An unbiased review of the Marvel “Thor” Movie and An Unbiased Review of the Marvel “Avengers” Movie (much longer, but worth it) (comprehensive spoilers in both).

From Ex Urbe, which also includes treasures like the Spot the Saint series, discussions of mask culture in Venice and porphyry, and a visit to Roman Legionary reenactors, plus lots and lots of stuff about Florence.

Writing from a female point of view seems to be generally regarded as something more like writing from the perspective of a deer: you might get points for novelty, but it'd be impossible to get right, and who really wants to hear a deer narrate a story, anyway?

Ten years ago, not long before the Queen’s Jubilee, I boarded a train at King’s Cross Station for Edinburgh.

It wasn’t Platform 9 3/4, but it might as well have been. My life changed the moment that train pulled out of the brick archways and into the rolling green countryside beyond London–it was just beginning to be autumn then, and the trees were full of crows. I remember thinking about bird magic, auguries, every story I’d ever heard about England and Scotland. I was a tiny thing, a maiden in all but the technical sense. I knew, as the old novels say, nothing of the world. My EuroRail photo looked absurdly, hilariously, preposterously like an illustration of Snow White. I had a bacon sandwich. My mother was with me, a psychopomp in knock-off Prada sunglasses, bearing me across the wall and into the life I didn’t yet know I was in for. It was the first time I wanted something with that desperate, pure fire–and made it happen, by myself, with will and work. After all, if you grow up loving fairy tales and King Arthur and saints who battle monsters, you want the British Isles the way some kids want boyfriends. I lived there for something over a year. I came back to America for stupid reasons–but that’s what you do in your twenties. Make stupid decisions while meaning so earnestly well.

My interviewer in Finland asked me: you’ve written about everywhere you’ve lived but Edinburgh. Where is Scotland in your books?

I laughed a little, pressed my lips together as I always do when I’m thinking, looked out the window of our car at the swans nesting in the golden Nordic estuaries. This is what I told her:

A poetry professor once told me that you can never name the thing you’re writing about. If the poem is about death, you can’t say the word death. Poems about memory shouldn’t go on about the thing itself. If you’re writing about grief, you can’t actually say grief, or sadness, or even tears. If you want to talk about love, love is the one word you can’t use.

Edinburgh is the thing I am a poem about and do not name.

Today, not long before the Queen’s Jubilee, I boarded a train at King’s Cross Station for Edinburgh. It was Platform 7. It’s just beginning to be summer now, and the fields are full of chartreuse flowers. The old churches spring up out of them like strange, huge blossoms. The train rushes over a stream so full of swans the current is pure white.

I think about bird magic again. Auguries.

I am no longer small. I know something of the world. Maybe not much of a something, but something. I have made things with my hands and heart. I look a bit pugnacious in my passport photo, like I still have something to prove. I had a bacon sandwich. My husband is with me and this time I am bearing him across the wall, to show him this object that sits at the bottom of my mind, a grey stone city with a castle and a mountain, a place that was once wholly full of fairy fruit and temptation and the rich mess of becoming bigger, becoming grown. That fairy fruit made everywhere else look dimmer for awhile. My goblin city, that swallowed me whole. I think it took falling in love with Maine to fix me–before then I always had the idea that of course I’d go back, that somehow, somehow, this was where I’d live when I could choose.

I’ve been near tears most of the morning, riding north through sheep and cattle and chapels and flowers. When you love a place, it’s hard to leave, and harder still to come back. You hope it will be proud of you, of all you became when you left to seek your fortune.  You hope it will be as you remembered; you hope you are still as it knew you.
You hope it will forgive you long neglect, lines in your once-clear face, a hard blue edge of cynicism.

O goblin city, I hope you will forgive me for never writing a book about you.

Mirrored from cmv.com. Also appearing on @LJ and @DW. Read anywhere, comment anywhere.

1) Do I really think everyone should be barcoded?

 Of course not.  

 Seriously...you thought it was for real?   After hearing about responses to the photographer who thought everyone should be limited to just one photo a day, you still thought this was a dead-serious part of the discussion?   The term "Empress of the Universe" wasn't a clue that this was a science fiction writer making something up?   

 2) So why....?

 The format of "The Forum" has this sixty second idea thing in it.   I was told it was the entertaining, fun part of the show.   I interpreted that as "light-hearted interlude."  Participants are asked to come up with an idea--however impractical, impossible, unnecessary, and/or undesirable.   The BBC staff picks one and the person whose idea it was is then supposed to present and defend it.  

 I don't know about the others, but I tossed out several ideas over the phone, and they didn't seem to create any interest.   The idea is supposed to be related to the day's topic (there went my idea for putting solar panels on top of cars in all sunny climes...)   It's not supposed to be related to things the participant has already  given as points they might want to make in the main discussion (there went another idea or two, including an implant to manage aberrant brain chemistry in soldiers so they wouldn't commit stress-related  errors, have rage episodes, maybe even prevent PTSD) or points  put forward by the other participants when  their main statements are known (and there went something else I didn't even mention to them.)   When the first few got "Yes, but..." reactions, I thought "Oh, good, someone else's idea will be used."   I'd been told the right one would be picked on the weekend.  The weekend went by.  Whew.  Off the hook.

Just an FYI: there will be a POC dinner at WisCon again this year. The reason I haven’t announced it officially yet is that we’re still nailing down a venue. We’re trying to find a place that can accept 50+ people, is close enough to the hotel that people will walk to it, and is inexpensive. Triangulating this has proved very complex :)

However, the general plan is for the event to happen during the sinner space in programming and before the opening ceremonies. We hope to get GOH Andrea Hairston and Mary Anne Mohanraj to attend, even if just for the beginning since they’ll need to leave early.

After the dinner, those of you who do not want to go to the opening ceremonies can join me in the POC Safer Space to talk about how folks can and should use the room during the con.

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I’m looking for the ancient Greek for: We can do better.

In English, there is some ambiguity there (We meaning us?  We meaning humanity?  My group can do better than your group?).  I don’t know if those ambiguities would translate, but, if so, I want them.  If not, I’ll chose the best meaning for my evil purposes.

Any help would be appreciated.

Originally published at Words Words Words. Please leave any comments there.