1. THE SMALLER THE KITCHEN, THE greater the discipline. And the organization. 2. Thrift rules. In other words, there are no such things as “leftovers” — only the beginnings of future meals. (Thank you, Tamar Adler, for this bit of…
Tag: 5 Thoughts
A handful of topical mentations.
5 Thoughts: Pattern Matching
1. THERE ARE TWO TORAH STORIES which have troubled me for some time. 2. The first is about the giving of the Ten Statements (AKA the “Ten Commandments,” but “statements” is closer to the actual Hebrew). What should have been…
5 Thoughts: The Third Thing
1. ONE OF THE THINGS THAT frustrates me as a writer is my own self-limitation. Specifically, I am speaking of the notoriously difficult and bothersome Third Thing. 2. The Third Thing works like this. I will write a sentence that…
5 Thoughts: All My EEGs in One Basket
1. WHEN I GOT INTO THE driver’s seat and couldn’t recognize the dashboard, I knew it was time to enlist some professional help. 2. I had been experiencing some memory and cognitive issues for a while (as well as a…
5 Thoughts: Informed Appreciation
1. IT’S ONE THING TO LIKE something. It’s something quite else to know why you like it — and how it came to be. 2. “Informed appreciation” is the key to that knowing. Only when you can comprehend the effort,…
5 Thoughts: Comix with an X
1. CRUMB. GRIFFITH. SHELTON. THESE (AND other “sequential artists“) were the visual architects of my immediate post-adolescent universe; whose spare-but-dense works were strewn reverently on the couches and mattresses of my very late teens and very early 20s; whose fractured…
5 Thoughts: Confessions of a Vicarious Eater
1. “WHAT DID YOU EAT?” THIS question works its way into every conversation I have or had with someone (online and off) relating to culinary experiences. 2. There’s a reason for this: I am obsessed with matters gastronomical. Not in…
5 Thoughts: Re-re-RE-Viewings
0. THERE ARE FILMS THAT YOU see once and say, “Meh.” Then there are others which grab hold of and mold your psyche in unexpected ways; movies that cry out “Watch me!” and require repeated viewings to grok in fullness…
5 Thoughts: Long-Term Partnerships
1. TO QUOTE A CHARACTER FROM the most excellent film A Mighty Wind: “It’s almost as like we have one brain that we share between us.” The simultaneous realizations, the one-word sentences, the shared expressions … It can all be…
5 Thoughts: The ORIGINAL Matrix
1. WHILE I DON’T BEGRUDGE THE siblings Wachowski their success, and I don’t really believe they stole my idea, as the first populizer of something called “The Matrix” I feel I must firmly and finally speak my piece. 2. Make…
5 Thoughts: Grocery Shopping
1. IT USED TO BE CALLED “doing the marketing.” And it is one of my life’s favorite small pleasures. 2. This simple joy can probably be traced back to my dad and I doing it together every Saturday or Sunday…
5 Thoughts: The REAL First Fandom
1. WHAT IF WE LOOKED AT Torah as if it were another created world, a la the works of Tolkien, Rowling or Lucas? and its adherents as members of (perhaps) humanity’s oldest text-based fandom? 2. For one thing, they already…