IN ONE OF OUR KITCHEN cabinets is a knot shaped like the Hebrew letter “yad.” It’s something we’ve lived with for 11 years but only pondered tonight. According to some of Judaism’s lesser-publicized traditions, “yad” as the first letter of…
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.
Question of Essence
DO YOU PRACTICE AN ART form, or a life form?
Our Motto
“ALL THAT’S NEWS TO ME, I print.”
Seeing Her
ALL I REMEMBER NOW ARE images, and the intimate passion of an infinite love. I remember the room of globes, of maps of worlds and wonders, soft with pillows and draped scarves. And She was there. And She knew me.…
Pithyism #xxiii
ONCE YOU REALIZE THAT YOU’RE not (insert your favorite author here), you can begin to make your own good things.
David Feldman, Post-Modern Comic Genius
PAY ATTENTION, CLASS: TODAY WE learn from David Feldman, American, how to correctly structure a portable visual joke (in this case, a bumpersticker) for maximum satiric and comic effect. First point: Understand the medium. The English-speaking American eye travels a…
Singularity, The; Downside, Cultural
I DON’T LIKE THAT specific nouns are being co-opted for brand naming. Twenty years from now, some teenager watching Star Trek: The Next Generation will say, “Hyuk! Data doesn’t look like a smartphone!”
Literal Legend
HE SAID HE WOULD FIGHT Wall Street, but it wasn’t long before he was brought down by a perplexed SWAT team.
Apropos Punditry
DOESN’T ALL THAT JERKING MAKE the knees hurt?
Something With Which All Pundits Seem To Agree, Post- “Arizona Tragedy”
“WE ALL NEED LESS VITRIOL from those other guys.”
Sorting Debbie
IN THE WAKE OF SINGER and prolific synagogue-music innovator Debbie Friedman, I find myself mourning her death but ambivalent about her legacy. The mourning: If you worship at most “progressive” (i.e., non-Orthodox) North American synagogues, you’re familiar with her work…
Pithyism #65
MATURITY IS ALSO REALIZING THAT life is less about doing stuff than it is about the stuff you do; less about filling, and more about what it’s filled with.