The symbolic abilities that underlie human language made human culturepossible, forever setting us apart from all other animals. The humancapacity for language has enabled this big-brained, loud-mouthed,featherless biped to overrun the earth - as if, by the gift of language,we are endowed by the gods with immortal souls. The vocabulary of anylanguage is really a cultural heritage - a repository for all thatprevious generations deemed worthy of recognition. However, few thingsare less durable than the sound of a human voice. Claims about what aperson knows, means, remembers, thinks or expects are speculative at best- words that are almost (but not exactly) what we wanted to say.Just the facts: I am 34 and have been living / working in Phila since1991. I have a BFA in Painting from the University of Iowa (1990) and anMFA in Bookarts and Printmaking from the University of the Arts (1994) inPhila. By day, I am a mild-mannered technical writer, but by night (onenight a week) I teach Gum Bichromate printing at UARTS (have done thissince 1994 through their Continuing Ed dept.)