Beast of the Post: Scorpohamster

Heropic Fiction: Why Reading will Survive

Asking why people will continue to want to read when entertainment and information are  freely available via moving images and audio is like asking why people would ever want to walk or run when there are less effortful forms of transport. We like the exercise; and its results.
And I don't mean just decoding words and sentences. A novel interacts with its reader; the imagination supplies much of the content; discovery, thesis and synthesis all happen, and people enjoy this (at least some of us do).
Of all our creations, the written word is the most magical, courtesy of its imaginative scope.
Now, I am not one to disdain a screen of any size. Among the most treasured memories of my medical student years are late night double bills (Frankenstein and BladeRunner) at Glasgow's Grosvenor cinema, and our trusty DVD player has coaxed us through many of the darker days  this past Swiss year. But a movie, requiring less investment, rarely has the sticking power of a book - you just don't value what you haven't paid for.

Beast of the Post: Roktopus

This is the point

The point is that magic is essential. It is why we go to the movies, why we read books by Isabel Allende and Penelope Fitzgerald, why we buy sparkly, ruffled cardigans from J Crew (well, some of us do).

I am talking about Bright Magic, the fluffy sister of the black, sticky kind; it exists not as explanation for the frightening or strange, not as an instrument of aggression or control, but as extra mind-space, of freedom and possibility, beyond physical limits. 
Bright Magic has been with us for millenia. You can see it in ancient, illuminated texts and stained glass windows; in those maps of the possible world that are littered with fabulous creatures. It flows freely through literature and art, and informs the culture of science, which is rich in metaphor and in wonder. 
A long time ago, I wrote a novel called Morag's Monsters, and even completed it, though not to my final satisfaction. The extra space it brought was busy with attractions (husband, babies, odd little added-on-to house in California). The Monsters, neglected, huffed a bit and eventually went to sleep.
Years later, they are stirring again. These posts are my commitment to keeping them awake, by celebrating the bright magic that sparkles in my days. 
Already I'm excited by this collaboration with my friend Janet, who writes about the Legend of the Phoenix. I'm hoping to connect online with other users and pushers of magical fiction.
So if you treasure the modern magic in your life - in your friendships, your studies, your closet - drop a line, do; tell us where you find yours.

The Legend of the Phoenix

Across centuries and across civilizations flies the Phoenix – a legendary bird symbolizing rebirth and renewal as it rises from its own ashes. The ancient Egyptians knew the Phoenix as the Bennu bird, and according to priestly tradition, the newly reborn Bennu would gather the bones of its forebear from the ashes with its talons, fashion them together with myrrh into an egg, and fly with the egg in its feet to lay it at the sacred altar at the temple of the sun god Ra, in Heliopolis.

In Asia the sacred bird is known as Garuda, who first burst forth from his egg in a raging inferno, and later went on to rescue a divine elixir of immortality guarded by snakes and fire. And across Europe, in Russia, is told the legend of the Firebird, which grants it captor a blessing and a curse.

What lies behind the ubiquity of such a myth? Do all human societies recognize the wheel of time, how history repeats itself? Do we all yearn for renewal and new beginnings? What connects us to the past may provide a key to our future.