On Tue, 28 Jul 1998, Scottie Bowman wrote: > > I think Will's disclaimer of `perfection' & `ideal' is altogether > too modest. And I can understand his sense of delicious > confusion at Camille's flattery. Yet it may be not altogether > guileless. While sadly aware that I can never hope myself > to bask in that golden southern sunshine, I think I must warn > him against taking it at face value. Those Ozzies can seem > as harmless as some of their little spiders - yet, when crossed, > prove just as lethal. > > Scottie B. > I'm not sure where this is coming from--instead as I read scottie's post I remembered a book I read in l976 on a train from paris to barcelona..._The Magic Mountain_ by Thomas Mann...sometimes I feel like scottie and i are like naphta and settembrini to the list's or camille's hans castorp...but I don't want to pick up on conflicts to scotties's post and instead would like to play with senses of spider (with all online web punning intended!) by offering up one of my favorite poems by Walt Whitman: (not Walt Glass, but what's a last name among poets who often as not, turn out to be bothers, twins even, and almost always long lost...;) ...so here's the best response I can think of: A Noiseless Patient Spider by Walt Whitman A noiseless patient spider, I marked where on a little promitory it stood isolated, Marked how to explore the vacant vast surrounding It launched forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself, Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them. And you O my soul where you stand, Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space, Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them, Till the bridge you will need be formed, till the ductile anchor hold, Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul. ***** will