So: We’re at CVS just now, about an hour after I wrote “And On, And On,”, waiting our turn at the pharmacy, when this woman sits down next to me and says, “I’m very sorry about what happened in Pittsburgh.”…
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.
And On, And On
I NEVER MET THEM. BUT I know them. The eleven Jews murdered yesterday as they worshiped at the Tree of Life Congregation near Pittsburgh could be found in any synagogue, including my own: the former congregational president, the lay leader,…
365 Names of God: King
KING A translation of the Hebrew word “melech” (מלך), this Name has fallen out of favor in Liberal Judaism circles due to two factors: 1) It’s male-gendered, and thus anthro/patriomorphic (and conceptually inaccurate); and 2) as people who live in…
First Graf: An Everlasting Meal
THIS IS THE BOOK THAT inspired me to cook for myself. It demystified for me the cooking process, shored up my nascent resolve, and gave me the mental tools I needed to commit the revolutionary act of not settling for…
Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’”
― Isaac Asimov
Sailing the Sea of Talmud (And Related Waters)
IF YOU STUDY ANYTHING, AS the salesman sang in the opening scene of “The Music Man,” “You’ve got to know the territory.” Case in point: Every Wednesday morning for the past few years, I have conducted an hour-long living-room learning…
Words to Bring Back: “Desuetude”
– Definition: n.; pronounced “DES-wuh-tude” or “de-SUE-uh-tude.” A condition of disuse. – Used in a sentence: Unless we act to protect them, our Constitutionally guaranteed rights are apt to fall into desuetude. – Why: It rolls nicely off the tongue.…
Why I Love: Sonoma
IT’S THE HISTORY. IT’S THE diversity of food, from restaurants to markets to semipermanent food-trucks. It’s the out-of-state license plates ringing the Plaza on weekends. It’s the eight-acre Sonoma Plaza itself: families having picnics, occasional Tai Chi enthusiasts or Morris…
Well, He Did
DRIVING THROUGH SONOMA RECENTLY, I spied what may be the funniest, most secretly famous vanity plate ever devised. It was a California plate bearing the simple, six-character legend: HAN 1ST (If you need this explained, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_shot_first.) By the way…
5 Thoughts: The REAL First Fandom
1. WHAT IF WE LOOKED AT Torah as if it were another created world, a la the works of Tolkien, Rowling or Lucas? and its adherents as members of (perhaps) humanity’s oldest text-based fandom? 2. For one thing, they already…
365 Names: Tao
TAO Coined in the Tao Teh Ching by Chinese sage Lao Tzu c. 7th century BCE, this Name is best known from the book’s opening line, “The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.” (In other words,…
First Graf: The Gourmet’s Lexicon
SITTING ON MY BOOKSHELF IS a slim purple volume from 1982 called The Gourmet’s Lexicon, an encyclopedic and indispensable listing of cuisines, dishes, and cooking techniques and styles. What Webster was to words, author Norman Kolpas is to food. Often…