WHEN LAST WE MET, OUR heroes (the reluctant Hapler, the wounded Ij, and the idealist Twiz) were either successful or not in their quest to prove Twiz’s Theory of Oasine Connectivity: they did discover a new oasis beyond their native…
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.
First Graf: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
THIS MOST ELEGANT OF STOPPARD plays is, I think, best viewed live — the 1990 film, for all its polish, loses something as it’s translating. Live it should be: for “live” is what it’s about, and specifically but not exclusively:…
Pithyism #All-Is-One-OK!OK!
RELIGION IS TO CHEERLEADING AS mysticism is to quarterbacking. P. S. — For those so doing today, have an easy fast (and a final one).
Prayer
O One; Distant One, Dear One, Let me not be blind to the beauty and ugliness and truth that my eyes don’t see, and are as present as the scent among fields of lavender and the warm summer air on…
5 Thoughts: EthnoReligiUfology
1. IF YOU DON’T READ THIS carefully, you’ll come away thinking that I think “God” is an alien, Moses a contactee and the Event at Sinai one of the humankind’s first recorded UFO sightings. 2. I really really don’t. But…
Spacetime Coordination
“So the first thing is where. My first thought is the Heart of Green.” “Off to the Right?” “No, before that and down hill. At the base of the Stairstream.” “Oh. Under that cliffy flat place that leads to Blasted…
Pithyism #4 of 8+
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER, BUT SO is imagination: isn’t it sad that today’s kids will never know the fun we had speculating about Martians?
5 Thoughts: Why (and How) We Write
HANGING BY OUR COMPUTER IS a sheet of paper I look to for inspiration. Sometimes it inspires me, sometimes it depresses me, but always it gets me back on the horse. It’s called “Why (and How) We Write.” If you…
First Graf: The DQ of UK
THIS TITLE DOESN’T REFER TO either German nobility, soft ice cream or the British Isles, but the first paragraph (“graf” in news-speak) of one of my favorite novellae, H.P. Lovecraft‘s The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. Though mostly famous for his…
Three Reasons Why I Like My New Yorker Rejection Slip
1. THEY RECOGNIZE THE SUPERIOR QUALITY of my work by admitting that they “regret that (they) are unable to carry it in the magazine.” You can’t regret doing something that’s not regretworthy, right? Right? 2. They spelled my name right.…
6,855,687,281 Minus 9
THAT’S THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE currently inhabiting the Earth’s surface (according to http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html at 19:11 UTC, July 13, 2010), less the nine currently orbiting it (according to http://www.howmanypeopleareinspacerightnow.com/). (Data maketh strange bedfellows. But at least we know how many.)
Harvey Pekar Z”TL
A MOMENT OF SILENCE WOULD be inappropriate to mark the death this morning of autobiographer, comix legend and music critic Harvey Pekar, since (depending on your view) the former Cleveland Heights resident is right now either a) arguing with “God,”…