Various Men
Begun. 9.26.2020
Published 5.5.2023
I am at an old age where my mind is always saying,
I miss the old internet.
Because there I sat, paused from Facebook, fresh from Google where I’d been attempting to discover—well, let me just quote myself
folklore flowering plants unusual
I had an image in mind that I wanted to post in a comment. Results appeared, showcasing products, leading with Pinterest.
My mind heaved something like a groan
and there it was, the by-now familiar nostalgia for an internet of strange expertise, a limitless fairground of weird and fascinating individuals, and enthralling communities, and artistic experiments among new combinations of word and image
the stuff I was doing then
when that’s what a home computer was for, and not for watching television shows on, like I often do now
when that string of search terms, or something like
folklore surrounding flowers blooming unexpectedly
would have shaken an ample lawnful of fruits arcane and occasionally witty out of the interlaced branches; when a mind could meet understanding on the internet:
Somewhere in the world, in some or several cultures, the unexpected flowering of a succulent plant after long dormancy is said to presage—something—what, can be established with hyperlinks to sources, and debated honestly in robust comment forums, and finally known by someone in search of this fact, what this vagrant blossoming means or only used to mean somewhere, anywhere.
first time flower blooming (the results for this one miss the point completely)
first time succulent blooming (still not useful)
Done and discouraged, I followed a photo ad link to buy Candycane Sorrel bulbs, which according to the customer reviews don’t grow.
Fine by me, I don’t have a garden.
Consolation Site: title search
Nostalgistudio 