4B - Thursday, November 18, 2010
The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
RMUGE MADNESS
'IJ spellbound for Potter premiere
From Markley to South Quad, students prepare
for midnight's moviegoing magic
By Jennifer Xu I Daily Arts Writer
"Harry Potter" book and movie pre-
mieres have long brought out the crazy in
our generation, and this is no exception
for University students. Tonight, The Boy
Who Lived is exploding onto our theater
screens for the second-to-last time in
"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows:
Part 1," bringing a month's worth of par-
ties and events to a close.
The Michigan Muggles kicked off the
adventure two weeks ago with a "Harry
Potter" Trivia Night at Buffalo Wild
Wings on State Street in Ann Arbor.
People signed up in groups of four to par-
ticipate, and proceeds went to fund a chil-
dren's literacy program.
"That was a good way to get warmed
up," said LSA sophomore Kristin Harden.
Just last year, the Muggles were formed
by a small group of students passionate
about the "Harry Potter" books and mov-
ies, but the club has expanded significant-
ly in the past few months.
"We filled B-Dubs," Harden said. "I
think there are a lot of people that are
very open about their obsession with
'Harry Potter.' "
The club also holds occasional book
talks, in which members discuss what
reading "Harry Potter" meant to them as
a child and how they got so involved in it.
"I started reading 'Harry Potter' when
I was in the fourth grade," reminisced
LSA senior Kelci Parker. "When I was
younger, I didn't really like reading for
fun. It was like the first book I could just
casually read and enjoy, and after reading
books one, two (and) three really quickly,
I was hooked."
"Also, the seventh book came out right
after I graduated high school," she added.
"Seventh year was like (Harry's) last year
of high school and me and all my friends
were like, 'It's for our class. It's for us.'
"And it's our senior year right now, and
Harry's graduating too - the first half is
coming out now in my senior year, and the
second half - that's when all the 'Harry
Potter' movies are over and I'm done with
college. It feels very symbolic."
Harden and Parker are both planning
on attending the midnight showing of the
film tonight.
"The week of 'Harry Potter' I'm also
planning on watching all the movies,"
Harden said. "We'll probably split it
between a few days since there's so many
- I did that for the last movie where (my
friends) sat and watched all of the movies
in a day."
Harden plans on dressing up as a Huf-
flepuff student and already has her cos-
tume ready.
"(I) made it with my best friend for the
USED BOOKS
From Page 1B
fact that I've got the only one in Ann Arbor
no longer means anything, because all
of the copies that are for sale all over the
world are available all at once."
Stocking up
To keep their walls stocked, used book-
stores must constantly purchase books.
For most, the majority of these come from
customers bringing old books into the
store to sell. But choosing and valuing
books turns out to be a more complicated
process than it seems.
"It's such a vast decision-making pro-
cess (that) I can think of no easy way to
describe it," Gillmore said.
But after so many years in the used-
book business, Gillmore and his fellow
Ann Arbor booksellers can often assess a
book's value on first glance.
"What one pays depends, obviously, a lot
on the book," Platt said. "Some books you
think will sell very quickly you're going
to pay a higher percentage (of the selling
price). And generally the more valuable
the book is, the higher percentage you'll
pay for it."
Shop owners consider the condition of
the book, how well the book is made and
who the author is.
last movie," she said. "I have a blue blaz-
er, and my friend actually drew the Huf-
flepuff crest, and so I sewed that to the
blazer. I have a skirt, a white shirt and I'll
probably wear stockings or something."
"My best friend is going as a Gryffindor
Quidditch player," she added. "She drew
out the Gryffindor crest, and she has a
cape, which has her last name on it and
the number seven. And she has a broom
and she even made a little golden Snitch."
Harden's passion for "Harry Potter"
extends past mere enjoyment of the books
and movies - for her, there's also senti-
mental value in the series.
"It was actually my mom that got me
into reading them," she said. "She would
read them to me every night before we
went to bed, so I fell in love with them
through that. Then my mom actually
passed away when I was 11, and I just kept
on reading them."
For those without transportation to
Quality 16 or Rave, fear not - most of the
residence halls are taking students by
university bus to the Saturday showing at
varying times during the day.
"We're going to have half-off conces-
sions, and we're paying for some of the
ticket, so it should (be) really nice," said
LSA senior and Markley resident advisor
Matthew Duprie.
