THE PRESENCE is a more experiential-than-otherwise Divine descriptor. It attempts to portray the ineffable (nameless/wordless) quality of that-which-some-people-call-God, or what Freud’s friend Romain Rolland termed the “oceanic feeling” of being One with the Universe. It has the advantage of being both non-dogmatic and non-dual; there’s nothing to argue about, only something to feel or, if you prefer, to see. That’s certainly bad news for people who like to write about such things, but much easier on the rest of us who don’t (or don’t choose to) understand the reference. Right?
How Many Dead Friends Are There?
James Sputnik Gjerde: 1/24/1962 – 12//27/2002
Little did I know that it would generate such traffic.
Since the ‘logs showed this article had surfaced via search-engines, I first thought it was from people wanting to make one last goodbye Sputnik-ward.
Why I Love: Robert Anton Wilson
IT’S THE WAY HE BLOWS my mind. It’s the way he mixes conviction with doubt. It’s his searingly funny prose. It’s his search for Ultimate Relativity. It’s that he taught me some important Latin phrases, like “Cui bono?” and “Non illegitimati carborundum” (look ’em up). It’s how he manages to make everything he writes sound like a personal communication to the reader. It’s the little phrase-gems he drops off-handedly like “reality-tunnel,” “domesticated primates,” or “guerrilla ontology.” It’s his nimble skipping from neuroscience to neuropoetry to neuroanalysis to neuropolitics. (It’s also that “neuro-” is his favorite prefix.)
“The Merchant of Sonoma”
THEY SAY THAT THERE IS never any “first Jewish settler” anywhere — because no matter who it is, some other Jew was there beforehand. Better instead to say “first known Jewish settler.” And in the case of Sonoma, that honor and claim falls to Solomon Schocken: immigrant, ship’s cook, entrepreneur.
This month marks the 140th anniversary of the opening of the well-stocked “S. Schocken – General Merchandise” store on Sonoma Plaza, in the building previously occupied by General Mariano Vallejo’s military barracks (now a museum). To introduce him to the Sonoma Index-Tribune‘s readership, I wrote a piece on Mr. Schocken for the paper’s June 1999 quarterly magazine. Please enjoy.
Words to Bring Back: “Concatenation”
– Definition: n. The act of linking together.
– Used in a sentence: One positive effect of the 2016 election was the concatenation of disparate progressives, some actually lucid.
– Why: Who could argue with a pentasyllabic synonym for “gathering?”
Your spiritual practice will give you many gifts, but don’t expect it to relieve you of your human nature.”
–Alan Morinis
Endurance Test
IT HAS BEEN SAID BEFORE. And sadly, it will no doubt be said again. But I feel the need to say it anyway:
A friend of mine told me the other day that, after Poway, she’ll be afraid when I go to synagogue.
“I’m not,” I replied. And meant it.
What I’m also not afraid of, is wearing my yarmulke in public.
Am I a target? Yes. But then we all are — whether we wear yarmulkes or visible stars-of-David or no. As we have been for centuries, even millennia, by haters and cowards and fools.