Fwd: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Obsessed Readers

[David <dfrankiswork@netscape.net>]

Anne wrote:

> I really love reading what people have to say (even the 12K 
messages)
> so I'm feeling a bit depressed that I will certainly have to miss 
out 
> on many of the insights that people bring to this discussion. Like 
> Hermione, I guess I want to be able to do it all, and realize that 
I 
> really can't :-(

Yes, I know the feeling.  For nearly a year I managed to keep up 
fully with both the main list and this one.  It's a wonderful 
feeling, being able to catch all the allusions (a really enjoyable 
post is like a work of art, with allusions to several threads going 
on at once), and to be able to post, too, with the sense (or is it 
the illusion?) of audience rapport that comes when making a 
presentation or a speech.

We have metaphors for the list: a seminar room where one person 
temporarily has the podium, or a cocktail party where there are many 
conversations going on at once.  But sometimes it seems more like a 
stately dance to me, like the movements of the planets, as the 
members follow their trajectories and then change course as their 
posts interact.  But I only get this sense when I can read 
everything.

Now I catch only a tiny fraction of main list posts and I'm always a 
little nervous of chiming in for fear of, to change the metaphor, 
tangling the threads I'm unaware of.  I suppose dancers do tread on 
one another's toes, and planets collide, but I don't like being part 
of it.

David