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Harry, Carrie and Garp
Aug. 2nd, 2006 01:41 amThe Harry, Carrie and Garp thing was unutterably charming. I always forget how much I enjoy Stephen King's odd, laconic and slightly naughty presence. He's very funny and real, and while I admire him as a master-technician, I've never been crazy crazy about his books, but he's a presence in the literary world I'm glad of.
John Irving was fun, and what he chose to read made the most sense for the occassion, but wasn't what I would have preferred to hear. He does voices for his characters, which was off-putting at first, but after a while just seemed to make sense.
JKR was JKR. She read the section where Dumbledore goes to tell Tom Riddle he is a wizard. And the way in which she read it gave the moment more menace than I felt it had on the page, which I appreciated. One could almost get a sense that part of the reason Dumbledore and Snape get along isn't just because Dumbledore regrets not doing right by him when he was a student, but also because Dumbledore used to be way more of a hardass in his methods -- now he's just a sneaky old coot it seems. Well, now he's dead, but you know.
The Q&A stuff was predictable mediocre and annoying, although there were a few lovely moments from all three authors. At the end JKR got this annoying comment from a parent talking about how before her everything in 1998 or whatever was all Spice Girls and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The Turtles were when I was in junior high, which was most certainly NOT in 1998, and not only do I hate the way the battle between "highbrow" and "lowbrow" culture has now shifted to the equally stupid "acceptable" vs. "unacceptable" pop culture, this was just dishonest from the parent, and it was irksome. There was also the usual rigamarole from JKR about how girls need to stop liking Draco while also making it rather clear that he's very potentially redeemable, so why shoudl they stop? Also, apprently, Hermione really wants to shag Ron (no, duh) but the way she delivered this info (more delicately and well-timed) caused the audience to do this collective gasp of "oh my god... oh, okay, Ron." That was amusing. So were her Slytherin shoes!
My Snapecoat with proper shirt was fanfuckingtastic. It's the first time I've worn it with proper layers and the fit is amazing. Be warned, pictures of me standing in a Starbucks holding a condom with a "portect your wand" sticker on it will, no doubt, be appearing on the Internet at any moment. And I always worried about the nude photos being in the tabloids....
The folks from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
snapecast were lovely and ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kalichan was a great companion for the event. Since we both grew up in New York, there was a real sense of what this would have been like had we still been kids. Certainly, I know I would have loved it. The night had a lot of adult edge, in spite of it all, probably more than some people there with kids were comfortable with (Jon Stewart introduced JKR and told Mel Gibson vs. the Jews jokes before proving himself to be an adorable and heartwarming fan; Whoopi Goldberg was also fantastic). When I was small, i hated being spoken to as a child, and I would have thought I was quite the grownup to be there. Anyway, I was glad for a hand to clutch. I made everything better and more giddy.
Finally, I want to talk about the triumph of nerd culture. When this began, which in my eyes was that moment when the HP phenom sort of hit full-swing (around Book 4), the LotR movies were preparing to come out, we knew Spiderman was in the works, and the HP movies were starting to arrive and the whole Matrix thing was going on. All of us nerds said, "this is a golden moment. This is our chance at vengence and etnertainment that will sustain us through the next long, dark 20 years of sci-fi and fantasy being overlooked and dismissed". When the last LotR movie came out we worried it was over. People worry now about the approaching end of the HP series, at least on the page. But the ascendency of the nerds is not over. The nerds have won, not because we put the jocks to shame, but because somewhere in all this, it became okay to be a nerd -- of course, junior high still sucks for the freaks and geeks, and most people I know will still always face a moment of being told they are too smart to be attractive by someone or other, but we've triumphed. Ours is the entertainment that sells, the stories that move, and the things that even the most unlikely people seem to suddenly want to play with. Jon Stewart said tonight that he should be out there, in the audience, with all of us. And that was it really -- we may not all read, or like school, or be awkward or dream of elves, but whisper by whisper and tight clutching hands in the dark of the movie theatre belief isn't just becoming okay, or even delightful or celebrated, but expected. As a child, I was teased, by adults and children alike, for believing in stories and now I have to think that maybe children ask each other jsut a little more often, "can you show me magic?" instead of sitting around with friends cageily for months before finally blurting out, "yeah, I love dragons too, oh thank god!" The ascendency of nerds means fewer unnecessary secrets of delight.
Yes, I'm an optimist tonight, even if each story the authors read was about lonely and oddly powerful, unsettling children and my cab home spent the whole ride telling me I smelled like nail polish.
