Appleseed Musings

Michael Pollan describes the character of Johnny Appleseed in one of his many books. Pollan's gift for journalisic integrity paints a clear picture of the vagabond who is credited with spreading apple trees throughout the Ohio valley.

So if we can speculate on Thoreau's blogging habits, we should also muse on the kinds of postings this more local hero might have produced. Or perhaps not have posted. He seems to have been a person of few words and great wanderings. Perhaps he is the inspiration for those who lurk about the blog world, silently observing.

April showers

Nature is most evident as a force in April. So figures like Appleseed and Thoreau, bowing to the power of nature, lead us to wonder about the landscapes we live in. Should they be well-tended like golf courses? Or allowed to grow weedily? Is a field of green improved by planting a baseball field in its midst? The same must be asked about the blogs we make. How should we tend them?

Are these blogs written for spectators, lurkers, or wanderers? That seems to be the question I come across frequently when I wander through the blogscape. Bloggers who question why they blog and if they have a duty to keep it going.

Thoreau's Blog

An eminent member of the committee has speculated about Henry David Thoreau, if he had owned a cell phone. I can imagine that Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne might be in his calling circle, and Herman Melville as well. (Walt Whitman? He might already have a pretty big circle.)

So, let's start a new feature on the Mike Committee blog. What would Thoreau's blog be like? I imagine it this way:

Solitude at Walden

I came to the woods to be with Nature and to blog the nature of Nature and drink in the full nature of the Blog. So thankful was I that Walden was pristine in its Nature and yet capable of wireless connection. Truly, 'though a man march to the beat of a different drummer, still his connection to the world must be interoperable, platform compatible and cable ready. Like the birds of the air, he neither wants for companionship nor misses it if his blog also flies through the sphere and is looked upon by generous hearts akin to his.

When I return to my blog I find that visitors have been there and left their cards, either a bunch of flowers, or a wreath of evergreen, or a name in pencil on a yellow walnut leaf or a comment in the post it box. They who come rarely to the blogs take some little piece of my mind into their hands to play with by the way, on which they rant, either intentionally or accidentally . . .

03/28/1845

. . . and so on as you can imagine.