“What does that song mean?” I asked Ernie once about a particular song. He thought for a bit and then replied that if I wanted to know what the words meant, he’d be glad to translate them for me. But…
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.
Love to a Cat
HAD I NOT BEEN SWIFT, He would have brought the rat in. It’s the thought that counts.
Aside
“BUILDING A BETTER MOUSETRAP IS one thing. Testing it is something else.”
Pithyism #101
UNLESS IT CONTAINS A CRITICISM of what the writer didn’t say, no letters-and-opinion section is complete.
Generational Drift
BY OUR BEST CALCULATIONS, HISTORY began in Sumer when people first started writing things down (there are some examples of probable earlier scripts, but no one’s translated them yet). This would be about 6,000 years ago. Let’s assume twenty-five years…
First Graf: The Lore Of Sail
THE MARITIME SECTION OF MY home library is, like a captain’s yacht, small but well-appointed. I’ve been a ship geek since 1987-88, when I served as a deckhand/docent on a replica of the Golden Hinde, and my taste tends toward…
Slouching Toward Tishrei
TODAY IS THE SECOND OF Elul, the month preceding Rosh Hashana, and that fact lends the period an air of expectancy and overhaul. The Jewish New Year is less a time for partying all night and more a time for…
Pithyism #4.5×10^9
IF SEDIMENTARY ROCK LAYERS ARE like pages of a book, archaeology is the art and science of compiling an index and table of contents.
Prosatio Silban and the Visitor From The Sands
PROSATIO SILBAN WAS NOT KNOWN for nothing as “The Cook For Any Price.” He had long ago foresworn the Sacreanthood and serving people’s souls, for serving their bellies and letting the souls look after themselves. Yet every now and again,…
Future Informal
“MY NAME IS 010180,” SAID the friendly robot. “But you can call me 0.”
Pithyism #10,000
A MODERN SENSIBILITY IS THE greatest impediment to understanding ancient traditions. (And sometimes vice-versa.)
Across The Rimless Sea: Folk
FOLLOWING ON THE INFORMATION REVEALED in “Who Is This Prosatio Silban, And What Does he Want?” here is a chart listing the Exilic Lands’ inhabitants. It’s meant as a quick reference rather than a last word. Attentive readers will recognize…