Finally, Kali and I spent scads of money on supplies for the construction of Malfoy wedding invitations fordescensus_hp. Hopefully her Internet will get unfucked tomorrow and the madness can (re)begin.
John Irving was fun, and what he chose to read made the most sense for the occassion, but wasn't what I would have preferred to hear. He does voices for his characters, which was off-putting at first, but after a while just seemed to make sense.
JKR was JKR. She read the section where Dumbledore goes to tell Tom Riddle he is a wizard. And the way in which she read it gave the moment more menace than I felt it had on the page, which I appreciated. One could almost get a sense that part of the reason Dumbledore and Snape get along isn't just because Dumbledore regrets not doing right by him when he was a student, but also because Dumbledore used to be way more of a hardass in his methods -- now he's just a sneaky old coot it seems. Well, now he's dead, but you know.
The Q&A stuff was predictable mediocre and annoying, although there were a few lovely moments from all three authors. At the end JKR got this annoying comment from a parent talking about how before her everything in 1998 or whatever was all Spice Girls and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The Turtles were when I was in junior high, which was most certainly NOT in 1998, and not only do I hate the way the battle between "highbrow" and "lowbrow" culture has now shifted to the equally stupid "acceptable" vs. "unacceptable" pop culture, this was just dishonest from the parent, and it was irksome. There was also the usual rigamarole from JKR about how girls need to stop liking Draco while also making it rather clear that he's very potentially redeemable, so why shoudl they stop? Also, apprently, Hermione really wants to shag Ron (no, duh) but the way she delivered this info (more delicately and well-timed) caused the audience to do this collective gasp of "oh my god... oh, okay, Ron." That was amusing. So were her Slytherin shoes!
My Snapecoat with proper shirt was fanfuckingtastic. It's the first time I've worn it with proper layers and the fit is amazing. Be warned, pictures of me standing in a Starbucks holding a condom with a "portect your wand" sticker on it will, no doubt, be appearing on the Internet at any moment. And I always worried about the nude photos being in the tabloids....
The folks from
snapecast were lovely and kalichan was a great companion for the event. Since we both grew up in New York, there was a real sense of what this would have been like had we still been kids. Certainly, I know I would have loved it. The night had a lot of adult edge, in spite of it all, probably more than some people there with kids were comfortable with (Jon Stewart introduced JKR and told Mel Gibson vs. the Jews jokes before proving himself to be an adorable and heartwarming fan; Whoopi Goldberg was also fantastic). When I was small, i hated being spoken to as a child, and I would have thought I was quite the grownup to be there. Anyway, I was glad for a hand to clutch. I made everything better and more giddy.Finally, I want to talk about the triumph of nerd culture. When this began, which in my eyes was that moment when the HP phenom sort of hit full-swing (around Book 4), the LotR movies were preparing to come out, we knew Spiderman was in the works, and the HP movies were starting to arrive and the whole Matrix thing was going on. All of us nerds said, "this is a golden moment. This is our chance at vengence and etnertainment that will sustain us through the next long, dark 20 years of sci-fi and fantasy being overlooked and dismissed". When the last LotR movie came out we worried it was over. People worry now about the approaching end of the HP series, at least on the page. But the ascendency of the nerds is not over. The nerds have won, not because we put the jocks to shame, but because somewhere in all this, it became okay to be a nerd -- of course, junior high still sucks for the freaks and geeks, and most people I know will still always face a moment of being told they are too smart to be attractive by someone or other, but we've triumphed. Ours is the entertainment that sells, the stories that move, and the things that even the most unlikely people seem to suddenly want to play with. Jon Stewart said tonight that he should be out there, in the audience, with all of us. And that was it really -- we may not all read, or like school, or be awkward or dream of elves, but whisper by whisper and tight clutching hands in the dark of the movie theatre belief isn't just becoming okay, or even delightful or celebrated, but expected. As a child, I was teased, by adults and children alike, for believing in stories and now I have to think that maybe children ask each other jsut a little more often, "can you show me magic?" instead of sitting around with friends cageily for months before finally blurting out, "yeah, I love dragons too, oh thank god!" The ascendency of nerds means fewer unnecessary secrets of delight.
Yes, I'm an optimist tonight, even if each story the authors read was about lonely and oddly powerful, unsettling children and my cab home spent the whole ride telling me I smelled like nail polish.
Finally, Kali and I spent scads of money on supplies for the construction of Malfoy wedding invitations for
descensus_hp. Hopefully her Internet will get unfucked tomorrow and the madness can (re)begin.
