By Ron Hayes, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 21, 2003
LAKE BUENA VISTA -- This is still July, right?
They haven't moved Halloween up this year, have they?
Because here in the lobby of the Epcot Swan & Dolphin Resort, standing in line at the reception desk along with all the usual tourists lugging their suitcases, cameras and children, there's a witch. Lugging a broom.
Purple robe, black pointy hat -- a witch.
And not far away, perusing a guide to the hotel's many fine restaurants, there's a wizard.
And down the hall at the check-in desk for "Nimbus 2003: A Harry Potter Symposium for Grown-Ups," there's a chattering gaggle of men and women in scholarly robes, trailing the scarlet and gold scarves of Gryffindor, Harry's house at the Hogwarts School Of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
If J.K. Rowling, the writer who transformed the boy wizard into millions of books and millions more dollars, had created these several hundred fans, she might have dubbed them "grown-downs" -- fully mature men and women, most in their 20s and 30s, with the financial means to pay $200, plus travel, food and hotel expenses, to spend four days wallowing in witchcraft, wizardry and all things Potter.
"I'm having fun!" explained Bonnie May, 39, a technical writer for a software company who came from Salt Lake City, Utah. "But I don't actually think Hogwarts exists. It's a hobby."
In addition to her black robe, May has a stuffed owl riding on her left shoulder. That's "stuffed" as in teddy bear, you understand, not taxidermy. And written in red felt pen on the back of her hand is the admonition, "I must not tell lies," which devoted fans will recognize as the punishment inflicted on Harry by the evil Professor Umbridge in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the latest in the series.
"I guess I could have taken an X-Acto knife and carved it," May mused, "but I'm not into it that badly."
The sorcerer who made this past weekend materialize is a 31-year-old secretary from Rochester, N.Y., who is called Lee Hillman when she's not on the Internet, chatting with other Harry Potter fans. Then she's "Gwendolyn Grace, Minister of Magic."
"This is no stranger than people who go bowling every night and spend their money on that," she insisted. "It's no stranger than people who spend $24,000 on a boat and go sailing every weekend."
To be sure, loving Harry Potter books is one thing. But why take over 12 conference rooms, the whole wing of a huge resort hotel, to do it?
"Because it was time," Hillman said. "These people have been communicating for three years online, and this is a chance for them to meet each other in person."
More women than men
Like Hillman, most of the symposium's participants are frequent visitors to the "Harry Potter Fandom," as they call it, a virtual "Potterverse" where they debate the books' arcane allusions, discuss the minutiae of the increasingly intricate plots, even write and share their own Harry Potter adventures. And though Hillman predicted the gathering would be 60 percent women to 40 percent men, the ratio seems more like one man to every nine women, if that.
"Women are more comfortable with reading," theorized Matt Watters, 22, of Woodbury, Minn. "Guys are more go-out-and-do-things."
"A lot of men are afraid to come because Harry Potter's viewed as a children's book," said Sharina Pratt, 20, a graduate of the Dreyfoos School of the Arts in West Palm Beach who attends the University of Central Florida when she's not serving as an "elf volunteer" at Nimbus 2003. "Women are more comfortable and secure indulging their inner child."
Inner children found much to indulge: an art exhibit in this conference room, and a Quidditch match in that conference room, although it should be noted that the competition resembled carpet hockey more than the soaring, midair soccer game of the books.
There was even a "Worst Harry Potter Merchandise Contest," with a pair of toddler's Underoos adorned with Harry's signature spectacles taking top prize.
But the heart of the weekend was dedicated to academic papers and panels, with 65 scholars dissecting the Harry Potter "canon" as though it were Shakespeare, Euripides and Dostoevsky, all rolled into one infinitely subtle masterpiece:
Hermione Granger and Issues of Gender in the Harry Potter Books and Movies.
When Harry Met Jane: The Legacy of Austen in Rowling's Harry Potter.
Within The Pantheon: Harry Potter and the Epic Question.
Jewish Perspectives On Harry Potter.
Mark Hooker, a Slavic linguistics professor at Indiana University, explored a series of Russian children's books clearly inspired by Harry Potter in Tanya Grotter: Russian Knockoff Or Parody?
Dr. Roger Highfield, science editor of London's Daily Telegraph and author of The Science Of Harry Potter, ran into trouble explaining how humans might someday levitate when he couldn't get his computer projector to work.
"I've given talks at colleges, and there's a general snobby, sniffishness about this sort of thing," Highfield said afterward. "But it's sort of a roots-up phenomenon, isn't it? These people have made their own costumes. It's not like that Walt Disney, $50-a-shot thing down the road, is it?"
All things Potter on sale
Well, yes, doctor, it is.
Just across the hall was "Kumpulsieve Alley," where 24 entrepreneurs offered anything and everything even slightly Potteresque. All the Harry Potter books, and books about the Harry Potter books. A 6-inch, cast-iron cauldron, with or without pentacles, for $39.95. A genuine synthetic quartz crystal ball for $64.95.
And, of course, wands -- from the basic mahogany, holly or cherry styles at $35 each, up to the top-of-the-line ebony model for $65.
Ruth Saunders, who came to Orlando from London to celebrate England's biggest export since The Beatles, opted for the $55 rosewood model.
"I've always wanted a wand," she explained. "I could use a chopstick, but I'd always know it was a chopstick."
The symposium's keynote speaker was Judith Krug, director of the American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom, who reminded the luncheon crowd the Harry Potter books have been the No. 1 target of censors for four years. More than Huck or Holden now, Harry is the bad boy some adults want off school and library shelves.
"It's because of the witchcraft," Krug said. "The challenges are coming from religious fundamentalists on the extreme right of center."
Which is why Connie Neal came to Nimbus 2003: to help change all that.
"I'm a fundamentalist, right-wing Christian. I believe the Bible is the absolute, inerrant word of God," she said, smiling, sounding both eager to please and a little defensive. "Everybody's mad at me, but I'm here to help everyone!"
A former youth pastor from Sacramento, Calif., Neal is the author of What's A Christian To Do With Harry Potter? and The Gospel According To Harry Potter, both of which were for sale in Kumpulsieve Alley, just down from the wands.
"There really are people who cast spells," Neal said soberly.
But the witches in Harry Potter are merely a literary device, and wise parents can use them to teach Christian values, her books argue.
"I've never met a kid who doesn't understand that Harry Potter is fantasy," she said, "but I've met preachers who haven't read them and still want to ban them."
Neal has read the books four or five times.
"I'm a discreet fan," she confided. "When I read them around Christians, I take the covers off."
But when does a fantasy witch become a real witch? When is a chopstick not a chopstick? And maybe the biggest mystery of all, when does a hugely popular children's book become an indubitable classic?
One of the few men at Nimbus 2003 was John Kusalavage, 54, a retired gynecologist from Aiken, S.C.
"I am here to study one of the premier craftswomen of writing I've run across in the past 50 years," he said. "Her sentence structure is better than Faulkner's. Her plotting is the envy of any mystery writer. Her characters are rich and complex, and her classical allusions add a layer of enjoyment you don't often find in other books."
Meanwhile, on a bulletin board by the check-in desk, Potter fans from around the world left messages:
Karaoke parodies with a Harry Potter theme will be performed at 9 p.m. Saturday in the hotel's sushi bar.
A Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans Charm Bracelet is missing.
And somebody needs a nonsmoking, female roommate for the big Lord Of The Rings symposium coming up in Toronto this December.
Thanks to
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