Just Weird...
Jun. 21st, 2003 02:36 amSo, ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
fizrep and I are driving back home from a fun evening with deinemuse and ghostwriterxx, and we need coffee. While searching for a gas station, I notice that Barnes and Noble has its lights on and there seem to be people inside. Rather odd for 1:30 am, but we do recall that there's usually a coffee shop inside. So we head for the store.
The lot is FULL of cars. As in, 90% occupied. There are police cars lining the sidewalk. What the hell are they all doing there, we wonder. And then it hits me. Today is the grand release date of Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix.
Here the madness begins. People are lined up by the scores for their preordered books. Other folks who did not preorder are lined up by greater numbers. Hundreds of people are in the store, waiting for their numbers to be called. People are dressed up in costume. The police are keeping order. For a book.
Now, this kind of scene I have seen before... for movies. Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings- all generate the outpouring of crazy die-hard geek fans. This is an understandable phenomenon. But the Harry Potter crowd was just normal people. Everyday run-of-the-mill non-geeks, waiting with baited breath over a simple book. Not even Hillary Clinton's biography generated this much interest.
It was... unsettling, somehow, in some unquantifiable way. It boggled the mind. Still does, in fact.
fizrep and I are driving back home from a fun evening with deinemuse and ghostwriterxx, and we need coffee. While searching for a gas station, I notice that Barnes and Noble has its lights on and there seem to be people inside. Rather odd for 1:30 am, but we do recall that there's usually a coffee shop inside. So we head for the store.The lot is FULL of cars. As in, 90% occupied. There are police cars lining the sidewalk. What the hell are they all doing there, we wonder. And then it hits me. Today is the grand release date of Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix.
Here the madness begins. People are lined up by the scores for their preordered books. Other folks who did not preorder are lined up by greater numbers. Hundreds of people are in the store, waiting for their numbers to be called. People are dressed up in costume. The police are keeping order. For a book.
Now, this kind of scene I have seen before... for movies. Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings- all generate the outpouring of crazy die-hard geek fans. This is an understandable phenomenon. But the Harry Potter crowd was just normal people. Everyday run-of-the-mill non-geeks, waiting with baited breath over a simple book. Not even Hillary Clinton's biography generated this much interest.
It was... unsettling, somehow, in some unquantifiable way. It boggled the mind. Still does, in fact.
