Trick or Treat

I hope you are enjoying my walk down memory lane when it comes to Harry Potter.

What I've realized is that reading the books and seeing the films have become a larger experience than just sitting in a room reading a book. I have never felt this about any other book or series I've read: this shared anticipation for each book or film to release, such widespread passion for specific characters and their stories. It goes beyond the page.

So, my last Potter memory:

During my final year of college I attended a Halloween party and dressed up as Harry. My friend Katie suggested we go trick-or-treating. It was a ridiculous idea. I had just turned twenty-one years old. I was a senior at a university, on my way to the workplace or to graduate school, to become an adult. I probably had not been trick or treating since I was fourteen.

But I was lucky. I looked very young. Katie did too. This has not always benefited me in my professional and private life. It is hard to be taken seriously when you look like a child. But in that particular situation looking young was an advantage. So we decided to test it. We went trick-or-treating as college seniors. We nodded when people asked us if we went to the local high school, I showed off my Harry costume to a bunch of impressed six year olds, and we got bags and bags of candy. It is one of my fondest memories of college: the day I got to act like a kid.

That's another thing I love about the Harry Potter experience. There's a kind of innocence about the whole craze. A bunch of people who are just excited. About a boy wizard. About a good book.

In anticipation of the release of The Deathly Hallows Part II, check out some other bloggers talking about Potter this week:

Lisa Galek
Jennifer Daiker
Abby Minard
Michael Di Gesu
Laurel Garver
Renae Mercado
Colene Murphy

The Night I Bought Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

I was in Park Slope, Brooklyn, at Down South, a music venue whose cavernous basement looks like a military bunker. My friend Bert, better known as Bob Foxx, was spinning his tunes in the shadows. And I remember creating a spectacle when I tripped on a bar stool and sent it crashing to the cement floor. Everyone thought I was drunk but, in actuality, I was just clumsy, ungraceful.

As midnight approached, I sat next to a girl I didn't know, a friend of Bert's sister. A few beers had left me buzzed and I'm not sure why I turned to her, but I did, I don't know when I'm going to get my Harry Potter book.

She clasped her hand to an open mouth, Holy s***, that's tonight.

I nodded and she looked at her watch, rose up from her seat, Well, come on. We've got to go get one. As if there were no other choice, as if, obviously, this was what we must do.

We left the bar abruptly and came up to the street then looked around, frazzled, trying to figure out where to go. My new Potter companion thought she knew an independent bookstore in the neighborhood and we wandered until we found it, this charming shop, so tiny it looked as if all of the books were spilling out of it. Bookshelves stacked to the ceiling. Towers of books on sturdy wooden tables.

I looked for the kids, the costumes. All of the chain stores were boasting massive parties, expecting lines to curl around the block. But, we were the only ones at this particular shop. They gave us cookies and milk, handed us the heavy book, with it's orange flame cover.

And so we left, victorious, descended into the underground bar. Our adventure was just a little rest stop before we continued on with the night. I remember that we caused quite a stir, the two of us with our hefty books. People were amused, some jealous, Where'd you get that? they asked and when we told them, they went on their way, returning with the book tucked under their arm.

I will always remember how strange and perfect that experience was. The night I got the final Harry Potter book.

In anticipation of the release of The Deathly Hallows Part II, check out some other bloggers talking about Potter this week:

Lisa Galek
Jennifer Daiker
Abby Minard
Michael Di Gesu
Laurel Garver
Renae Mercado
Colene Murphy

It All Ends

I was walking on the Highline this past weekend, a boardwalk along the elevated train tracks on the west side of Manhattan. If there is anything New Yorkers crave it is space and the Highline demonstrates one of the most creative uses of space I've ever seen. The city took the abandoned tracks and turned it into a park. Long wooden planks form a path that spans 15 city blocks lined with runaway flowers and benches.

But, like many things in New York, it has become crowded. I mean, stupid crowded. We're talking stuck in foot traffic, walking at a snails pace, bodies crammed up against one another like Times Square kind of crowded. And so there goes this idea of space. It becomes something else, all of the people in the city stuck together, like we always are, competing for space on sidewalks and streets and subway cars.

At one point, I looked out, past the wildflowers to see this Harry Potter billboard: It All Ends 7.15. And I thought how epic that sounded, how apocalyptic, how catastrophic. I can't believe it, said the girl directly behind me, practically breathing down my neck. Harry Potter. It's all over.

And it does feel that way, doesn't it? This world phenomenon coming to some kind of end.

I remember reading the books for the very first time just outside of London, in my little dorm room on the campus of the University of Westminster. My room was roughly the size of the bathroom in my apartment now. My bed and my desk were about one foot apart from one another. And I had my very own miniscule bathroom where the shower head did not have a proper stall, it just poured down over my toilet and sink.

