Writing

Fable, With Apocalypse

IN THE MIDDLE OF A flat grey wasteland, under a grey streaky sky, a handful of figures warm themselves at a snapping fire.

“Hey! What are you doing?”

One of the figures has turned to gape across the waste: a vast landscape of broken dryers and tumbledown swingsets, with here and there half a gas station or bowling alley.

“Don’t do that,” says the speaker. He takes the gaper and turns him tenderly toward the flames to warm his hands again.

“Thanks.”

“It’s why I’m here. And that” — a sweeping arm — “is why that’s there. The wasteland is only good for wasting you.”

“Thanks again.”

“Don’t mention it. Just keep your hands warm. Even when you’re the last one here.”

Living, Torah

The Feeling

YOM KIPPUR AFTERNOONS ARE USUALLY the spacetime nexus where radical growth happens — and this year was no exception.

Let’s set the stage. After an intense twenty-or-so hours of not eating or otherwise tending to physicality, continuous guided liturgical meditation, and extended standing periods, the mind becomes…relaxed. Pliable. And open to self-generated suggestion. It’s a long stretch of characterological self-diagnosis that forces a focus on our broken, less-than-who-we-want-to-be parts. (To paraphrase an old 1960s protest song: “Where can you run / where can you hide / when the Implacable Judge / is on the inside?”)

Previous years’ personal revelations centered on egotism, religious one-upsmanship, and hiding from unpleasant truths. This year was positive by contrast, and involved feeling in my guts something I’d only ever thought about. (You’d be surprised what a little shift of perspective can do.)

Revelation #1: “Gifts are for sharing.” And revelation #2: “I belong here.”

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Crit, Torah

A Weary Wariness

UNTIL OCTOBER 7 AND ITS AFTERMATH, I hadn’t understood just how pervasive and systemic Jew-hatred was. (Is.) I did know it was Out There, of course, but only intellectually. It’s something else to see it in its natural habitat.

Case in point: This past August, I encountered what I call an incident of “casual antisemitism.” In its wake I sent the following email to some Jewish friends:

Hope this finds you all in good health and spirits. I recently had an experience which left me feeling shaken and more than a bit helpless, so I am turning to you for sharing and feedback.

Last week I was at a reunion lunch that [a mutual friend I’ll call “Z”] was having with one of her former teachers and classmates. [Z] hadn’t seen these people since 8th grade. (Obviously, I didn’t know them, and I wasn’t wearing my kippah at the time.) During the course of an otherwise very pleasant afternoon, [Z’s] former teacher, “Miss C,” related a conversation she had had in the late 1960s at a party with other young teachers – colleagues – and two of the couples were voicing what Miss C. called “radical” political viewpoints, touching on Communist ideals.

Then she said, matter-of-factly: “The Nakamuras hated America because they were Japanese; the Weinsteins hated America because they were Jewish.”

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Torah

365 Names: “Friend”

FRIEND, AT LEAST AS A Divine Name, is inspired by the Breslov Chasidic tradition. Its founder, Rebbe Nachman, once said (quoting from memory) “It is good to pour out your heart to God as if you were speaking to a good friend.” This exercise is central to Breslover practice, but for mystics — defined as any who approach G?d as an Experience rather than as a Being — this can pose something of a challenge: Who exactly am I speaking with, anyway? On one level, that doesn’t matter; the actual doing of it, even by agnostics, can be both focusing and grounding. Try it and see!

Once upon a time, The Metaphorager aspired to feature daily a year’s worth of different names for that-which-some-people-call-God: some creative, others traditional, each unique. For reasons, instead we’re just going to occasionally post them until we run out of the considerably fewer we’ve collected so far. If you want to see your favorite here, but haven’t, send it along with the subject line “365 Names” and let us know whether or not you want to be credited.

Living, Torah

Five Thoughts

1. WE HAD A WELL-ARMED GUARD at our synagogue service this morning. (In the United States. IN SONOMA. Which, as you may imagine, made/makes me feel both glad and sad.)

2. When our rabbi asked those visiting for the first time to rise, nearly two dozen people stood up from within the packed sanctuary. The rabbi then gave them the Priestly Blessing (Numbers 6:24-26), with great feeling from him and a rousing “AMEN!” from us.

