Harry Potter paraphernalia (mostly of interest to fellow Gonzaga students)

Later today (hopefully within an hour or two) I will finally post on Harry Potter, my personal response to the last in the series and the phenomenon on the whole. I've been intending on doing this since I finished Deathly Hallows, but for reasons which will be more thoroughly explained in that particular post, I have failed thus far. Yesterday perhaps offered the best opportunity to accomplish this, but I lacked immediate inspiration and made the mistake of going to YouTube to find some of that elusive thing. Before the YouTube Time Vortex kicked in and wasted the rest of my morning, I made the fantastic discovery of a clip from the upcoming Wizard Rockumentary, an exploration of the wizard rock aspect of Harry Potter culture. Intrigued, I visited the wizardrockumentary channel for more and found this most incandescent of gems, the Switchblade Kittens' "Ode to Harry Potter."

»http://www.youtube.com/v/Gi9duM3N26Y

Yeah, it's set at Gonzaga, the entrance and main staircase of the administration building and just outside in particular. Doesn't necessarily put me in mind of Hogwarts, especially at that point where you can see Pope John Paul II, but I still think it's cool. Okay, for those of you with histories in New York or Chicago or Los Angeles where, much less cities with their own television news studios, seeing the places you know recorded on film may not be a big deal, I must remind you that I'm provincial. Good grief, I tweaked out when the city two towns over made the national nightly news because it flooded, and the hockey team of the town in between us and the entire culture surrounding it was the lead story of The New York Times' Escapes section a few weeks back. Tweaking out in the latter case was exasperated by learning this story was first covered during winter break, and I missed the chance to meet a Times reporter.

But it gets cooler, and I think anyone can appreciate this. Why anyone would choose to film something like that here intrigued me, so I dug deeper. My investigation initially focused upon the Kittens as I was surprised that I had never heard of them before if they were a local band. Searching for them yielded nothing. A follow up on Wizard Rockumentary proved more fruitful. The twin sisters who are creating it and, apparently, are only waiting on the opportunity for an interview with Rowling before finishing, both live and work in Spokane, at least I assume they both do. Their website says the one with a greater interest in the actual filming and editing works for a local production company, a company which also called me yesterday because they were interested in looking at the house I'm renting as a set for a romantic comedy they will be filming in September.

Now those are some fun coincidences just piling on top of one another.

Regarding the music video, the assumption I'm operating under now is that the documentarists met the Kittens over the course of filming and offered their help in creating this music video. Operating independently, the Kittens did their bit in Los Angeles and the sisters did their bit here. What's more, filming took place late this January after classes had started. I checked my journal. I spent the day writing papers in my dorm and probably didn't even pass by Admin. Nuts.