Harry Potter

My Thoughts On The Oscars As They Happen!

The show started with great dignity. Morgan Freeman came out and a friend of mine said, "Is that the one who fucks the granddaughter?"

Tilda Swinton, I Have A Great New Look For You!

​Darling, I'm loving your blonde wisps these days, and I always adored the shock of red (above) that you've often blared at the world. No matter what shade you're featuring, you just couldn't look bad even if you tried. And you don't try! But for your next flawless visage, might you consid ... More >>

Harry and the Potters

Live: Team Starkid Bring The Internet To Life At The Gramercy Theatre

Team Starkid w/Charlene Kaye, Darren Criss and The Gregory Brothers Gramercy Theater Sunday, November 27 Better than: Getting back to Hogwarts. Team Starkid's Harry Potter parody "A Very Potter Musical" shot them to Internet fame in 2009, and since then the spread-out troupe has continued to churn ... More >>

Alex Benepe, Quidditch Commissioner, On the Upcoming Quidditch World Cup

​Alex Benepe is not a wizard, but the 25 year-old is nonetheless the first ever Commissioner of Quidditch and the founder of the International Quidditch Association. The Muggle version of Quidditch is an adaptation of the game played in the Harry Potter novels where players fly around on broom ... More >>

Harry Potter Fans Celebrate Final Film With Quidditch in the Park

Willis PlummerTwo Seekers Search for the Elusive Snitch​In anticipation of the final Harry Potter film, which comes out tonight at midnight, the International Quidditch Association hosted a Deathly Hollows Round-Robin Tournament at De Witt Clinton Park on 53rd Street yesterday. Three teams wer ... More >>

Owling Might Be the New Planking, Reports Actual Newspaper

Owl would not approve.​The Washington Post's BlogPost asked a really deep question this week: "Could owling be the new planking?" Yes, planking -- which we previously told you about -- has a rival? challenger? friend? -- in the world of trends that aren't really trends but are instead just thi ... More >>

Harry Potter is Almost Here: 5 Ways To Celebrate the End of an Era

​As we all know, the release of the final Harry Potter film tonight marks the end of an era. For many children and young adults around the world, this will be an even more dramatic moment than turning eleven and not receiving a Hogwarts acceptance letter. After the jump, we've put together a l ... More >>

NYC Potterheads Have Been Waiting Six Days Outside For Final Harry Potter Premiere

Esther Zuckerman​A group of six girls have become the celebrities within the encampment of Harry Potter fans awaiting tonight's premiere of the final film, across the street from Lincoln Center in Manhattan. They do not go to Hogwarts -- in fact, they hail from Florida, New Jersey and upstate ... More >>

New York Drinkers Mourn Two Booze Pioneers; Arkansas Now Distilling, Too

​Eric Asimov remembers Ray Deter of d.b.a., who died Sunday following a bike accident on June 27, calling Deter's bar "groundbreaking." [Diner's Journal] Debra Whiting of Red Newt Cellars and Bistro on Seneca Lake in the Finger Lakes, a food and wine pioneer in the region, died in a car crash ... More >>

WINNING COMBINATION

No longer just on YouTube

Daniel Radcliffe, Watch Out! I Played Your Part in How To Succeed...

​ Well, I was supposed to play your part, but I fucked up my chances--long story; let me not relive the horror--so I ended up with the supporting role of Bud Frump. And I wasn't that awful in it!

Voldemort Cat Needs New Home

via Telegraph​Not sure if this deserves the tag of "adorable" animals in trouble, but: Charlie is a white cat who lives at a British animal shelter. The shelter workers are having a tough time finding a new home for him because as you can see, he bears a terrifying resemblance to Voldemort. " ... More >>

Williamsburg to Get Even More "Normal People" Things, Like...a Movie Theater!

via NY Post​Williamsburg is getting a multi-screen, multi-level, mainstream movie theater of its own, planned for a currently vacant lot at Driggs and Grand. According to the New York Post, developer Blue Zees Real Estate will spend $9.3 million on the 850-seat multiplex in a neighborhood that ... More >>

Anthi's Greek Food's Spanokopita

​ Anthi's Greek Food opened a few weeks ago on Amsterdam Avenue. Hidden among a strip of businesses that include a deli, dry cleaner, hair salon, and barbershop, it's so small that it doesn't even get a full street number -- finding its address, 614A, brings to mind Harry Potter's secret trai ... More >>

Union Square Subway Station Gets Its Own Platform 9 and 3/4 (Long Live Harry Potter!)

via Lauren Johnston, Daily News​ in its opening weekend, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I is on track for a pretty great Thanksgiving weekend. Meanwhile, some New York fans have taken it upon themselves to integrate the world of Hogwarts into our own everyday lives in Manhattan. Th ... More >>

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Midnight Premiere Brings Out the Lovable Crazies

​Last night was the midnight premiere of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1. Curious about the pointy hat/bathrobe/nerdliness count in this first of the last book in the series, we sent intern Myles to go check things out. What he found, however, was actually kinda fun, and even a li ... More >>

In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, the Kids Are Not All Right

This Week's Voice: Kanye West, Jay-Z, Bruce Springsteen, Big L, and More

​In this week's Village Voice, Sean Fennessey plumbs the gorgeous nightmares of Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Zach Baron decodes Jay-Z's Decoded, Michael Robbins sorts through a goofy Bruce Springsteen reissue project, and Phillip Mlynar remembers slain Harlem rapper Big L.

