Mraz(not the Friday the 13th dude but that would work too.), Jones and Potter. These are three "people" whom I have been hanging out with lately.
A week ago today the girls and I headed over to Dekalb to the NIU campus to see Jason Mraz in concert again. Steve and I took Sarah and a friend back in November to the Aragon Ballroom to see him too. He is so incredible live that it only took a little begging and bribing to get me to take her and Emma on a school night this time. Plus the tickets were only $35 and NIU is an easy 40 minute drive west of here. Emma didn't really want to go but Steve was in California for the week so she had no choice. By the end of the night she was a fan too.
My favorite song of his (I love a beautiful mess!)
Last Friday night was Steve's poker night and it was his turn to host. Sarah had plans to go see Friday the 13th with friends so Emma and I went to see Coraline. She and I are fans of the movie Mirror/Mask and this movie has the same feel to it. I was a little surprised by how many families with really young children were there. This isn't a movie for your typical young animated movie fan. No cute cuddly pandas here, instead you get French & Saunders doing a partially clad Vaudeville number and Terri Hatcher threatening to sew buttons over childrens' eyes.
There are some incredible miniature knits in this movie. Check out how they were made:
And lastly, even though it has been almost two years since we finally found out if the Boy Who Lived well, LIVED, I still get my Harry Geek on occasionally. I wasn't always a Potter Fan. Sarah started reading the series in 2nd grade (2000?) and by the the time the 5th book was released was fully into it and I bought her Order of the Phoenix the first day it was released. I still hadn't read any of them yet at that time. By the time the Half Blood Prince was announced her enthusiasm had finally won me over. We had just put in our pool and I had lots of time playing lifeguard that summer that allowed me to get lots of reading done. I started with Sorcerer's Stone and by the time HBP was released I was full on addicted. I think over the summer of 2006 she re-read the series two or three times. We would swim or soak in the hot tub at night debating and discussing different plot points and share theories about the characters and what we thought would happen in the last book. Our liveliest debate was over Snape. I always stood by my conviction that he wasn't bad, he was just misunderstood. Our first midnight release party was for Book 6. We had pre-ordered it from Amazon but realized that we couldn't wait until it arrived by post when the rest of the world (or so it seemed) would be reading it all weekend. I still wasn't finished with OotP so I could be patient but never ask an obsessed pre-teen to be patient! By the summer of '07 and the release of Deathly Hallows there was no doubt we would be pre-ordering a copy at our local store and staying up until midnight to get it. We ended up taking the train into Oak Park for their big Diagon Alley extravaganza. The boys from Mugglenet were there doing a live podcast and we were in the front row. We made the train back to Geneva in time to get in line for our book and were home before 1a.m. I also bought the book on CD because I knew we wouldn't be able to tag team one copy and I wanted to be able to listen while knitting or driving. (I still haven't physically read Deathly Hallows and have it on my To Do list for this summer.)
This weekend Sarah handed me a copy of Harry, a history by Melissa Anelli. She had finally read it over the long President's Day weekend and thought I'd enjoy it too. I had to confess Sunday morning to shedding a tear or two while reading it. Yes. I'm a dork. It tells the story of the fandom from the inside and how this series of books changed lives, created a new genre of music, brought people together, and how the fans and the internet all had a place in the creation of Harry Mania. Who ever thought an orphaned wizard, a bunch of book nerds and punk rock would all have something in common?
While reading it I realized how this series also brought me and Sarah together and I'm imagining other parents and children had the same experience. I remember sitting on the lawn in Scoville Park in Oak Park waiting for Emerson and the rest of the Mugglecast boys to take the stage and saying to the girls how cool it was to be a part of something like that. While we were sitting there people all around the globe were also celebrating (and mourning a little) with us in a way. Reading Melissa's book brought all of that back to me. There was also a lot about the fandom (and Wizard Rock) that I was unfamiliar with that I found really entertaining and interesting.
Next month I'll be able to share how RENT, (Anthony) Rapp and REM have influenced our family!
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