Markley's 45 RAs have also divided
up the residence hall's four wings into
the four houses of Hogwarts, with Lil-
lian Madrigal and Brandon Ebenhoeh,
both LSA seniors, acting as Head Girl
and Head Boy, respectively. If a student
participates in an event or wins a compe-
tition, that person wins points for his or
her "house."
"We told everyone before fall break
when they went home what their houses
were. Then we put up a sign that said, 'The
Chamber of Secrets has been opened,' "
Ebenhoeh said.,
"It's in red paint and looks like blood,"
Madrigal added.
Markley is sponsoring a pie-eating con-
test and a non-alcoholic Butter-Beer Pong
tournament over the course of the week.
"We found the recipe online. The
essence of it is cream soda, butterscotch
and vanilla ice cream. Lots of sugar,"
Ebenhoeh said.
On Saturday and Sunday night, the resi-
dence hall also plans to have its denizens
play a real-life game of Quidditch, bor-
rowing the Michigan Quidditch team's
brooms and equipment for a big tourna-
ment in the Central Campus Recreation
Building.
"The CCRB is nice because there's that
track right above where people can go and
"You learn after a while what authors
are going to sell and what aren't," Koster
said. "After so many years, you're selling
the same people over and over, you just
don't turn those down."
There are several other ways to buy
used or rare books, like estate sales, per-
sonal collections and public libraries.
Some booksellers also attend antiquar-
ian book fairs, where collectors and mer-
chants gather to talk about and sell books.
Platt attends eight to 10 book fairs every
year - some as far away as Boston, where
he says most of his more expensive books
sell.
Platt also has hosted his own annual
antiquarian book fair on campus for the
last 33 years. The fair attracts booksellers
from Ann Arbor and all over the Midwest
each spring.
However, most of the action for those
who sell used books still takes place in the
store, and with a constant influx of books
and tens of thousands to sort and main-
tain, it can be hard to keep track of every-
thing.
Used bookstores are notorious for their
lack of organization. It can be a nightmare
findingthe book you want,.or even the sec-
tion you want. But somehow the owners
can pinpoint the location of almost every
book in their stores.
"You tend to visualize where every-
thing is," Platt said. But it wasn't always
that easy for him: Platt recalled one of his
first experiences in a used bookstore.
Each wing of Markley Hall has been decorated to look like a different Hogwarts house.
watch, so it kind of creates that environ-
ment that they have in the books and mov-
ies where people are watching the game
from above," Madrigal said.
The person who will be playing the
Snitch has already been determined.
"One of our staff is a cross country run-
ner," Ebenhoeh said. "And he has a twin
brother, so they're going to swap. It's real-
ly going to be quite intense."
South Quad Honors kicked off its own
"Harry Potter" week last Saturday with
the Yule Ball, a charity dance for which
the majority of proceeds went to the Ruth
Ellis Center, a center for homeless LGBT
youth in Detroit. The ball is a continua-
tion of the program's charity ball from
last year that featured a series of "Harry
Potter"-themed food, music and activi-
ties.
"Last year, we asked residents what
they wanted out of next year, and over-
whelmingly they wanted the Yule Ball
back in addition to other 'Harry Potter'-
themed things," Nursing senior Lizzi Shea
said. "The Honors kids are really excited
about this, and they definitely wanted to
see it happen."
Throughout the week, South Quad is
showing selected films from the "Harry
Potter" 'series and scenes from "A Very
Potter Musical." There will also be an
ethics panel about the decisions Harry
makes throughout the books, led by Cen-
"I can remember this guy asking for
some obscure title," he said, "and the
bookseller went up and found it right
away, and I thought, 'How did he do that?
How did he know where the books were?'
Now I know."
The magic of
book browsing
That lost feeling, though, is actually
part of the allure of a used bookstore. In
the process of looking for a certain book,
you discover another one.
"I suspect most of the books I sell are
things people found but didn't know they
wanted, rather than books they came for
specifically," Gillmore said.
"You literally don't know what you're
going to run into in a place like this," he
continued. "You don't even know what
section you're going to be in in a place like
this. You just wander around and see what
catches your eye."
Browsing, even browsing without the
intention of buying, is something booksell-
ers encourage, because the magic of find-
ing something you weren't looking for can
mean much more than pre-meditated buy-
ing. It gives what Alvarez calls a "human
component" to a purchase.
"There are many collectors who, they
buy a book, they have a collection, but they
want to tell a story about how they got that
book. ... Sometimes it is very fascinating
ter for Ethics in Public Life fellow Zach-
ary Smith.
