I am in sunny Huntsville, Alabama, where I’ve given three talks this week post LeakyCon, and I’m packing up today for my return to beautiful upstate New York. I won’t be there long, though, because I’ve been offered a teaching position in Oklahoma City and I’m moving the whole famn damily there next week.

The only problem? I have about twelve HogwartsProfessor posts that are overdue and time sensitive — and there’s no way I’m posting from the cab of a 24′ moving van with family in tow. I’m guessing that Highway Patrol officers are merciless on texters who drive — and that they shoot truck driving bloggers on sight.

Here, then, are the three ‘biggies’ I absolutely have to share before the Granger Gang starts its exodus to the Heartland:

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My only hesitation in posting this morning is that, by putting up a new comment, I necessarily bump Prof. Hardy’s movie review and the consequent discussion off the main stage. If you’re looking for that engaging conversation, just click here.

I post today because of the flood of e-owls I’m receiving about various Harry Haters who are putting up their fire-and-brimstone warnings about the Boy Wizard as “gateway to the occult.” What’s curious about this predictable coming-out is that there seems to be a complementary and opposite reaction from readers, believers and non-believers, excited by Harry’s Christian message.

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The Larry King Live teevee show on CNN is doing a blow-out Harry Potter special 10 July and they wrote me today to ask if I wanted to participate. Of course I agreed.

Having told you about the show, I have officially fulfilled my part in the program.

I’m guessing I’m one of several thousand people with weBlogs devoted to discussion of the Hogwarts Saga who received the following press release from Larry King’s marketing masters. Read it after the jump with my observations:

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The graphic to the left is from Fast Company and I urge you to go to their site to see it in its legible fullness. I thought it worth sharing because I’m guessing some readers out there who visited Pottermore.com yesterday to see what all the fuss was about may have left the graphics of dancing owls, paper spiders, and opening gates scratching their heads. Why would whomever is behind this — Ms. Rowling? Bloomsbury/Scholastic? Warner Bros? Universal? — invest so much money into this kind of animation/CGI? [An excellent summary of what Pottermore will offer readers in October can be read here.]

The answer, I think, is a combination of money and control, the latter of which will bring us back to money. And, eventually, total author control.

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