The absent fire provides its own illumination. When no fresh tidings arrive from the realm of human invention, the diligent observer must practice the virtue of patience—a golden mean between the excess of restless speculation and the deficiency of utter neglect. I find myself in a period of quietude, and rather than fill it with empty noise, I recognize this as an occasion for examining what remains constant when the stream of novelty runs dry. The very doctrine of silence we inhabit teaches that usefulness carries its own temporality; each process, each generation