nyny

harry madness!!

As everyone in the free world undoubtedly knows, the much anticipated 7th Harry Potter book was released with much fanfare at 12:01 am this past Saturday morning. This event presented the welcome dilemma of choosing which Harry Potter party to attend Friday evening. I think this is a nation-wide thing, but each Barnes & Noble in the city was hosting a Midnight Magic party and each Borders was thowing a Grand Hallows Ball. Depending on which party I chose to attend, here's some of the possible festivities (and I'm not exaggerating):

fire eaters
stilt walkers (dressed as dementors)
fireworks
a peformance by Lifehouse at the Borders in Columbus Circle
a reading by Jim Dale at B&N in Union Square (voice of the Harry Potter audiobooks)

I ended up going to the Barnes & Noble in Union Square party, which included the following (in addition to the normal costume contests, trivia games, etc.): wand making at Ollivander's, fortune telling in Divination class, a magic/comedy show at Weasley's Wizards Wheezes, visits to Hagrid's Hut and the Forbidden Forrest, Eeylops Owl Emporium with live owls, and the cafe turned into the Great Hall (featuring butterbeer).

I had friends in town through the weekend, so I wasn't able to read a lot right away. I've got about 200 pages left, and it is definitely living up to the hype so far!! It's kinda funny because it seems that EVERYONE is reading this book. I see fellow Potterheads reading it in every coffeeshop or little lunch place I walk into, and more often than not I look around on the subway to see several other people right around me reading it. It's weird because we all strike up conversations with other, where normally everyone prefers to just ignore everyone else.

And I certainly won't include any spoilers, but so far one of my favorite moments was the laugh-out-loud part when Rowling wrote "...the fact remains he can move faster than Severus Snape confronted with shampoo"...man that's good stuff!! And just for fun, here's some pics from the Midnight Magic party!

posted by becka @ 10:11 PM