Tag: PR

Hortatory self-aggrandizement.

Who Is This Prosatio Silban, And What Does He Want?

Prosatio Silban in his galleywagon / Illo (c) 2008 Alana Dill, http://youbecomeart.com
IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA’S DIABLO VALLEY c. 1978, Dungeons & Dragons was barely known outside the fantasy-and-science-fiction community. I first learned of it around that time via David Hargrave‘s Arduin: a created world not unlike J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth, C.S. Lewis’ Narnia, or Fritz Leiber’s Lankhmar.

The most addicting D&D element for me has always been “worldbuilding” – establishing an ecology of people, monsters and treasure within a self-consistent storytelling framework. It’s an excellent outlet for structured creativity, and one day, while at my day-job as an offset printer, I grabbed a pad, scrawled a coastline and bay, added some mountains and a river basin, and began describing those who lived there.

Some years later I had compiled several notebooks and folders full of maps and diagrams, charts and lists, races and religions, legends and monsters, mostly written in two-to-60 minute slices during and between offset jobs. It was a lot of fun. But it was also pretty lonely; at that point, I didn’t play D&D anymore, and I felt a bit … unrequited. And, to be honest, somewhat silly.

The Exilic Lands and environs

So in 2005, I decided to tell stories to answer the question, “What would it be like to actually make a living in one of these invented worlds?” After all, somebody has to clean up all those slain dragons (and, probably, buy groceries and pay rent). Thus was born Prosatio Silban, self-defrocked holyman and mercenary cook.

Worldbuilding and its fruits have brought me great joy (and occasional comfort) during the past several decades. I hope you have found some joy in it too.

Rethinking “Privacy”

RECENTLY, ONE OF MY FAVORITE blogs switched their commenting software from one which featured anonymous “handles” to one which can also link readers under their real names. It has caused me to rethink what I thought I took for granted about privacy — and explain why I now post solely under my real name.

In 1996, I was irate with a local politician who had left a “How’m I Doing?” flyer on our door. I told her exactly how I thought she was doing, and was about to toss it in the mail, when Ann pointed out that I hadn’t signed my name to it.
Continue reading “Rethinking “Privacy””

What I Stand, For

HAVING JUST RECEIVED ORDERS FROM Fearless Leader to define my principles in 106 characters or less and then disperse them yea seedlike to the multitudes, I replied as follows:

Clearer thinking. Don’t litter. Say “please” and “thank you” and mean it. And stop killing the children.

Go ye now and do likewise. It’s what he’d want you to do.

When The Troll Sweats, Bottle It

Fig. 1.
IN THE STARS MY DESTINATION, Alfred Bester imagines a world peopled (in part) by a cast-off group of future savages who chant scientific formulae during their religious rituals. “Quant Suff!” they chant, in abbreviated imitation of “sufficient quantity.” “Quant Suff!”

At the Renaissance Pleasure Faire, I inhabited a world peopled (in part) by a cast-off group of fannish folk who sometimes chant together after consuming a quasi-alchemic formula during their quasi-religious rituals. “Trolle Sweate!” they chant, in inebriated consequence of quant suff. “Trolle Sweate!”
Continue reading “When The Troll Sweats, Bottle It”

Am “I” The Only One?

IN THIS ELECTRONIC ME-FIRST age, it is both rare and a point of honor never to begin a blog post with “I.” (Nitpickery note: I mean the word and concept, not the letter. Yeesh.) Not that I’m not tempted — but it’s too easy, too prevalent (for my tastes) and symptomatic of what I find least attractive about Lower North American pop culture.

There is a blogger who epitomizes what I’m talking about, and whose (apparently non-ironic) advice for Internet success is “Tap into narcissism.” She makes an interesting point, but I think that only produces a pile of people shouting “Lookit me! Lookit! Lookit!” instead of offering something interesting.

I don’t want my art to be narcissistic; I’d rather have it said about me “Who is this guy?” than “Who does this guy think he is?” Better still would be, “What a great story! Who wrote it? And are there more?”

Howling at Faire

YESTERDAY, I POSTED A COMMENT to BoingBoing asking people to “Google ‘deconstructionist face-bullhorn’ (for) … where I stand on the whole horned-rim/hornrimmed/modern-equivalent-of-John-Lennon’s frames issue.” So far, 22 people have. Whee! (This post’s title is taken from a phenomenon well-known to after-hours Renaissance Pleasure Faire folk, whereby those standing at the bottom of the little valley need only howl once to provoke a full-throated choral reply from a horde of unseen collegial up-valleyites. And it never failed.)

“Judaism As Art”

or, There and Back Again Without Leaving

(BECAUSE OF WORDPRESS, I’M REPUBLISHING this 2002 piece — it works better as a “post” than as a “page” — and although my kippa-wearing has become a bit less pronounced of late it still reflects my approach to finding a place in Judaism. If you’re not hot for apologetics or manifesti, you have my permission to read something else.)

Despite that I’ve worn a yarmulke most of the time since 2000, I don’t define myself as Orthodox. Or Reform. Or, for that matter, as Conservative, Reconstructionist, Renewal or otherwise adjectivally Jewish.
Continue reading ““Judaism As Art””

I Am a Religious Man Unthreatened By Science, Secularity And Reason

I Am a Religious Man Unthreatened By Science, Secularity And Reason • 2011.06.09 • 400 words

(IN FACT, THE WHOLE “REASON” I “am” “religious” in the first place is only due to a direct perception [some might say delusion] that the Universe is, in some essential and indescribable sense, alive and conscious. I can’t help seeing that, feeling a part of it, and celebrating it.)

(Also, as much as I love science [and I do!], I’m even more fascinated by rituals and customs, folkways, folklore, manners, stories, legends, and myths. Continue reading “I Am a Religious Man Unthreatened By Science, Secularity And Reason”

Knubel Borscht: Adapting Memory

TUCKED INTO MY GREAT-GRANDFATHER’S BIBLE is a yellowed sheet of paper containing the flavor of living tradition.

In short, it’s my mom’s recipe for knubel borscht (pronounced “k’nubble”): beef simmered in beet soup and garlic. That’s it: three ingredients, plus heat and time. Perhaps in part due to its simplicity, or that I’ve been eating it for most of my childhood Pesachs, knubel borscht is satisfying on a soul level. It fills the house with a scent at once sweet and savory, fruity and meaty, and which may in fact prove to be the smell of Gan Eden should the requisite air-sampling technology be designed and utilized.

The recipe originally comes from “the old country” (in our case, my Polish g’g’father or his Romanian wife); the original calls for a large pot, 5 quarts of borscht, 7-1/2 pounds of bone-in chuck roast with a packet of soup bones, and a large head of peeled garlic. Add everything together, simmer three hours or more, skimming off the foam; serve on plate and in bowl.

For our Seder Monday night, I created a lower-portion variant which is just as pleasing in all the essentials and doesn’t really suffer for the lack of soup bones. Four ingredients counting the pan:

9″ Pyrex baking pan
1 pound brisket
Quart of borscht
Head of garlic

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Peel and chop garlic. Put brisket in pan fat side up (trim excess fat first). Sprinkle garlic on top, pour over borscht, seal with aluminum foil. Three hours later, you’ll need a knife to cut through the aroma and open the oven. Put the meat on a plate, the soup in a bowl, and revel in the small blessings by which G?d or the quantum membranes thereof sustain and nurture the world.

Favicon Plugin created by Jake Ruston's Wordpress Plugins - Powered by Briefcases and r4 ds card.