For "Words to Live by" “You have the right to remain silent...of course you do. You’re a criminal.”

Just that fast, my approach to nonfiction changed. Bang. Everything I thought I knew, jettisoned on a summer weekend just thumbing through a book waiting for “Homicide” DVDs to come out and thinking “Cool...true crime I haven’t read” and being surprised that this Simon guy? Could really write, instead of spitting theories or letting the gore or partially dressed bodies tell his tale.Maybe I could write about life without bleaching my voice of all the things that made it good. I had been fooling around with a personal essay for weeks, until it was like a jigsaw puzzle or a bit of cross-stitch I’d never finish, or beads on a string. Just something to pass the time with that would never be done, no matter how long I hovered over it. With a tiny shiver of regret, I deleted it, and let the doubt come and the anger and all the “negative’ and non- narrator feelings blocking my trek between Points A and B. David Simon doesn’t know it, but he gave me words to write by, at least.

Words to live by

"I am no man. You face a woman."

I'd been slouched in a chair, reading LotR for the first time. I was maybe 12, 13. I remember sitting straight up and my feet hitting the floor hard. In this Boys' Own Tale of adventure and danger, here was a woman, by her own decision, strong in her own honor and her own strength, facing down the worst hell her world had to offer and saying, "No, I won't let you." And believing she could back those words up. Or put up as good a fight as would honor anyone.

I don't know what Papa Tolkien intended when he wrote that scene, but those words have lurked in the back of my head for over 30 years, whispering that there are women who are as good as any man and better than a lot, who can look evil in the face and make evil seriously reconsider its options.

oooh ... connie. Yes.

Sidenote - why is it that when people talk about women and honor, they refer to their sexual status alone?

Because we have no function apart from getting fucked and giving birth.

And, possibly, cleaning and cooking, but, really, my culinary honor has been suspect from day 1. Let's not talk about my housekeeping.

connie, a lot of LotR gets jumbled in my head, but that moment has always stood out clearly to me. I love what you wrote.

And if a woman is "brave", it's too often after she's been doing the damsel in distress stuff, and her bravery is in *not* shrieking in terror and fainting while the big tough guy saves her delicate self. "My brave darling." "Oh, Dirk, I knew you'd come!"

Eowyn's not expecting anyone to come. She'd be grateful for the backup, but the idea that she needs rescuing is foreign to her. Besides, there's no time for rescuing, there's smiting to be done.

I'd love to find any comments from its own day about Eowyn. I know Tolkien pulled his tropes from the Sagas, but I'm very curious about his inspiration for her--or if we're supposed to be interpreting her actions in light of Aragorn telling her that "Sorry, I prefer my women wispy and embroidering my flags in their bower." Even if the message is "Tomboys don't get the hot guys", nothing detracts from her standing between Theoden and the Witch King and "Begone if you be not deathless."

(Peter Jackson so wrecked that scene. Eowyn doesn't cringe.)

This, totally, Connie. I am right freaking there with you.

Me, too. I don't remember the books much, but I remember being pissed that Aragorn passed Eowyn over for a freaking elf (whose name I can never remember, but I remember Eowyn.)

whose name I can never remember

Arwen, whose part was beefed up in the movie because even Peter Jackson realized she was a drip.

I saw a car with the plate DRNHLM yesterday. That's got to be Dernhelm, right?

Eh, Eowyn didn't need Aragon. She didn't have to have her victory defined in terms of who she married. She wasn't terribly sane going into the Battle of Pelennor Fields, and then having carried a death wish that long and finding, when it came down to it, that she'd rather smite evil than die, left her bewildered while victorious. Faramir (always cooler than Aragorn in so many ways) was an anchor and a healing influence for her, which Aragorn would not have been. Aragorn was actually part of her deathwish - an infatuation, but not healthy love.

She chose to be Faramir's partner and live, and was able to make that choice because she chose to stand up to the Witch-King on the battlefield.

...

um, right. Going back to my radio silence now.