What a thing tae hae a war when ye cannae hae a dance

I have not been able to stop listening to the title song of this post since nineweaving gave me the album it comes from. I'm in the process of tracking down the book that will tell me more about its subject. A few years ago I made a post of songs about historical figures. (All links are dead; ask here in comments if you want something.) Here is sort of the sequel, comprised of other historically minded songs I've collected since then.

( Then you'll understand just who I am. )

The rest of today was pretty much exhausting suck except for the part where (a) I got dinner from Noor Mediterranean Grill because they are five minutes' walk from our house and their beef shawarma wrap (on saj rather than pita) was amazingly delicious. They sell yogurt drinks and gave me an entire container of free pickled turnips when I saw they had them. By "they" I mean the owners, because that's who was behind the counter. Nice baklava, made with pistachios. I have an order of baba ghanoush in the refrigerator waiting for lunch tomorrow, because I ran out of room for it after the yogurt drink and the wrap. So that was lovely and (b) I opened a birthday card from derspatchel's mother and it was dripping with sparkly purple fringe like a flapper's dress and proclaimed FABULOUS in marquee-style lettering and inside there was, I don't know where she found it, a cut-out image of a blue-tailed mermaid with a long braid and a black cat on her shoulder. And that was wholly unexpected and I must write her and express both gratitude and amazement.

And the latest issue of Mythic Delirium is now live! You'll have to wait until November to read my piece unless you want to spring for the e-book, but that should not stop you from enjoying, especially, rose_lemberg and selidor's poems now. They are the opposite of exhaustion.

A raincloud, a crane on the wing

So a lot of today was dreadful. Here are the things that were not!

1. My poem "The Excavation of Troy" is now online at Apex Magazine #65. It was written on the train to New York in February; I finished it just as we passed New Rochelle. And so it was that Schliemann dug for twenty-two years at Hisarlık and never found the Iliad.

2. My poem "Something Different from Either" has been accepted by Ideomancer. It is a Fisher King poem, written in May when I was trying to write about trees. I think I may have written it during a PMRP meeting.

3. The anthology Mythic Delirium, otherwise known as the collected first year of the digital magazine, is now available from a host of usual suspects in both print and e-form. It contains my poem "Cuneiform Toast" and rest of it is nearly a roll call of the field. But not quite, which is why I can't wait for the next year's anthology. In the meantime: read this one!

4. A package came in the mail yesterday. When carefully unwrapped of its red paper and pendant stone heart, it proved to contain a set of small lacquered wooden dishes with an inlaid motif of cranes in mother-of-pearl. (Also one of those little red cellophane fish that curls in the palm of your hand in a supposedly oracular manner.) It was an early birthday present from yhlee. The design and the lacquer are beautiful. I have placed them painstakingly out of reach of the cats!

5. Happy birthday, shirei_shibolim!

I like all of those.