Airports and "life is a journey"

Morning coffee line at Detroit Metro Airport, Saturday 2/18/2023

Liminal spaces and times connect a situation that was before and another one that is after the event or ritual. It is this in-between status that can be unsettling since it is neither here nor there. This 7:30 a.m. photo shows the terminal concourse traffic Saturday looking in the direction of the morning coffee drinkers lined up as others pass by in various states of leisure or haste. After 30 minutes the number doubled. People present at the airport gate area fit into many different types: foreign or domestic, seasoned travelers and first-timers, business and leisure, fulfilling a dream or fulfilling an obligation, variation in age-gender-generation-region-income/SES, group trip versus lone traveler, and so on. Then there are aircrew both new and old-hands who may know this "workplace" like the back of their hand. Similarly, the concessions workers know the concourse area very well, hardly paying attention to the ebb and flow of passengers and crew. Some workers are there daily, others are project or limited-time contractors. Still others are responsible for the infrastructure, rather than retail business with travelers: cleaners, security, maintenance, or the person in a high-visibility vest marked in all capital letters, "contract auditor" (employed from 3rd party lowest bid agency? or full-time airport worker whose job is checking on contract business performance?). 

Depending on the person's status (long-term home base in the terminal building versus just passing through to some distant destination), they will notice the surroundings of the place and the people there is different ways. Someone who knows the place like a "local resident" will see small changes or positive and negative details that people just passing through probably do not see or do not consider significant. A solitary traveler may be aware of the building, the weather, and go one to reflect on the subject or about any other topic that is triggered by airport impressions. But a couple, family, or group tour may confine their attention to the social bubble they occupy at the moment. Probably only an architecture or engineering fan will pause to scrutinize the concourse features and decisions going into the building. With travelers' and workers' minds in so many places, few will consider the long scale of weather changes, although momentary attention on a sunrise or sunset, stormy changes, and so on may draw the eye of many who are in the building.

This portrait from the Detroit Metropolitan Airport (DTW) on Saturday morning gives hints of the familiar metaphor about a lifetime or a daily frame of lived experience parallels the nature of leaving one's familiar home area to visit a place for the first time or one seen many times. For example, just like the diversity of people whose paths cross this morning, in life there is a similar intersection of strangers, occasionally punctuated by a spark of recognition when seeing someone known elsewhere. And the mild sense of anxiety when moving through an unfamiliar place like an airport concourse is also like the times of life when there is a lack of familiarity. Furthermore, the "tunnel vision" of travelers in search of their assigned gate fits with the kinds of people in life who focus on a goal to the exclusion of the surrounding situation and its ambience or possible meaning. As well, some people in the world are very much "passing through" rather than dwelling on the here and now of a locale: their body is present, but their mind is engaged with future plans and opportunities and threats. For people who see the world from the perspective of having arrived at the destination (not looking for someplace far away) like the concourse retail workers or the airport authority, there comes a sense of settled ease or non-striving. They are in their workplace, on duty, fulfilling employer expectations. Finally, the number of people who stop to reflect on all of this are relatively few and far between, too. If the airport represents a complex habitat with layers and layer of design and engineering know-how, most of those working or traveling take it all for granted, just like life itself that so often goes unexamined and unappreciated. So, watching the streams or food traffic of the airport terminal concourse offers a kind of mirror to the human experience: mortality, traveling alone or in the company of others, sometimes settled but other times on the way to other destinations. All these layers and facets intersect moment by moment, putting together fellow travels - of the airport, or of life's roads.

In conclusion, pause to look around at the many lives co-present and moving at different speeds. You may well see yourself in the picture, too.

Cultural landscapes - local knowledge versus outsiders' fresh eyes

Downtown Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin 1/2023

Thinking about cultural landscapes as I walked to my nearby grocery store, I imagined myself in a month or two immersed in my Japan project - biking and walking, on the lookout for features that attract my eye. The photos of traces from the past will serve as writing prompts so that I can explore the past (1875-1925) when infrastructure and modernization of mass-everything got going; and to appreciate what the society is now by contrast to then. Being able to "read" the landscape implies many things, things which set apart the people with local knowledge (deep or shallow) from those who have little or no way to fasten onto/tune into the surroundings.

This photo shows the old commercial district of the town, a place attracting buyers before the big box era of shopping centers at the outskirts of a town. For a first-time visitor one impression is the scale: this is comfortable to walk, possibly able to fit under the roof and footprint of a very large big-box store of today. A long-time local resident might know some of the shopkeepers and staff and may have purchased things over the years from some of the merchants. The cycle of annual events such as parades, debates and speeches, contests, seasonal decorations and entertainment will provide some memories of growing up in the area or the times as a parent with children of one's own. And even if not ready to spend money, being able to talk informally with a store owner about how to solve a problem is another way of making meaning here. Doubtless, a person of modest means will have a different set of relationships and memories in this scene than a person never wanting for money. And there could be patterns of difference in experiences by gender, age, ethnicity, religion, and so on, too.

