ANOTHER BIRTHDAY.
Pithyism #-11
RUTHLESSNESS ONLY LOWERS THE CONVERSATION for everyone.
See Augie? It IS A City!
IN 2008, A LOCAL CITY councilmember proposed changing our urban appellation from “City of Sonoma” to “Town of Sonoma” — reflecting the bucolic values to which we cling with blue-jean-and-Stetson stubbornness. That task proved a quixotic one, but good for a fortnight of local wag-stoking.
And now, this from the travel section of this morning’s San Francisco Chronicle, page P6: a nice piece about Sonoma Valley’s Glen Ellen touts the hamlet/burg/village as “an alternative to the bustle of modern Sonoma.” (Italics added.)
There it is, in black and white. Our little Anatevka-among-the-vines has gone from “Slownoma” to “Gonoma.” Next: Public WiFi, traffic jams and sunglasses.
Why I’m Called “Dances With Boulders”
FOR MORE THAN 20 YEARS, a group of friends has made an annual equinoctial hike to a secret location for the sole purpose of … well, I can’t really say, since what fun is a secret society if you don’t keep it secret?
But one night at the bonfire … let me back up. The bonfire is some distance from the campground, with most of that distance along a sandy beach beneath an overtowering and rock-calving cliff. During the latter part of the evening, which stretched into the early hours of the next morning, some of our bonfire circle had drifted off in twos and threes so as not to be caught by the incoming tide.
Sign In A Radio Newsroom, c. 1993
SAW THIS WHERE I FIRST interned as “Neal Ross.” I was naive enough then to think it merely humorous.
Cub reporter: “If it’s news, I report it.”
Old journalist: “If I report it, it’s news.”
Newsman Emeritus: When I report it, it’s history.”
Why Is Purim Like Yom Kippur?
“Yom Kippur brings the joy of teshuvah; Purim the teshuvah of joy.”
(TO UNDERSTAND THIS, YOU NEED to know that this was my response to Rabbi David Wolpe‘s Facebook post this morning. “Every Jewish holiday has its partner,” he said, and asked what ties together Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, and Purim, which begins Saturday night and celebrates a thwarted plot to kill the Jews of Persia.
(R’ Wolpe’s favorite equivalence is from R’ Jack Riemer: “On Purim we put masks on; on YK we take them off.” Purim, in other words, is about the teshuvah (repentance, or transcendence) of illusion. But Jews have been pondering this relationship for centuries. Purim is a very boisterous holiday where people dress up in outlandish costumes and drink until the lines blur between friend and enemy. Yom Kippur is a solemn accounting of mistakes and deliberate errors.
(My favorite Chasidic view of all this is that “Yom Kippurim” (which some interpret “Day Like Purim”), as a day of teshuvah through forgiveness, is even happier than Purim: “How not, when all our sins are forgiven?” So my answer: that as intense teshuvah brings joy, intense joy brings teshuvah.
(But you knew that, right? Happy Purim/Chag Purim Sameach!)
Aristotle’s Pernicious Hand
PEOPLE OF EARTH, HEAR ME: There are more than two ways out of this moment.
(Say it with me: “There are more than two ways out of this moment.”)
Some would have you believe that you can only go this way or that way. In fact, you may also go more ways than you can think. “You’re not going this way” doesn’t imply or mandate “you’re going that way.” As if that way were the only other way to go! Aside from this way, of course.