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Billy wrote: "Maybe there is no virtual reality and we need to learn to experience the real before and around us." Yeah, I can see that. I've always been bothered by those 'world is getting smaller' arguments. It seems to me that the world is actually the same size it always was and may even be getting bigger because e-mail and stuff is actually removing the need to travel and visit other cultures. Or to put it another way: we were flying back from holiday last year and the pilot says 'look out the window and you'll see we're just starting to fly over the Sahara Desert'. Four hours later we still were - mindboggling. Perhaps what those 'world is getting smaller' arguments really mean is that the Western world is getting smaller and more homogenised. Because, based on my own experience, the further east you go the more and more alien things become. If you're in a mainland Chinese city not only can you not read the signs that say Post Office or Hospital - the buildings don't even look the same as you're used to. And I think that coming back home from this type of experience kind of subverts Western ideas of place in culture and of your own sense of place in your own culture. Can Billy please say more about where the Snyder passage comes from? Cheers David %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%