The title Sentient Meat is from Terry Bisson’s short story, “They’re Made Out of Meat”, highlighted in neuroscientist Robert Burton’s excellent book, On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You’re Not.

DC Elzinga, contributing editor, is a professional writer and singer living in Los Angeles. His formal education is in mathematics with a BS from Caltech and an MA and 4 years of PhD work from UCLA (all but the dissertation). He left his doctoral studies in mathematical logic to pursue a career as an operatic bass-baritone.

Most classical singers love language, and DC is no exception. For him, words have a salty, sweaty kind of power. They swirl around in the imagination with almost-color and almost-flavor.

SentientMeat and MadProfessah sitting in a tree

DC lives in a working-class neighborhood of northeast Los Angeles with his husband and partner of 19 years, blogger MadProfessah, and their 2 dogs, Leenah and Dezmond. They are surrounded by DC’s misfit crop of strange succulents from around the world. The back deck is overrun by rank upon rank of plants which look like they came from Mars.

• Newly adopted – 100 orchids and 60 gallons of freshwater aquarium with dozens of live plants and 25 community fish.
• Recently deceased – a sneaky slug which was living for months inside the house, by night munching on the orchids by night and by day hiding from view.

Montecito Heights and L.A. neighborhoods in general

According to L.A. county, this neighborhood is part of Montecito Heights. But Los Angeles is full of such neighborhoods with names hardly anyone actually uses. Or has heard of. Or if they do use the names, it’s only to argue about where the boundary lines are to be drawn. (Presumably to keep the good people in and the bad people out. You know, property values.)