'Potter' fan weeps in court
NEW YORK - A Harry Potter fan who wants to publish an encyclopedic guide to the wildly popular fantasy novels broke down and cried on the witness stand Tuesday as he faced off in federal court against his idol J.K. Rowling.
The British author sued Steven Vander Ark's publisher RDR Books last year, claiming that their "Harry Potter Lexicon" - based on Vander Ark's fan website - infringed on her copyright.
Vander Ark wiped away tears when he was asked to reflect on what the case has done to his relationship with the community of Harry Potter fans. The former middle school librarian, who fell in love with the books in the late 1990s and has devoted years to studying them and indexing their content online, could barely speak.
"It's been . . . it's been," he stammered, choking on his words. "It's been difficult because there has been a lot of criticism, obviously, and that was never the intention. . . . This has been an important part of my life for the last nine years or so."
Vander Ark testified on the second day of a trial in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, pitting his publishing company, RDR Books, against Rowling and Warner Bros., the maker of the Harry Potter films and owner of all the intellectual property related to the Potter books and movies.
Rowling and the media company are trying to prevent publication of the "Harry Potter Lexicon," which Vander Ark and Michigan-based RDR had sought to publish last fall. Its release was delayed pending the outcome of the suit; Rowling has argued that the book borrows too heavily from her novels.
During his testimony on Tuesday, Vander Ark acknowledged that he, too, had substantial concerns all along about whether publishing an encyclopedia based on Rowling's Potter universe would constitute copyright infringement. He said he was talked into doing it by the publishing company.
Rowling, testified Monday that the Harry Potter characters she created are as dear as her children, too precious to allow an inferior Potter encyclopedia to be published without letting the world know the ordeal is draining her of her will to write.
"I believe that it is sloppy, lazy and that it takes my work wholesale, verbatim. This book constitutes wholesale theft of 17 years of my hard work," she said of Vander Ark's effort.
She also said she recently started work on her own encyclopedia but does not expect to complete it for two to three years. If Vander Ark's lexicon is published, "I'm not at all convinced that I would have the will or the heart to continue with my encyclopedia," she said.
The case caused her to stop working on a new novel, as well, she told the packed courtroom.
"It's really decimated my creative work over the last month," she said. "Again, it's very hard to describe to someone who's not engaged in creative writing, but you lose the threads, you worry if you will be able to pick them up again in exactly the same way."
In his opening statement, RDR lawyer Anthony Falzone defended the lexicon as a reference guide, calling it a legitimate effort "to organize and discuss the complicated and very elaborate world of Harry Potter." The small publisher is not contesting that the lexicon infringes upon Rowling's copyright but argues that it is a fair use allowable by law for reference books.
The nonjury trial will be decided by U.S. District Judge Robert Patterson Jr., who must determine whether the use of the material is legal because Vander Ark added his own interpretation, creativity and analysis. The testimony and arguments could last most of the week.
The trial comes eight months after the publication of Rowling's final book in the series, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." The seven books have been published in 64 languages, sold more than 400 million copies and produced a film franchise that has pulled in US$4.5 billion at the worldwide box office.
Charlottetown has concert venue but still no band
The Eagles are coming to Moncton, Paul McCartney seems likely for Halifax, but so far all Charlottetown has confirmed is a place for a big-name artist to play.
At its council meeting Monday, Charlottetown approved the use of lands at Upton Farm, in the north of the city, as a concert venue. More than 12 hectares of land has been set aside, which should easily hold the 30,000 people organizers hope to attract.
But while rumours continue to fly about who might come, time to book an act is growing short. Charlottetown Mayor Clifford Lee, however, said he's confident Charlottetown will get a concert.
"We've been having off and on discussions with different promoters thinking we would have a site, those discussions could have only gone so far until a site was confirmed," said Lee.
"I feel fairly confident we'll have a concert this summer. Who it's going to be I don't know. Quite honestly, to find an acceptable location was the biggest challenge."
For the last two years the city has hosted major concerts at the Charlottetown Driving Park — the Black Eyed Peas in 2006 and Aerosmith in 2007 — but there were complaints from people living nearby that the concerts were too loud.
Foos, Plant/Krauss, Beck To Rock Austin City Limits
Foo Fighters, Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, Beck, Manu Chao, John Fogerty, David Byrne, the Raconteurs and the Mars Volta are among the top acts booked for this year's Austin City Limits Music Festival, set for the city's Zilker Park from Sept. 26-28.
The seventh ACL Fest, produced by Austin-based promoter/producer C3 Presents, will feature more than 125 acts over three days. Also on the bill are Gnarls Barkley, Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band, N.E.R.D., Tegan & Sara, Iron & Wine, G. Love & Special Sauce, Neko Case, Band Of Horses, the Swell Season, Silversun Pickups, Gogol Bordello, Gillian Welch, the Black Keys, Against Me!, Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings, Hot Chip, Spiritualized, Drive-By Truckers, Vampire Weekend and Duffy.
