Vive la Potter!

I am sitting in the Starbucks at Chapters.
That’s right.... CHAPTERS!
I have received serious blog-flak for continually using the word “mega-bookstore” as to my constant whereabouts, so I have decided to reveal that it is actually a Chapters (to be more precise, it is several of them) that I live at.
Chapters.
Chapters Chapters Chapters CHAPTERS CHAPTERSCHAPTERSCHAPTERS!
I LIVE, ON A ROTATING BASIS, AT SEVERAL DIFFERENT CHAPTERS LOCATIONS!
In..... in....(what else?)... a mega-city!

So today is the day.
Think of how long the world has been spinning in space.
No, seriously, think about it.
A long long time. Even before there was human life on this planet (are you with me here?)
Dinosaurs, and stuff. Then a slimy thing climbed out of the ocean.
It got jiggy with another slimy thing and then the offspring was a wee bit smarter than mom and dad. These youngsters had the sense to stay on land and mate with other things, less slimy than themselves.
The resultant progeny were even less slimy and scaly, and most importantly, they were ever more intelligent. They were so smart that their tails receded, shrinking right into their butts, sort of like.
Walking upright was next on the agenda.
Being thoroughly umbrella-less, caves became the real estate of choice.
[Fast forward a couple of epochs, I’ve got a self-imposed word-limit I’m trying to deal with here......]

Mankind learns to communicate verbally.
“sretpahC ta evil I” says one guy.
“I od oS. !yaw oN” says the other.

Then, actually somewhere between five and ten thousand years ago, mankind learns to write.
Way later, this guy Gutenberg invents a printing press and next thing you know there is a world of poetry and literature and odes to skylarks and Pulitzer Prizes.

I am giving this rather simplified synopsis of the progression of mankind [watch for my full-length book on the subject, due in ’06, entitled From Slime To Salinger].... just to say this.
Are you ready?
There will probably be MORE copies of a single book sold today (actually tomorrow, beginning at midnight tonight) than has ever been purchased in a single day since the world started turning.
Since slime was crawling out of the ocean and meeting other slime-things.
The book I am referring to (like you don’t already know) is J.K. Rowling’s new Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince. As I write this... the minutes are counting down.......
I am sitting in the store right now and every single person on staff is dressed in Potter-garb.
Over yonder is Hermione, and there’s Harry himself, striped scarf and all. And there is undoubtedly Professor McGonagall re-stacking some shelves.
I feel as though at any moment someone is going to come riding by on a broom.
There is a crew of carpenters erecting a sort of castle type structure in the entrance to the Children’s Books section (I am not kidding) and at ten o’clock.... this place is going to go hog wild.
HOGWART-wild!
They are having magicians, all kinds of activities.... all manner of frivolity..... and all of this kafuzzle is over the release of a BOOK?
A BOOK?

I LOVE IT!
I LOVE IT!
And I have not even read any of the books myself. But I do not care. Any sort of euphoric magic-spell-frenzy thing that gets people reading this much is a good thing. Anything that can excite this much anticipation about a new BOOK.... among young people, I am all for it.
All of the windows are painted over with Harry Potter scenes. It’s great fun.

At midnight, huge boxes, in bookstores all over this city, and all over the world, will be torn open and books will be snatched up by near-rabid, slavering fans who will finally (tonight, late into the night) be getting their new fix of Potter.
I have no wise Potter-lore to share wth you.
I have done no research on the topic. No web-searching for Potter trivia.
But this morning, as I was leaving for work, Heather Reisman (the owner of Chapters/Indigo!... my landlady, if you will) was on TV saying that in the next two days, her stores are expecting to sell more copies of Potter than all of the Dan Brown stuff that has been on the bestseller list for the past sixty-five years (well, that is not a direct quote). The point being.... in the next few days, the new Rowling book will outsell all previous sales of Dan Brown’s Angels & Demons and The DaVinci Code COMBINED.
Isn’t that simply fascinating?

When I was a kid, we only got this excited about pot!
Now.... the kids are craving Potter!
See?
Civilization, and mankind in general, is still evolving!

Vive la Potter!