What is called "local knowledge" has at least two dimensions. One is the ancient Greek distinction of Nomos/Physis (glossed as culture/nature, or perhaps subjective/objective). In the same way that Berlin and Kay did their famous color-chip sorting piles to discover where people of various language/cultures would make distinctions in the rainbow of the color palette (one calls it 'green' but another classifies it as 'blue'), so too of cultural vision of a place --one's own, or a place visited far from one's frame of reference, assumptions, meanings. That is to say, people local to a place are accustomed to labeling the cultural elements with familiar terms and distinctions. But outsiders may project their own understanding of what a thing is and how it could have value or else lack meaning. Or consider the metaphor of "Head Up Display" (HUD) used on fighter planes and now airlines, too: pilots looking through the front glass can also see useful and consequential information layered on top of what is outside in view. This is something like the way that terrain of infinite shades of gradation can be neatly labeled and divided into types or categories drawn from language or culture.

The other dimension of seeing the cultural landscape is based on meaning; not the labeling/projection phenomenon, above, but meaning in the sense of memories and personal involvement (not a spectator to a terrain, but an active agent with intention, purpose, meaning, expectation, precedents). A person who "knows" the place [important semantic play of Conocer (know personally) vs. Saber (know facts, analytics)  --Spanish example of separate "know" words that English lumps together] is able to see cultural capital (status level, past and present value, aesthetic degree of depth), and social capital (knowing names and relationships past and current of various residences, services, businesses; and knowing who to ask when solving any given problem), financial capital (past and potential/future sources of gain or risks of loss), and maybe linguistic capital (powers of verbal expression by voice or by writing). By contrast, a foreigner or even a citizen of the country who is unfamiliar with the locale, will lack almost all of the foregoing meanings that blanket the land, turning it from meaningless space to meaningful place.

Since I am an outsider to my Japan destinations planned for April and May 2023, but with some language and cultural experience and professional anthropology expertise of a general kind along with lived experiences gained by age, these many kinds of meaning will mostly be invisible to me. So, perhaps, I will have to imagine: granting the meanings to be all around and filling the terrain, even though I am practically blind and deaf to this local knowledge at the start.

In conclusion, locals with insider knowledge and layers of memory probably know their way around the physical plane and also the invisible terrain of events, personalities, and situations that are good or bad for one's own condition. Outsiders will faintly perceive only a fraction of all of those things. But a person who is looking out for the many meanings and sources of significance in a place is perhaps best positioned to see and to appreciate the worth of the many elements distributed around the terrain. For in-between the familiar and the taken-for-granted viewpoint of locals on the one hand, and the distant spectator stance of outsiders on the other, there is a flickering middle ground where some of the local meaning is hinted at and can be scrutinized to understand it more. In this middle perspective some of the meanings and lives, as well as possible futures and pasts of the place, come to mind. The beautiful complexity of cultural significance, social connections, linguistic play, and financial patterns all comes alive, together with the awareness that human meaning (nomos) neatly imposes itself on the much larger and more basic reality (physis), a system of meanings that is preoccupied with certain distinctions but oblivious of other ones.

Cultural landscapes accommodate all these viewpoints: locals, outsiders, and those with an inquiring mind who occupy the in-between space in order to see a bit of the outsider standpoint and the perspective of the local residents, too.

Retail power to source, promote, sell, respond to customers, and profit

 

Pre-Christmas gift-giving in late December 2022, busy shoppers

Even with 4 cashiers cheerfully accepting returns and taking payments for new purchases or goods ordered online for in-store pickup, there was a line with 6 or 8 people during the first hour of morning business on Thursday, three days before Christmas day. Much of the store inventory is displayed all through the year, but other things change with the seasons since this store specializes in outdoor sports and recreation. Winter clothing and equipment is featured from fall into winter before attaching "clearance sale" signs to attract buyers at the end of the season so that the upcoming goods can be arranged for sale when shoppers' thoughts turn to the months soon arriving. Elsewhere in the store one or two display racks are flagged "clearance" whenever the store (or corporate central offices) decide to reduce inventory on particular products, colors, sizes or styles. In addition to end-of-season sales, members-only pricing on selected products, and the clearance rack, returned merchandise (used, damaged, or simply undesired) is documented and refunded to the purchaser to be reduced in price and displayed at the "re/supply" (also known as 'in-store garage sale') section. For normally priced items seen online or in the store, here and there prominent signs exclaim "20% off," for example. Some shoppers are trained with tunnel vision to look for items somehow cheaper than original MRSP (manufacturer's recommended sale pricing) due to the above discounting, or the signs affixed to otherwise normal list prices. The buyer logic sometimes bypasses the reasoning for visiting the store in the first place; e.g., in search of replacement running shoes. As a result of the siren call of the mark-down flags, shoppers sometimes rationalize purchases surplus to the original reason for visiting the store. For example, instead of buying replacement shoes, now the person also has a deeply discounted rainproof hat that did not suit its initial buyer.

While waiting in line and looking around the sections of the store for backpacking, biking, jogging, and so on, the myriad invisible threads connecting manufacturing source to retailer to end user suggested themselves to my mind's eye. Some goods have frequent turnover, no sooner put on display than they sell and end up in somebody's garage or stomach (edibles and impulse purchases exhibited near the checkout counter). Others are the reverse, sitting on the showroom floor for months or possibly years before the buyer lays claim to the thing. In-between the extremes of frequent turnover and seldom sold items, there are many articles that arrive, go on display, and a few weeks or months later are sold. Viewed in this telescoping (longitudinal) timescale, the retail shop can be understood as a kind of bus stop where traveling goods arrive and have a lay-over before their connecting travel takes them to the end user's location. There is a constant inventory flow into the store and then out again, sometimes being quickly restocked, but other times being displaced by a new model or different product altogether.