"A lot of people look at Harry Pot-
ter and don't think about the immoral
and unethical decisions that he makes,"
LSA senior Samantha Greenberg said.
"For instance, when he makes Dumb-
ledore drink the potion until he pretty
much dies, is it moral, unethical? Yes.
But he does it, and in the end there's this
happy ending, of sorts. So the idea (is)
that this happens in 'Harry Potter' a lot,
and nobody takes a sec to look at how it
impacts our real life."
The week will culminate in a screen-
ing of the film at Quality 16, which all
the South Quad RAs will supervise and
attend. But in addition to going to the
movie's Saturday showing, Greenberg,
an admittedly huge "Harry Potter" fan
herself, is also planning on attending the
midnight premiere with her friends.
"My best friend and I have always been
to 'Harry Potter' since the fourth movie,
so there's really no other option than to go
at midnight," she said.
Greenberg's favorite premiere was the
sixth movie, two years ago.
"There was a group of 20 kids that all
dressed up as something different, and in
the hour and a half leading up to the pre-
miere they acted out different scenes -
they dueled, they had one person conjure
up a Patronus and fight a dementor. They
had one scene with Harry and Ginny in
love," she said.
Most students look favorably upon the
division of the seventh and final book into
two films.
"I understand it, because it is a really
long book," Harden said. "I just hope they
use it to their advantage. I really hope that
they include details about the Horcruxes,
because that was my only problem with
the sixth movie - they didn't go to so
much detail about Voldemort and his past.
So I hope that since they have so much
more time, they are able to be truer to the
book."
Whether faithful or not, by next July
the famed 13-year "Harry Potter" series
will have truly come to an end. Many
fans, who have grown up reading the
adventures of Harry, Hermione and Ron
and have shed tears over the deaths of
major characters, will finally have to put
away their broken glasses and invisibility
cloaks, as a part of their childhoods comes
to a close.
"I remember when I finished the sev-
enth book, I was crying," Parker said.
"And my mom, who hadn't read them
before - she came in, and she was like,
'Are you seriously crying?' It was like six
in the morning, because I stayed up all
night reading it, and I was like, 'Yes, the
seventh book's over and I just don't know
what to do!"'
0
David's Books has begun to do business online.
browsing," he said.
"I think there are still people who really
enjoy that part: the hunting," he added.
"They enjoy more the hunting than the
possession itself."
Such serendipity, Platt said, is unique to
used bookstores.
"A new bookstore is based on books that
are just in print now," Platt said, "whereas
with a used bookstore, every book that's
ever been printed is a possibility. All the
millions and millions of books that have
ever been printed may turn up."
Internet shopping similarly can't pro-
vide this experience, Gillmore said.
"(Customers) like the accident of finding
books they didn't know existed," he said.
"You can't look for books on the Internet if
you don't know they exist."
But despite their charm, the future of
used bookstores is uncertain and used
booksellers are unsure of their staying
power.
"I feel a little bit like a buggy-whip
manufacturer in the time of Henry Ford,"
Gillmore said. "I see it becoming more
and more and more difficult." His fellow
used bookstore proprietors share his sen-
timents.
"It's tough to make ends. meet, and it
could just get tougher and tougher until
most (used bookstores) close," Koster said.
"Every one or two weeks you read an
article in the New York Times about the
death of the book," Alvarez said, though
he doesn't anticipate printed books dying
out any time soon.
Gillmore is also confident about the
future of print.
"There are two things that are going to
make books survive. One of them is that a
book's operating system will never become
obsolete. The other is that books are as
much icons as they are things to read," he
said.
And in talking to these book apprecia-
tors, one begins to share their understand-
ing that books can have value beyond just
literary merit, or the simple transmission
of ideas.
"Besides the text, there is something
else," Alvarez said. "There are more lay-
ers that you could discover in a book
that in many ways takes you to historical
moments."
"Now, that world is kind of disappear-
ing in many ways. ... But I think there are
still people, like me, who like to keep in
touch with places and people."
This idea of "keepingin touch with plac-
es and people" - of experiencinghistory -
is embodied in used bookstores. And while
the future of Ann Arbor's used booksellers
is uncertain, for the time being they are
content to see where their businesses will
go, as long as the books they love go with
them and they can share the used book
experience with their custowers.
Dawn Treader's collection numbers appreximately 70,000 books.