A Dance With E-Books

I finally pulled the trigger and bought myself a Kindle.

Will wonders never cease!

The first indication I needed one was about halfway through the most recent Game of Thrones tome, A Dance With Dragons. [Fig. A] Weighing in at about 54 pounds and with a wingspan of approximately 27 inches long, it took its own bag to heft to and from work via the subway.

On the other hand, why get an e-reader? The popularity of the HBO series has made it acceptable to read the book in public, which removes the purpose of trying to hide the cover with technology. (Not to go all BACK IN MY DAY… but I started these books in 9th grade, when it was a freakish and hilarious thing to see a relatively normal looking lady reading a thick fantasy novel in plain view of… anyone.)

[Fig. A]

Anyway, the experience of trying to enjoy that novel on a whim while commuting just deadened me to subway reading. I'm nearly done with this one now (it's great), but again the hard cover'd, heavy nature of the thing is keeping me from taking it along wherever I go.

Enter the Kindle.

I had never wanted to get an e-reader because I'm one of those incredibly exhausting people who enjoys the act of reading a book or a newspaper. (Believe me, I realize how goddamn annoying that sounds.) After all, pretty much everything else in my life has gone digital, so being able to smell a book and flip through pages is a nice way to physically connect to what's becoming a lost pastime.

But whatever, books are fucking bulky.

I'm going to try out a NYPL card to take out e-books online. And if that doesn't work, Amazon Prime has a nice deal where you can pay $80/year to rent one book a month. Luckily, I have cultivated a rather fascinating and bizarre reading list to get through. A lot of those are "for keeps" coffee table-style books, but we'll give it the ol' e-book college try.

Let's see how this goes. Anyone have any Kindle tips for me? I'm not buying a case at the moment, which might be a bad move for a klutz.

POTTAH!

I've been home almost a week and what was I most excited to do?

(After uh seeing friends and family)

The Harry Potter exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry. Naturally!

Obviously, I am a big Potter fan. You've been warned: it gets extremely geeky from here...

(at the Réliques de la mort party in Paris)

I worked the official release party of the final book in French. I made the trip to New York to see the original Beedle the Bard on display at the NYPL. I did the usual midnight showing thing with each movie and the last 3 or 4 books.

But this exhibit? Was exceptionally cool. I expected some interesting props and maybe some detailed books that I'd read about. For example, the production team spent months dredging up Medieval fonts to make the Daily Prophet and various textbooks for the movies-- but this was the motherload!

First sight: the Flying Ford Anglia


Neato!

We got to the exhibit and there was a dude with a fake British accent offering to Sort us. Yes please. I got into Gryffindor, along with two other friends. My third friend got sent to Hufflepuff, but it's probably because she gave him attitude about the Sorting Hat song.

When you get into the actual exhibit, there's a wall full of portraits. Some of them are on LCD screens which move. Then it's like the Promiseland...

I saw (including, but not limited to)
-wands
-Harry's glasses
-costumes from all five movies-- everything from robes of the trio to The Goblet of Fire dress robes, the Bloody Baron's gorgeous suit, Voldemort's dress thing, Slughorn and Snape's robes...
-Timeturner
-the Gryffindor common room bulletin board, complete with hand-drawn notices
-Triwizard Cup
-the slip of paper labeled "Harry Potter" for the Goblet
-Ron's trunk with Chudley Cannons gear and Mrs. Weasley's sweaters
-dorm beds
-Potions props (like the bezoar box and random pickled objects)
-Honeydukes display (with all the packaged candy and tiny little pink and white striped bags with the gold embossed Honeydukes logo)
-Fake food and table settings from the Yule Ball
-the Gold Egg from The Goblet of Fire
-the Marauder's Map (!! Sooo detailed)
-Mandrakes, Fawkes, Buckbeak, Kreacher
-Sports gear (like everything from brooms to the Quidditch World Cup goggles to Krum's and an Irish player's robes)

And the textbooks. Oh the textbooks!

