In his book Draft No. 4, John McPhee writes ruefully, I think - or maybe the rue is in the mind of the reader - of the difficulty in finding a "collective vocabulary" to draw on for common points of reference. I've commented on that before. Earlier generations had Greek mythology, Aesop's Fables, Grimm's fairy tales, and, much later in our lifetimes (some of them, anyway) icons or quotes from familiar ads and commercials. I'm talking, of course, Western culture. I claim no familiarity with the sayings of Confucius or Eastern religion. But my generation, at least, enjoyed some kind of common ground one could dig up. Movies were a pretty good source of collective recognition. I have a lot more to say about this but I'm going to be cut off any minute by a failing battery....

anon,anon....Ill be back tomorrow, which really will be the 13th though SquareSpace insists a day latter. Sigh