Blah...Blah...Harry Potter...Blah...
In order to provide you, dear readers, with the best content we can provide, SFist occasionally has to delve into things with which we might not want to delve into. Case in point is the release of the sixth Harry Potter book, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince." Many of you might care about the release of this book and because it might be of interest, we shall write about it. Us? We don't care at all about any of this. The only reason why we read the first five books- twice- was merely out of some morbid curiosity to see what the entire hubbub was. And the only reason why we'd very often find ourselves up way past our bedtime reading the book wasn't because we couldn't put it down but because we were so unenthused about the book, we just couldn't wait to finish them. Nope. Don't care about Harry Potter at all.
But as we said, many do. So much so, in fact, the Gavster has proclaimed Friday to be "All Potter's Eve," as did Mayor Matt Neely of Mountain View. The Pope even weighed in on the books, calling them "seductive" and "corrupting" to little children and there's so many jokes to be made here that we have a headache just thinking about them. And as usual whenever something this big happens, the business sections are full of stories about how Harry Potter might just be able to save independent bookstores. Or keep people from seeing the new remake of Willie Wonka. In fact, anticipation has run so high for this book that the Onion joked that security on the books were better than that of our public transit system and Gawker commented that it's probably true. Measures, however, haven't been good enough to keep all the books secure as various bookstores around the world have accidentally sold a few copies.
Around the world, Harry Potter parties are planned to celebrate the book's release. There's even a Web site to help people find them. The Bay Area will have it's fair share of events too, usually consisting of costume parties, trivia contests, and showings of the merely "meh" movies, all right before the clock turns to 12:01 and whence the mayhem will ensue. Some of our favorite parties, that is, of course if we really were into it, include one at M Is for Mystery and More in San Mateo that will have the store done up like the Village of Hogsmead and will feature Quidditch signups. In SF, A Clean Well-Lighted Place for Books will have a drama troupe act out the last chapter from the previous book and The Booksmith on Haight will have "Diagon Alley bowling alley, Quaffle toss into the Goblet of Fire, snacks." Rock on.
As for SFist, if you don’t see us this weekend or we don't answer the phone at all, you'll know why. We preordered the book months ago, merely for cultural curiosity, of course. It's not like we've been waiting two years for this book and it’s the second to last one and every book has only gotten better and somebody big is supposed to die. Definitely not. Not excited at all.