One of the mildly endearing traits of a Midwest winter is the January thaw -- when the accumulation of several snowfalls momentarily reverses itself, teasing us with a head fake toward a still-distant spring. But as icy sidewalks begin to clear, what becomes of the items we've lost?
Culture
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No room for cream, please
What's in that glass? An examination of what we're getting, and not getting, with the standard conical pint glass.
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The patience of the projectile point
Variations on a theme of Thanksgiving, as related by the sandy loam.
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Knocking off wild apples
Just as springtime brings the roadside forager to stalk the wild asparagus, fall-time conjures visions of wild apples -- the tart and teasing sugar-plums of this evocative, transitional season.
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Postmodernism and the family farm
What could be more postmodern than a farm that shifts from producing produce, to producing the performance of producing produce?
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The last shift at Cunningham’s
Often, a photograph reaches its true potential only in the fullness of time. These previously unseen images from a Cunningham's Drug Store of the 1950s show that neglected negatives can emerge from hibernation to find a second life that is every bit as robust as the first.
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The forcing function of fire
Any public place where people can freely meet can support socialization — with the people you’ve come with, that is. What is missing is some element that allows groups to break out of their self-containment, and interact in a spontaneous, genuine, and uncontrived manner, with people they didn’t come with. On a cold evening, a shared fire pit can be a social forcing function.
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The extraordinary, ordinary postcard
Despite the ongoing decline of what many disparagingly refer to as “snail mail,” there remains a segment of the population that has not yet lost touch with its unique qualities, and fears the prospect of losing this supposedly archaic medium forever.
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An open letter to the National Weather Service
Dear National Weather Service: This letter concerns the weather forecast product that you issued for Ann Arbor, Michigan, on February 2, 2022.
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Revenge of the wrong-side mailbox
There are two classes of rural homes: those with a mailbox on the same side of the road, and those with a mailbox on the other. As if in passive resistance to suburban sprawl, even a long-demolished farmhouse can haunt its unwanted descendants by "locking in" the side on which mail delivery occurs.
