REMEMBER THE WHOLE EARTH CATALOGS? Mostly subtitled “Access to Tools,” they were popular mainstays of the late 1960s-1970s’ DIY culture, spanning a variety of subjects from computers to home gardens. One of them, 1989’s Fringes of Reason: A Field Guide…
Tag: WIP
Works In Progress. The “typing” part of Writing — and the most challenging.
Words to Bring Back: “Ambit”
– Definition: n. A space surrounding a house, castle, town, etc. A precinct. – Used in a sentence: It is my ambition to diligently guard my ambit against encroachment. – Why: Where I live in semi-rural Northern California, such things…
Why I Love: Torah Study
IT’S THE ENDLESS INTELLECTUAL PUZZLE. It’s that Hebrew writing closely resembles Klingonese (well, it does; come to think of it, so does some of the sentiment). It’s belonging to the 3,000-year-old Permanent Floating Book Club. It’s the spectra, vagaries and…
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…
365 Names of God: King
KING A translation of the Hebrew word “melech” (מלך), this Name has fallen out of favor in Liberal Judaism circles due to two factors: 1) It’s male-gendered, and thus anthro/patriomorphic (and conceptually inaccurate); and 2) as people who live in…
Words to Bring Back: “Desuetude”
– Definition: n.; pronounced “DES-wuh-tude” or “de-SUE-uh-tude.” A condition of disuse. – Used in a sentence: Unless we act to protect them, our Constitutionally guaranteed rights are apt to fall into desuetude. – Why: It rolls nicely off the tongue.…
Why I Love: Sonoma
IT’S THE HISTORY. IT’S THE diversity of food, from restaurants to markets to semipermanent food-trucks. It’s the out-of-state license plates ringing the Plaza on weekends. It’s the eight-acre Sonoma Plaza itself: families having picnics, occasional Tai Chi enthusiasts or Morris…
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…
365 Names: Tao
TAO Coined in the Tao Teh Ching by Chinese sage Lao Tzu c. 7th century BCE, this Name is best known from the book’s opening line, “The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.” (In other words,…
First Graf: The Gourmet’s Lexicon
SITTING ON MY BOOKSHELF IS a slim purple volume from 1982 called The Gourmet’s Lexicon, an encyclopedic and indispensable listing of cuisines, dishes, and cooking techniques and styles. What Webster was to words, author Norman Kolpas is to food. Often…
Words To Bring Back: “Terrible”
– Definition: adj. Of a nature to excite terror; appaling – Used in a sentence: “That’s the most terrible Hallowe’en costume I’ve ever seen.” – Why: The current connotation of “terrible” as slipshod, sub-par, etc. really grinds my gears. Time…
365 Names: Providence
PROVIDENCE literally means “that which/one Who provides.” It’s a comfortable and comforting image: G?d as Supplier of Necessities. For some reason, it pops up a lot in 18th- and 19th-Century literature and life, including as a proper name. Perhaps it’s…