Is that Potter Meme still going on? Yes it is.
I'm finally starting to get a lil excited. A few minutes ago I posted "Two more days..." on my fb page. Not too "OHMYGOD! DEATHLY HALLOWS!" (which it is), you know, because I'm old. It's one of those things that could be anything (two days is Friday, after all), but if you know me, you know what I'm talking about. Two minutes later a sightly older-than-me friend replied "Til harry! Yeah!" Then my brother,complete with fresh new Ron/Hermione profile pic responded, "Um, no....2 more days until WEASLEY!" Another just changed his profile pic to what appears to be the symbol for the Deathly Hallows and is talking about checking it out in IMAX in a few weeks. Now I don't feel so bad.
The two friends whose impromptu wedding I was a witness at have a nine year old daughter who is the only person who is not me that I know who has read any part of any Harry Potter book. I'd met her once before and, since then, had heard enough storied to be like "How long will we be sitting back here before she says one of those embarrassingly brutally honest things kids say when they first meet you that makes the whole conversation grind to a halt until a parent forces an apology?" (She once cried because she found out her now-stepmom was 31. "You're sooooo oooolllllddddd!") The first day we really met she was carrying The Sorcerer's Stone with her and I knew, if nothing else, we'd have that to talk about. We did. Yesterday the first thing she said to me was, "How can anybody (referring to her folks) NOT like Harry Potter". I said "I don't know! Some people are just weird." We are officially friends. Then we had an in-depth discussion about Moaning Myrtle and Nearly Headless Nick. We have tentative plans for a Friday afternoon showing.
Day 10 (July 13th)- How would you say the HP series and fandom has affected you?
I don't know if the series has had a huge effect on me. I don't know. I enjoy reading, watching and otherwise engaging with the product, but I can't say its changed me in any profound way or anything, you know? And I feel like that looks like I am like "Harry Potter? Whatever." but clearly I'm not.
I think that's something more for the younger people who grew up with the books and movies. I see them all around the internet talking about how this has kind of defined their childhood and they can't really remember a life before Potter, so watching it end is really big and meaningful. I didn't start paying attention to any of this stuff until pretty late in the series, and I was pretty old by then, so I don't have that. I do kind of envy it though. It would be cool to be able to look back and see your childhood mirrored in the characters and to be able to watch the movies and mark your own growth with that of the actors and so on. (It's like Beatlemania, except with books!) Twenty, even fifteen (maybe ten) years earlier and I totally would have been one of those kids dragging their mom to the bookstore at 7:30 to stand in line for five hours to get my hands on a book I had pre-ordered a year beforehand and feeling a profound sadness now that there was nothing new to look forward to. (I almost said "now that it''s over, but like so many other people have said, as long as the books and movies are out there it will never be "over".)
I myself rarely buy new books (I like to read them first and make sure they're worth the money. The used book store is one of my favorite places), but I got the last two on release day. Deathly Hallows I got from Amazon, and I remember a friend wanted to go out and look at houses, but I was like, "I need to go home and check my mail! Important things are coming!" He rolled his eyes ("You and your books...") but I got my book. For the rest of the say, he drove from all over town running errands and looking at houses. I stayed in the car reading. Along with The Annotated Alice, More Annotated Alice and The Folio Society Edition of The Greek Myths, my Harry Potter books are the crown jewels of my book collection. As soon as I get a proper bookshelf (and not one that, like Harry, is crammed in the closet), they will go on the very top shelf.
I used to buy all of the movies, but after I failed to find the correct (two disc regular/hd-dvd hybrid) version of Order of the Phoenix, I didn't buy any of the rest of them. Don't get me wrong, I wanted them, but I figured it was close enough that I could wait until the end. With this movie coming out in July, that means it should be on DVD by September and I figure that by Christmas there will be an epic multi-disc extra-filled box set for sale. I am holding out for that. I'm not one of those people who can have the single movies and then spring even more money for a new version of the same thing (no Complete Lost set for me), so I had to sacrifice having them all now to have something even better later. I don't go to movies, but I've seen two of the three that have come out since I've been paying attention on opening day. I don't know what got in the way of Deathly Hallows 1. It's one of those things where I feel like I have to see them immediately because if not I'll be missing out on what everyone else is talking about. I don't actively participate in the fandom community, but I keep up with the discussions and follow the important threads of conversation. There is no way I will not be posting like 16 paragraphs of post-DH goodness Friday night.
I have thoroughly enjoyed reading the books, watching the movies and participating, in the smallest of ways, in the phenomenon of it all. Like I said before, I started reading the books because I wanted to see what all of the fuss was about -- what was so special that it had kids reading... by choice. I had never heard of midnight releases for books. Children's books at that! That was something reserved for video games and the occasional DVD. But lining up for books was unheard of! To see that something many dismiss as "kids' books" has become such a huge thing is just amazing. I don't know if that really answered the question, but I just started wriiting, and this is where it ended up, so there you go.
