Food, Writing

A Prosatio Silban Amuse-Bouche: Writing

“THOSE MARKS ON YOUR CUTTING board look like words in an ancient language,” observed Prosatio Silban’s customer.

“They are, actually,” the cook explained. “The story it tells has been written by me almost every day for all my professional life, not in Uulian but in the older and more universal language of meat and green and root and knife. If you listen closely, you can hear a swallow echoing from every cut; often enjoyable but always nourishing.”

Who’s “Prosatio Silban,” you may ask? Here’s a partial answer: http://metaphorager.net/tag/prosatio-silban/.

Living

Pithyism #9

PEOPLE WHO LIVE WITH CATS are the only people who understand people who live with cats.

Crit, Etc

Metaphoraging Roundup: 2019

AND SO THE CIRCLE TURNS again, one more orbit of the Earth ’round the Sun; meaning it’s time for the media’s year-end lookbacks — a conceit from which The Metaphorager is not immune. As of this writing (two weeks ago), and according to WordPress’ built-in stats counter, here are our Top Posts of 2019 (with year of composition and page views):

Letter To A Dead Friend (2010) – 62 Views
Googling “letter to a dead friend” brings up many, many, MANY links. Must be a universal impulse. Mine was addressed to my dearly departed chaver, James “Sputnik” Gjerde: mystic, clown, psychic twin.

Endurance Test (2019) – 52 Views
Post-Poway, the roommate was concerned for my safety. This was my answer.

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Crit, Living, Writing

Confessions of an Earnest High School Dropout

IT ENDED LIKE THIS: “MRS. J—–,” I said evenly, “you should work for the city sewer department instead of teaching English — because you know more about scat than you do about good writing.”

Except I didn’t say “scat.”

And that’s why I didn’t graduate from high school.

Some background is in order: Mrs. J—– co-taught senior AP English at my Walnut Creek high school. She was a bitter, vindictive, tenured old woman who terrorized the other teachers, to say nothing of her students, and she had it in for me from day one.

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Torah

In the Presence of the Mystery

LET’S ASSUME FOR THE MOMENT that the Chanukah story is true (or at least as true as any myth or legend) …

Basking in the glow of three candles a little while ago, it occurred to me that to the Maccabees, the oil-miracle’s second night was the most exciting.

They had already used up the one cruse of oil (or so they thought). When the flame didn’t go out as expected, however, they knew something strange and/or miraculous was afoot.

With the Temple menorah still alight by the eighth day, they might have become used to the miracle; taken it for granted even.

But that second night — that must have been the best.

Crit, Living

Seasonal Skirmish Solved

AS WE WIND DOWN DECEMBER, the social air is thick with anticipation — and, alas, some rancor.

It seems once again that some are taking issue with some who take issue with being greeted by the adherents of our country’s majority-religion, who in turn are peeved at what they perceive to be a “War on Christmas” — as though it’s somehow un-American to be polite or play well with others. Allow me to once again proffer a solution to this non-problem — an all-purpose response to someone who wishes you a happy holiday-outside-your-affinity-group. Simply say to them, “Same To You.” (After all, it’s not like anyone has a monopoly on Northern Hemisphere winter light-festivals.)