It. – Page 10 – The Metaphorager.

Seasonal Skirmish Solved

AS WE WIND DOWN DECEMBER, the social air is thick with anticipation — and, alas, some rancor.

It seems once again that some are taking issue with some who take issue with being greeted by the adherents of our country’s majority-religion, who in turn are peeved at what they perceive to be a “War on Christmas” — as though it’s somehow un-American to be polite or play well with others. Allow me to once again proffer a solution to this non-problem — an all-purpose response to someone who wishes you a happy holiday-outside-your-affinity-group. Simply say to them, “Same To You.” (After all, it’s not like anyone has a monopoly on Northern Hemisphere winter light-festivals.)

…And Editor

If truth is stranger than fiction, it is because it has a better and more creative author.”
— Jeff Forsythe

365 Names: “G-d”

G-D is a bit of linguistic trickery. Because traditional Judaism teaches that the name of G?d (see what I did there?) is not to be erased, “G-d” is a way to write that Name without really writing it: on a Hebrew school blackboard, say, or a Xeroxed handout, or a computer screen, or any transient or otherwise ephemeral medium. Of course, as Rabbi Larry Kushner points out, “‘God’ is not God’s name” — thus, erasing “God” should pose no theological problem. Some habits, though, are hard to break. (So what’s with the question mark? See here, o seeker after Divine nomenclature.) Continue reading “365 Names: “G-d””

“Let’s Go See!”

TO THE SMALL CATALOGUE OF meaningful three-word human phrases (“I love you,” “let me help,” “take your time,” “hold my beer”) should be added one pertaining to perhaps that oldest of motivations: “Let’s go see!”

Mind you, this drive isn’t limited to spacetime exploration (planets, moons, continents, seas, cells, et al). It can also, with some judiciousness, be applied to the arts: “Let’s go see if we can … write a novel without using the letter ‘e'” “… paint without brushes” “… string together found sounds / texts / images” “… fly.” All of these and more result from a desire and need to experiment, tinker and otherwise satisfy our primate curiosity. Continue reading ““Let’s Go See!””

The Opposite of Hubris

The greatest mystery is not that we have been flung at random between the profusion of matter and of the stars, but that within this prison we can draw from ourselves images powerful enough to deny our nothingness.”
— Andre Malraux

365 Names: Flow

FLOW is preferred to The Flow, since “the” suggests separateness — “Thingness,” if you will — and as Flow cannot be reliably distinguished from that-which-flows, said usage would upset “the” carefully built phenomenological apple-cart. (And we certainly can’t have that.) Just another attempt at naming the Nameless…without naming it, of course. Continue reading “365 Names: Flow”

Making It Real

The harder it became, the more I wanted to do it.”
— Female round-the-world sailor, from the film MAIDEN

Temple of the Holy Reruns

HAVE YOU EVER SAT IN a theater after the movie ended so you can see it again? Then you’ll understand Simchat Torah.

Simchat Torah, or “Rejoicing of (the) Teaching,” will be celebrated by the worldwide Jewish community beginning tonight through tomorrow. It marks the end of the yearly Torah-reading cycle and the beginning of a new one. We’ve been doing this for at least (best guess here) 2,569 years; when we reach the last words of Deuteronomy (“Never again did there arise in Israel a prophet like Moses … [with] all the great might and awesome power that Moses displayed before all Israel”) we immediately rewind to “In the beginning of G?d’s creating heaven and earth…” To paraphrase a line from Guys and Dolls, among other things Judaism can be called the oldest established permanent floating book club on Earth. Continue reading “Temple of the Holy Reruns”

365 Names: “Teacher”

TEACHER The active metaphor here is that G?d has set lessons all around us, and it’s our job to discover them; imagine everything in the Universe labeled with a great big “LEARN HERE” sticker. No one of us really knows anybody else’s lesson, and in fact, it’s none of anyone else’s business what those lessons are. It’s a secret between us and what-some-choose-to-call-G?d. And isn’t it nice having a secret that you don’t have to share? Continue reading “365 Names: “Teacher””

Day of At-Onement

IT’S HARD TO DESCRIBE THE feeling I get around 1 or 2 p.m. on Yom Kippur afternoon with no food since the previous evening. It’s an intellectual, buzzy sort of consciousness: colors are brighter, outlines sharper, and an almost euphoric state of clarity sets in. At our synagogue we take a service-break from about 12:30 until 4:30 p.m. — some people go home to nap or introspect, others hang out at the sanctuary to pray or meditate or just sit in community. As for me, I go home to feed the cat, engage in (what I hope is) honest self-criticism, and study something appropriate. Continue reading “Day of At-Onement”

Jump Start

If church worked, you’d only need to go once.”
— Pastor Rich Gantenbein, a”h

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, expense, skill and moxie involved in making anything — dance, music, sequential or static art, acting, a useful tool, a good meal — can you be said to have truly grasped its essence.

3. This is especially true of those things that are done so well that they look easy. Take Dick Van Dyke’s 1960s-era physical comedy, or Gene Kelly’s soft-shoe; it’s as though their bones are made of rubber, if indeed they have any bones at all. Continue reading “5 Thoughts: Informed Appreciation”

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