Day 11 (July 14th)- What scene are you looking forward to most in DH2?
Day 12 (July 15th or whenever you get to see DH2)- Describe your experience watching DH2. What was your favorite scene?
The two friends whose impromptu wedding I was a witness at have a nine year old daughter who is the only person who is not me that I know who has read any part of any Harry Potter book. I'd met her once before and, since then, had heard enough storied to be like "How long will we be sitting back here before she says one of those embarrassingly brutally honest things kids say when they first meet you that makes the whole conversation grind to a halt until a parent forces an apology?" (She once cried because she found out her now-stepmom was 31. "You're sooooo oooolllllddddd!") The first day we really met she was carrying The Sorcerer's Stone with her and I knew, if nothing else, we'd have that to talk about. We did. Yesterday the first thing she said to me was, "How can anybody (referring to her folks) NOT like Harry Potter". I said "I don't know! Some people are just weird." We are officially friends. Then we had an in-depth discussion about Moaning Myrtle and Nearly Headless Nick. We have tentative plans for a Friday afternoon showing.
Day 10 (July 13th)- How would you say the HP series and fandom has affected you?
I don't know if the series has had a huge effect on me. I don't know. I enjoy reading, watching and otherwise engaging with the product, but I can't say its changed me in any profound way or anything, you know? And I feel like that looks like I am like "Harry Potter? Whatever." but clearly I'm not.
I think that's something more for the younger people who grew up with the books and movies. I see them all around the internet talking about how this has kind of defined their childhood and they can't really remember a life before Potter, so watching it end is really big and meaningful. I didn't start paying attention to any of this stuff until pretty late in the series, and I was pretty old by then, so I don't have that. I do kind of envy it though. It would be cool to be able to look back and see your childhood mirrored in the characters and to be able to watch the movies and mark your own growth with that of the actors and so on. (It's like Beatlemania, except with books!) Twenty, even fifteen (maybe ten) years earlier and I totally would have been one of those kids dragging their mom to the bookstore at 7:30 to stand in line for five hours to get my hands on a book I had pre-ordered a year beforehand and feeling a profound sadness now that there was nothing new to look forward to. (I almost said "now that it''s over, but like so many other people have said, as long as the books and movies are out there it will never be "over".)
I myself rarely buy new books (I like to read them first and make sure they're worth the money. The used book store is one of my favorite places), but I got the last two on release day. Deathly Hallows I got from Amazon, and I remember a friend wanted to go out and look at houses, but I was like, "I need to go home and check my mail! Important things are coming!" He rolled his eyes ("You and your books...") but I got my book. For the rest of the say, he drove from all over town running errands and looking at houses. I stayed in the car reading. Along with The Annotated Alice, More Annotated Alice and The Folio Society Edition of The Greek Myths, my Harry Potter books are the crown jewels of my book collection. As soon as I get a proper bookshelf (and not one that, like Harry, is crammed in the closet), they will go on the very top shelf.
I used to buy all of the movies, but after I failed to find the correct (two disc regular/hd-dvd hybrid) version of Order of the Phoenix, I didn't buy any of the rest of them. Don't get me wrong, I wanted them, but I figured it was close enough that I could wait until the end. With this movie coming out in July, that means it should be on DVD by September and I figure that by Christmas there will be an epic multi-disc extra-filled box set for sale. I am holding out for that. I'm not one of those people who can have the single movies and then spring even more money for a new version of the same thing (no Complete Lost set for me), so I had to sacrifice having them all now to have something even better later. I don't go to movies, but I've seen two of the three that have come out since I've been paying attention on opening day. I don't know what got in the way of Deathly Hallows 1. It's one of those things where I feel like I have to see them immediately because if not I'll be missing out on what everyone else is talking about. I don't actively participate in the fandom community, but I keep up with the discussions and follow the important threads of conversation. There is no way I will not be posting like 16 paragraphs of post-DH goodness Friday night.
I have thoroughly enjoyed reading the books, watching the movies and participating, in the smallest of ways, in the phenomenon of it all. Like I said before, I started reading the books because I wanted to see what all of the fuss was about -- what was so special that it had kids reading... by choice. I had never heard of midnight releases for books. Children's books at that! That was something reserved for video games and the occasional DVD. But lining up for books was unheard of! To see that something many dismiss as "kids' books" has become such a huge thing is just amazing. I don't know if that really answered the question, but I just started wriiting, and this is where it ended up, so there you go.
Day 11 (July 14th)- What scene are you looking forward to most in DH2?
Day 12 (July 15th or whenever you get to see DH2)- Describe your experience watching DH2. What was your favorite scene?