An extremely kind reader wrote in

The other day, I received a very sweet note from a loyal reader, to the effect that the space had been absorbed too much by images of "perfect" physical representations. Of course one cringed at the very suggestion that such a concept could exist, but it was even more frightening to contemplate how much any message would be diminished, if that were true. For the present, then, I adopt an alteration in scale, if diminution can mollify where judgment must fail. 

We are all exceedingly pre-occupied just now - in the northern hemisphere, that is - with the gathering of physical specimens of our passion from vines we do our very best not to take for granted. Inevitably we too idly trust that it's understood, we mean well, in this probably vain pursuit. Perfection has really nothing to do with our intentions, which are driven by a concept of husbanding addressed in this space before, a conservator's anxiousness to convey a grace he cannot endure imbibing only for himself, whose extinguishment would be to him, unthinkable.


Excoriate our concentration, the fault is ours.