I sat in that room and read the first three books, each in one sitting, cover to cover. I read the fourth book in a tiny sleeping car on a train in Europe. I don't remember where I was going, only that I lay down with my head on my backpack, feet curled up on the seat, and I kept the overhead light on. At the time, I didn't know very many people who had read the books, except for my Dad (who, in a strange role reversal, introduced me to the books) and my friend Lynn. I would still wait for the release of three more books in the series. None of the movies had come out yet.

I remembered this as I walked on the Highline, listening to the girl behind me say that Daniel Radcliffe was too short to date. Her friend argued, But he's Harry Potter!

And I thought about the idea of space and how we occupy it. From a book in my little room or that tiny train car. To a giant billboard in one of the most crowded places in New York City.

In anticipation of the release of The Deathly Hallows Part II, check out some other bloggers talking about Potter this week:

Lisa Galek

Jennifer Daiker

Abby Minard

Michael Di Gesu

Laurel Garver

Renae Mercado

Colene Murphy

Thestral Gazette Reporting

I'm reporting over at the Thestral Gazette this week at the lovely Laurel's Leaves blog. I had a lot of fun with this article. If you've ever wondered about the fate of Viktor Krum's love life....well...wonder no more!

I hope you will check it out here! <--- click, click! yay yay.

And in case you're wondering what on earth the Thestral Gazette is, this is straight from Laurel's blog:

Thestral Gazette is an unofficial publication for students of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Founded by Luna Lovegood and Colin Creevy, the tabloid continues its fine tradition of yellow journalism under the editorship of Laurel Garver and a large staff of student reporters. To join the reporting staff, contact us at thestralgazette (at) gmail (dot) com.

H is for Hermione and Other Uncommon Mistakes

When I first began reading the Harry Potter series, I mispronounced Hermione's name in my head when I read. I pronounced it: 'Her' - 'me' - 'own'. When the film came out and the correct pronunciation was uttered, I was shocked.

It's similar to my experience with the phrase, "Up and Adam". Or should I say: 'Up and at 'em.' Because for the longest time, (I'm talking the first 18 years of my life) I thought 'Up and Adam' was a biblical reference. I thought it meant, 'be the first one to go for it'. And I realize, all of this can have very naughty connotations in that context, but I was thinking of it purely as a motivational thing. When I read the expression 'Up and at 'em' in a book, it nearly blew my mind.

When I was little and I sang 'The Star Spangled' banner, I used to sing about the 'dawnderly' light. I figured it was a word I didn't learn yet. A really hard word. Like an SAT word. I was singing it one day by myself and my mother stopped me: You mean dawn's early light? Well, gosh darn it, I guess I did.

It's funny how your mind can play tricks on you. Ever have an epiphany about a mispronounced word or saying?

The Tillerman Moment

I've been thinking a bit about Harry Potter these days. With the penultimate movie coming out, I've been feeling a bit sad. After the final installment, I wonder if there will ever be any big moments for the series again. No more midnight premieres or book launch parties. No more sitting for uninterrupted marathon readings, avoiding news coverage, reviews, and idle chatter, in order to avoid spoilers of each new book. And the hardest thing to comprehend: nothing more to discover. Even though the books are complete, at least there is still the anticipation: "How will they film this scene? How will it look? How will it feel?" But once that's done, there will be no more to wonder about. The story has been told and, after July, the film will have interpreted the story and that will be all. There will be no more...more.

And yet...

Just last week, I had a strange recollection of a series I read when I was in middle school: The Tillerman Series, by Cynthia Voigt. It begins with the four siblings of the Tillerman family, led by 13 year old Dicey, who have been abandoned by their mother and embark on a journey to find their Grandmother. The writing was raw, honest, and real. And it made me want to be a writer who wrote these kinds of stories. Stories about people, the things they do, the places they go and the people they meet. Really simple, honest story-telling.

What's strange is that I have not thought about this series in over 15 years. But, suddenly, the urge to reread it is oddly insistent. I've scrambled to find the books on evil Amazon, ebay, and beyond. I can't wait to rediscover what I loved about characters whose names I barely remember and reassemble the pieces of a blurry and broken plot.

It has already been over 9 years since I opened the first pages of Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone. I have not yet reread the series, as if I have been saving it for what I'm now going to call the Tillerman Moment. The moment I'll want to discover something I thought I already knew.

Have you had a Tillerman moment? An urge to rediscover something you once loved?

Book Nerds

Overheard in my kitchen while cooking dinner.

"See," Tyler points to the television where Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is playing in the background with the Dark Lord threatening our dear Harry. "This is where Harry Potter is really ratcheted up a notch."

"What do you mean? His life has always been in danger. Even in the first book."

"Yeah but this is the first time he has somebody Avada Kedavra-ing in his face."