Unless you are at home in the metaphor, you are not safe anywhere.”
— Robert Frost
Category: Crit
Examination, analysis, appreciation.
First Graf: The Physiology of Taste
THE FIRST BOOK THAT ACTUALLY got me thinking about food as something other than tasty fuel with which to stuff my face was Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin’s 1825 work, The Physiology of Taste; or, Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy. Part travelogue, part…
Aside
VISITORS TO THE METAPHORAGER MAY notice that it’s formatted in two columns — the wide right-hand one with posts, the narrow left one with other stuff. In the spirit of “obnoxious self-aggrandizement,” here’s a quick top-down guide to the “other stuff”:
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Of Tone-Outs, Turnouts and a Press Badge
IT’S HARD TO WATCH LIVES literally going up in smoke in order to tell other people about it. But on a professional level, it’s thrilling to see firefighters bringing order to chaos. When I worked for the Sonoma Index-Tribune between…
Words To Bring Back: “Desultory”
– Definition: adj. marked by lack of definite plan, regularity, or purpose – Used in a sentence: Except for my relatively brief writing career, my life has been a desultory yet full one. – Why: It seems to characterize much…
Why I Love: H.P. Lovecraft
IT’S THE WAY HIS PROSE wraps me up like an amorous and itchy octopus. It’s the slow building of his narratives. It’s his quaint and dark sense of humor. It’s his search for literary identity (“There are my ‘Poe pieces’…
Truth v. Lies
SOME TIME AGO, I HAD a Facebook encounter with a dear friend who’s something of an Evangelical Atheist. It all started when another dear friend posted the following “meme” to my “wall:” OMNISM: THE BELIEF THAT NO RELIGION IS THE…
Metaphoraging Roundup: 2018
IF A GOOD FRIEND HADN’T died this year and cured me of a years-long writer’s block, I wouldn’t be posting this. But he did, so I am, proffering 2018’s Top 10 Viewed Pages and Posts at this writing: 1. Home…
Words To Bring Back: “Trenchant”
– Definition: adj. 1. vigorous or incisive in expression or style. 2. sharply perceptive – Used in a sentence: What we need is more trenchant male characters, unlike Peter Jackson’s Aragorn or the ubiquitous “Bumbling Dad.”. – Why: These are…
First Graf: The Timetables of History
AN AWE-INSPIRING WORK, The Timetables of History: A Horizontal Linkage of People and Events by Bernard Grun is one of those books that have to be seen, and leafed through, to believe. (My own copy, of the 591-page edition First…
Why I Love: Star Wars
IT’S THE BLUE INTERTITLE PROCLAIMING “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…” It’s the concept of the Force: nakedly nondual, essentially Taoist, but not preachy about it. It’s the costumes. It’s the sets (even the CGI ones,…
Words To Bring Back: “Proffer”
– Definition: v. t. To offer for acceptance. – Used in a sentence:To you the reader, I hereby and humbly proffer my Cook For Any Price stories. – Why: It implies a social contract somewhat different from its rhyming synonym;…