When I was in jr. high/early high school, I used to take art classes with a few kids in my neighborhood from a great teacher. A couple weeks ago, I started going back to her, only this time enrolling in an evening adult class. Although it's been around ten years since I'd been back, I found her classroom to be exactly the same and was easily reminded of the old days.
Back then, my friends in the class and I were obsessed with the Harry Potter books (I think only the first three or four were out at this point). Sharing our love for the books, our teacher would put in the audio tapes for us to listen to while we worked. To this day I can look at different paintings or drawings I did from that time and identify what part of the story we were listening to while I was working on it - "You see that tree there? I put the highlights on the leaves when Hermione was knitting those hats for the house elves". That sort of thing. I also attribute my uncanny HP trivia abilities to those classes. I suppose there's something about sitting for hours, listening to a book while simultaneously working on a project that helps you remember every single detail of it. So much that I can likely recall the details of Harry's life more accurately than my own.
Pretty soon the major buzz in the class was the upcoming Harry Potter movie adaptations that were rumored to be in the works. No one was cast yet so we'd all discuss what actors would best embody each character and argue that the way we each imagined Hogwarts was the correct way. Flash forward ten years to last night's class as we chatted about the final movie coming out this weekend: it felt like a serious full-circle moment. It also made me realize how big a role Harry has played in my coming-of-age years, and although the movies have never meant to me what the books have, I do feel like that chapter is coming to a close this week. Sure, I can always pick up a book and get my fix, and I do look forward to reading them with my kids and getting them into it, but the hype won't be there. I lament that my kids won't have the same experience with the series as I did. They will have no instances of making their roommates wait up past midnight on the streets outside a Manhattan Barnes and Noble so they can get their copy of the Half-Blood Prince, no arranging a dinner with friends where the restaurant "so happens" to be across the street from a library hosting a Harry Potter party so they can check it out while their friends eat dessert, no publicly challenging the know-it-all waiting in line next to them for the midnight showing of Chamber of Secrets to a trivia contest (and winning). None of that.
For instance my niece read all the books in like a week and half last summer. While that's an impressive feat, I felt sorry that the process lasted only a week. A week full of sublime magical fun I'm sure, but then it was over. All knowledge had been revealed to her so quickly, so easily. No anticipation, no plotting what might happen next or having countless conversations discussing if Snape was good or bad or who R.A.B could be. It's a shame. So much in fact that I'm seriously thinking that I'll make my kids wait a few months between reading each book. I'll have all seven locked away and they'll be begging me for the next one: "Plllllleaaaaase mom, we must know if Harry ever figures out that Ginny is the only girl truly worthy of him!"or, "But to whom will Harry go for guidance, now that yet another of his father figures has died?" (my children will have good grammar). And I'll say, "Sorry, kids. You have to
EARN the right to that knowledge with months of anxious anticipation and contemplation. Why don't you draft up a few graphs on how the Expelliarmus charm is superior to Stupefy and then we'll talk about it." Perhaps that'll make them appreciate it a little more. We can even hope that one day there will be a new book(s) equally popular and, more importantly, equally well written for the kids to get excited about. Let's also hope that I'm the author. That would be cool.
My art teacher asked me last night if I was going to see the movie this weekend. I told her that indeed I was. She said she'd try and go before my next class so we could discuss. Perhaps I'll even talk her into putting in one of the audio tapes, for old time's sake.
Sort of related picture: Bret dressed as "Draco Malfoy" for the 5th movie while on study abroad in Brazil. It wasn't even the opening night, he just dressed up for a regular showing. He's not even a big fan.
