Saturday January 11, 2014  I joined a hyperlocal barter network on Facebook.

***Comments of comment

Don Fitch 1/11/14:  "'My first writing mentor, Annie Dillard, once told our college class that if you ever have the choice between visiting a far-flung place or reading a book about it, choose the book.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/29/china-of-my-mind/?ref=opinion&_r=0'

"'Who are you going to believe -- the nonfiction writer or your lying eyes?'

"I can understand Dillard's comment -- a writer who has spent a lot of time & attention in a place probably sees it more clearly, and understands it much better, than you are likely to do when/after visiting it for a few weeks. On another hand, I think this does not give adequate value to the various sensory inputs associated with one's actual physical presence. I'm certainly glad I read everything I did before going to Japan, because it helped me to better understand what I experienced there, but I'm much more glad that I was stationed there (after being Drafted, which I wasn't actually glad about) for eight months. (I'm also glad that was c. 1950, so that there were still significant elements of the older Japanese Culture in evidence... and sushi was still cheap hot-weather finger-food -- with emphasis on the "cheap".)

"I note that Lafcadio Hearn said something like 'After I had spent five years in Japan I felt that I understood it. After ten years, I realized that I knew almost nothing about it'. That's another comment that I can understand & appreciate."

***From Twitter:

Kevin Green ‏@FixedOpsGenius RT @Tum55: I am only responsible for what I say, not for what you understand. #

R.L. Ripples ‏@TweetsofOld When a girl looks interested in a sermon, she is generally thinking how she would like to lie flat on her back with her knees up. NY1897
[I believe the newspaperman who wrote this had a clean mind.]