You can know or not know how a car runs and still enjoy riding in a car.

That's the thing about pictures: they seduce you.

In a certain way, you get some new tools to work with, but I don't know if it ultimately makes the creative process any easier.

Living "in" a story, being part of a narrative, is much more satisfying than living without one. I don't always know what narrative it is, because I'm living my life and not always reflecting on it, but as I edit these pages I am aware that I have an urge to see my sometimes random wandering as having a plot, a purpose guided by some underlying story.

Maybe this is all a bit of a myth, a willful desire to give each place its own unique aura. But doesn't any collective belief eventually become a kind of truth? If enough people act as if something is true, isn't it indeed "true," not objectively, but in the sense that it will determine how they will behave? The myth of unique urban character and unique sensibilities in different cities exists because we want it to exist.

Personally, being somewhat envious of Richard's (Thompson) songwriting and guitar playing, it's somewhat satisfying he's not yet achieved household-name status. It serves him right for being so good.

We don't make music, it makes us