...or, at least, the closest thing in the real Muggle world to it. Jen and I had the pleasure of meeting Steve Vander Ark, webmaster of the Harry Potter Lexicon and having dinner with him and his sister Heidi. What a fascinating evening!
Steve, for those that don't know, was just famously sued by J.K. Rowling - and lost. He was sued (by Warner Brothers, as well as Rowling) for trying to turn his website into a book, which was judged to take too much of Rowling's actual text and duplicate it in his proposed Potter encyclopedia. Without revealing too much of what Steve told us (not that the dozen of you out there reading this would cause a problem, but you have to watch out for those Dementor-like search engines), I am happy to report that there seems to be a likely happy coda to the whole adventure that will leave the crazy online-Rowling-fans boiling - yeah, all couple-dozen of 'em. Suffice to say that from Steve's point of view, the loss of the court case was actually a major victory in the fact that the judge went to great lengths to describe HOW the book failed to meet the test of fair use. Which would be pretty useful information for someone that might, say, be in the process of writing a Harry Potter encyclopedia that is NOT infringing.
(Sorry to all of you that mainly visit our blog to see pictures of Cami. I know this probably is only interesting to me - but that's because, in a small way, I relate to what Steve has been going through professionally over the years with his website. So when the studios come suing fan sites, it's VERY interesting to me to get the scoop - and I actually got a chance to get it straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak.)
Another interesting fact: Steve absolutely loves Disneyland, and actually remembers the old Monsanto House of the Future as a small child. We talked about Disneyland history some, and we talked a bit about Steve's second book (but the first to be published), called "In Search of Harry Potter," which is part fan tribute, and part travelogue, and sounds like a great read. I hope he'll sign a copy for us! He talked about writing it, about traveling around Europe in search of the places that inspired Rowling (including, creepily, an old cemetery that actually contained tombstones of a husband and wife named "James" and "Lily") and about the court case and how it impacted him in relation to Harry Potter fandom and Rowling in general. I also was really interested in what he thought of his caricature in the New Yorker, which depicted him in a wizard battle with Rowling (because, I mean - who wouldn't want to be caricatured in the New Yorker! You've arrived! But for a subject so sensitive - I wasn't sure if he considered it a blessing or a curse. Turns out he was pretty tickled by the drawing.) All in all, it was just a great night with a really intriguing author, a fun visit with Heidi, and some delicious homemade barbecue-chicken-and-cilantro pizza that Jen tossed together.
This weekend we're off to Disneyland to take Camille on her first trip to meet Mickey, so there should be photos to share soon.
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