedy/drama about a gay teenager who attempts suicide, received the 1994 Academy Award(R) for Best Short Film (Live Action). Since its founding, The Trevor Helpline has received hundreds of thousands of calls from LGBTQ youth across the country. In the past year alone, call volume to The Trevor Helpline has increased more than 300 percent.

"I am very pleased to begin my support of The Trevor Project, which saves lives every day through its critical work," said Daniel Radcliffe. "It's extremely distressing to consider that in 2009 suicide is a top three killer of young people, and it's truly devastating to learn that LGBTQ youth are up to four times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers. I deeply hope my support can raise the organization's visibility so even more despondent youth become aware of The Trevor Helpline's highly trained counselors and Trevor's many other resources. It's vitally important that young people understand they are not alone and, perhaps even more important, that their young lives have real value."

The Oscar-winning short film, Trevor, is available for purchase at Amazon.com. The Trevor Project has a web site with links to its various programs. There is also a Trevor Project page on Facebook.

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Dumbledore Is Gay!

While the New Criticism tells us not to care -- authorial intent be damned! -- word comes from New York that J. K. Rowling has pronounced that the beloved character of the Harry Potter books, Dumbledore, is gay.

Reuters reports:

J.K. Rowling has outed one of the main characters of her best-selling Harry Potter series, telling fans in New York that the wizard Albus Dumbledore, head of Hogwarts school, is gay.

Speaking at Carnegie Hall on Friday night in her first U.S. tour in seven years, Rowling confirmed what some fans had always suspected -- that she "always thought Dumbledore was gay," reported entertainment Web site E! Online....

Rowling said she had read through a script for the movie adaptation of the sixth book in the series, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" and corrected a passage in which Dumbledore was reminiscing about past loves by crossing it out and scrawling "Dumbledore is gay" over it.

The author says so; so it is. (New Critics be damned!)

Tinky-Winky was unavailable for comment.

Harry Potter: Economic Dynamo

With the impending release of both the fifth movie and seventh book in the Harry Potter series, interest in the boy-turned-adolescent wizard is at new heights.

Release Me has a post of a press release from the Nielsen companies about the economic impact of Harry Potter -- books, movies, DVDs, music CDs, toys, games, and miscellany -- since 1998. Much too long to repost in its entirety here (it has many nuggets of information and various statistics), it says in part:

Here is a unique look at the Harry Potter effect.

— Book sales (Nielsen BookScan) - Since 1998, when Nielsen began measuring book sales in the United Kingdom, the six Harry Potter books have sold more than 22.5 million copies in the UK alone. In the United States, the Harry Potter titles published after 2001 have sold more than 27.7 million copies.

— Box Office sales (Nielsen EDI) - Combined, the first four Harry Potter films have grossed more than $3.5 billion worldwide. The first film, “Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone,” is the fourth all-time highest grossing film worldwide.

— Advertising (Nielsen Monitor-Plus) - In the U.S., ad spend for all Harry Potter branded merchandise (including books, movies, DVDs and other promotional products) totals $269.1 million from 1998 to date. Outside of the U.S. from 2000 to date, $119.3 million was spent on total advertising for all Harry Potter branded merchandise in Canada, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, South Africa, Switzerland, and the U.K.

— DVD/Video sales (Nielsen VideoScan) -All three Harry Potter DVDs/Videos - Sorcerer’s Stone, Chamber of Secrets, and Prisoner of Azkaban - debuted at #1 and remained the #1 family film for the first 3 weeks of each release.

— Internet Traffic (Nielsen//NetRatings) - The Warner Bros. “Harry Potter Order of the Phoenix” Web site drew 446,762 unique visitors in May 2007.

— Internet Buzz (Nielsen BuzzMetrics) - On blogs, the final book “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” is generating more “buzz” than the latest movie installment, “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.”

— Music sales (Nielsen SoundScan) - The four Harry Potter soundtracks combined have sold more than 1.1 million copies in the U.S. and almost 100,000 copies in Canada since the initial release back in October 2001. There have been a total of 180,000 downloads of individual songs that tied to the four Harry Potter soundtracks.

— TV ratings (Nielsen Media Research) - Since 2002, the Harry Potter movies have aired on U.S. television a total of 366 times.

— Moviegoer Profile (Nielsen Cinema) - A recent survey of moviegoers shows 51% of persons age 12+ are aware that the new book is coming out next month. Twenty-eight percent of persons 12+ in the U.S. have read one or more of the previous Harry Potter books, and 15% have read all of the Harry Potter books-to-date.

