A moment of love for Harry Potter

Well, that last final push is done. The boxes have been split open, the books piled in neat columns and distributed to an excited populace. The last Harry Potter novel, beloved by both adults and kids, has reached it's final path and will end.

For a moment the crowd stilled, moving almost at once, every movement and breath a potential for chaos, every gesture fraught with the sudden possibility that the crowd would turn. It pulsed around the desk like a tide, cutting the world away so that there was just the counter, eight booksellers, and the surging crowd. Then, as one manager stood on that counter, the crowd shivered as she cried out “7 minutes” and for a moment the counter seemed to wallow in the crowd, small waves of people would rush forward with their tickets and bracelets, saying “I'm next.”

We waited until it was close, until we could get within a few seconds of 12:01 to pull the purple sheet away. Touched it, made sure it would break away, we caressed the sheet and the boxes beneath, each one marked so that it was obvious what it was, but beneath the purple sheet, the boxes didn't hold the same potential. But, now that potential was pulsing with the crowd, the air conditioning vents raising the corners.
And, then we counted down, 10...9...8... and the crowd began to cheer, full of the realization that the moment was about to arrive.

The pallet is proudly depleted, ranks of boxes once neatly stacked are now strewn about, the volumes inside are in the hot hands of the crowd. People cheered for a book, people lined up in a huge crowd, in the heat of a bookstore too full with souls, to buy a book. A children's novel about magic, and they were excited, they jumped up and down, they screamed. The girl, who had arrived at 5:00 am that morning, nearly cried. She cheered as she stood up front, and then for a moment her face quivered and tears formed when she saw the bright orange cover. For a novel, we did all this.

Now that the last push is done, the boxes split open, and the books distributed, the last Harry Potter novel is being chewed through by children and adults. Much has been said, either way, about the Harry Potter series and it's ability to induce literacy. Some love the book, anytime kids read is great they say. Others are not so sure, they frown at the notion that a single blockbuster novel is not enough to get kids to read literature, but merely a cultural blip. Ask me tomorrow and I'm sure you'll hear a variation on the second idea, but tonight with the memory of all that excitement, of all those people overjoyed to dig into their favorite story and find its bittersweet endings, I can't help but love Harry Potter a little. I can't help but love Rowling's prose, though it be 'sturdy' and those characters, even as each is destined for the silver screen's own thin lens.

Tonight, I cannot escape the idea that around the country there are thousands breathing in the same world, each turning the page and loving a book.

Elliot Bay Bookstore - Seattle, WA

If I could marry a bookstore, I'd buy a ring for the Elliot Bay Bookstore in Seattle. Wood floors, a huge poetry section, a neat little cafe, and lots and lots of books. It's such a cool place, I'm jealous that Tucson doesn't have an equivalent.

I purchased an autographed copy of Anne Fadiman's At Large and At Small: Familiar Essays there and I'll remember to stop there every chance I get.

Trust me. If you love books and you're in the Seattle area, go here and buy something.

A Quote on Literature - Jean Paul Satre

The creative act is only an incomplete and abstract moment in the production of a work. If the author existed alone he would be able to write as much as he liked; the work as object would never see the light of day and he would either have to put down his pen or despair. But the operation of writing implies that of reading as its dialectical correlative and these two connected acts necessitate two distinct agents. It is the joint effort of author and reader which brings upon the scene that concrete and imaginary object which is the work of the mind. There is no art except for and by others.

— Jean Paul Satre, What is Literature?

Jimmy Santiago Baca

I stumbled across one of Jimmy Santiago Baca's poems during my freshman year of college. I'm not sure if the poem came to me because of an English teacher, a certain textbook, or just happenstance, but it surprised me, it engaged me. Suddenly, I began to understand poetry, the use of words and rythym and the juxtapositions that make up modern poetry. It impressed me, this simple poem.
The poem was Green Chile, and it's sensual description of Baca's grandmother making green chile con carne is just incredible.

From the poem:

A well-dressed gentleman at the door
my grandmother takes sensuously in her hand,
rubbing its firm glossed sides,
caressing the oily rubbery serpent,
with mouth -watering fulfillment,
fondling its curves with gentle fingers.
Its bearing magnificent and taut
as flanks of a tiger in mid-leap,
she thrusts her blade into
and cuts it open, with lust
on her hot mouth, sweating over the stove,
bandanna round her forehead,
mysterious passion on her face
as she serves me green chile con carne
between soft warm leaves of corn tortillas,
with beans and rice–her sacrifice
to her little prince.

Tonight, I had an opportunity to hear Mr. Baca read his poems at the last reading of the University of Arizona's Poetry Center, and he continues to be a fantastic poet and writer, grounded in the dark reality of modern life and yet able to describe the ineffable as well.

The Poetry Center is a fantastic place for anyone interested in literature and poetry. Their collection is impressive and their project to record poets for future students is a worthy task. I've had the opportunity to volunteer and helped the center build a small video-editing system.