WE AT FRANCE STREET TOOL and Blog (i.e., Ann & moi — G is only exploring keyboards) will be offline for the next 12 to 18 hours, G?d willing, as a new computer (thanks again, Dad) replaces the old (thanks…
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.
Pithyism #6,001
IN THE 10,000-YEAR-WIDE BUBBLE that is civilized collective consciousness, every death is the end of an era.
So Much For Earth
WORST-CASE SCENARIO: THE BP SPILL will kill everything in the Gulf of Mexico. This will be the tipping point for all of Earth’s oceans to die. In 50 years we’ll be wishing for one more breath, if we even live…
Pithyism #2.35
THE FIRST TIME, YOU SEE/READ/HEAR IT for the story; the second time for nuance; third (and thereafter) is sheer love of craft.
Jon Stewart Slams Glenn Beck Idol
THE DEMISE OF THE HEADLINE-WRITER’S art (according to a recent article fed through both Slashdot and The Daily Beast) dictates an appeal to search engine optimization (SEO) instead of readers — something that snags on Google instead of anticipatory imagination.…
Song of the Universe
TONIGHT IS SHAVUOT, WHICH CELEBRATES the gift of Torah at Mt. Sinai some 3,322 years ago. Whether one believes the Torah’s own account is inconsequential; what we celebrate is the living text (rather, Living Text) itself and its indivisibility from…
Under Oasine: Chapter Two Synopsis
NO ONE WAS MORE SURPRISED than I to have finished the second chapter of my novel[1], nor when the characters hijacked the plot (at about the 0.23 mark. Stephen King said that was going to happen eventually). Thus, in all…
4:20 Torah (not what you think)
France Street Torah Study Saturday, May 15, 2010 – 10 am to noonish Home of Neal and Ann (707.933.9430 for directions) Parsha Bamidbar: Numbers 1:1-4:20; Haftorah Hosea 2:1-22 THIS SHABBAT, AT LEAST IN Sonoma, at least on France Street, brings…
Frank Frazetta, RIP
IF YOU GEEKLY ADOLESCED IN the 1970s, his illustrations danced through your dreams, between your headphones and into your all-night D&D sessions. His is the pen that transported us to immortal Barsoom and summoned Conan with his blood-dark legions; whose…
Pithyism #5
ART: MANIFESTED INTENTION. (Sparked by one of those endless arguments over the meaning of “art,” this definition should cover everything from bowerbirds and whalesong to Andy Goldsworthy and the Long Now people to the cup of coffee you made this…
Lunar Update: Back to the Redrawing Board
LAST OCTOBER, I POSTED “A Proposal for the Moon of Earth” — “a suitable solar-powered visual display in the lunar crater Tycho, for the purpose of looping Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film ‘2001: A space odyssey.’” The original idea visualized a…
Nutshell Rabbinics
“HERE’S HOW THE TORAH WORKS, at least from a classical perspective: What’s important, really important, is not just the text — it’s your relationship to the text. Which means you get to say what Torah means, but within parameters as…