All Things Harry Potter–A weekend release–WSJ article, street fair, TV news, breakfast conversation, math problems, and a movie outing

It was a long Harry Potter Weekend, even out here in the Midwest.

On Friday I read about the pirating of “Deathly Halllows” and Scholastic’s countermeasures in the Wall Street Journal as I sat down for a “Fish in a Boat” lunch at a bohemian cafe near the City Museum where I’d gone to watch my two great nieces in their Circus Day performance as the Amazing A. and the Magnificent M.

On Friday night I went to a Harry Potter street fair organized by Left Bank Books where I picked up my spell book and drank butter beer (rootbeer flavored with an un-named herb which I made out to be vanilla).

Friday night on the News Hour my father listened to panelist discuss J.K. Rowlings’ newest book and the growing phenomena and told us what the pundits said over Sunday morning waffles.

Sunday morning as our Potter information converged, I learned that the Amazing A., had received her copy of “Deathly Hallows” and was a quarter of the way finished already (200 pages out of approximately 800).

A. was shocked by the piracy news and soon we had a math word problem on our hands to be done in her head…if someone can digitally photograph a page of the book in two seconds, how long would it take for them to photograph (step one of pirating the book and posting it on the internet) the entire book?

Sunday evening I saw the new Potter movie “Order of the Phoenix” (directed by David Yates), in Edwardsville (where I went to school) with my cousin Cynthia and her friend, who’d traveled up from Southern Illinois to visit with her.

I have to say, Daniel Radcliffe’s bone structure is simply amazing.

On Monday, when I went grocery shopping, there was the book, bold as life, at 25% off. I snapped it up of course and have been in seclusion in the reading room ever since.