Cracked Window

Two barbershops, fifty years and three thousand miles apart.

One is where I got my first haircut without a parent in tow. It was in Florida, and I was a young boy new to the South. The father and son proprietors were Alabama crackers. About the only time they spoke more than a few words was when talk turned to farming. They grew corn on acreage outside my small town of Maitland. Even at my age I could tell they wanted to be with their crops and not messing with other people’s hair.

What I remember most was their only employee, a black kid about my age who swept up hair. We often exchanged glances that felt like long conversations between occupants of different worlds.

I’m twittering about Twitter.

Skeptical is the best description of my initial reaction to using this social media service. I was skeptical about sharing observations, random thoughts, and general announcements of what’s happening at any given moment in my life — in only 140 characters. (See examples on the right side of this blog’s home page.)

Some days some things jump out at me. This morning it was signs. I was traveling a familiar route, and three signs looked new to the urban landscape.

“Keep Portland Weird!” cried out from the west side of Music Millenium, the only place I buy CDs in person. I knew the store on East Burnside Street sold bumper stickers with the slogan. Until inquiring inside I didn’t know how many, more than ten thousand, or that the store had copyrighted the slogan. And had the sign painted a year ago. What fog have I been in?

Confession: I like to meander on the web and find things I didn’t know I wanted to know. I’m not talking topics important to me, such as U.S. politics, for which I visit favorite blogs and news sites way too often. Meandering to me means wandering to find serendipitous discoveries.

For a long time I’ve relied on MetaFilter and Boing Boing for these excursions. Now I’ve found another detour that leads to the most unexpected findings, such as 7 Big-Ass Holes in the Earth and 7 Places Global Warming Is Smacking the Crap Out of the Earth Right Now.

This latest blow to productivity is Listropolis, which bills itself as the list of lists. Listropolis even lists 11 Sites With All the Lists You’ll Ever Need and 10 Sites for Finding Wonderful Things.

Listropolis, like my other web diversions, is online “bricolage” — the art of assembling diverse found objects. Luckily it has plenty of lists for improving productivity.

A young man played bagpipes while riding a unicycle on one end of the Portland Farmers Market. On the other, protesters decried passage of the anti-gay marriage amendment in California.

In between on the Park Blocks amid the produce and other foods was scene after scene that made my Saturday morning. Maybe the brisk bike ride to the market with wife and son heightened everything, an endorphin rush of awareness. Whatever the reason, I want more of that drug.

My fascination with boxing began as a boy. Never the fighting type, I liked the drama. But as youth passed I no longer cared.

Many years later, I missed the rise of the cable-TV phenomenon Ultimate Fighting. Then in 2003, a Willamette Week ad touted a night of brawling. I attended to fulfill a graduate school story assignment: find an event and describe what I observed.

Waiting for the fights to begin, I saw people fawning over a guy leaning against a wall. I quickly learned Randy Couture was a world champion in this brutal sport and briefly interviewed him. He had the saddest ears I’ve ever seen.

I’m waiting for numbers. As in how my Portland precinct voted in the presidential election. Only county-by-county totals are available, though I know Barack Obama’s tally will be staggering. During the campaign, I saw only one John McCain sign in the neighborhood, and it was homemade. Obama signs, including this one in my yard, spread like dandelions. And nobody is taking them down.