The Harry Potter Festival in Harvard Square

(which is peaking even as I write this as 11:24pm EST 7-20-07) is a bracing reminder of the old Harvard Square...full of oddly dressed gawkers and buskers of all descriptions...a real mob scene.
One thing I don't get though, if "Harry Potter and Deathly Hallows" is supposed to be a kid's book, then why are so many college co-eds tarted up in sexy schoolgirl costumes?
I guess it's a generational thing.

'Arry Potter odds

Given the omnipresent release hype for the last of the Harry Potter novels this week, I thought I'd toy with some death-odds on the leads. Alas, this is all pure buncombe on my part as I'm not a fan, the Edwardian school setting is very off putting to me.

:)
Harry: 50-50, I suspect JK Rowling is damn sick and tired of her boy wizard, the way Conan Doyle found Sherlock Holmes a curse. So there is ample precedent for simply snuffing poor Harry, but then you have to factor in pressure from the publishers and Warner Brothers who want an untainted revenue stream from Rowling's creations for years to come. Offing Harry is bad business.

Hermione: 60-40, in her favor: Hermione is Rowling's familiar spirit, I doubt she'd kill her own avatar. Besides if Harry turns up dead she can probably revisit the seriesh Ms. Granger as the lead, maybe that was the plan all along.

Ron: 20 to 1 against. Stick a fork in him, Ron is doomed. The comedy relief never survives to final reel in story's like this, his death is supposed to be the hero's final passage to adulthood, blah blah blah. Besides, it's an easy out and even the best writers succumb to cliches.

A perfect day at Horseneck Beach today

perfect surf and perfect weather. I doubt I'll be so lucky for the rest of the summer. The only thing that harshed my groove was the proliferation of mediocre to awful tattoos some on which adorned the flesh of kids too young to enter into a binding contract in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
I guess that must be the hot new sweet sixteen gift, a smeary awful looking rose tattoo on one's shoulder blade.

Ten years from now, when "skin art" is strictly for squares, yer gonna wanna own stock in one of those companies that make lasers for tattoo removal...they'll be doin' a land office business.

Pick of the Week

Forget Harry Potter and Johnny Depp's pirate in eyeshadow...The Harvard Film Archive is goin' balls to the wall with action tomorrow!
The Adventures of Captain Marvel is one of the greatest serials ever made and this is a one in a lifetime chance to see it in it's natural big screen setting.
Don't let that pass you by!
Kudos to the HFA for making good use of the University's lavish endowment!

Sighted on the Minuteman Bike Path last night in East Arlington

at about 8:30pm...a small tow-headed boy wielding a teensy tiny butterfly net methodically attempting to capture one of the many many lightning bugs that were flickering about.
Behind the wee lad stood his two obvious parents grinning like circus clowns, the father reverently clutching the traditional glass jar with a perforated lid.

Add in the "Tom Sawyer" style bib overalls and the picture becomes complete.

Despite the rain

the grand fireworks show on the Esplanade look great last night...came across vividly even atop Robbin's Farm in Arlington some seven miles away from the action.
Is it me though, or are they getting closer and closer to outright mushroom-clouds over the Back Bay every Fourth of July?
The pyrotechnics, especially the traditional big finish seemed more akin to the Bikini Atoll tests this year...