You know this little turd has taken over the world when your roadside bookseller has taken out everything he usually sells and has only Harry and the ... whateverthebludyhellitscalled. And the price - 750 bucks! Aren't you supposed to sell this stuff for 2-3 hundred, I ask him (that's what they normally sell copies of bestsellers for). He looks at me as if to say ... Lena hai toh le, nahin toh aage jaa! Turns out they ain't bootlegs.

So Harry rules and there's nothing anybody can do about it. The entrance to Landmark bookstore had been converted to look some dark medieval castle with Hogwarts written on it. And as I look at the kids (and many of the hulks) as excited as Christmas morning, I can't but help wonder -- do they know anything else? I mean there is so much more for a kid to do these days than just revel in some fantastical hocus-pocus.

If my old man had bought us guitars when we were seven, we'd have been right up there, my brother and I ... no doubt about it. But all we did was watch TV and read Enid Blyton and stuff like Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew. So the question I ask myself -- all these kids going gaga over Harry Potter, will they 10 years from now be saying: what did we get out of it?

The way I look at it, you should give your kids stuff that adds value. What kind of value addition is any kid getting from Harry Potter? If somebody would please care to tell me.

... Or maybe I'm just reading too much into this whole Pottermania thing.

***

Anyway, here's some really good music for those of you not busy reading Harry.

This is Jimmy Page, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Johnson and Allan Holdsworth performing that Jimi Hendrix classic - Little Wing. Quite a lineup, ain't it? ... and you know what they say happens when the Gods get together -- They raise hell!