Sometimes one can be so closely involved with things that the larger context is lost to view.

The past nine years in San Diego have represented such a period of questioning.

The Western musical canon came about not merely by accumulation, but by opposition and subversion, both to the ruling powers on whom composers depended for their livelihoods and to other musics.

I would not say that I was, these days, a 'student' of philosophy, although in my youth I was quite deeply involved with certain aspects of the British pragmatists.

This was possible only by dint of extended periods of frequently quite painful reflection and digestion.

Naturally enough, I couldn't have foreseen the vast sea change which has come upon that scene as a result of German reunification and associated events.

In any case, the fewer boundaries that exist hindering free movement between all forms of articulate human cognition, the better.