Nokh vegn di Khelmer khakhomim

I am quite tired.

This afternoon's mail brought my contributor's copy of Mythic Delirium #24, containing my poem "Wisdom." Just go and buy a copy; this one's important to me. I thought of it while visiting darthrami and strange_selkie two Aprils ago and it took until last year's Readercon to write, probably because its inspirations were a line from Avatar: The Last Airbender ("All this time, what I thought was a great metropolis was merely a city of fools. And that makes me the king fool") and the knowledge that most of the Jews of real-life Chełm did not survive World War II. There are other things in it, but mostly Yiddish literature and film. And a nice illustration by Daniel Trout.

What I was doing in the afternoon was seeing X-Men: First Class (2011), with which I have some arguments—it's a major-studio summer blockbuster—but the double act of Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen should have been impossible to follow and James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender actually pulled it off; I'd happily watch them in a second film and I approve of neither of them being saints. Somehow I had failed to realize the director was Matthew Vaughn until we got to the end credits,¹ but he styles the film like it's 1962 and he's practically canonized Charles/Erik. Also Nicholas Hoult makes an adorable Beast and it's kind of stupid that I haven't yet seen Winter's Bone (2010). Further analysis will have to wait.

I am going to stare at Lovecraft Unbound (2009) or my pillow, whichever comes first.

1. I also keep forgetting that he directed Stardust (2007), but I am very fond of his debut film, Layer Cake (2004).