Dispatch from Moscow:

While strolling through Smolensk Square, en route to the Arbat (for an indication of the importance of the Arbat, see here, here, here, here, etc., if you know Russian, as well as (on a different note) here), I ran across a book vendor with the following book: Harry Proglotter and the Magic Shawarmatrix. The blurb goes like this (my loose translation on the fly):

Woe, as it happens, crept up unnoticed. Harry Proglotter, a student in the magic school Hobotast, carelessly ate a Magic Shawarma, which contains the roots and offshoots of Universal Evil. And this Evil is growing inside the young wizard, threatening universal catastrophe. Harry must set out on a risky, distant expedition for the healing antidote. He is helped by his friends James Barahlow and Molly Kozazel, and also by master Yoda, who in those days wasn't yet a Jedi teacher.

If you like this, check out the official site of Tanya Grotter.

UPDATE: A commenter asks about Tanya Grotter in English -- the official site is in Russian only, but here's an English description of the character. Another commenter says the book wasn't published in the Netherlands but was available in Belgium -- maybe the commenter is talking about Harry Proglotter, but the Wikipedia site I link to in the previous sentence says that this was true of Tanya Grotter.

However, the "magic shawarma" plot (Perhaps we can have sequels with an enchanted falafel or a cursed baba ghanoush? But there's something cool about a "shawarmatrix" that couldn't be reproduced with other Middle Eastern foodstuffs.) reminds of W.S. Gilbert's infamous magic lozenge plot.

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