— Consumer (ACNielsen) - More than $11.8 million has been spent by U.S. consumers on Harry Potter-licensed trademark cookies, candy and gum products since June 2002.

That's a mouthful, isn't it?

Speaking of mouths full, I was intrigued by that last item, which is expanded later in Nielsen's news release:

ACNielsen data also shows that sales for Harry Potter-licensed cookies, candy and gum products peak the week a Harry Potter movie or book launches, showing almost $900,000 in sales for Harry Potter-licensed goods the week of the 11/5/02 movie premiere of “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” and $650,000 in sales the week of the 11/18/05 movie premiere of “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire”.

Candy products licensed from the Harry Potter series can be a little unconventional. Some favorites include: Cockroach Clusters, Jelly Slugs, Ice Mice, Chocolate Frogs, Fizzing Whizbees, and of course Bertie Bott’s Jelly Beans, including ear wax and dirt flavors.

Mmmmm! Ear wax and dirt! "Unconventional" is the least of it.

On a related topic, Doug Mataconis deflates some of the mythology surrounding the (non-economic) impact Harry Potter has had on youth reading habits. The hope was fun while it lasted.

To Search, To Seek, To Find

I am sitting in the lobby of University Tire & Auto Center in Charlottesville, waiting for a diagnosis as to why my car's electrical system has collapsed. (I am hoping it is just a dead battery.) To pass the time, I have reviewed the search terms that brought the last 4,000 visitors to this blog and discovered, once again, odd and inexplicable examples of Googling.

After several other explorations of these phenomena, I have decided to retire -- at least for the moment -- substantial reflection on the numerous searches for nude, shirtless, or circumcised celebrities, or inquiries regarding the size of their genitalia. I am still struck, however, by the persistence of the rumor that actor Daniel Radcliffe ("Harry Potter") is or will be attending the University of Virginia (though you will note there is a new variation on this one, since people are now trying to find out if he has matriculated at Virginia Commonwealth University -- perhaps a judgment that Daniel was reaching too high with regard to UVa?).

Here, in alphabetical order, are the most recent illustrations of perplexing words and phrases that drove people here from Google, Yahoo, Ask.com, AOL, Dogpile, and other search engines:

aaron carter's sex drive is high

catholic male masturbators

Corigliano + Flintstones

dick cheney dances at national press luncheon

dismally resuscitate

don ameche and log cabin republicans

flintstone lesbians

fried fish gay sex

harry potter going to virginia commonwealth university

lsd AND "history of the american flag" "stars and stripes"

naughty medieval limericks

"other uses" viagra

perpendicular milwaukee

Petition to have candidate removed from ballet Maryland template

ronald reagan's library and fundraising and assortment of foods

"Ron Paul" circumcision

"r. steven landes" idiot

star wars nursing scrubs

thought of son as a fellator

tony danza gay male prostitute

vomit sex

was pope benedict ix gay?

where to buy bongs charlottesville

why are gays always shirtless?

will they ever let the cowsills sing at fenway again

Of all these, the one that strikes me as the oddest and most inscrutable is "fried fish gay sex." Is this some kind of fetish that has heretofore had no proponents? Is it an expression of multiple hungers? Is there a restaurant somewhere in the world with a unique menu? Someone, please, tell me.

Speaking of Harry Potter ...

More news from Britain, definitely not the disappointing sort:

The final Harry Potter book is slated for release on July 21. Scholastic Corp. publishes the book in the United States, while Bloomsbury Publishing handles the book in Great Britain.

The portentous title of the seventh installment in the series is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

MediaBistro's GalleyCat adds this enticing note:

Sale of the book in all time zones is embargoed until 00:01 BST (British Summer Time) on Saturday 21st July 2007.

If past experience is a guide, there will be attempts to break the embargo.

Coincidentally, the fifth movie based on the J. K. Rowling books will be in cinemas just days before the new book is released. Reports the Associated Press:

Four hit movies already have been adapted from the Potter books. The fifth film, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," is scheduled to come out July 13, eight days before the release of "Deathly Hallows."

My understanding is that the adult version of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will be sold without a dust jacket, in tribute to Daniel Radcliffe's fast-approaching debut on the West End stage.

Disappointment from Britain

British television viewers must be crying in their tea upon reading this news, as reported in The Guardian:

Channel 4 has postponed transmission of its "wank week" programming in a bid to avoid further controversy in the aftermath of the Celebrity Big Brother racism row.

The network's short season of three late night documentaries about masturbation was to have been broadcast next month, but has now been taken out of the schedule.

