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Hi Jill, > I'm trying to articulate a feeling of locality > within the bigger context and > it's probably sounding wrong, or silly. no, I thought this was very interesting, the sort of detail that might seem silly for being one of those things taken for granted, but then in your paying close attention to it, so interesting, and such vivid details, maybe small ones, I didn't know for instance that Australia like all Commonwealth countries was pink in school maps. And it made me think about maps here, and watching the weather. Here, the focus where the map starts is not so much a local city as area, the Boston area which is rather huge, so a block of area extending south to Rhode Island and then north to Maine, and then panning out to the larger area of the Northeast. Then a sort of overview of the U.S. with the major cities given the temperature and weather conditions, but seldom including Hawaii or Alaska. The view's changed somewhat in the last few decades, the maps seem to be mostly oriented to the weather conditions of business travel, so there's the overview of the U.S. and then to the UK and Europe. Australasia doesn't show up much, but then neither does Mexico, except for Mexico City, now and then, or Canada except as Montreal or Toronto, which has the weird effect of making them seem 'almost adjuncts' of the U.S. and South America doesn't exist very often. I'd guess if you watched a lot of weather news here, you'd get the impression that it's the Northeast, the rest of the U.S. has a huge space with various cities noted, the Atlantic with Europe and the UK on the other side, and a couple of Canadian cities to the north, and one big city in Mexico to the south. When I lived in NM, there was a more local center and then panning out West, toward California and the Pacific, so the view of the weather seems to move toward either coast of departure. But it's very interesting, I think, how this both reflects and perhaps creates a 'view of the world' in more than just geographical terms. The sort of insularity of U.S. citizens which has been often remarked upon, etc. Oh, and I was most sorry to see that one of the effects of the Commonwealth games was to get out the cans of grey paint and obliterate so much stencil art. Best, Rebecca __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com