3. Prior to reciting the Kaddish, a prayer for the dead, it’s our synagogue’s custom to ask those assembled to offer names for whom they’re mourning. When it was my turn, I said, “the innocents.” (Or I might have said “the innocence.” I’m still not sure.)

4. Two things I hated, because we are generally otherwise a very welcoming community: 1.) The unfamiliar guy on the cellphone in the parking lot who asked our rabbi if this was a church (we share a campus). “Yes,” the rabbi told him. “A church.” 2.) We have been Zooming our 23-year-strong Saturday morning Torah study since COVID began, and this morning, an unfamiliar name popped into the waiting room. “Anybody here know a [Jane Doe]?” I asked. No one did. So I blocked her.

5. We also made space/time for each of us, as the spirit so moved, to share/vent/cry with each other. When it was my turn, I said that words were insufficient for the current situation. But I then related that, at Hebrew school this past week, our youngest student (and unofficial mascot) asked the rabbi, “Who do you hope wins this war?” “In war,” the rabbi told him, “nobody wins.” I hope his words entered the students’ tender hearts — and long memories.

Writing

Prosatio Silban and the Plain Truth

EVEN WHEN HOSPITALITY PROFFESSIONALS ARE “off the clock,” their discourse – like that of the other trades – can’t help but revolve around their livelihoods.

“How’s this for a topic?” asked Piriforma Syndro, head chef at epicurean Pormaris’ renowned Diamond Star. She stood at the crowded rear bar in Pelvhi’s Chopping-House, that much-beloved late-night asylum for the city’s food-service folk. “What makes for the perfect dining room?”

Her question provoked appreciative laughter and variations of “ah-HA!” and “Now that is a topic!” from those gathered nearby.

“I believe I have the rightest answer,” put in Prosatio Silban, raising his glass of blue duliac. “My tables-and-chairs are always, as the saying goes, ‘in the fresh’ – and all depends on wherever my galleywagon is parked. What could be better than taking a meal surrounded by the open air, and the comedic drama of passing humanity?”

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Etc, Living

Why I Love: KSVY

IT’S SONOMA VALLEY’S HIDDEN JEWEL. It’s Bill Stallings’ “Tasty Nuggets,” a decades-spanning flashback every Friday morning. (It’s also his prog-rock “Rocks Files Radio” on Saturday nights and every-hourly :20 weather forecast.) It’s Tuesday night’s “Big Fish,” surveying and promoting the Valley’s eclectic music scene. Speaking of eclectic, it’s “Kitchen Sink,” Sooth Slinger’s weekday wakeup at 7 a.m., followed by “The Morning Show” from 8-10. It’s Mike Ryan’s never-miss two Thursday-evening hours of punk, New Wave, and assorted indie rock. It’s the “K-Pop Hour” (I mean, who else brings you an hour of synthesizer-rich Korean popular music?) It’s the hyperlocal focus. It’s “Jeff’s Joint,” a lively 1920s-40s Monday retrospective. It’s Thursday afternoon’s “Sonoma Valley Interfaith Radio Hour” (full disclosure: I engineer and cohost). It’s the Latinx, French, and Sinatra programming. It’s community-sponsored and -supported. It’s the passion and dedication of mad wunderkind, blazing electric guitarist, and chief-cook-and-bottle-feeder Bob Taylor as well as the kind attentions of Ronny Jo Grooms. It’s forces-of-nature George Webber’s and Butch Engle’s “Radio Theater of the Wild West.” It’s the coffeehouse sounds of “Coyote Road,” “Nowsville Junction,” and “Uncle Dirtbag.” It’s Chef Marco’s, Sheana Davis’, and Kathleen Thompson Hill’s culinary insights. It’s the varied weekday tuneful and topical offerings of “Guys at Five.” It’s the breaking disaster-news of fires and floods. (It’s also the endless calendars of events.) It’s having to forego in this brief synopsis many, many other important and diverse musical, cultural, community, sports, business, personal, and political shows. And it’s literally the only radio station I listen to — at 91.3 FM or streaming live at ksvy.org.