This morning, while trying to find Michael Dylan Welch’s little publishing
company, Press Here, on the web, I made a great discovery — Michael’s 1997
but it’s main attraction for me is the compilation of over 40 haiku and senryu written
by Michael and entitled Thornewood Poems. Here are just a few:
a red berry on the trail
I look up
to the chickadee’s song
a white swan shakes her tail
at last the ripples
reach her mate
afternoon shade—
moss rubbed off
where the branches touch
jays squawk
from redwood tops—
the hush of distant traffic
from the shower,
a sad love song —
bathtub cricket
[Aug. 11, 2005]
potluck
in which he urges smart 18-year-olds to seek a career in “cultural geography,”
saying: Study why and how people cluster, why certain national traits endure
over centuries, why certain cultures embrace technology and economic growth
and others resist them.” He also notes that people are using new technology
and freedoms to “create new groups and cultural zones.” He correctly notes:
“People are moving into self-segregating communities with people
like themselves, and building invisible and sometimes visible barriers
to keep strangers out. . . .
“The members of these and many other groups didn’t inherit their
identities. They took advantage of modernity, affluence and freedom
to become practitioners of a do-it-yourself tribalism. They are part of a
great reshuffling of identities, and the creation of new, often more rigid
groupings. They have the zeal of converts.”
Brooks is right: we need to know much more about how and why people cluster and
what this segmentation means for our society and the world.
we are just going to have to try harder. Sure, we were the first result in a
Google search for armenian appreciation day> and even for “new jersey”
+soup slurping>, but our postings came in only #2 for take one-third>
[out of 207 million Yahoo! results!] and for ipod caste>. The former
result means we’ve been negligent in our fight against the standard
contingency fee; the later result reminds us all that, with the internet,
a bad pun is forever.
David Brooks has an interesting new NYT column, All Cultures Are Not Equal,
The last additions to our Inadvertent Searchee page suggest that
