WHERE AND WHEN PEOPLE GATHER, so do their secrets. Prosatio Silban slapped hot water on his back with a wet towel and let out a satisfied sigh. Nothing like a good steam to wash away the accumulated grime and cooking-grease,…
Category: Writing
My own serious stuff; the craft itself; those who inspire me in it; the art of reading.
Prosatio Silban and the Tavern Tale
THE BEST TOOLS COME WITH stories, and Prosatio Silban’s were no exception. True, most of them – i.e., the overhead-dangling tangle of pots, pans, and cooking implements, along with a cork-sectioned drawer full of specialized knives – were acquired over…
Prosatio Silban and the Changed Life
THERE IS A RELAXED SENSUOSITY in winding down from a busy day, and Prosatio Silban always looked forward to it; in his case, the high point meant removing his artificial eyebrows. AHHH! he sighed to himself, and rubbed his now-naked…
Prosatio Silban and the Public Subterfuge
ANOTHER YEAR TRAVELED, PROSATIO SILBAN thought. And what has it gotten me except older? and perhaps, may it please the All-Mother, wiser? The cook-errant consulted the small mirror hanging outside his galleywagon’s black-curtained sleeping berth. One artificial eyebrow was neatly…
Exercise (A Prosatio Silban Amuse-Bouche)
“CONVINCE ME,” SAID THE outlander, “why I or anyone should believe in the Flickering Gods.” “That is something I cannot do,” Prosatio Silban said, setting before her a bowl of rich vegetable soup. “I myself do not believe in them,…
Prosatio Silban and the Tourist Attraction
IT WAS A DAY LIKE many another at Prosatio Silban’s galleywagon, now parked in South Market’s Itinerants’ Quarter: hectic, rushed, and profitable. The beefy cook was scurrying up and down the portable kitchen/domicile’s three wooden steps – up to prepare…
Prosatio Silban and the Artistic Temperament
WHAT IDOL CAN BEAR CLOSE scrutiny without losing its magik over the spellbound? Prosatio Silban sliced into his finger, swore silently, laid down his knife, and reached for the roll of self-sticking bandages tucked into his knives-bindle. Here it comes,…
Grace (A Prosatio Silban Amuse-Bouche)
“HAS ANYONE EVER SENT BACK a meal that you’ve prepared?” the tentative young man asked Prosatio Silban. “Twice,” was the cook-errant’s reply. “It is not an experience I relished, or wish to repeat.” “How did it come about?”
Prosatio Silban and the Cryptic Cenotaph
WHAT WOULD LIFE BE WITHOUT the occasional unsolvable riddle? In epicurean Pormaris’ far-famed restaurant district squats a prominent monument. It is an oblong, boxy affair, wrought of lavender marble, with carved ivory pillars framing each corner and a tasteful capstone…
Prosatio Silban and the Merry Misfortunate
WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO become unforgotten? “As for me,” Prosatio Silban said, raising his glass of white duliac to the Pelvhi’s Chopping-House customers crowded around him, “the most memorable person I ever met was a man who went by…
… [T]here is no need for you to go a-begging for aphorisms from philosophers, precepts from Holy Scripture, fables from poets, speeches from orators, or miracles from saints; but merely to take care that your style and diction run musically, pleasantly, and plainly, with clear, proper, and well-placed words, setting forth your purpose to the best of your power and as well as possible, and putting your ideas intelligibly, without confusion or obscurity. Strive, too, that in reading your story the melancholy may be moved to laughter, and the merry made merrier still; that the simple shall not be wearied, that the judicious shall admire the invention, that the grave shall not despise it, nor the wise fail to praise it. … [I]f you succeed in this you will have achieved no small success.”
— Miguel de Cervantes (from the Prologue to Don Quixote)
Prosatio Silban and the Saved Labor
WHAT DOES ONE DO WHEN a beloved tool breaks down in mid-use? With a series of staccato clunks, Prosatio Silban’s rosewood grinding-pot ground to a loud halt. He shook it, slapped it, frowned at it, then set it on his…