The complex choreography of this modern, Internet-connected, and corporate office-linked business operation is a marvel to behold. There are the multiple time scales for inventory washing in and washing out, like a tidal flow. But there is also a geographical dimension of complexity, since design to maker to wholesale hub to retail outlet comprises so many routes and the accompanying invoicing of money changing hands from one account to another. This photo in the foreground from the queue near the cashier counter shows the small, low-cost, and cute items meant to tickle one's emotional response and bypass the thinking mind to trigger an impulse purchase. In the distance there are a few shoppers handling things of interest, looking at cost, features, and construction quality. The photo serves as a prompt to think about the inventory dance with different items flowing in and out at different rhythms, and also geographically, to appreciate the wonderment of the many suppliers whose goods intersect within the walls of the retail establishment for a limited period of time before ending up in one household or another.

How to bury a monarch in 2022 Great Britain & Northern Ireland

 

screenshots 19 September 2022 online streaming of Queen Elizabeth II state funeral by bbc.co.uk

This day is filled with many anthropological facets to reflect on. In list form by row and column:

--------ROW-1

1: Cast in metal, the Queen with father over her shoulder >amazing technology and art to mark a public figure in metal when the long sweep of civilization went from stone to copper to bronze to iron (to plastic and silicon). The family line of succession seems such an old-fashioned way of determining the paramount person.

2: Decoding the many uniforms >military services, public safety (police, fire, medical emergencies), palace staff. Each organized body with its own policies, traditions, tasks, payroll, conflict resolution, and so on.

3: So many Union Flags >encoding the blue of Scotland, the red cross of England and Wales, the diagonals of Northern Ireland, but also presupposing the nation-state idea of administrative bureaucracies to subsume much of what resided in the person and office of the monarch for many generations and dynasties.

4: Symbols of royal ruling authority rest on coffin >globe with Christian crucifix on top, sword of justice, crown of jewels ornamenting the royal person's head.

--------ROW-2

1: So many members of the public look on >to an outsider the spectacle, waiting, and procession seem odd, but to those who knew the royals via news media and popular culture, the event is slightly personal; a sort of borrowed hallow by one's physical association to the proceedings on this day.

2: White-plumed horsemen who have guarded the Queen year after year >the association of horse and authority is ancient but still modern (mounted rider is faster, taller and far-seeing, more deadly than an adversary on foot in many situations).

3: So many countries in their various uniforms process >after the many countries once governed from London gained full independence, the formation of the Commonwealth assured continuing relationships with the former colonial master in matters of science, art, higher education, commerce, military, sport, and so on.

4: The funeral marches provide a soundtrack to the day's proceedings >the band's tempo sets the steady but unhurried walking pace, andante, for the entire body of people on foot, seemingly in perfect synchronicity from left foot to right food.

See also, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_and_state_funeral_of_Elizabeth_II#Service_and_processions

--------ROW-3

1: Royal family members trail the body >each uniform regulated by its own rules and symbols. As for safety considerations, uniformed and plain-clothed unarmed and armed services are carefully placed, in addition to contingency plans for the many personnel included in the procession for the protection of the royals and other high-status persons.

2: Near Buckingham Palace with modern London skyline on the horizon >air traffic diverted or suspended to keep the overhead clear of potential threats and disturbing noise of the world.

3: Royal navy sailors holding rope to pull the casket carriage >all of British colonial history, before and after, is shaped by the sea as resource and medium, hence the centrality of sailors - merchant and military. Pikes or spears in the distance >considering the weapons and tools of stone that have been found, this old technology is still formidable and present ceremonially in 2022, even if superseded by other ways to kill each other.

4: Bearskin helmets >each pelt represents one animal's life; seen all together that is a lot of death.

--------ROW-4

1: Hyde Park transfer from carriage to hearse at Duke of Wellington Arch topped by Bodica >statue to remember Brigante leader's widow routing the Roman occupiers at Colchester in 60 CE.

See also, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boudica

2: Big view windows of the royal hearse >for 200 or more years coffins have been carried in glass enclosures for public view.

3: So many cellphone cameras reach out to record >capturing a piece of history or acknowledging the occasion seems to make members of the public instinctively reach for their pocket phones. Being alive means making and sharing visual records of being there.

4: Motorcycle trio heads the motorcade to Windsor, west of London >crowds line the route to snap photos and bear witness, some bowing their heads at the procession like the officials do.

--------ROW-5

1: Motorcade crowds several rows deep >so many people attend the drive by.

2: At Windsor Castle in the St. George Chapel and vault for the committal service >bereaved kin at lower left and altar at right with royal symbols of authority temporarily moved from casket to altar for later bestowal to the king.

3: Closing words from Bible Psalms 103 about life so quickly passing >floor elevator ever so slowly draws the body under the flooring to the vault.

4: Lone bagpiper in kilt solemnly paces along left side of chapel to open door >music led the procession and also symbolizes the distant sweetness fading into eternity of memories and memory places.

