Saw & greatly enjoyed the New Zealand movie "Whale
Rider" which, like all such excursions into the sociology
of the collision between modernity & traditional cultures,
leaves me feeling both saddened & hopeful. And perhaps
there is no apter symbol for it than those very whales,
whose endangerment reveals to us a terrible failure of
imagination--. And i am returned to the old question:
where is the traditional culture i myself have lost
along the way? (If i were a Texas bluesman i might
know the answer.)

Listening to: Dennis Brain performing the Mozart
horn concertos. How sad the French horn can
sound! Do the songs of the whales say nothing
to us?