NO MAGIC REQUIRED

Only luck is needed in the Quidditch World Cup

Florence The Machine Are Playing a Free Show at the Apple Store Today, In Case You Missed Last Night's Terminal 5 Festivities

This photo was taken last night, and therefore not on Halloween, though who could tell, really?​Well, if you thought the flowing white dress/rock harpist/crowd-jumping-in-unison thing was tough to pull off in the spacious, windy confines of Terminal 5, just way till she tries to do it under th ... More >>

Quidditch World Cup Comes to New York City in November

​Perhaps one of the dorkiest things to hit college campuses since the first physics club, Quidditch, the mythical sport from the Harry Potter series, is now an actual mainstream event, apparently. This years' fourth annual Quidditch World Cup will be held in New York in November, with 50 teams ... More >>

The Lamb's Club, Geoffrey Zakarian's New Midtown Spot

Lamb salad with pine nuts and polenta​The best reason to go to the Lambs Club is the design--red leather banquettes, silvery art deco flourishes, and a fireplace so gigantic and grand that it could be a Harry Potter set piece. The food can be thought of as old-school Continental meets modern A ... More >>

Who Fears Death Conjures a Different Kind of Wizard

Nnedi Okorafor steers clear of J.K. Rowling

Video: Harry Potter 'Deathly Hollows' Trailer Finally Out, World Gets a Little Bit More Magical for this Muggle's Monday

​Sorry to interrupt you from your daily reading about the boring-ass Supreme Court or the boring-ass Rolling Stone or the boring-ass BP oil spill or whatever other boring-ass "important" non-magical thing you read about today, but, um, THE NEW HARRY POTTER TRAILER IS HERE! Click the "More > > ... More >>

Are Mexicans Bullies?

An anguished Dad wonders

Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief: A Fair Distraction Until Harry Potter Returns

Imagine a world in which director Chris Columbus never left the Harry Potter franchise after the first two installments

The Blogroll Gazette: A New Foodie Handbook; Putting Chocolate Chips to the Test

This week in food blogs... Eat Me Daily weighed in on self-proclaimed "queen of the food bloggers" Pim Techamuanvivit's new book The Foodie Handbook: The (Almost) Definitive Guide to Gastronomy. The verdict? As an objective guide, it "just doesn't fly." Midtown Lunch noted that the Street Vendor P ... More >>

The Badly Behaved Wizards of Lev Grossman's The Magicians

Forget the snogging! This novel's hero prefers sex and recreational drug use.

Booze News: Harry Potter's Drinking Problem; Does Red Wine Make You Horny?

​The Times asks, "Does Hogwarts have a drinking problem?" The latest Harry Potter movie shows the young wizards coming of age, which includes drinking various potions and going to the pub. [NY Times] An estimated 20,000 protesters marched through Ayrshire and Kilmarnock, where Johnnie Walker ... More >>

Let's Boycott All Sequels!

With very rare exceptions, sequels aren't green-lighted because there's a burning need to creatively extend the story of the first film. They're done because the first one made a big heap of cash and they want to rake in more of it! As a result, I generally avoid sequels, prequels, and so on like t ... More >>

We Are Wizards Rambles through a Nation of Harry Potter Obsessions

POTTER GOES BAREBACK

See Harry and his broomstick on Broadway

Islands and Ra Ra Riot Added to Siren Hoedown

Dosas at Flushing's Ganesha Temple

Feed your soul: Hindu canteens welcome everyone to the table

Provincializm by William Bowers: Bodies of Water

Dark Arts

New Potter mines the depths of adolescent angst

My Humppas

Finnish cheese-metal outfit gets jiggy with it

Be Your Own Potter

Reassured scenesters navigate two make-believe worlds

Cheap Chow Now!

100 best and most inexpensive restaurants

Books

The Fable Guy

Sprite of the hunter: Jim Carrey journeys through a postmodern 'tween-gothic neverland

Babylon Rising

Looking Ahead to the New Season, Our Critic Finds Plenty of Reasons to Be Cheerful

Letters

Magical Mystery Tours

Wizard World

Harry Potter, The Movie, Took in $93.5 Million in Its Opening Weekend. Feeling the Magic?

Slack Magic

Three Sheets in the Wind

Goblets of Milk