… FOR THE FOLLOWING PUBLIC-SERVICE AGGRANDIZEMENT: The current plan (and behind-the-scenes task) involves formatting all 90+ Prosatio Silban stories for an independently published paperback and e-book titled Across the Rimless Sea; as a size comparison, the collection so far (‘prox.…
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.
Prosatio Silban and the Professional Contretemps
THERE ARE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES to every collegial association: protective fellowship on one hand, and tedious bureaucracy on another. And as a more-or-less “free spirit,” Prosatio Silban sometimes found it a difficult balance. The beefy cook was also a Freehander…
Our relationship to Torah is not based on asserting its factual historicity — whether based on “proofs” or “assertion despite reason.” Instead, each individual’s connection to scripture is based on the premise that the biblical narrative reflects an authentic religious experience that envelops some sort of reality and expresses it in a narrative and poetic fashion.”
— Rabbi David Bigman, “Refracting History Through the Spiritual Experience of the Present”
Prosatio Silban and the Dread Reckoning
WHEN SOMEONE THREATENS YOU WITH a knife at close quarters, your options may not be so limited as you might think. “Do you know who I am?” the intruder asked. “You mean, aside from my potential assailant?” Prosatio Silban replied.…
Words to Bring Back: “Meme”
– Definition: n. an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture. – Used in a sentence: Charles MacKay’s Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds is perhaps the Western World’s first serious…
Prosatio Silban and the Birthday Party
IT ONLY CAME ONCE A year, but for Prosatio Silban, once was almost too much. His galleywagon was parked in the small marketplace at the village of Whistleshoe, and he had begun this particular day by staring into his berth-side…
EACH PERSON’S PERCEPTION OF TRUTH is different. This one has a broader outlook, this one a narrow outlook. But the sincerity of each one’s devotions is all that counts.”
— Reb Nosson: Plato to Rebbe Nachman’s Socrates
Circus Bred (A Prosatio Silban Tale)
IT WASN’T OFTEN THAT PROSATIO Silban cooked and sold something he didn’t like to eat in a place he didn’t want to visit, but when one was near-penniless in stony-hearted Tirinbar – that least forgiving of the Three Cities of…
Prosatio Silban and the Perfect Ingredient
SOMETIMES, THE PERFECT INGREDIENT IS just beyond a cook’s grasp. And when that happens, said cook must either go without – or make good use of both resourcefulness and perseverance. Prosatio Silban frowned at himself. He had been experimenting with…
Prosatio Silban and the Saucemaker’s Tale
A JASMINE-SCENTED NIGHT BREEEZE carried the distant buzz of an enthusiastic if slightly off-key hurdy-gurdy through the open half-door of Prosatio Silban’s galleywagon, ending and re-beginning amid a cloud of applause and children’s laughter. The small umber man – a…
Small Packages (A Prosatio Silban Tale)
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…
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…