Before, Prior To. There Is No Difference

It Was One Of Those Sumptuous Days When The World Is Full Of Autumn Muskiness And Tangy, Crisp Perfection: Vivid Blue Sky, Deep Green Fields, Leaves In A Thousand Luminous Hues. It Is A Truly Astounding Sight When Every Tree In A Landscape Becomes Individual, When Each Winding Back Highway And Plump Hillside Is Suddenly And Infinitely Splashed With Every Sharp Shade That Nature Can Bestow - Flaming Scarlet, Lustrous Gold, Throbbing Vermilion, Fiery Orange.

I Refer Of Course To The Soaring Wonder Of The Age Known As The Eiffel Tower. Never In History Has A Structure Been More Technologically Advanced, Materially Obsolescent, And Gloriously Pointless All At The Same Time.

Woods Are Not Like Other Spaces. To Begin With, They Are Cubic. Their Trees Surround You, Loom Over You, Press In From All Sides. Woods Choke Off Views & Leave You Muddled & Without Bearings. They Make You Feel Small & Confused & Vulnerable, Like A Small Child Lost In A Crowd Of Strange Legs. Stand In A Desert Or Prairie & You Know You Are In A Big Space. Stand In The Woods And You Only Sense It. They Are Vast, Featureless Nowhere. And They Are Alive.

I Had To Drive To Minneapolis Once, And Went On A Back Road Just To See The Country. But There Was Nothing To See. It's Just Flat And Hot, And Full Of Corn And Soybeans And Hogs. Every Once In A While You Come Across A Farm Or Some Dead Little Town Where The Liveliest Thing Is The Flies.

Nearly A Quarter Of American Men Were In The Armed Forces. The Rest Were In School, In Prison, Or Were George W. Bush.