I want the rockets and bombings to stop. I want Hamas to surrender. I want the hostages released. I want civilians to stop dying. I want peaceful coexistence. I want to live without fear. I want to live without being…
Tag: places
Are we there yet?
Five More Thoughts
1. ANOTHER SERVICE, ANOTHER ARMED GUARD. After making cordial introductions — as one of the service leaders, I was the first to arrive this morning — he informed me that an access-grate was askew below the sanctuary. One of our…
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…
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…
Life 2023 Style
ALWAYS ASSUME A CAMERA.
Stellar Blues
do the stars know the names by which we call them? we, the hubristic and temporary, label the unthinkably ancient with quick mouth sounds and fading pen-scratches. will they mourn when we are gone? would they say: “nice try, two-legs;…
Blades Runner
THIS IS THE TALE OF a third-degree separation from two of the most prestigious knifemakers in Europe. In addition to regular sharpening and honing, home cooks are supposed to have their knives professionally sharpened once yearly. Thus, one recent Friday,…
Birds of a Feather
THE SMALL BOY AT SONOMA Plaza came running up to the ducks. Great, I snarled to myself. Just what we need — another damn kid chasing the local waterfowl. Why can’t they leave the birds in peace? As I considered…
This is a Print Shop
Crossroads of civilization. Refuge of all the arts against the ravages of time. Armory of fearless truth against whispering rumor. Incessant trumpet of trade. From this place words may fly abroad not to perish as waves of sound, but fixed in time. Not corrupted by hurrying hand but verified in proof.
Friend, you stand on sacred ground: This is a print shop.”
— Beatrice Warde
Tree of Life’s members will do everything for the 11 dead except show up in their place.”
– Pittsburgh rabbi to Mark Oppenheimer, from the latter’s “The Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting and the Soul of a Neighborhood”
5 Thoughts: How I Spent My College Intuition
1. THEY SAY THAT IF YOU can remember certain events or associated places, it means you were never there; space-time knots whose experience is colored by the hazy circumstances of the experiencer. Case in point: the Neo-Pagan Society of Diablo…
Truly, you are where your mind is.”
–Baal Shem Tov