sovay | And what the body allows is a flash in the heart until the memory dies

I spent most of yesterday at a wedding. It was exhausting on physical grounds but otherwise lovely. I had nice conversations about politics. Today I have no plans except maybe taking a walk and trying to get my ears to stop hurting.

I dreamed of looking for a contemporary novella-length retelling of a Sephardi folktale about magicians, called Her Left Eye, Burning. I had to hunt it through several libraries in the local system; the climactic duel took place in a magically invoked storm and I found it eerie to be looking for it with the hurricane in the Carolinas, although one of the librarians asked if I was looking for it because of the themes of anti-Semitism. As far as I can tell, neither the folktale nor the novella exist, although anyone who wishes to write me a pair of female Jewish magicians in nineteenth-century Salonika should please feel free. All I can remember of the other dream feels like a freeze-frame from a blockbuster action movie and I'm not sure what to do about that.

It is very strange to read that Cape Cod is now the site of the first fatal shark attack in Massachusetts since 1936. I have been to both Newcomb Hollow Beach and Cape Cod Hospital. I tend to like sharks and not associate them first and foremost with Jaws (1975), but I understand the onlooker saying, "This has turned into Amity Island real quick out here."

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I will skip most variants on don't look at ME then in favor of do you recall the bones of the folk tale though .

I will skip most variants on don't look at ME then in favor of do you recall the bones of the folk tale though .

Almost nothing! A magicians' duel, two women, breadmaking, the kind of magic that's done with words and the name of God. Something about the Days of Awe. Protection of the community. No golems. I know the folktale was older than its setting in the novella. I can tell you its cover was an abstract hamsa design in red and fawn and black.

Hm. I've never developed a fictional magic system, but if you don't want it for the files, I've been wanting to do more with Sfarad. It would mean... research. :) :)