Numbers to plan, make, maintain - illustrated on desktop

From Yinka Shonibare March-October 2022 exhibition - Enlightenment

This exhibition embodies in visual form so many themes, such as the Batik origins of Indonesia for the fabric dyed with patterns using wax, later industrialized and commodified for international sales by the Dutch and most beloved among buyers of West Africa. The mannequin has one arm of wood to represent the historical figure of this woman polymath who was known to have an artificial limb. The quill and ink are reminders of literacy and distant or local communication across space but also across time. And the figures on the page show the purpose and power of calculation using numbers and measurement. But for the purpose of this article, it is not the many sides of the artwork to focus on, but instead to think about the functions and powers of math and its applied form in engineering.

A person with training and who has wide and deep experience of designing structures of the built landscape, or to make objects of beauty, including tools, weapons, vehicles, containers, machinery, and so on is able to translate an idea into specific lines, angles, and curves that takes visual form on paper (or digitally these days, thanks to automatic measurement and calculation from CAD, computer-aided design) to communicate instructions to others who will make use of the measurements, but also to communicate this visible record to others implicated in the creation (suppliers, financers, future maintenance and repair experts) and those not yet born who may research the matter in years to come.

Looking at the function and use of such drawings that make possible large and small projects shows its power. But by considering the absence of these drawings, it is also possible to appreciate the value of this visual and numerical technology. Large public works from the ancient world were successfully erected using limited mathematics and record-keeping, and some of them exist still today in full or as trace ruins. Obviously, no CAD was involved, but some form of recording measurements, supplies ordered and materials received was necessary, since the scale and degree of detail was too much for any one person to hold reliably in his or her head alone. In the complete absence of design plans, measurements, and calculations the biggest project would surely be limited: earthen pyramids, stone barrows for burials and other rituals, river weirs to direct migrating fish into traps are examples of biggest limits for design solutions to problems posed when the precision and mathematics illustrated in this photo do not exist.

The words 'accounting' (tracking of numbers) and 'accountability' (responsible for one's actions or inactions) clearly are related. And while one is more literal (records of income and out-go) and the other is more figurative (of one's title, authority, expectation, liability) there is clearly a shared forensic element of measuring results against a standard, an existing record, or a point of reference. Looking, again, at the above photo, it is easy to imagine the use of plans to accomplish a project that meets the stated measurements.  But in a larger sense, too, there is a kind of gestalt or way of seeing the world for a person who is accustomed to measuring resources and accounting for them. Colonial governors, military officers, and corporate managers all rely on record-keeping and numbers more generally, not just to accomplish the stated plan, but then also to maintain that finished plan in good working condition so it is fully operational; or if less than fully working, then studying the plans to discover what changes to make in order to resume the full functionality as envisioned and designed.

Although this picture is part of an exhibition piece from the Nigerian-British artist, Yinka Shonibare, it also illustrates this peculiar development in social life of using numbers and mathematical manipulation to engage with countrymen and foreigners. It is a kind of language that expands and amplifies the verbal kind of language that comprises social life.

Being seen, heard, and able to talk publicly

 

Flying a colorful 'non-binary' flag of sexuality, gender, and sex

Over and over a similar pattern can be seen in expanding civil rights customs, laws, and attitudes. This was true in the 1960s experience of African-Americans, parallel with women's rights, and a few decades later for disability rights, and most recently for refugees and asylum-seekers, as well as with regard to same-sex marriage laws and protections against discrimination and violent hate speech or actions of (domestic) terrorism. 

Advocates for a previously suppressed, persecuted, outlawed, or maligned group of people begin by raising up the visibility: celebrities, symbols, public protests and marches and teach-ins, for example. With more frequent visibility, it is natural to react and respond to the subjects that come with the subject. In other words, after increasing the visibility comes increasing the listening and speaking by prominent people as well as ordinary residents. Once a topic is visible and part of public discourse among authority figures and in popular culture (entertainment, education, consumer thinking) and non-governmental organizations (civil society), then it becomes an established and ever-present social fact, no longer mute or invisible. It becomes part of normal life; it is non-threatening, non-marginal, non-exotic or strange.

The reverse is also true. In the example of six months of invasion and war crimes by #PutinWarCriminal, making invisible and silent the awful disaster is a big part of the foundation for social control within the Russian Federation and in metropolitan Moscow in particular. Without outlawing independent journalism and blocking foreign sources of documenting and discussing the military invasion of #SlavaUkraina, it would be impossible to perpetuate the lies of Putin's insanity.

What begins in small acts and visual expressions, like the flag flying in front of this downtown Grand Rapids house, leads to normalizing the cultural landscape filling one's eyes. From there it is public discussion that engages individuals and allows personal reckoning with the subject matter. Back and forth the reactionary forces push back against the advocate forces in all sorts of lifestyle of culture wars. In 10 or 20 years, perhaps, there will be no need for this front-porch flag and instead the matter at hand will be Carbon Footprint excesses, habitat destruction, #ClimateChange reparations owed to the world contributing least and for the shortest number of years can be compensated for harm to livelihood and life itself. Until that day comes, though, it will continue to be important for advocates to inject visual reminders of the subject and not to be afraid, shy, or hesitant about talking up their subject, too.

