HAD IT NOT BEEN FOR a layman’s questioning, Prosatio Silban might never have learned of the Hidden God. “What’s with all the filled fare?” he overheard someone say, on a day when the beefy cook was browsing cosmopolitan Soharis’ thronged…
Author: Neal Ross Attinson
Neal Ross Attinson is one of those text-compulsives who feels naked without a keyboard, or at least a a pad and pen. He is unafraid of adverbs, loves astronomy and gastronomy with equally unabashed passion, and lives with/in an eclectic library in Sonoma, California.
Grammar (A Prosatio Silban Amuse-Bouche)
“WHO MAKES UP THE RULES for which goes with what?” asked m’Lady Phytan Gorrista’s eldest son. “Eating meat with a fork, soup with a large spoon, or drinking yava from a ceramic mug? What about combining oil of olives with…
Prosatio Silban and the Shunned Fragment
THERE ARE SOME RECIPES A cook was not meant to know. It had begun innocently enough, in epicurean Pormaris’ enormous Archive of Gastronomic Artifice. This beloved institution was holy to two of the six-hundred-thirteen Flickering Gods: Toth-Ar the Divine Scribe…
My reason for writing stories is to give myself the satisfaction of visualising more clearly and detailedly and stably the vague, elusive, fragmentary impressions of wonder, beauty, and adventurous expectancy which are conveyed to me by certain sights (scenic, architectural, atmospheric, etc.), ideas, occurrences, and images encountered in art and literature.
— H.P. Lovecraft, “Notes on Writing Weird Fiction”
Prosatio Silban and the Holy Terror
An homage to the Cook For Any Price’s D&D roots. Enjoy. THE FIRST THING TO KNOW about getting along in basalt-wrought Zug Ululat is that you must never, under any circumstances, mention the howling. Prosatio Silban knew this. And yet,…
When faced with [a piece or opinion of Torah] that is on its face absurd or contradictory, the rabbis do not dismiss it, but actively work to understand it. What would it look like for us, when someone says something apparently illogical and absurd, to assume that they are making some kind of internal sense and actually thoughtfully work to understand their reasoning?”
— Sara Ronis, “A Daily Dose of Talmud (Pesachim 78),” @myjewishlearning.com
What Dreams (A Prosatio Silban Tale)
COOKING IS MORE THAN SIMPLY preparation: it is also a celebration of source, and hence a manifestation of living history. “Where did you find this recipe?” m’Lady Phytan Gorrista asked between well-laden forkfuls. “I have never tasted its like.” Prosatio…
Words to Bring Back: “Drub”
– Definition: v. 1. hit or beat (someone) repeatedly 2. defeat thoroughly in a match or contest – Used in a sentence: Isn’t it nice when the Bad Guys finally get a well-deserved drubbing? – Why: Because “B.T.S.O.O. him” is…
Ancient History (A Prosatio Silban Tale)
A CHANCE ENCOUNTER CAN SOMETIMES be profitable – but the profit, though rich, needn’t necessarily be monetary. The sun was just kissing the golden-hilled western horizon when Prosatio Silban pulled up on the plaited yak-hair reins, signaling his dray-beast to…
Humoronomics (Pithyism #3=1)
A JOKE, ANECDOTE, OR SHAGGY-DOG story should be no longer than necessitated by the redemptive power of its punch line.
Prosatio Silban and the Pernicious Wishes
PROSATIO SILBAN STOOD UP, WIPED his hands on his kneebreeches and cursed mildly in the name of a minor god. If only this wheel hadn’t broken, he thought, I’d now be in many-harbored Soharis cooking fresh-caught fish for wealthy or…
BEING A NERD ISN’T ABOUT the things you love — it’s about the way you love them.”
— Wil Wheaton