Famous people visit Harvard all the time, but the university announced that two equally well-known, yet quite different, women would be visiting soon. JK Rowling will be speaking at commencement, and the Harvard Lampoon will honor Paris Hilton on February 6. You'd think that Harry Potter creator JK Rowling and socialite Paris Hilton would have nothing in common, but you'd be surprised … Let's start with the obvious. Both are blonde. Both have an......

First Night Monday, December 31 Everywhere (see below) All outdoor events are free. All indoor events are accessible with a First Night button ($15) Official First Night site Wizard-rockers Harry and the Potters will bring the magic to the First Night proceedings. At first, Bostonist was skeptical because, although the masses love their Harry Potter, that gimmick was bound to get old. And then we were thrilled to discover that they play straight-up, fuzzy......

Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair November 16-18 Hours: Friday 5-9 Saturday 12-7, Sunday 12-5 Hynes Convention Center Directions | Tickets (Purchase $15 weekend tickets on Friday, or $8 for Saturday or Sunday only) If nothing turns you on like yellowed pages and musty smells, the Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair is for you. From a copy of Ariel inscribed by Ted Hughes to an original copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone with promo......

--More on the man who was shot to death early Sunday morning on New Whitney Street. The Globe reports that he was 22-year-old Shawndel Mitchell. Mitchell was a dancer and a Harry Potter fan. He attended the Boston Arts Academy and was taking courses to be an EMT. The Metro spoke with friends who called him a "superstar." He is Boston's 53rd homicide victim this year. --Early this morning, two people died and four people......

While SFist cringed at the fatal dose of crime littering the Bay Area, it found solace in Hillary Clinton's San Francisco campaign headquarters opening, which featured loads of exposed mammary glands. In other news, SF Taxi Commission ruled that Satan's cab must keep its (in)famous medallion number, 666; and in an un-fashion-forward frenzy, San Francisco Fashion Week (chortle) bars bloggers from covering and getting smashed at their shows and parties, respectively. Also, they found a......

No offense to the other locations at which Harry Potter celebrations were held on Friday evening, but it was clear that if you wanted to get Boston's ultimate HP countdown experience, you had to whisk yourself off to Harvard Square. With a cluster of bookshops steps away from each other and a courtyard concert headlined by Draco & the Malfoys and Harry & the Potters, the Square served for a night as the local center......

This week ended with the launch of the seventh and final Harry Potter installation. But while the world was consumed with Pottermania, it's important to remember that there were more serious things going on in the world, too - two of them in -Ist cities. Sampaist was shocked when a passenger jet crashed into the center of Sao Paulo, killing at least 200 people. The airplane, an Airbus A320, skidded off the runway at the......

Perhaps the blue shirts calling the shots at Fenway Park on Friday night were just bitter that they couldn't hang out in Harvard/Hogwart's Square with several thousands of their closest Harry Potter fans. Maybe they were concerned that J.D. Drew would further aggravate his hamstring by running all the way around the bases. We'd even like to think that they were just curious about whether Terry Francona would get himself thrown out of a game......

Summer had officially come to Fenwarts, but the mood was anything but cheery. Professor Schillbedore was still missing and presumed in rehab. Harry Potter still dreaded his potions class, but now wasn't pleased with Defense Against the Dark Arts, either. The new teacher, Professor Matsuzaka, started the term with much promise, but lately had struggled in class, unable to cast even a simple Chicagous spell to stop a pair of animated white socks. And Voldemort......

Local bookstores have been preparing their celebrations of the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows release for some time now. Whether or not you're into the whole Harry Potter Thing, Potter Mania is quite the spectacle. Alas, Scholastic, who has the rights to the Potter books, and Warner Brothers, who has the rights to everything else Potter, are trying to throw a bucket of water on the parties with copyright restrictions. It's the last Harry......

This week we'd like to congratulate the -ist network's Mother Hen, Gothamist's Jen Chung, who found herself a recipient of Wired Magazine's Wired Rave Award. If that doesn't sound terribly exciting, keep in mind another recipient was J.K. Rowling. Yep, that's right, the -ist network and Harry Potter now have something in common. Go us. Austinist has a chat with the ever-fashionable Golden Girl Rue McClanahan, and managed to catch some local fashionistas making......

Between fake terrorist alerts and scandals big and small, this just might be the Best Best of the -ists ever. We're exhausted just thinking about it. First up, SFist, who saw their little 'ole site be the center of what was a nice little scandal (even getting their editor on TV) only to find their scandal dwarfed by the even bigger scandal caused by their Mayor boffing one of his aides' wife. We're not......

If you were drawing a Venn dagram (and why wouldn't you be?) of Bostonians, lovers of indie rock, and fans of Harry Potter, you might expect the elusive middle to be quite bare. They always seem to be, in Venn Diagrams. But then you wouldn't have been at the Middle East on Sunday Night for the last stop on Harry and the Potters spring tour. The band is comprised of two brothers (Boston natives both)......

The Boston Globe teased a story about flying cars on today’s front page. ‘Don’t Laugh’ they said. Bostonist is not laughing. We’re patiently waiting for October 21, 2015 (that’sless than a decade) when Marty and Doc Brown come racing “back” into the future from their humble confines of 1985. We’ll hall have flying cars then and a Mr. Fusion to power them. Carl Dietrich, the Globe reports is set to make that more than......