Playing LP vinyl record after decades of digital listening

In the beginning it was the console radio and turntable with the 3 dozen or more albums my parents had collected since marrying in the 1960s: choral, church, Broadway musicals, classical ensembles, and probably a few Christmas song compilations. Then as a teenager in the 1970s somehow I got my own stereo equipment and headphones for listening times when others were sleeping or did want to be disturbed by my pop music and Monty Python recordings on vinyl. By high school graduation and during college in the 1980s, the vast collections held at libraries and my own thrill at copying tracks from vinyl to cassette tape was a great source of pleasure, often playing the same songs over and over to form the soundtrack of my younger years. Sometime in the early 1980s the high-fidelity magazines and enthusiasts were discovering the magic of compact disks and digital recording for convenient size, high technical fidelity, and novelty. 

At first the listeners accustomed to vinyl and the analog capture of all ambient space and time with the instruments and mic'd voiced found fault with the surgical precision and "dry" clarity of the all-digital process DDD or ADD (Analog recording, Digital mastering, Digital playback). But as record stores slowly converted from bins of vinyl to drawers of jewel cases with CD sets, more and more turntables fell into disuse or were given away or put in storage. So the listener corner at the city library downtown in Grand Rapids in the spring of 2022 was a nice surprise; like seeing an old friend. The available disks to hear on site, or to take home (together with portable record player) number maybe 100, mostly pop music. But putting Side 1 or Side 2 onto the platter triggers muscle memories of countless times before when dropping the needle onto the surface, or gently raising it to move to a new groove on the album.

source, https://flickr.com/photos/anthroview/52177065248/

How did it sound to hear Elton John's well-known and his not often heard songs from Honky Chateau, or the ABC album from the Jackson 5 after perhaps 30 years bereft of trusty home turntable? Leaving aside the limitations of studios and tape-based mastering tracks in bygone years, the aural sensation of vinyl was like black velvet with jewels lit by gallery spotlighting: pure beauty in a sea of space. Whether it is modern mic technique, present-day gear and software intervention, or the essential nature of 1's and 0's to represent continuous waves of sound, it is hard to say, but so often the CD or streamed digital recordings put the clarity and stereophonic complexity into an up-front, total sound wall for the listener. Each mic and sound source is present, but overall the combined effect is that everything is pressed against a wall, like butterflies pinned to collecting cases. By contrast the vinyl experience (or is this just wishful imagining, trying too hard to feel for precious old-time differences) also faithfully captures each mic and source, but these occupy a bigger room-space or volume of air; not flattened into crystal clarity.

As well of vinyl, the physicality is part of the music interaction: of handling the album, admiring the art or liner notes, removing the disk and its anti-static sleeve, perhaps lovingly brushing any dust off the surface, then playing the album from start to finish (or jumping around the tracks by manually lifting and again lowering the needle). Around 2013 or 2014 people in their 20's took an interest in some of the older gear of their parents: film cameras, analog wrist watches, VHS recordings, and also collections of vinyl. Some indie musicians responded by setting themselves apart and issuing limited editions of vinyl versions of their online tracks and the CDs they sold at concerts. As a consequence, the few surviving pressing plants soon were overwhelmed by orders; new businesses arose to take some of the work. Searching out the old machinery and pensioners who still remembered how to run and repair and coax the very best results from the equipment was part of the complication. But now in 2022 there is a small but steady market for vinyl buyers of music. It is hard to know if this period from the 1920s to the 2020s for vinyl recording will persist so that future listeners can know the experience. For the moment, though, spinning a disk is a pleasant trip down memory lane.

source, https://flickr.com/photos/anthroview/52009307059/

 

Local knowledge of the cultural space at present in memories

Panorama at north end of downtown St. Johns, MI, looking south

After lunch on Saturday, June 4, there are a lot of cars parked in front of the two or three dozen stores along the town's main street, Clinton Avenue. But few pedestrians are in sight, nor are riders of the foreground biker trail to be seen. A larger version of this photo, complete with some pop-up comments is online elsewhere, but here the purpose will be to think about some of the elements that set apart local residents from outsiders who visit or who are newcomers now taking up residence for the first time.

Local residents acquire stories, personal memories, recollections from others, details gleaned from local writings and so on. The cumulative effect of so many puzzle pieces is a wide and intricate picture in the minds of those living here. It is not a snapshot, frozen in time, although there is the historical dimension of things that have already happened, sometimes revised or reframed in light of revelations or new life experiences to see things in hindsight in new light. Instead, the use of local knowledge lies in the sense of belonging (situating past self and future, aspirational self) that it makes possible, the everyday giving and receiving of recognition ("I have seen you around town" or "I know your family from way back") and social standing, and the ability to solve problems that are personal or larger, group and community-sized matters. By contrast, an outsider cannot presume to belong, to be recognized, or to know how to go about engaging in a local problem using local social capital and the available resources. Using outsider assets to solve big or small problems is also possible. But without local buy-in, there can be resentment, bruised feelings of authority and agency and status/standing, and the risk of smarter, local resources being overlooked in favor of the ones familiar to the outsider. Such interactions between insiders and outsiders occur for international development and aid programs, but also on a small scale for towns and cities in USA, for example. At a micro scale, when one spouse is local but the other is not, the bundle of social capital learned locally and rooted in the place can sometimes be better and other times be worse than the vision of the person who is free from local cultural baggage.

