FIRST, THERE WAS THE ONE-legged California towhee. She didn’t actually start out as one-legged. But when we first noticed her in the backyard, one of her legs was badly withered. It eventually dropped off. We named her “Tikvah” — Hebrew…
Month: August 2020
Prosatio Silban and the Elegiac Escort
(Two printed pages. If you’re new to these tales, here are the preface and introduction.) FROM HIS GALLEYWAGON AT THE edge of epicurean Pormaris’ busy South Market, Prosatio Silban could see the dockside funeral pyres at their greedy task. It…
Fandom as Cargo Cult
IF WE BUILD IT, THEY will come — again. First, you need to know what a “cargo cult” is: a folk religion among some groups of Melanesian Islanders who believed that they could attract cargo-carrying airplanes by engaging in sympathetic…
Face Value (A Prosatio Silban Tale)
(Six printed pages. If you’re new to these tales, here are the preface and introduction.) PARTLY, IT HAD TO DO with the eyebrows. In order to pass as a mercenary cook within the Three Cities and Thousand Villages of the…
5 Thoughts: It’s Not a Bug, It’s a Teacher
1. EVANGELICAL ATHEISTS LIKE TO STATE two reasons why the Torah is irrelevant: 1) It was written in the Bronze Age, and 2) it’s festering with contradictions. 2. Leaving aside the point that many of our species’ current intellectual systems…
Caveat Bibitor (A Prosatio Silban Tale)
(Four printed pages. If you’re new to these tales, here are the preface and introduction. Enjoy.) IT WAS A COMMON ENOUGH skillet: two-thirds of a cubit across, three finger-breadths deep, of simple cast iron with a carved maplewood handle. The…
The Mask by the Side of the Road
SONOMA IS A SMALL TOWN: small enough to be intimate, but also large enough to have its share of common human misbehaviors. Take the occasional gutter-detritus. The first time I saw an empty bottle dumped near a Sonoma curb by…
Passing Notes (A Prosatio Silban Tale)
(Ten-and-a-half printed pages; the longest Prosatio Silban tale so far, and though it’s the third I’ve written, it’s actually the first one in narrative order. If you’re new to these, here are the (much shorter) preface and introduction. Enjoy.) IT…
Words To Bring Back: “Fervent”
– Definition: adj. Having or displaying a passionate intensity. – Used in a sentence: “Our” cat was a fervent consumer of rats and squirrels. – Why: There are good and bad manifestations of this quality. On the one hand is…