Potter-y barn

So the word has come down that the last Harry Potter novel will come out on July 21. And for many people in the world the massive withdrawal symptoms will begin at some point on July 22 with the realization that there will be no more Harry Potter. In fact, if the rumours are right, Rowling may well snuff him.

Oh sure, there are the movies. But that's really not the same, is it? No more books. I'm wondering if there will be mass suicides when it all sinks in.

Myself and Cathy will manage somehow. And at least there will be no debate on who gets to read the book first this time. I won't say we came close to breaking up over this issue previously, but there were certainly... discussions. We weren't together for the first four books, so that wasn't an issue. I think for "Order of the Phoenix" we actually bought two copies, so that was settled. But for "The Half-Blood Prince", well, there were issues. I needed to review it for The Express. I had a comp copy from the publisher, but it arrived late, so I had to steal the one Cathy pre-ordered. I had an unhappy wife for a day or so until I finished reading it.

However, she wins on the new one. As it turns out, we likely won't be together when it comes out. She'll be in St. John's and I'll still be in Iqaluit. And given the precarious state of our bookshelves (we will be out of space before the end of this year, I suspect) getting two copies isn't an option. And there's no chance in hell she'll wait until getting back to Iqaluit in late August to read the book.

So she'll get it and I'll have to do my best to avoid spoilers for a couple of weeks. She will also likely get to go to the fantastic Granny Bates launch party. I know Chapters does them, but the one for Granny Bates is a lot more fun. I'm jealous. Granted, I almost died at the other one, but hey...

(I thought I had mentioned this before, but I can't find it. Long story short, I covered the last Potter launch at Granny Bates and was standing next to Sean Panting, who was MC. When midnight came he opened the box and then instead of handing out the books to the hordes of children screaming and begging for it, began to read the first paragraph. It's not often I've feared for my life as a reporter. That was one of the times.)

Oh, and in what I'm sure is a purely coincidental event, at the same time the date of the final Potter book was being announced the production of Equus released some publicity photos. What is Equus? It's a controversial play being mounted in London about a teenage boy's erotic attraction to a horse. And it stars Daniel Radcliffe, who just so happens to play Potter in the movies. Here are a few photos.





Got to admit, it takes balls to star in a play like that, or to release those kinds of photos. In fact, were it not for some judicious cropping and Photoshopping I suspect you might actually see Radcliffe's in those photos.

And here's one with an actual woman as opposed to a horse.



I wonder what those photos will do to Radcliffe's teenage girl fanbase? They get to almost see Harry naked. But he's with a horse and that's weird. Although, and I can't explain exactly why, I suspect his gay fanbase just went waaaayyyy up.