Turning to the problem-solving ability of residents with local knowledge at their fingertips, their way of defining the problem, creating a solution, and then identifying local sources to complete the process is something like the pre-Internet directory of personal and professional contacts recorded in a person's "Rolodex" - something built up little by little and absent from a newcomer's desk. The problem-solver knows who to contact, what the likely problem is and what the possible solution could be, where to go for answers or materials, when to carry out the process of solving the problem, and why the problem arose and why the solution is the right one. Outsiders might have a strategy or analogous experience to draw on, but the sources and resources will probably not be local ones.

Besides the reference knowledge of sources and methods, this locally grown knowledge also has a time dimension; there are matters that are historically bookended with start and end dates, or it could be something that is part of an annual cycle in which short-term events and opportunities and relationships become prominent at certain times and places. Using the above photo as an example, local residents will have a few cultural footnotes, memories, or aspirations anchored to some of the elements in the picture frame. In the annual cycle of events and changing weather during the year, local knowledge in the photo includes a nativity scene for Christmas near the center of the photo and across the street. There are memories of November 11 (Armistice Day, veterans day) speeches made near the canon at the center of the photo, including a parade of military vets and music from the high school marching band. Other parades often can be seen for Christmas (parading in the first week of December), for Memorial Day (last Monday in May), and sometimes for Independence Day (July 4). Since the 1980s the summer festival in early August, The Mint Festival, also includes a Saturday morning parade. Up and down the rows of merchants situated on Main Street the businesses have come and gone. So some residents will remember the location of long-ago shops that are invisible to others. In the 1960s and 1970s this slightly sloping street hosted the competition of home-built, gravity-powered cars for teens, called the "Soapbox Derby." At the interpersonal level of making meaning, both ordinary and extraordinary conversations and actions may stick in the minds of those who dined in restaurants, drank in bars, or lodged in the former Steel Hotel (burned down in 1975, right edge of the photo at the NW corner of Higham Street and Clinton Avenue).

Reading this article backward, not speaking from the standpoint of what a local resident knows, but from the position of a newcomer who wants a checklist of knowledge to seek out, ask for, or pay attention to, it is clear that there are many facets of meaning that have local roots and take time to grow. But by seeing exactly what it means to have local knowledge, it is easier to go about gaining it, whether that means a nearby town, in another part of the nation, or dwelling far from home in a country with completely different language and worldview. The anthropologist, Clifford Geertz (1926 - 2006), devoted an entire book to the subject of Local Knowledge; see below.

Local Knowledge: Further Essays In Interpretive Anthropology - Clifford Geertz - Google Books

Book power and the things that it makes possible

Assorted books on view from this "little free library" at street corner 

The city planners who build and repair water and sewer lines depend on reading and writing for their own design, record-keeping, and follow-up monitoring of projects. Likewise, the people who operate the heavy equipment rely on the written language, as do the creators of the tools and vehicles being used in this photo. All of this attention to written English starts with an ability to identify a relevant source book, open it and find the right page, then to read and retain what is there. This photo nicely juxtaposes books on the left and the infrastructure project on the right that printed words make possible.

The extended history of little sidewalk free books protected from the weather is probably chronicled on Wikipedia or another place online, but anecdotally in Michigan it was around 2014 that the first ones began to sprout here and there. It is impossible to know the change in book behavior as a result of free books positioned for "impulse reading" (unplanned, emotionally sparked appetite to hold and to own a book of one's own). Perhaps the total pages or number of titles being read across all demographic segments increased. Perhaps interest in print books, new or used, also increased.

In any case, although the relationship is not direct between the pages in this little library and the habits of reading and the day to day writing on-the-job by workmen, still the connection is there: once literacy is established, then a person can make use of it for personal or professional purposes. Perhaps there is an inverse expression of these outdoor book spots, a project not based on literacy but instead centered on orality; that is, appreciating and refining the spoken word. A few cities have experimented with "living books" in which volunteers show up for the appointed place and time to make themselves available to be "borrowed" and "opened up" by the library patrons. The volunteer invites listeners to hear the person's life story or episodes to pass down to the next generation.

This photo is a reminder of the importance of reading and the printed word, even in a time of online videos and text messages, where attention spans are limited to a screenful or two of letters and numbers. Without a system of written notation to capture knowledge and then distill wisdom, the oral-only life of many people would be much narrower than it is today, thanks to books and the ability to read and write them.

Millstone of 1834 is silent witness to early years

Coarse millstone at bottom center testifies to long Grand Rapids

Year after year, in cold weather or hot, people brought their grain to the mill near this location on the Grand River to run it through the rough surface of the rotating millstones to produce flour suitable for baking bread and other skillet or oven-made treats. Doubtless there is a full story about how the stones came to be (quarried locally, or transported ready made from another location) and how builders harnessed the river before its flow was controlled and it rose and fell with weather and seasons of the year. As well as stones and building, there is probably an interesting story about how a miller or millers gained training and experience before arriving on the scene. Once all the elements were in place, there remained only the matter of spreading the word among settlers and travelers passing this way that milling services were now in operation. Then with bags or bins of grain for the milling to produce flour, the farmer or merchant had to protect the grain in some sort of container before making use of it, day after day.

