First, either in an antique shop or on the internet, you need to buy used books. Then tear off the cover and title page, as well as the one with the editorial footer and the copyright notice. Once this basic step is completed, you can proceed to re-stitch the pages and bind the book with a new cover. Without the author's name.
The nameless work thus produced is ready to be put up for sale. The price is $170 apiece, and if one wished to have the complete set of seven volumes reworked, one would have to pay $1,200 (whether such an amateur has been found is unknown). Not insignificant, but it must be remembered that the purchaser is coming into possession not of an ordinary mass-printed book, but of a true artistic handicraft. For this is how, as an artist, the author - Laur Flom from Toronto - sees himself. His work is made all the more valuable by the fact that Flom is not motivated solely by the desire for profit, but works from all too ideological motives. At least, that is what he claims.
SIGN UP TO OUR PAGE
The whole story seems absurd, yet it is true and, moreover, set in the most concrete of realities. Laurel Flom reworks Joanne K. Rowling's books to remove her name from them. It should be forgotten forever. Flom also offers to perform, as he puts it, 'derowling' on commission. Erasing, apparently, only applies to the author, her books do not, although Ms Rowling's most ferocious enemies are calling to have them burnt.
Life, however, puts a perverse punchline. Among those who have taken Joanne Rowling to her defence is Ralph Fiennes, the film's Lord Voldemort. He-who-must-not-be-named in the wizarding world has sided with She-who-must-not-be-named in the world of the new normal.
However, new norms can and should be ignored when they hurt business. "The Hogwarts Legacy", a video game that was released in February, sold 12 million copies in two months. Bloomsbury Publishing never stopped publishing Joanne Rowling's books. And Warner Bros Discovery, which is planning a Harry Potter series, has invited the author to take part in the production. Does this herald the end of canceling?
Absence in Seattle
The Toronto-based graphic artist's homemade production is just one, and not the most important, manifestation of hostility towards a writer who until recently was loved, admired and almost carried on one's arm. Today she has enemies, not necessarily numerous, but noisy and overly aggressive.
A dozen years ago, at the height of Potteromania, it would never have occurred to anyone that one day the creator of the wizarding world would find herself pilloried. Since then, however, new trends have taken over public life. Joanne Rowling, to her misfortune, insists on the existence of biological sex, warning of the dangers that come with recognising that gender is fluid and can be easily - even without surgical intervention - changed. The views he preaches are modern heresy, and there is a price to pay for heralding heresy. Such is the price of erasure or deletion. It is a modern form of burning at the stake.
The American city of Seattle is undoubtedly one of the world's capitals of innovation and technology, but it does not rank among the great centres of culture. Probably not many people are therefore aware of the Museum of Pop Culture located there. That was the case until the summer. Then, unexpectedly, the Seattle museum found itself on the world's lips with a new exhibition on the magical world of Hogwarts, both in literature and film.
In fact, the museum management has done the seemingly impossible: they have organised an exhibition with Joanne Rowling's books as the basis and starting point, while completely omitting her name. This is not easy to imagine. The viewer meets Harry Potter, his friends, teachers, enemies, the whole world created by Joanne Rowling, he can see the objects and accessories used in the films, but if he or she did not know who created this world (which is otherwise unlikely), one would learn nothing from the exhibition in Seattle.
"I would be happy to accept the idea promoted on the internet that these books were actually written without the author's involvement, argues Chris Moore, curator of the exhibition, in his blog on the museum's website. "But this person is surrounded by too much publicity to ignore her divisive and hateful views.