They are expected to be broadcast at a later date, but it is understood they may be broadcast separately and certainly not as part of a branded wank week season.

Correspondent Jason Deans provided this brief but wistful description of what Guardian readers might be missing due to the postponement:

Wank week included documentaries about compulsive male masturbators, female masturbation, and a wankathon event held in London last year.

The question remains, however: Which American TV network will pick up the "wank week" documentaries now that Britain's Channel 4 has got cold feet? (Your suggestions are welcome in the comments section, below.) This could be a whole new arena for office pools, once the Super Bowl is finished. Can "wank week" beat the spread?

I can only imagine what kind of traffic this post will drive my way, after the flood of visitors wanting to see "Harry Potter, Shirtless."

Harry Potter, Shirtless

For the (quite literally) hundreds of visitors to this blog pver the past couple of days who have arrived looking for "Daniel Radcliffe shirtless" and similar terms, I offer this link to an article from This Is London, previewing Mr. Radcliffe's West End theatrical debut in a new production of Equus, in which he plays troubled Alan Strang. There you will find two excellent shirtless photos to admire. (I do not reproduce them here because I respect the owners' copyright.)

The numerous seekers and searchers for moviedom's Harry Potter in a state of déshabillage remind me of the other odd terms that Google brings my way (not to mention Yahoo!, Dogpile, and Ask.com).

In the always popular "shirtless" category, we have, to start, "gerald ford shirtless photo." Others (in no particular order) include Aaron Carter, Alex Trebek, Andrew Sullivan, Hunter Parrish, Robert Redford, Jeremy Sumpter, Prince William, Euan Blair, Thomas Gibson, John Stossel, Jonathan Silverman, Glen Campbell, Jason Alexander, Jesse Eisenberg, Dan Quayle, Drake Bell, Bob Moffatt, William Moseley, and the Everly Brothers.

A lot of web surfers -- no surprise -- seem to have sex on their minds. Here are some of the odder things they have been looking for:

catholic view on erectile dysfunction
captain ahab porn
fred flintstone and betty rubble having erotic sex
how to attract a lesbian
pornography in lynchburg
pornographic photoblog
porn make you older
recreational uses of levitra

Then there are those search terms that are simply puzzling:

cannabis prince william george bush tinkey winkey
Is it a sin for a man to watch a woman urinate?
Sweeney Todd Sondheim review United States Catholic Bishops
Things I like about Catholicism
what leisure activities does guinea ecuatorial have for teens
was idi amin authoritarian

Finally, let me point out that there is no truth to the persistent rumor that Daniel Radcliffe is attending the University of Virginia. (There are hundreds of you, out there, who are trying to confirm that one.) As best as I can tell, it got its start with this article about social networking sites from U.S. News & World Report, which begins:

Harry Potter currently attends the University of Virginia. Actually, a search for the name Harry Potter on Thefacebook.com, a popular online social network for college students, retrieves 32 profiles for "Harry Potter" at universities across the nation.

A work of magic? Hardly. The number who use the boy wizard's name as their screen name when they log in underscores the books' popularity with college students. As the Harry Potter generation grows up, they're bringing a dash of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to the quads and classrooms of real universities.

Eighteen-year-old Emerson Spartz founded mugglenet.com, a popular Potter website that receives more than 15 million hits a month, when he was just 12. This fall, Spartz heads off to the University of Notre Dame, and he says he has already been flooded with E-mails from students there begging him to start a Potter club. If he decides he has time to get one going, it won't be the first. At the University of California-Berkeley, 907 students are members of a Potter group on Thefacebook.com, while 943 Harvard University students list the book series as one of their interests.

I hope that satisfies your interest in this topic. Please don't be discouraged from making repeat visits here, though, and feel free to bookmark this site for future reference.

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Fantasy vs. Reality?

In my brief report on the new documentary film, Jesus Camp, which was screened at the Virginia Film Festival, I pointed out how the pastor in the film warns against imaginary "warlocks" and states that if Harry Potter had been around in Old Testament times, he would have been "put to death."

I saw that movie on Sunday morning, not finding out until later in the day that Parade magazine, the Sunday supplement carried by many U.S. newspapers, reported on efforts to ban Harry Potter books from school libraries:

Now there’s an effort to pull the world’s most popular wizard, Harry Potter, from school libraries in Gwinnett County, Ga. Why? Some parents say kids can’t tell fantasy from reality and will try casting spells on classmates.

"Casting spells on classmates"? Who's having difficulty telling fantasy from reality here? (Hint: It's the parents who believe in magic spells, not the kids who like reading adventure stories.)

