Order of the Phoenix, pt. 2
Daughter no. 2 just finished it.
Is it shocking? "Yes, actually, and good, very good, better than the last one."

Order of the Phoenix
THE book was in our hands by 12:40 a.m. We were home by 1 a.m. No. 3 child disappeared and read all night. We listened to her laughing, chuckling, then she was just reading quietly for the last hour and she finished it by 11:30 a.m. When I asked her about it she said, "It's shocking."

Great news from StarWars.com! Bruce Spence has joined the cast for Star Wars Episode III: Rise of the Empire as a "helpful alien". Bruce Spence will be appearing in December as the Mouth of Sauron in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Read the full article here.

Very interesting discussion on NPR about the movie Holes. You can hear Louis Sachar and the director, Andrew Davis discuss the import of the movie and its appeal to readers. Hear how they designed the "yellow spotted lizards."

An update now from TheOneRing.net on the much hoped for ROTK trailer.

All-Canadian writes: I have been reading TORN site for over two years now, but never contributed sofar but would like to add to the trailer-confustion; A-films (the Dutch distributor for NewLine) has just announced to their relations that the trailer will be no earlier then September, but a teaser poster will be availiable in July. They quote NewLine:
TRAILER

The decision has been made to release only one trailer for ROTK but to make it the most "kick ass" trailer on screens this September, laden with spectacular special effects and powerful emotional elements. The exact debut date for this trailer will depend on how quickly Peter Jackson can finish the sfx shots so for the moment it's a floating trailer release date, as early as the beginning of September, but no later than September 26th.

Article from The Telegraph in London about JKR.

J K Rowling was so upset after killing off one of the main characters in the latest Harry Potter book that she burst into tears. She recounts how, after completing the final rewrite of the death, she wandered into her kitchen crying - to meet with total incomprehension from her husband. Rowling, who has not disclosed the identity of the doomed character even to her husband, says she believes that children's authors have to be "ruthless killers". However, in an interview with Jeremy Paxman on BBC Newsnight tomorrow, she says that she "dreads leaving Harry" when she writes the final book about the young wizard.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the fifth and most heavily publicised instalment in the series, comes out at midnight on Friday. Encouraged by record pre-release sales, the publishers predict that it will be the best-selling Potter adventure yet and have printed about 8.5 million copies. The 766-page book took three years to produce, but Rowling denies that she suffered writer's block, as some reports have suggested. She says: "I had rewritten the death, rewritten it and that was it - it was definitive.

"I walked into the kitchen crying and Neil [her husband, Neil Murray, a GP] said to me: 'What on earth is wrong?' and I said, 'Well, I have just killed the person.'

"Neil doesn't know who the person is and he said: 'Well, don't do it then.' I thought, a doctor, you know . . . and I said: 'Well, it just doesn't work like that. You are writing children's books . . . you need to be a ruthless killer.' "

Paxman dispenses with his usual rottweiler approach for the interview, although he fails to conceal his bemusement at the level of publicity and secrecy surrounding the Potter books. At one point he asks if Rowling thinks the "whole secrecy issue is a bit ridiculous". "No, a lot of it comes from me," she says. "Of course, one could be cynical - and I am sure you would be disposed to be so - and say it was a marketing ploy. But I do not want the kids to know what's coming. That is part of the excitement of the story and, having sweated blood to create all my red herrings and lay all my clues . . . I was going to say this is my life; it is not my life, but it is a very important part of my life."

Rowling, who guards her private life fiercely, wrote the first Potter book while a single mother living on 70-pounds-a-week benefits in a tiny flat in Edinburgh. Speaking about life after Potter, she says: "It is going to be very difficult to leave it. I do look forward to a post-Harry time in my life, because some of the things that go along with this are not that much fun. "At the same time, I dread leaving Harry, because I have been working on it over what I sincerely hope will prove to have been the most turbulent part of my life - and that was the constant. I worked on it so hard for so long. Then it will be over and I think it is going to leave a massive gap."

Asked about speculation on how the series might end, she says: "There is one thing that, if anyone guessed, I would be really annoyed, as it is kind of the heart of it all. And it kind of explodes everything. "No one has quite got there, but a couple of people have skirted it." Asked about the time it took to write the latest book, she says: "Once and for all, for the record, I did not miss the deadline, because there was no deadline." Nor did she have writer's block, she insists. "I just produced a quarter of a million words!"

This was reported to TheOneRing.net from "a reputable TORN source: One of our New Line exhibitor services reps told me today that the first trailer is targeted for August; however, the teaser poster will be out soon."

Hillary's "best"
Anne Coulter has done a little research on the "random" man on the street interviews done by the NYTimes. In her June 11 column she discovers...

"Another average individual eager to get Hillary's book was Greg Packer, who was the centerpiece of the New York Times' "man on the street" interview about Hillary-mania. After being first in line for an autographed book at the Fifth Avenue Barnes & Noble, Packer gushed to the Times: "I'm a big fan of Hillary and Bill's. I want to change her mind about running for president. I want to be part of her campaign."

It was easy for the Times to spell Packer's name right because he is apparently the entire media's designated "man on the street" for all articles ever written. He has appeared in news stories more than 100 times as a random member of the public. Packer was quoted on his reaction to military strikes against Iraq; he was quoted at the St. Patrick's Day Parade, the Thanksgiving Day Parade and the Veterans' Day Parade. He was quoted at not one – but two – New Year's Eve celebrations at Times Square. He was quoted at the opening of a new "Star Wars" movie, at the opening of an H&M clothing store on Fifth Avenue and at the opening of the viewing stand at Ground Zero. He has been quoted at Yankees games, Mets games, Jets games – even getting tickets for the Brooklyn Cyclones. He was quoted at a Clinton fund-raiser at Alec Baldwin's house in the Hamptons and the pope's visit to Giants stadium.

Are all reporters writing their stories from Jayson Blair's house? Whether or not it will help her presidential ambitions, "Living History" definitely positions Hillary nicely for a job as a reporter."

You gotta love the LexisNexis database.