Randy Barbato writes: For about a year or so I have been quietly collecting owls. Simultaneously (or most likely before, because she is usually crazily ahead of the curve), my friend Clancy Cavnar became re-fascinated with owls as well. This past weekend I was buying an old owl needlepoint piece at a store in Palm Springs when the queen behind the counter said, “What’s with the owls? That’s the fourth one I sold this week!” Here is an owl painting by Clancy Cavnar and her wise thoughts about owls:

As you know, the owl thing is big now, but I feel that for once my own tastes and the tastes of the world, the fantastical and the mundane, the highbrow meeting lowbrow, are coming together in the owl. I see a real synchronicity in the owl thing: I’m seeing a lot more owls in the media, owl references, and just a more owly feeling in the United States as we re-examine our foreign policy. And who can forget that wall hanging in my house in New Jersey, a picture of an owl with the words cogito ergo sum written under it? I can’t.