Thursday, July 21, 2011
Addiction
I had been thinking for the last month or so that I should maybe be concerned because junkies and I seem to have similar personality traits. Upon further investigation, it seems I only have personality traits similar to Nikki Sixx specifically, and as he's been a rock star for 30 years and is also a photographer, radio host, and owns a clothing line (not to mention has died twice and is now ten years sober), I am no longer so worried. Maybe our addictive personalities are good for us.
Monday, July 18, 2011
The Potter Generation
There is not a doubt in my mind that kids will read Harry Potter for ages to come, just like we still read Goodnight Moon and The Wind in the Willows and The Chronicles of Narnia and so many others. Of course Harry's got staying power, or he wouldn't have become this big. Children and teenagers aren't patient. They don't want to wait years for the next installment of a story when they can't even wait a week for the next episode of a TV show. But what I've been thinking about for the last couple weeks is that the waiting, the anticipation, is exactly what shaped so much of this experience and created a phenomenon the world had never seen before. The waiting is what makes me a part of the luckiest generation of kids.
The first three books came fast and furious - Philosopher's Stone finally found a publisher in 1997 in Britain. October 1998 saw the American release of Sorcerer's Stone. By June of 1999, America had received Chamber of Secrets and just a year after the first Potter book crossed the ocean, in October of 1999 we had Prisoner of Azkaban. Beyond that, all future Potter books would be released in America and Britain - and soon in the rest of the world - at the same time.
Anyone who knows me - in fact, practically anyone who has ever met me - knows I was one of the lucky few to lay hands on a first American edition of Sorcerer's Stone in 1998. And once I started reading Potter, I didn't stop. I read and reread them constantly, combing the pages for clues of what was to come. And thanks to the newly-popular internet, I wasn't alone. My family got the internet when I was about ten, and all I did online for several years (pre-myspace, mind you) was spend hours on Harry Potter fan sites, including one of my own creation, which, at its most popular, had at least 500 members. Not bad for an eleven-year-old.
These websites were hotbeds for rumors, theories, every word JK Rowling had ever said copied to be deciphered. I found a post it note in my room once with rumored titles for the fourth book, including Harry Potter and the Triwizard Tournament. There was the ever-raging debate about Snape's true loyalties. And why were Harry's eyes so important, as we were told they were? Thanks to long lapses beginning with the Goblet of Fire-to-Order of the Phoenix three years, fans' imaginations ran even wilder trying to predict what would happen in the rest of the series, searching everywhere for clues or missed information. This led to a new series of books: published collections of theories, using FBI-intensity research of any resource to be found. 2001 produced a rash of books from the religious populace, either condemning the series for championing delinquents and witchcraft, or heralding the boy wizard's story as a tale of love, courage, and loyalty seldom found in such complex form in childrens' books. I have previously ranted my feelings (in at least two separate posts) about those.
But the thing about these websites and books is they brought together kids all over the world - through books. Because of what they were reading. And we were waiting, desperately, counting down the days to the next part of the story. In 2001 came the first film, helping to ease just slightly the painful wait between books. And the Potter fanbase grew to even more epic proportions. But think back, if you can, to ten years ago. We only had four books - no one knew what the Order of the Phoenix was or who the Half-Blood Prince was, Voldemort had just come back, and Dumbledore was invincible.
Kids will read these books in the future. It blows my mind to think about it, but there are kids reading the books now who weren't born when I started reading them. The huge difference is they will be able to read them for the first time as fast as I read them now. Generally I read the entire series over a period of about four weeks; this time I did it in about three. There is no more waiting. And now, with the release of Deathly Hallows Part II on film, we have no more films to wait for. Our anticipation turns, now, to Pottermore - the elusive, mysterious new website set up by JK Rowling to "enhance" our rereadings of the books. But no one is quite sure what this means. She's doing something that's never been done before because books have never been done this way before. So we wait, with bated breath, without really knowing what we're waiting for.
