extraordinary popular delusions
The day after Kimmie's birthday, and yet the festivities carried on.
Had a very nice dinner at Chez Michel last night in West Vancouver, a place we'd never been. French cuisine has fallen out of fashion in the last 20 years or so, and the number of restaurants specializing in it has declined. This little place was tucked on the upper floor of a 2-story storefront building on Marine Drive at Ambleside, with a view of Prospect Point and the outer harbor. There were about 15 white-clothed tables, all occupied by people older than we were, and all (except the very oldest) dressed more casually. Michel and his cadre of waiters, all actual Frenchmen with heavy accents, buzzed among the tables, occasionally having a few words with the diners, cracking some jokes. It was relaxed and unpretentious, like our former French haunt, Pierre's on Lonsdale, which eventually closed due to the falloff in interest in French cookery, at least here on the North Shore.
Kimmie wore the suit she'd just finished making, a dress-and-jacket combination of black patterned with hot-pink silhouettes of 50s-style society women walking their poodles. I wore a tailored shirt of pale pink and blue stripes, a pale-yellow necktie (the only man in a tie), and blue-gray pants. Robin, whom we'd picked up at her new medical office nearby, was a little more casual in pants and pastel top. Robin had the New York steak, Kimmie the roast duck-breast, and I had halibut in sweet basil sauce. Lovely--and costly.
Today: after morning notes (A History of Private LIfe, Galilee: From Alexander the Great to Hadrian) I drove the 3 of us to the IHOP in New West, partly to help Robin get to Trevor's new apartment there, since he was going to drive her to Ikea to get a new mattress for her (single) bed. We stopped at Save-On Foods so that Robin could buy Kimmie part 2 of her present: a copy of the just-released Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. There were some stacks of the book, but no feeding-frenzy at Save-On. The copies were $24.99 each (Robin also got one for herself). I shook my head and thought about the 19th-century classic, Extraordinary Popular Delusions & the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay, which details a number of episodes in history when people lost their minds, seemingly, in their feverish desire to possess some object that others also wanted to possess--most famously, tulip bulbs in 1630s Holland.
New Harry Potter books are things that people must have now. There is no doubt that the publishers will, eventually, print more than enough books to meet planet Earth's demand, but the desire to have it as soon as possible has people arriving at stores at midnight, and staff specially detailed to manage the distribution of copies of the thick hardback. The time is now 4:33 p.m. PDT 16 July 2005. The novel was released less than 17 hours ago (in this time-zone). I wonder how many have read it cover to cover already?
I'm not one, nor will I be. I never made it through Harry Potter 1, having bailed somewhere in chapter 2. I thought Rowling's style was much influenced by Roald Dahl, whom I like, but I was turned off by the creation of characters (the Dursleys) who exist mainly to serve as objects of the author's and readers' distaste and contempt. Yes, of course, it' s comedy, but it seems unfair, since the poor character has no defense, but simply has to manifest the negative traits piled on him by the author. It's a cruel fate.
I don't know, maybe that wasn't why I stopped reading--but I did. I'm not part of the HP phenomenon, can't relate to all those kids and retailers in costume. As ever, I stand outside the culture, looking in.
Had a very nice dinner at Chez Michel last night in West Vancouver, a place we'd never been. French cuisine has fallen out of fashion in the last 20 years or so, and the number of restaurants specializing in it has declined. This little place was tucked on the upper floor of a 2-story storefront building on Marine Drive at Ambleside, with a view of Prospect Point and the outer harbor. There were about 15 white-clothed tables, all occupied by people older than we were, and all (except the very oldest) dressed more casually. Michel and his cadre of waiters, all actual Frenchmen with heavy accents, buzzed among the tables, occasionally having a few words with the diners, cracking some jokes. It was relaxed and unpretentious, like our former French haunt, Pierre's on Lonsdale, which eventually closed due to the falloff in interest in French cookery, at least here on the North Shore.
Kimmie wore the suit she'd just finished making, a dress-and-jacket combination of black patterned with hot-pink silhouettes of 50s-style society women walking their poodles. I wore a tailored shirt of pale pink and blue stripes, a pale-yellow necktie (the only man in a tie), and blue-gray pants. Robin, whom we'd picked up at her new medical office nearby, was a little more casual in pants and pastel top. Robin had the New York steak, Kimmie the roast duck-breast, and I had halibut in sweet basil sauce. Lovely--and costly.
Today: after morning notes (A History of Private LIfe, Galilee: From Alexander the Great to Hadrian) I drove the 3 of us to the IHOP in New West, partly to help Robin get to Trevor's new apartment there, since he was going to drive her to Ikea to get a new mattress for her (single) bed. We stopped at Save-On Foods so that Robin could buy Kimmie part 2 of her present: a copy of the just-released Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. There were some stacks of the book, but no feeding-frenzy at Save-On. The copies were $24.99 each (Robin also got one for herself). I shook my head and thought about the 19th-century classic, Extraordinary Popular Delusions & the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay, which details a number of episodes in history when people lost their minds, seemingly, in their feverish desire to possess some object that others also wanted to possess--most famously, tulip bulbs in 1630s Holland.
New Harry Potter books are things that people must have now. There is no doubt that the publishers will, eventually, print more than enough books to meet planet Earth's demand, but the desire to have it as soon as possible has people arriving at stores at midnight, and staff specially detailed to manage the distribution of copies of the thick hardback. The time is now 4:33 p.m. PDT 16 July 2005. The novel was released less than 17 hours ago (in this time-zone). I wonder how many have read it cover to cover already?
I'm not one, nor will I be. I never made it through Harry Potter 1, having bailed somewhere in chapter 2. I thought Rowling's style was much influenced by Roald Dahl, whom I like, but I was turned off by the creation of characters (the Dursleys) who exist mainly to serve as objects of the author's and readers' distaste and contempt. Yes, of course, it' s comedy, but it seems unfair, since the poor character has no defense, but simply has to manifest the negative traits piled on him by the author. It's a cruel fate.
I don't know, maybe that wasn't why I stopped reading--but I did. I'm not part of the HP phenomenon, can't relate to all those kids and retailers in costume. As ever, I stand outside the culture, looking in.
posted by paulv at
4:03 PM
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