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poltr1Well, the fifth book -- Harry Potter adn the Order of the Phoenix -- is finally out, after months of speculation on the release date, and the weeks of waiting until it finally was released late this morning.
Last night, my wife, my daughter and I were at the Barnes & Noble at the Kenwood Mall in Cincinnati, Ohio, for the pre-release party. Two of our friends, Andrea and Steve, were two out of many performers there that night. Steve, who is a semi-professional magician, did his "Professor Stephen Midnight" act, and Andrea, who is an accomplished tarot reader, was "Madame Trelawney" and did tarot readings for the kids. One of the other performers I remember seeing there was a young woman with a Professor Snape hairdo/wig and made potions.
The B&N staff were all decked out in pointed witches' hats, and the cafe was serving butterbeer. They also offered pictures with Harry -- or actually, a cardboard display of him which matched the cover of the new book. And there were plenty of kids there, dressed up like Harry, parents in tow, and wearing the round eyeglass frames that the bookstore staff had available. I think this will be an event the kids will remember for a long time.
Thankfully, there were no fundies standing outside, protesting the book release.
Earlier that day, they invited us down to have dinner with them beforehand and to hang out during the pre-release party. Since I work in Cincinnati, it was just a hop, skip, and a jump to the Kenwood Mall for me. It was a bit more of a drive for my wife, since she works in downtown Dayton.
When I got there, PRI's Marketplace was doing a feature on the Harry Potter phenomenon, and had a brief interview with the guy who wrote the book "Jump The Shark: When Good Things Go Bad" (which is based on the website of the same name: www.jumptheshark.com. His response was that the Potter franchise jumped the shark when the first movie came out, and when Coca-Cola had their Harry Potter promotion.
We had dinner at Johnny Rockets, a 1950's-style hamburger resturant. The burgers were good, and so were the shakes. We caught up on each other's lives since we haven't seen each other in several months -- we gave them their overdue Christmas presents from last year.
As for the book.....we went home empty-handed. Maria was getting restless, so we left around 9:45pm. That's OK. I didn't have a reservation in for the book, and I knew that if we stayed around for the relase (and thus endure the madness), I wouldn't have been able to start reading it for a few weeks,, so there's no loss. Besides, I'm in no hurry to get it. Just don't post any spoilers in yor journals, OK?
Meanwhile, at another point on the world, Druids stand at the stones of Stonehenge, waiting for Midsummer to arrive......
Next: What we did on our Midsummer Day.
Last night, my wife, my daughter and I were at the Barnes & Noble at the Kenwood Mall in Cincinnati, Ohio, for the pre-release party. Two of our friends, Andrea and Steve, were two out of many performers there that night. Steve, who is a semi-professional magician, did his "Professor Stephen Midnight" act, and Andrea, who is an accomplished tarot reader, was "Madame Trelawney" and did tarot readings for the kids. One of the other performers I remember seeing there was a young woman with a Professor Snape hairdo/wig and made potions.
The B&N staff were all decked out in pointed witches' hats, and the cafe was serving butterbeer. They also offered pictures with Harry -- or actually, a cardboard display of him which matched the cover of the new book. And there were plenty of kids there, dressed up like Harry, parents in tow, and wearing the round eyeglass frames that the bookstore staff had available. I think this will be an event the kids will remember for a long time.
Thankfully, there were no fundies standing outside, protesting the book release.
Earlier that day, they invited us down to have dinner with them beforehand and to hang out during the pre-release party. Since I work in Cincinnati, it was just a hop, skip, and a jump to the Kenwood Mall for me. It was a bit more of a drive for my wife, since she works in downtown Dayton.
When I got there, PRI's Marketplace was doing a feature on the Harry Potter phenomenon, and had a brief interview with the guy who wrote the book "Jump The Shark: When Good Things Go Bad" (which is based on the website of the same name: www.jumptheshark.com. His response was that the Potter franchise jumped the shark when the first movie came out, and when Coca-Cola had their Harry Potter promotion.
We had dinner at Johnny Rockets, a 1950's-style hamburger resturant. The burgers were good, and so were the shakes. We caught up on each other's lives since we haven't seen each other in several months -- we gave them their overdue Christmas presents from last year.
As for the book.....we went home empty-handed. Maria was getting restless, so we left around 9:45pm. That's OK. I didn't have a reservation in for the book, and I knew that if we stayed around for the relase (and thus endure the madness), I wouldn't have been able to start reading it for a few weeks,, so there's no loss. Besides, I'm in no hurry to get it. Just don't post any spoilers in yor journals, OK?
Meanwhile, at another point on the world, Druids stand at the stones of Stonehenge, waiting for Midsummer to arrive......
Next: What we did on our Midsummer Day.
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Date: 2003-06-22 10:34 am (UTC)That was one of my colleagues from a nonfiction writers' group that I get together with twice a month, at that same bookstore. She's a local middleschool science teacher, who has published a couple of science project books :-)
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Date: 2003-06-22 07:23 pm (UTC)Had I known that you knew her, I probably would have walked up to her and said hello. Her session didn't start until 9:30, but when it did, it looked packed.