– Definition: adj. Of a nature to excite terror; appaling – Used in a sentence: “That’s the most terrible Hallowe’en costume I’ve ever seen.” – Why: The current connotation of “terrible” as slipshod, sub-par, etc. really grinds my gears. Time…
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.
Obligatory Notice
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Cooking as Transformational Gestalt
COOKING FOR MYSELF ALL STARTED with Tamar Adler’s An Everlasting Meal: Cooking With Economy and Grace, during and after reading which I said to myself, “I can.” It also started after seeing Michael Pollan’s Netflix documentary, “Cooked,” during and after…
Why I Love: Geology
IT’S THE SMELL OF THE rocks. It’s knowing what everything on the surface is sitting on. It’s the finding of hand-samples. (It’s also the finding of fossils.) It’s the divisions of igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic. It’s the appreciation of Deep…
“Return to the Breath”
SOMETHING ANN AND I SAY to each other when life seems fretful and jagged is “Return to the Breath.” It’s a compact admonition against spiraling out of control with what-ifs and oh-my-gods. Return to the Breath means sit (or stand,…
365 Names: Providence
PROVIDENCE literally means “that which/one Who provides.” It’s a comfortable and comforting image: G?d as Supplier of Necessities. For some reason, it pops up a lot in 18th- and 19th-Century literature and life, including as a proper name. Perhaps it’s…
First Graf: The Jewish Catalog
WHAT HAPPENED WHEN THE COUNTER-CULTURAL agents of the 1960s (re)discovered their Yiddishkeit (Jewishness)? A trio of them (and many others) produced the now-classic The Jewish Catalog: a do-it-yourself kit. As the subtitle implies, the book is chock-full of homemade ways…
All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well-supported in logic and argument than others.”
~ Douglas Adams
Brillat-Savarin’s Hot Chocolate
AS AUTUMN TURNS COLDER THE nights and days, a young (or old) cook’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of hot chocolate. And what better hot chocolate can there be than that described on page 88 of the Leete’s Island Books…
Words to Bring Back: “Artless”
– Definition: adj. 1. Lacking craft or deceit; guileless; naive. 2. Natural; simple – Used in a sentence: Her whole manner, from clothes to attitude, was perfectly artless. – Why: A useful antidote to the snarky, cynical-chic times in which…
“Tzom B’kavanna!”
A TRADITIONAL PRE-YOM KIPPUR ADMONITION is “tzom kal (have an easy fast)” But as a friend in an online forum once pointed out, “easy” misses the point. A proper Yom Kippur fast should be difficult; examining your past year’s mistakes…
Live Long and Proffer
THE FIRST SOLO BAY AREA excursion I made after my mom and I moved to Walnut Creek in August 1977 was a trip to the aptly named Federation Trading Post, a Berkeley specialty store selling all sorts of Star Trek…