Potter-no-more
October 16, 2011
Today I completed my consumption of Harry Potter. It began not altogether intentionally on June 8 of this year when I clicked Play on Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. I theretofore had had no interest in the boy wizard, but my work colleague gave me the audiobook mp3s (1), so I thought what the heck. I figured I’d listen for an hour or two just to say I’d given it a chance and then put it back in the drawer.
Merlin’s beard, was I wrong! I’m pretty sure that it was less than 30 minutes before I was completely sucked in.
I’m convinced that a large part of the reason why I fell so easily was because I was listening and not reading. Afternoons at the office belonged to Harry. I found that he was the perfect accompaniment to my graphic design work (as long as it didn’t involve thinking). I was able to offer just the right amount of attention while working that the listening required. As much as I enjoyed it, I don’t feel like I would have stuck with it if I had been training my eyeballs on the paper versions.
As someone who has that common human fantasy of writing books for a living, I soon realized that some of what I found so fascinating was being aware of Jo Rowling’s craft. If I ever get around to long-form writing, I know it will be difficult for me to spin the tale in a leisurely enough manner so that all the interesting flavors have time to develop. She is a master.
I was really excited Thursday afternoon because I finished listening to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. One hundred fifteen hours of enthralling narration in total. Friday afternoon I had the shakes.
The same coworker also has all of the DVDs. So when I finished listening to a book, he’d bring me the movie to watch. He is my Harry Potter dealer.
The movies I found to be hit or miss. And why wouldn’t they be? How do you trim a twenty-hour book down to a two-hour movie? Even the shortest book was eight hours. Stuff is going to have to be left out. I wonder how people who hadn’t read the books got along with the movies. I was glad I knew what went in the gaps.
One thing that I absolutely loved about the movies was much of the casting. Who other than Dame Maggie Smith could have been McGonagall? Who other than Robbie Coltrane could have been Hagrid? Conversely, though I love Gary Oldman, he didn’t quite fit as Sirius.
So this afternoon I watched Deathly Hallows Part 1 and then this evening, a little thrill as I made my way to a movie theater for Part 2. That was some of my motivation for not wasting any time listening to the books. I wanted to finish in time to still find Part 2 in a theater so that I wouldn’t have to wait for the DVD to come out. Success.
It was kind of weird, though, too. I got to sit with 500 of my closest non-friends and listen to them rustling wrappers and chomping on the delicious real popcorn with real butter at this neighborhood, second-run theater. For the first half hour I had some trouble hearing the movie. Seriously.
Things eventually settled down and a good time seemed to be had by all. Applause broke out three or four times, which brought a tear to my eye (I’m much sappier in my advancing age). I do, however, look forward to watching again in the privacy of my own home in a few months.
So there you have it. Now what am I going to do with myself?
(1) I listened to the Jim Dale version and I thought he did a wonderful job. I know there are those who are every bit as enthusiastic about Stephen Fry’s reading. I found a respectful back-and-forth here.
It has been a week since my cousin and her fiancé were in the horrible car accident and it is time for me to drive from Minneapolis to Ann Arbor to spend a couple days being supportive. Crucial to the twelve-hour drive will be my third-generation iPod, a relic from 2003.
I haven’t researched it, but my personal anecdotal evidence indicates that this model of iPod was very hard on its battery. I’ve replaced the battery in mine twice; it seems to have the ability to retain a meaningful charge only for about six months, then the battery wears out. As such, I use the iPod plugged in 99.9% of the time. If I’m only driving a short way, say, the twenty minutes to bowling, I might dare to go unplugged. But on the way back home, I’m lucky if I get an additional five minutes out of it.
So you can imagine that I was bummed when the just-as-old cigarette-lighter power cord that I used with my iPod finally frayed its wires to nonfunctionality half a year ago. Toodling around town it’s not a big deal to have to listen to the radio, because the Twin Cities are home to the awesome Minnesota Public Radio station, The Current.
I bought a new cord that I thought would cover my dinosaur, but it didn’t (but it works for my iPhone, so I didn’t return it). When I talked to my dad and made the decision to drive to Michigan, urgency in finding a new old cord online set it. I didn’t have much luck and the shipping options wouldn’t have gotten it to me in time anyway.
I got out my loupe—by which I mean, I took off my glasses that correct my extreme nearsightedness and which now need their third update on the bifocal part, so when I need to see something clearly at extreme closeness I just remove them from my face and it’s perfect—and examined the old cord more carefully. Where the cord meets the Dock Connector end had been frayed forever, but I now perceived that one of the five or six tiny-gauge wires contained within had broken. There was enough of an end sticking out from the Dock Connector that I knew I could strip the two ends of it and twist it back together.
I did so and took the cord and my iPod out to my car. As I walked across the street to the parking lot, I crossed paths with a gang of six of the type of ne’er-do-wells who frequent my quiet block just off the main street to do their druggy nefarious deeds. As displeased as I am that those sorts impose themselves on my neighborhood, it must be said that they usually keep to themselves and don’t often engage with anyone else who might be present and move on after fifteen or twenty minutes. I traversed the thirty yards to my car unfettered.
I plugged in the cord and iPod to the cigarette lighter and held my breath. Yes! The iPod gave the cheerful trill that meant it was receiving power and its screen shone with that cool blue backlight! (Yes, yes, as a graphic designer I know that all blues are cool.) I gave myself a mental pat on the back and eyed the six guys who were loitering against the fence across from my place. They were eyeing me back and when I got out of my car rather than driving away, they sauntered off.
I am most happy that I’ll be able to use the iPod in my car again because I’ve gotten into listening to the Harry Potter audio books, as some of you know. What better venue than as a captive audience on the interstate? I’ll also be able to crank the The Asteroids Galaxy Tour.
I didn’t used to have interest in Harry Potter. I had never read the books, didn’t go to the theater to see the movies, and when I’d come across a movie on TV I just couldn’t get into it. Then my newish co-worker Aaron casually mentioned that he had all the audio books (I have subsequently learned that he’s quite the HP nerd, in the good way). He brought me the first one and I started listening, without any expectation of caring at all. I was quite surprised to find that I like Harry Potter a lot!
The audio books have been the perfect way for my particular self to enjoy this magical universe. Even though I’m halfway through listening to the fourth book and am loving it, I’m fairly certain that if I had the paper book in front of me, I’d be snoozing within seven minutes of the start of any reading session and wouldn’t have made it a quarter of the way through the first book. When I finish a book, Aaron brings me his DVD of the movie so that I can watch it on the weekend.
I’m kind of rambling, and vacillating between serious and frivolous, because though I’m going to visit my cousin in the hospital, and my uncle and aunt and other cousin, I’m unsure what I’ll be supposed to do once I arrive. I guess it’s just the act of being there that matters. I’m also nervous because everybody who’s been posting on the CaringBridge and Facebook pages has seemed really religious miracle-hoping, and I’m really not. I’m atheist. An optimist, usually, but an atheist. My biggest apprehension is that I’ll be asked to participate in prayer. It will be awkward if I don’t, and I’ll feel hypocritical if I do. When your daughter is lying in the intensive care unit with little practical hope of a meaningful recovery and you want to pray, I don’t imagine that you want to hear that your family member doesn’t.
So here’s a photo of my side of the family—my uncle and aunt and cousins, me and my parents—in a happier times, at my grandmother’s birthday in 2002 and at her funeral in 2009. Happier, because my grandmother died simply of old age at 105, and because nobody had been in a car accident.
Kelly’s Unnecessary Blog 