Phenom pt. 1a

We have achieved Tome. It's almost 3am, and I'm so tired my hair crunches; after we got our copy of the book we had to wait another hour and a half for SG's friend Rick to get his copy. I have pictures and tales, but they will ahve to wait until tomorrow.

Phenom pt.2

SG went off to the mall at about 7:30, kindly driven by klages, in her full Bellatrix LeStrange finery. Isn't she terrifying? I followed closer to 10pm (since I knew I'd be standing around for a solid two hours at least). They were in the midst of a trivia contest when I arrived, with SG in the middle of the scrum answering everything and being teased by her chum Rick for being such a geek. The Stonestown Mall, which is a vast upscale palace of commerce, was chock full of people, many Hermiones and Harrys, fewer of the secondary characters (although I was pleased to see a Quirell, a Trelawny, and a couple of Bellatrixes...or is that Bellatrice? aside from my own). Many tiny little kids in Gryffindor scarves and wizard robes, and one woman with a really killer sorting hat, home made, of about $100 worth of glove-quality suede (okay, so I used to do theatrical costuming, and I asked. There's more than one way to skin a geek). Several of the mall stores had stands--oddly, the Soup Chef was handing out free samples of soup (what this has to do with wizardry I don't know, but their organic split pea was very nice).
( More Festivities (no spoilers) )

Oh, Fun

We took time out from Harry Potter tonight to go see Hairspray, which is just an enormous, genial, goofy party on film. Everyone concerned looks like they're having too much fun. I found myself just grinning through the last half of it. Curiously Queen Latifah, playing Motormouth Mabel, was a little down-energy, as if she felt the weight of singlehandedly representing the civil rights movement. But it's just marvelous fun; go see it.