Harry Potter

The final Harry Potter movie has been everywhere; I've never really watched one or read any of the books, but it does bring back memories.  Ha!

3. Harry Potter is introduced in 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone' (2001)
When this movie came out I was teaching a class in some Bed-Stuy projects, real crack-babies cum crazed, uncontrollable delinquents, and I don't mean "stealing candy from the counter." I had a class of 6th graders and I spent most of my time yelling and screaming "shut up!!!  shut up!  sit down and shut up!!!" (some of you sexier readers might recognize that as my "go to" move when I'm in "the home stretch", heh heh heh.) So one day the principal tells me we're taking the kids to see the Harry Potter movie. Since, you know, if the NYC public education system cant help a kid from the projects learn to read or write or add 2+2, maybe a mystical story of a wispy little faggy white kid from England with magical powers wearing a robe can do the truck, right? So we get to the theater, and I'm thinking there's no WAY these kids are gonna sit down and be quiet for one second - they don't do it in the classroom, and now they're gonna be quiet when the light go out? I'm expecting a massive orgy of pre-teen sex and drugs to break out before the goddam previews start. We all sit down and as the movie starts I'm on the  edge of my seat, crouched and ready to spring up and start shouting at the kids to sit down and shut the hell up. All of a sudden, after a few minutes, I realize you can hear a pin drop. I look around - every single kid is sitting in their seat, not moving a muscle, staring at the screen hanging on every word from these fucking wizard kids. I slowly slide back into my seat thinking "...what the fuck..." Finally after a few minutes I relaxed and figured shit, they're behaving. So then I start watching the movie, and I realize I had missed the first coupla minutes and had no idea who was who or what the hell was going on. So I started trying to ask the kids around me, who recoiled in horror that their attention was being taken away from the screen, and with every question I asked I got buried more and more underneath a flurry of "SSSSHHHH!!!  Mr. Wilson!! Be quiet! SHHHHHHHHH!" I was stunned, and sat there in silence, happy as a clam for the next hour and half. Until, of course, the lights came back up and all hell broke loose and I got shivved. Looking back now, maybe we shoulda just had all the lights turned off in the classrooms? Maybe these kids' batshit buttons were controlled by light?