From Conjure Wife:
Tansy Saylor:
“There are two sides to every woman… One is rational, like a man. the other knows. Men are artificially isolated creatures like islands in a sea of magic, protected by their rationality and by the devices of their women. Their isolation gives them greater forcefulness in thought and action, but the women know. Women might be able to rule the world openly, but they do not want the work or the responsibility. And men might learn to excell them in the Art. Even now, there may still be male sorcerers, but very few.”
Norman Saylor:
“The distinction between physics and magic is only an accident of history. Physics started out as a kind of magic, too — witness alchemy and the mystical mathematics of Pythagoras. And modern physics is ultimately as practical as magic, but it posesses a superstructure of theory that magic lacks. Magic could be given such a superstructure by research into pure magic and by the investigation and correlation of the forumlas of different peoples and times, with a view o deriving basic formulas which could be expressed in mathematical symbols and which would have a wide application. Most persons practicing magic have been too interested in immediate results to bother about theory. But just as research in pure science has ultimately led, seemingly by accident, to results of vast practical importance, so research in pure magic might be expercted to yield simlar results.”
“The work of Rhine at Duke, indeed, has been very close to pure magic, with its piling up of evidence for clairvoyance, prophecy, and telepathy; its investigation of the direct linkage between all minds, their ability to affect each other instantaneously, even when theyare on opposite sides of the earth.”
Tansy Saylor:
“I believe it is more akin to psychology….. Because it concerns the control of other beings, the summoning of them, and the constraining of them to perform certain actions.”
HEADOLOGY, I say. And a few strands, scribbles and scrapes just to make sure.
Here a cackle, there a cackle.

I don’t think I ever had a black eye before. It’s kinda cool, really. Of course, it would be a lot cooler if I didn’t get it tripping myself while stepping up on a high curb — if I didn’t get it because I was talking to my grandson in my daughter’s arms and didn’t watch where I was going. It was almost worth it, though, to hear my grandson walk around all evening saying “boo-boo. Fall down. Grammy.”
I went out to Boston again, unexpectedly and last minute to take them too look at a house that sounded affordable. (The “gnome home” didn’t work out; concern about insulation……) Another marathon trip with no tangible results — until they asked me stay another day……and I did…..and they found and put and offer on (which was accepted) a really nice little ranch house right next to a nature conservancy in a little western Massachusetts town with a great school system.
Before that successful house acquisition, I was looking for something to read while others were napping, and so I scoured my son-in-law’s sci fi collection and came up with Fritz Leiber’s “Conjure Wife” . And then, in a fit of witchy inspiration, I took some hair from their hair brushes, and when we were looking around the house that they wanted so badly to buy, I dropped the hair on the property and casually stroked a few auspicious rune symbols into the nearby dirt.
Now, combine that with my son-in-law’s in-jest comment after my tumble that, now that we’ve made our blood sacrifice, the fates would find them a house, I might figure that our little magics worked. But we all know that those things are not the case, right?
While driving back and forth across the state of Massachusetts,I did listen to a wonderful novel on audio CD — The Art of Mending by Elizabeth Berg. I’ve read some of her other stuff, but this is her best so far. I’ve also begun listening to a collection of Elmore Leonard’s short stories When the Women Came out to Dance. I couldn’t resist the title, and they’re also quite good.
Of course, what I really should be doing is working on the grant proposals that I’m getting paid to write. I got off to a great start and then got interrupted by the unexpected Boston trip. But now that’s all over and I can get back to work. Black eye, bloody knee, and all.