An Evening of Harry Potter

We arrived at the World Eye bookstore in Greenfield, MA a couple of minutes past midnight - and, apparently, a long time after the crowds started appearing. This small storefront was packed with kids, teens, and adults that wanted first crack at Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Most people were in street clothes, though there was a percentage in costume, including a young bow running about in a cape, pointing a wooden stick with a small start at the top (free wands the shop gave away), and yelling, "Blam!" It was like a young Emeril Lagasse taking up fantasy fiction with a vengeance. He also had on his hand an animal puppet, temporarily liberated from a store rack, and would alternate between the percussive onomatopoeia and "Make way for the magic otter!" That was still normal compared to the man in a costume that included some sort of veil for his face and and a coarse broom head mounted bristle side up atop his cranium.

It took maybe half an hour to get through the line, give someone my daughter's name, and then find out that the bookstore was charging full list price - not even a few dollars off. To think we went there in sympathy for the plight of the small shop. Blam. The magic otter has struck again. Somehow I think it will be a long time before I shop there again.

In the meantime, with this update, I just read that the book sold 8.3 million copies in the first 24 hours of sale, or about twice the rate of the sixth. I wonder how many trees that translates into? And apparently some newspapers, trying to get a review into print, have hired speed readers. They should have called my daughter, who had it done before the end of Saturday.