Most of the books were old-fashioned, even gothic-lettered. However, one of the Potions books was done in '60s Vespa-esque font (like Air Conditioner) with gold lettering and a line-drawn simmering beaker. The Defense Against the Dark Arts text, from Umbridge's reign in the 5th book, was another '60s type, with an illustration of a young witch and wizard. That cover is actually in the film.

I was also so impressed by the Quidditch World Cup "Programme"-- it was a brochure with color blocks and caps hand-drawn letters. Another brochure with bright colors was the O.W.L. study guide. With illustrated buzz words on the front, it folded up in a really interesting, layered stack. The O.W.L. test itself was typeset but each question was kind of scattered randomly on the page. There wasn't any real order.

Umbridge's kitty stationary was there, which I don't remember from the films. Gilderoy Lockhart had a section to himself: I loved the ornate and gothic-lettered quiz he gave on himself for the first DADA class he taught. Each of his books were bound in animal skin and had a black and white glamour shot of him doing something glamorous.

The most interesting details were teeny, like how at the bottom of each Deatheater's "Wanted" poster, there was a line about how it was produced by the Ministry of Magic, England, with a serial number. Each Decree put up by Filch started with a large headline and then narrowed down, line by line, until it got to a minute line with "Blah blah ahblah" typed across the bottom.

All the "official" posters and brochures had a Ministry of Magic or Auror stamp on the bottom. It amazes me that someone went through the trouble of designing a logo to stamp a poster that barely made the film, let alone a closeup of the stamp itself.



There was also cute kiddie stuff, like a row of potted Mandrakes (you could pull them out and hear them scream) and some Quidditch goals with Quaffles to throw. Once again, I was shocked by the detail on the Snitch's wings-- the wings looked like a suit of armor, or the little metal spoke things on an old typewriter.



The end had more portraits (like one of Anne Boleyn, with her "B" necklace changed to "H").


We were all jumping out of our pants for a cool gift shop. I, of course, would have bought every single poster or book reproduction (or, let's face it, I would have stolen everything from the exhibit), plus anything with packaging, like the candy from Honeydukes. Instead, it was a bunch of t-shirts and costumes. There were wand replicas and stuff (and a Marauder's Map! Thumbs up! Oh, it's $50. Nevermind), but it was all a bit silly and expensive. I do plan on getting the official exhibit book when it's available, so I can geek out more on my own.

Whew. I'll be talking about this for months. More of my photos of the Ford Anglia here.

(images from here, here,here, and here)

Life Change

I have decided, after much deliberation, to become a Steampunk chick.

Just kidding.

I'm more into these guys.

My new daily look will get to include cool shit like this:
Brass goggles.
Hats hats hats.
Corsets.
Anything with gears on it.
Spaaaats!!.

Obviously, I think it's pretty cool that a group of people joined together after sharing music and books and were like, "Fuck it! I'm going to wear an overcoat and spats and carry a pocketwatch. And I'm going to do it all whilst surfing on my rad customized computer."

Plus. This dude!


I will instead read about Steampunky things and marvel at cooler people than I.

(images from here and here.)

Gather 'Round, Children

Last year gave me the chance to sight-see quite a bit around Europe. During these trips, I occasionally took the helm and bossed my friends around. For a change. Thanks to my recent photo "borrowing" spree when I realized my roommate had about 1500 pictures of me that I'd never seen, I discovered these two gems:

Here's me, describing Prague Castle to my enraptured audience.

And here I am again, apparently predicting what we'd be seeing in Sintra, Portgual.
I knew I should have gone into primary education. (Just kidding, that was never, ever a consideration for my life)

Twilight: Amazing.

Last night, my friend and I got a few drinks in us, bundled up, charged to the movie theater, and saw the midnight showing of Twilight. And. It. Was. Amazing.

1. Amazingly... hilarious: All of the brooding, wide-eyed vampires; clichéd lines and glittering skin set us off laughing every. Time. We spent about half the movie cracked up and making comments.