There won't be another July 15, 2011 or another July 21, 2007. I can't imagine anything else having such a singularly important date as these releases have. (It was only because of my desire to make the last book last more than 24 hours that I didn't spend the entirety of my brother's 14th birthday reading Deathly Hallows.) The trailers and ads for the last film were traumatizing for many of my generation, boldly emblazoned with the tagline "IT ALL ENDS." I refused to watch trailers that included those words, because I refused to face the idea of the end before I was sitting in a movie theatre at midnight on July 15th. But the thing is, it hasn't ended. A lot of people have treated this final movie as the end of an era. In some ways, that's what I've been writing about - it's the end of the the anticipation. But people seem to ignore the fact that these books came into existence for three or four years before the first film existed. The Potter legacy extends beyond the ten years of films. This is the end of one chapter and the beginning of another.
Harry Potter will only truly be gone when none here are loyal to him.
Mischief Managed.
The first three books came fast and furious - Philosopher's Stone finally found a publisher in 1997 in Britain. October 1998 saw the American release of Sorcerer's Stone. By June of 1999, America had received Chamber of Secrets and just a year after the first Potter book crossed the ocean, in October of 1999 we had Prisoner of Azkaban. Beyond that, all future Potter books would be released in America and Britain - and soon in the rest of the world - at the same time.
Anyone who knows me - in fact, practically anyone who has ever met me - knows I was one of the lucky few to lay hands on a first American edition of Sorcerer's Stone in 1998. And once I started reading Potter, I didn't stop. I read and reread them constantly, combing the pages for clues of what was to come. And thanks to the newly-popular internet, I wasn't alone. My family got the internet when I was about ten, and all I did online for several years (pre-myspace, mind you) was spend hours on Harry Potter fan sites, including one of my own creation, which, at its most popular, had at least 500 members. Not bad for an eleven-year-old.
These websites were hotbeds for rumors, theories, every word JK Rowling had ever said copied to be deciphered. I found a post it note in my room once with rumored titles for the fourth book, including Harry Potter and the Triwizard Tournament. There was the ever-raging debate about Snape's true loyalties. And why were Harry's eyes so important, as we were told they were? Thanks to long lapses beginning with the Goblet of Fire-to-Order of the Phoenix three years, fans' imaginations ran even wilder trying to predict what would happen in the rest of the series, searching everywhere for clues or missed information. This led to a new series of books: published collections of theories, using FBI-intensity research of any resource to be found. 2001 produced a rash of books from the religious populace, either condemning the series for championing delinquents and witchcraft, or heralding the boy wizard's story as a tale of love, courage, and loyalty seldom found in such complex form in childrens' books. I have previously ranted my feelings (in at least two separate posts) about those.
But the thing about these websites and books is they brought together kids all over the world - through books. Because of what they were reading. And we were waiting, desperately, counting down the days to the next part of the story. In 2001 came the first film, helping to ease just slightly the painful wait between books. And the Potter fanbase grew to even more epic proportions. But think back, if you can, to ten years ago. We only had four books - no one knew what the Order of the Phoenix was or who the Half-Blood Prince was, Voldemort had just come back, and Dumbledore was invincible.
Kids will read these books in the future. It blows my mind to think about it, but there are kids reading the books now who weren't born when I started reading them. The huge difference is they will be able to read them for the first time as fast as I read them now. Generally I read the entire series over a period of about four weeks; this time I did it in about three. There is no more waiting. And now, with the release of Deathly Hallows Part II on film, we have no more films to wait for. Our anticipation turns, now, to Pottermore - the elusive, mysterious new website set up by JK Rowling to "enhance" our rereadings of the books. But no one is quite sure what this means. She's doing something that's never been done before because books have never been done this way before. So we wait, with bated breath, without really knowing what we're waiting for.
There won't be another July 15, 2011 or another July 21, 2007. I can't imagine anything else having such a singularly important date as these releases have. (It was only because of my desire to make the last book last more than 24 hours that I didn't spend the entirety of my brother's 14th birthday reading Deathly Hallows.) The trailers and ads for the last film were traumatizing for many of my generation, boldly emblazoned with the tagline "IT ALL ENDS." I refused to watch trailers that included those words, because I refused to face the idea of the end before I was sitting in a movie theatre at midnight on July 15th. But the thing is, it hasn't ended. A lot of people have treated this final movie as the end of an era. In some ways, that's what I've been writing about - it's the end of the the anticipation. But people seem to ignore the fact that these books came into existence for three or four years before the first film existed. The Potter legacy extends beyond the ten years of films. This is the end of one chapter and the beginning of another.
Harry Potter will only truly be gone when none here are loyal to him.
Mischief Managed.
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