Those parents must be the product of government schools, where critical thinking is in short supply.

Shirtless and Circumcised

A curious thing happened when I returned to Charlottesville from a short trip to the beach a few weeks ago. When I posted comments and some photographs from my trip (see "Beach Blogging," July 21), I did not expect many people to be interested in them. But then I found a handful of Usenet newsgroups with names like alt.beach.culture and alt.binaries.pictures.candid.beach. On a whim, I decided to alert readers of those newsgroups about my photos.

To my surprise, this led to a flood of traffic to this blog. ("Flood," of course, being a relative term; it would barely constitute a dripping faucet for Daily Kos or InstaPundit.) And, for the first time, a blog entry of mine that had nothing to do with Dave Moffatt or Aaron Carter was the most popular destination for visitors -- and it remains so.

What will attract blog readers and casual visitors is unpredictable. Besides "Beach Blogging," the remaining posts among my top ten are: "More on The Moffatts" (March 6, 2005); "Karen Hospital Opens Near Nairobi" (April 4, 2006); "Aaron Carter: Pop-Star Pot-Smoker?" (March 11, 2005); "The Odd and the Inscrutable," (May 6, 2006); "Blog Summit Photoblog" (June 21, 2006); "Karen Hospital Revisited" (June 22, 2006); "Dave Moffatt's Huge Surge" (May 30, 2005); "My Lunch with Dick Cheney" (June 19, 2006); and "Gas Prices: How Much Is Too Much?" (July 26, 2006).

Of these, I would consider only the last two named to be serious pieces of blogojournalism. The others are fluff, either celebrity gossip or showcases for photographs. ("Karen Hospital Revisited" is, to be sure, a serious and wordy follow-up to an earlier photoblog, but it's primarily a reprint of a speech from the Congressional Record.)

As I use Site Meter and Google Analytics to find out who is visiting this blog and why, strange patterns emerge, some of which I have addressed in the past.

At one of the break-out sessions during the Sorensen Institute Bloggers' Summit in June, I mentioned, semi-facetiously, that the most popular search terms that bring people to my blog tend to be looking for "shirtless celebrities." Let me amend that: "shirtless and circumcised celebrities."

In the past two or three months, visitors have arrived here looking for shirtless photos of, among others: Joshua Bell, Daniel Bruhl, Aaron Carter, Jesse Eisenberg and Josh Hutcherson (who both starred in an excellent film, The Squid and the Whale), Jesse McCarthy (perhaps meaning Jesse McCartney), Bob Moffatt, Frankie Muniz (in addition to a request for him in "Boxerbriefs"), Rick Nelson, Julian Ovenden (who was also sought "nude" and "naked"), Hunter Parrish, Lou Taylor Pucci, Daniel Radcliffe, Rex Smith, Jeremy Sumpter, as well as the generic "shirtless teen idol." There were no searches for shirtless (or topless) female celebrities.

There seems to be a lot of curiosity out there, however, for whether certain public figures have gone under the knife. Aside from generic searches for "circumcised celebrities," "images of circumcised celebrities," "circumcised teens," and "young celebrities circumcised," there were specific searches for the circumcision status of Joshua Bell, Aaron Carter, Frankie Muniz, Daniel Radcliffe, Peter Sagal (host of NPR's "Wait, Wait ... Don't Tell Me"), Jeremy Sumpter, and someone named "Steve-O."

There are also frequent searches regarding whether Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe -- who will be appearing nude on stage in London's West End next year, in a revival of Equus, which may finally answer those questions about Daniel's genitals -- will be (or is) attending the University of Virginia. This is extremely odd because when I follow the Google searches, there appear to be no Internet rumors to this effect (except for this one, brief mention). Nor are there any legitimate news stories. (In fact, my blog -- for inscrutable reasons -- is usually near the top of the list of Google hits for this search.) If this isn't an Internet rumor, what is its source?

Besides these thematically-linked searches, there are also the simply screwy ones, such as:

canadian national anthem pig latin
find bitch in charlottesville
free gay sausage sex
how to grow dagga
is aaron carter into homosexuality
looking for a lesbian Bar in Tacoma, Wa.
merv griffin and entebbe raid
naked strip game article in Ann Landers around 1981
needlepoint canvasses the prince is sleeping
"sex with old lady"
The moffatts and political issues
tom stoppard npr interview book interstate highway
Truth about Gender of Dave Moffatt
unpainted plaster clown
was bastiat gay
wisemiller's funeral home in southern calf

All I can say is, What were they thinking?

More Like This: See Harry Potter, Shirtless.