2. Amazingly... hot: Robert Pattinson is gorgeous and there was no shortage of closeups. The first few shots of him were silly because he had some weird hybrid of an American/German/British accent, but 20 minutes into the movie, it started getting sexy. My friend and I were pining for him after we left the theater.

3. Amazingly... tweeny: Nearly every person in the theater was a teenage or early 20s girl. Someone started up a chant of "Edward, Edward!" when the screen darkened for the opening credits. And the girls in front of us sat in stony silence whenever my friend and I started another round of loud moans or fits of the giggles.

4. Amazingly... not a good vampire movie: It's no secret that the author of the books is a Mormon and a terrible writer. I mean seriously, "You are my own personal brand of heroin." Really? Okay. But it's also annoying how the vampires in the series can go out in the sunlight, don't sleep, don't have fangs, can survive happily on animal blood. I really like vampire movies and books (I went through an Anne Rice phase, and I spend some nights trolling for episodes of Buffy and True Blood). I hope people don't go and then take her version of vampires as canon.

5. Amazingly... awkward: When Edward and Bella are starting to hang out, they have all these awkward scenes together where they just hang out close to each other. No kissing, no touching, just staring and proximity. It was driving everyone in the theater craaazy-- no one does that! Just kiss already! At one point, the two leads were about a centimeter apart and just hanging out, and then a girl in the front row moaned, "This is SO AWKWARD!" and everyone in the front section of the seats dissolved into laughter.

6. Amazingly... well-scored: They played Muse and Radiohead, plus a few songs I'd never heard but immediately liked. A good score over a so-so movie immediately elevates it to awesome. I approve.

In summation: I went into the movie knowing I hated the books but loved Cedric Diggory; the actress playing Bella made her slightly less annoying than in the books, so that was a welcome surprise. Basically, it was a terrific idea to go three sheets to the wind and bring along popcorn. It was terrific.

ETA: really well-written review by io9. Takes the words right out of my head:

"...What this movie is all about is the strange, twisted fantasy love story that promises young girls that, yes! You too could seduce and tame a mysterious, dangerous man who loves you - and must struggle with his overwhelming animal lust for you - despite your humdrum normal life, and all without doing anything other than just being you. It's a curious mix of female empowerment - You can achieve your goals! - with just the opposite - Don't take control of the situation or want anything more than a grand romance.There's an earlier scene in the movie where Bella tells one of her friends that she is a strong, independent woman. Why is she telling her that? To make sure that she asks out a boy. Being in a relationship is its own reward in this movie, and also the bestest thing in the world ever; all of Bella's high school friends exist to either crush on Bella or crush on those crushing on Bella - They literally have no other reason to be there. Again, the reaction of the preview audience, the movie's fanbase underlines this: while Edward's awkward pronouncements of the horrors of being a vampire got laughed at, the equally-awkward pronouncements of love were greeted with screams and sighs and other noises made by mid-20th century women when Elvis swiveled his hips."

Richard Cypher and Co.

from sidereel.com

I found another extremely nerdy thing to occupy me until I eventually give in, collapse in on myself, and start playing WoW. Sigh. Presenting.... Legend of the Seeker!!

I was innocently clicking around SideReel, looking for the newest episode of True Blood, and I found a gorgeous high-res image of two women with long hair in flowy dresses on horseback and my ears immediately pricked up (see above). I downloded the first two episodes on iTunes so I can enjoy the beautiful HD scenery and have audio that matches the mouths. I'm very impressed so far! It doesn't feel like Sci Fi low-budget at all.

The show is based on the Terry Goodkind books, The Sword of Truth series. I realized about 20 minutes into the first episode that I'd actually read some of the books, starting with one of the last in the bunch.

Hopefully, the show will get some viewers and continue for a few more episodes at least. I had not heard one single thing about this-- usually, I can sniff this stuff out while it's still in production. Stranger still, I completely missed the first two or three episodes.

Rest assured, I do still maintain a busy social calendar. With real people. Who don't go to Ren Fairs.