Looking at the silent stones in their present location near the east wall of the Grand Rapids Public Museum, overlooking the once untamed, unharnessed river, it is hard to imagine all the years these stones rotated while tons and tons of grain passed through to be transformed into flour. Countless souls were raised on the flour from these stones, from earliest solid food until the person's deathbed and the last morsel of bread tasted on this side of mortality. This one piece of technology was a common denominator for a majority of  local residents and those who bought the ready-ground flour that was distributed to stores in the surrounding county or counties. The sound of grinding stones and associated waterwheel machinery will have been the soundtrack to many people living nearby. Some of the particular facts are recorded on a bronze plaque attached to the stones on display.

FIRST MILL STONES (transcribed text, below)

 ...brought to Grand Rapids and placed in mill on Indian Mill Creek about 1834, removed by John Ball for a horse block in 1867 and donated by his heirs to the Kent Scientific Museum. Tablet placed by the Daughters of the American Revolution.

In the age of gas-powered automobiles transitioning reluctantly to electric vehicles, the mention of Horse Block may be baffling. Judging from the height of the mill stones, Mr. Ball took the decommissioned geological mass as a convenience to step from ground level up to a position closer the the horse's saddle, hence the name 'horse block'.

In this artifact intersects so many features of modern and ancient life. The connection to grain hearkens back to the Fertile Crescent where wild forms of wheat and barley trace their origins and the association of calorific surplus with permanent settlements, law codes and armed forces under the command of religious, political, and/or military heads. Hand in hand with grain cutting is grain grinding, first at the household, "as needed" scale, but later in organized and mechanized scale. Thousands of years later, the lessons of best grinding stone, best sources of power, and best varieties of grain for a given soil and temperature condition all came together in these stones at this place at this time. Prayers for [Lord God, may thou] "give us our daily bread" may be far less often spoken in 2022 than in 1822, but bread still does figure in to many city residents' routine variety of foods eaten throughout the year, although almost all of the flour is baked in factories and a few local bakeries, rather than by hand at home.

Even when the service life of these gritty stones ended, they were still useful to Mr. Ball and his horse for many years. By looking at traces of long-ago times like these mill stones some of the people and the lives they lived comes back to life. In this way the material culture that lingers long after the original makers and users have gone can accompany later generations into years to come. Not only does a little of the past live now in the present, but the reverse may be true, too: some of today was already existing when those long-ago people went about their business, following their routines, adapting to innovations that appeared, and dreaming of some indefinite time ahead that they themselves would not live to see but which their efforts - whether wise or foolish - would have consequences among people alive now in 2022.

Japan books - between insider and outsider views

Photos from three recent Japan books

Many times "cultural broker" can be substituted for the word and the work of ethnographer, cultural anthropologist, or social observer doing fieldwork among local residents. That is because the method of participant-observation calls for insider (participant) as well as outsider (observer) perspectives on what the curious person experiences (participant) and interprets (observer). Being in-between and functioning as a bridge between fully participant (local people) and fully spectators (visitors not from around that place) involves talking to both sides in ways that make sense to them. Hence the image of broker or go-between. The down-side of being in the middle is the "glass half-full" effect of missing out on some dimensions of local experience, while also missing out on some of the insights seen by outsiders. At the same time, though, this mid-way position allows a person to see and think of things invisible to the others.

This photo shows a few picture-dominant presentations of people, places, and things in present-day Japan. On the left is World Heritage Japan (John Lander 2019) with online map, https://bit.ly/WorldHeritageMap and on the top right is Tiny Tokyo (Ben Thomas 2014) and 100 Tokyo Sights (Stephen Mansfield 2020). For a non-Japanese with little or no knowledge base, a visual approach is immediately welcoming since little burden of language and history is required to explore the subject according to one's own tastes, habits, and preexisting interests. This is the outsider perspective; somebody on the outside looking in. The opposite is a local Japanese point of view in which some and possibly most of the showcased subjects are already familiar is some way, if not by personal or 2nd-hand reports, then by popular culture of mass media and perhaps some exposure during school days. Both positions, insider and outsider, include blind spots. For the outsider there are dimensions that go undetected, or if noticed then maybe underappreciated or that may be dismissed from ignorance. For the insider there is a risk of taken-for-granted skimming over aspects that are overly familiar already. In other words, Too Much Knowledge (overly familiar) and Too Little Knowledge (ignorance) accompany the insider and the outsider, respectively.

Consider a non-Japanese who is long-time Japan resident, is intermediate or advanced speaker of the language, and is connected to a diverse array of social relationships and obligations with Japanese. Such a person, for example Japan anthropologist or journalist, has bifocal vision: able to see things in the distance, but also able to see things in close-up detail, too. In this cultural broker person reside both of the risks described earlier, the possibility of taking for granted certain meanings and familiar significance, but also the possibility of bouncing off the surface like a passing tourist can easily do. At the same time, though, in this in-between position there is an opportunity to discuss cultural undercurrents visible to Japanese with them and also with outsiders. Likewise, the cultural broker can enter into conversation topics with non-Japanese and interject cultural footnotes, counterpoints, and interpretations only half-aware in the mind of the visiting observer of life in Japan.

