Reading a bit of regional art history just now. The writer, a respected senior artist of the region, points out that a lot of art is created around here but that there is not a wide audience for that art. In general, people around here don't make viewing art part of their life, he says. A memory flashed into mind. I was on jury duty, I think, heading to the courthouse through the security screening. Picture me, the middle aging white guy. I had a book of poems with me, Breath by Philip Levine. There is an image of the cover on your screen now. I placed the book in the bin and passed it toward the x-ray machine. Picture the guard in a jacket with a badge, a woman, also middle-aging, who at first glance seemed to be African-American. She slowed down and took a substantial interest in the book. We talked for a moment. She didn't know Levine but the cover spoke to her, I guess. City life, a respectful portrait of an interesting young black man, poems. The feeling that people might read poems or look at art if it struck a little closer to home part of the time. The thought that folks are probably writing poems and maybe making art anyway, but the lines are down, no communication between their creations and the wider community. Isolation, indifference, social barriers. Opportunities for a larger neighbor-feeling, feeling of fellowship, lost.