These fables are self-contained excerpts from the picaresque hopepunk work, The Cook For Any Price: Across the Rimless Sea. Because the tales encompass a world of spectacular landscapes and forgotten ruins, teeming with vastly different and occasionally commingled cultures, religions,…
Category: Writing
My own serious stuff; the craft itself; those who inspire me in it; the art of reading.
ORL Interview: Robert Anton Wilson
(AS A FOLO TO THE previous post, and at the urging of sinister forces who would prefer I remain nameless, I now present a reprint from the bygone Bulletin of Obscure Research, Far Corner (v1n5, c. 1991): an interview with…
Pithyism #2
THE REASON WE NEED each other is that life rarely contains enough different viewpoints to even begin understanding Life.
Awe and Inquiry
He looked up. “What are you sketching?” She held out a pad, on which was written: AWE AND INQUIRY God is good. God is. God. . He frowned. “What’s the point?” She grinned. “Exactly.”
Hometown Haiku
Sonoma Plaza. Tree-shaded northwest corner. …is that a fiddle? Morris dancers leap Today! Where a month ago Two Jews laid tefillin! Diff’rent traditions Laughing under the same trees. My town. Sonoma.
Prosatio Silban and the Profound Breakfast
IN ALL THE EXILIC LANDS there are none so pious as the villagers of Imperny. And yet, even within that island of serene certitude, Prosatio Silban found a disturbed soul. The mercenary cook had parked his galleywagon a-purpose, on the…
Fable
MORE THAN ONCE UPON A time, in a land surprisingly near, lived two distinct peoples. Both were composed of friendly, industrious individuals with a long tradition of respectful coexistence in all matters save one: One group took every Monday off;…
How To Write
SUCCINCTLY.
Journalism As Art Imitating Life
CAN WRITERS REPORT? THAT QUESTION nets a “yes” according to Daniel Elstrin in the June 19 Forward, reporting on the day Haaretz (think Israeli NYT) swapped its staff for 31 leading authors and poets: “Among those articles were gems like…
Happy Bloomsday!
105 YEARS AGO TODAY, LEO Bloom took his famous fictive walk through Dublin seeing the same places and eating the same foods as his latterday followers did, will do or have done today. (Me, I’ll be sitting on the floor…
Prosatio Silban and the Beloved Animal
A FEW YEARS AGO, I began writing some short fantasies concerning a notable resident of the Land Beyond The Sunset: Prosatio Silban, ex-holyman turned freelance cook. At this writing, six stories are completed and undergoing revision, but the following flash…
Live Long and Kosh — er, Prosper
IT’S NOT ALWAYS NEWS WHEN a rabbi writes a book — but when he writes about Vulcans, Ferengi and Klingons, it’s bound to raise at least one fascinated eyebrow (I’m looking at you, Spock). Rabbi Yonassan Gershom‘s Jewish Themes In…