G-D is a bit of linguistic trickery. Because traditional Judaism teaches that the name of G?d (see what I did there?) is not to be erased, “G-d” is a way to write that Name without really writing it: on a…
Author: Neal Ross Attinson
Neal Ross Attinson is one of those writing-compulsives who feels naked without a keyboard, or at least a a pad and pencil. He is unafraid of adverbs, and lives with an animal companion and eclectic library in Sonoma, California.
How to Dress a Salad
THIS IS A DEVICE OF my own invention, based on a semi-traditional vinaigrette formula, with additives. It will keep unrefrigerated for a couple of weeks (perhaps longer, but at a salad or two a week I haven’t had a chance…
“Let’s Go See!”
TO THE SMALL CATALOGUE OF meaningful three-word human phrases (“I love you,” “let me help,” “take your time,” “hold my beer”) should be added one pertaining to perhaps that oldest of motivations: “Let’s go see!” Mind you, this drive isn’t…
Words to Bring Back: Declaim
– Definition: v. Utter or deliver words or a speech in a rhetorical or impassioned way, as if to an audience. – Used in a sentence: Less defaming, more declaiming. – Why: What with the rise of social media, the…
On the “OK Boomer!” Contretemps
SERIOUSLY ASK YOURSELF THIS QUESTION: “Who (and what) profits from pitting one generation of progressives so viciously and stereotypingly against another?”
The greatest mystery is not that we have been flung at random between the profusion of matter and of the stars, but that within this prison we can draw from ourselves images powerful enough to deny our nothingness.”
— Andre Malraux
365 Names: Flow
FLOW is preferred to The Flow, since “the” suggests separateness — “Thingness,” if you will — and as Flow cannot be reliably distinguished from that-which-flows, said usage would upset “the” carefully built phenomenological apple-cart. (And we certainly can’t have that.)…
“NaSSWriMo!”
TODAY KICKS OFF THE WOULD-BE novelists’ annual motivational event, NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month. The idea is to write 1,667 words a day for a total of 50,000 by November 30. (I participated one year, and have a fairly mediocre…
It’s Really Spelled “Hallowe’en”
(TO BE CLEAR, IT’S ACTUALLY a slight abbreviation of the phrase “All Hallow’s Evening,” AKA “All Hallow’s Even,” AKA “Hallows E’en.”) There’s something to be said about archaic or alternate spellings / renderings. For example, a beloved English teacher once…
Words To Bring Back: “Patois”
– Definition: n. A type of local dialect. – Used in a sentence: His discourse was punctuated by a patois rich in “I know, right?” “Wait. What?” and “Yeah, no…” – Why: It’s a better (and more elegant and less…
The harder it became, the more I wanted to do it.”
— Female round-the-world sailor, from the film MAIDEN
Temple of the Holy Reruns
HAVE YOU EVER SAT IN a theater after the movie ended so you can see it again? Then you’ll understand Simchat Torah. Simchat Torah, or “Rejoicing of (the) Teaching,” will be celebrated by the worldwide Jewish community beginning tonight through…