The ACL lineup boasts several acts with a Texas connection, among them Erykah Badu, Robert Earl Keen, Patty Griffin, Eli Young Band, Kevin Fowler, Flyleaf, Roky Erickson, What Made Milwaukee Famous, Black Joe Lewis & the Honey Bears and White Denim.
Three-day passes are available for $170, including fees and a print-at-home option, at ACLfestival.com until sellout or show time. Sponsors are AT&T, AMD, Dell, Austin Ventures, WaMu, BMI, H-E-B, Heineken, Blackstone Winery and Sweet Leaf Tea.
The ACL festival was the fourth-ranked festival in the world in 2007, based on its gross of $11.3 million and attendance of 225,000 from three sold-out days, according to Billboard Boxscore.
Veteran Disney animator Ollie Johnston dies at 95
LOS ANGELES - Ollie Johnston, the last of the "Nine Old Men" who animated "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," "Fantasia," "Bambi" and other classic Walt Disney films has died. He was 95.
Johnston died of natural causes Monday at a long-term care facility in Sequim, Wash., Walt Disney Studios Vice President Howard E. Green said Tuesday.
"Ollie was part of an amazing generation of artists, one of the real pioneers of our art, one of the major participants in the blossoming of animation into the art form we know today," Roy E. Disney, nephew of Walt Disney and director emeritus of the Walt Disney Co., said in a statement.
Walt Disney lightheartedly dubbed his team of crack animators his "Nine Old Men," borrowing the phrase from President Franklin D. Roosevelt's description of the U.S. Supreme Court's members, who had angered the president by quashing many of his Depression-era New Deal programs.
Although most of Disney's men were in their 20s at the time, the name stuck with them for the rest of their lives.
Perhaps the two most accomplished of the nine were Johnston and his close friend Frank Thomas, who died in 2004 at age 92. The pair, who met as art students at Stanford University in the 1930s, were hired by Disney for $17 a week at a time when he was expanding the studio to produce full-length feature films. Both worked on the first of those features, 1937's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs."
Johnston and Thomas and their families became next-door neighbors in the Los Angeles suburb of Flintridge, and during their 45-minute drive to the Disney Studios each day, they would devise fresh ideas for work.
Johnston worked as an assistant animator on "Snow White," became an animation supervisor on "Fantasia" and "Bambi" and animator on "Pinocchio."
He was especially proud of his work on "Bambi" and its classic scenes, including one depicting the heartbreaking death of Bambi's mother at the hands of a hunter. That scene has brought tears to the eyes of generations of young and old viewers.
"The mother's death showed how convincing we could be at presenting really strong emotion," he remarked in 1999.
Johnston's other credits included "Cinderella," "Alice in Wonderland," "Peter Pan" "Lady and the Tramp," "Sleeping Beauty," "101 Dalmatians," "Mary Poppins," "The Jungle Book," "The Aristocats," "Robin Hood" and "The Rescuers."
"(People) know his work. They know his characters. They've seen him act without realizing it," said film historian Leonard Maltin. "He was one of the pillars, one of the key contributors to the golden age of Disney animation."
After Johnston and Thomas retired in 1978, they lectured at schools and film festivals in the United States and Europe and co-authored the books "Bambi; the Story and the Film," "Too Funny for Words," "The Disney Villains" and the epic "Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life." They were also the subjects of the 1995 documentary "Frank and Ollie," produced by Thomas' son Ted.
The pair's guide to animation is considered "the bible" among animators, said John Lasseter, chief creative officer for Walt Disney and Pixar animation studios and Johnston's longtime friend.
Oliver Martin Johnston Jr. was born on Oct. 31, 1912, in Palo Alto, Calif., where his father was a professor at Stanford. He once noted that he and Thomas "were bound to be thrown together" at the university, as they were two of only six students in its art department at the time. When not in class, they painted landscapes and sold them at a local speakeasy for meal money.
Johnston had planned on becoming a magazine illustrator but fell in love with animation.
"I wanted to paint pictures full of emotion that would make people want to read the stories," he once said. "But I found that here (in animation) was something that was full of life and movement and action, and it showed all those feelings."
Johnston was honored with a Disney Legends Award in 1989 and, in 2005, he was the first animator honored with the National Medal of Arts at a White House ceremony.
He was also a major train enthusiast. The backyard of his Flintridge home boasted a hand-built miniature railroad, and Johnston restored and ran a full-size antique locomotive at a former vacation home in Julian, Calif.
Johnston's wife of 63 years, Marie Worthey, died in 2005. Johnston is survived by sons Ken and Rick and daughters-in-law Carolyn Johnston and Teya Priest Johnston. The Walt Disney Studios is planning a life celebration for Johnston. Funeral services will be private.