I knew that alpaca wool, with its cashmere-soft weave, had been transformed into cuddly knick-knacks ranging from pillows to teddy bears. But through selective breeding over the past 6,000 years, alpacas have so diverged from their llama cousins as to become quite different animals.

When you sling a saddle atop a llama's back, just after he's rolled in the dirt to scratch the unscratchable tickle of having lugged an ungrateful hiker's 90 pounds of impedimenta another eight miles along the trail, you're struck by how matted, coarse, and snarly the wool seems. But that's why it makes for versatile outdoor wear.

As scientific research demonstrates, llama wool's very coarseness and its range of fibers from fine to thick mean that it can be woven into clothing that's superior to down, fleece, sheep wool, and alpaca wool in criteria ranging from warmth to water resistance to usable life.

I went to the Grand Canyon with my family when I was about 8 years old, and I had a very blah experience. I think the scale of it is too huge - you don't appreciate it.

Government tends to stifle innovation, and it abhors improvisation. Any good military strategist will tell you that a battle plan rarely survives past the first engagement. After that, you have to improvise to survive and to win.

The time has come - and must come - for multilateral conversations about a secure peace in all of Europe.

I wasn't very worried about the Cold War; I was busy being a musician.

When I started out, it was considered very wrong to change an image. There were scandals if someone inserted a sky into a war picture or something. Now it's all about that.