I've never outgrown my need for mail. The day the mailbox is empty is the day I'll turn my face to the wall. When there's a letter, when there's a little package, how the day brightens! E-mail is just as wonderful. New Mexico pork stew without the pork is just the ticket for this little return of winter. Just as Monty Python made it impossible for me to view most documentaries (the ones with portentious narrators) with a straight face ever again, I've just read something that confirms for me that I don't ever want to waste my time paying any kind of close attention to Terry Gross on Fresh Air. The few times that I had, it was because she was interviewing people of whom I know something or on a subject of which I have some good knowledge, and it was irritating to listen to her off-topic and dim questions. Now I remember what I was reading; it was in the March Harper's Magazine. The piece a short one, called something like "the middle mind," and wasn't about that show only, but it was followed with a transcription of an interview with Gene Simmons of Kiss.