Looking at the representation of Japan in these three books (designated Heritage sites, miniature-camera lens manipulation of locations, and seldom seen gems to visit in greater Tokyo) from the eye of a person who is both insider and outsider, the same pages can seem slightly exotic (what tourists might see in the photo) and also slightly ordinary (what nearby residents but also out-of-town Japanese might see in the photo). Take, for example, the officiants of the Shinto Shrine near the center of the composite photo. A Japanese might immediately think of the performance dimension (how well the people approximate to the expectations and ideals for quality of costume and attention to personal grooming, attention to details of ceremony and order of services, and so on) and hearken back to similar experiences at other locations and during other moments of one's own life trajectory. Things like novelty, theology, and hunger to seize on a small piece of interpretive insight are not too likely to be uppermost in the mind of the Japanese who sees the photo.

By contrast, a non-Japanese who sees this same scene for the first (or for the 20th) time may feel cultural, social, and linguistic separation from the people in the photo. Rather than focus on the performative and the personal memories attaching to the portrait, the outsider may drift into abstraction, noticing the textures, geometry, and soundscape that goes with the subject. Or the outsider may view the event as a kind of Reality TV in which the experience of spectating is uppermost in the person's mind: does this thing amuse me, teach me, or cause delight? In between the insider (Japanese) and the outsider (non-Japanese) is the viewpoint of the cultural broker. It could be a Japanese who trains in social science as a way to establish some distance from ordinary habits of seeing and thinking about things native to the person's own formative experience of growing up. Or it could be a non-Japanese who has trained in the language and life among Japanese in order to gain a functional ability to communicate and engage in the cultural landscape there. In either case, the in-between person can look at the photo of officiants in motion and see things that neither the outsider (abstraction, amusement) nor the insider (performative meaning, memory bank) are sensing.

All of the above standpoints may run through the mind of the cultural broker: performance expectations and personal memories for comparison, but also the vantage point from a distance in which artistic abstractness and possibly some small thrill of novelty also come to mind. In the company of outsiders this cultural broker can talk about some of the meanings, origins, and purposes of the officiants. And in the company of insiders the cultural broker can draw attention or the drift of conversation to questions that outsiders might like to know: how does one train to become an officiant, what are the economics of incoming sources of money balanced against expenses to be paid out, organizationally how does this instance fit into larger structures today and across the generations. Both insider and outsider may be content to see the officiants as 2-dimensional, cardboard cutouts doing their jobs. But a social commentator in between the inside and outside will be eager to see the officiants as whole people, not just ceremonial functionaries: who they were before training, who they aim to become as the years of experience accumulate, and what personal likes and dislikes color their experience of the role they perform in formal settings.

Flipping through the pictures and captions in these three books with the eye of a cultural anthropologist of Japan, there is a mixture of exoticness and of familiarity with other places and times experienced first-hand or in the pictures shared by others in print or online. A few subjects stand out for personal visits or experiences of them. These subjects exist as real places that one can plan a trip to visit. They are similar to many other instances seen over the years when living in Japan. At the same time, though, hints of unfamiliarity also come out of these pages: the names, spellings, history, associated events and personalities, and so on may be waiting to be researched. But in the casual browsing of the books, those particulars are absent in most cases. 

Another way to contrast the insider and outsider browsing of photos is that Japanese will have some personal or 2nd-hand knowledge of the subject (conocer in Spanish, "knowing personally"), while a non-Japanese has only book knowledge or spectator experience of the subject (saber in Spanish, "knowing the facts"). In English, though, these twin senses of "know" are blurred in a single word. Yet the difference between knowing (personally known) and knowing (facts learned) parallels the difference between insider (participant; Japanese) and outsider (observer; non-Japanese). So even something as casual and spontaneous as turning the pages of picture books can produce very different viewing experiences in the minds of insiders, outsiders, and those who stand in-between.

Fiber-optic Internet service coming soon

Swapping copper wires for fiber-optic lines 4 Feb. 2022 ZIP 49505

Despite the cold temperature the workers steadily string the surprisingly narrow gauge spools of fiber-optic cable along the path of existing copper lines. Rolling the clock back 10 years to 2012, smartphones were increasingly appearing in pockets and handbags around the country and wider world. The earlier transition from 2G (2nd generation) to 3G had been completed and the first rumors of 4G were described here and there. Currently on sale in stores and websites are the widespread availability of 5G handsets, despite fragmented operation of the towers and transmitters/receivers inside and outside of the USA. The past week or two the risk of 5G wavelengths interfering with airport flight operations has been in the news since one federal agency sells the use of certain frequencies of the radio spectrum (FCC) and another is concerned with safe flight operations (FAA). Little or no coordination between these parts of the government seems to have taken place. The sale of the 5G frequencies took place at the end of President Trump's term of office and only now when the wireless system near major airports is ready to start to fill the airwaves is the FAA raising concern with conflict to cockpit equipment that reports altitude above ground surface.

The photo shows residential service improvements to the pace of Internet data flowing in and out of household wifi hotspots. The existing provision via copper lines has more friction or restrictions on the amount of information flowing to and fro. As a result the experience of using the Internet during the prime time entertainment hours (from 7 to 10 p.m.) after residents return from work sometimes is frustrating when streaming video or audio is less than free-flowing.

On the biggest junctions and sites of Internet use at corporate, university, and government centers there has been an exclusive "Internet2" that is dedicated to the biggest bandwidth requirements of virtual reality, 3-D engagement, and real-time performing surgery at a distance. But for residential customers paying monthly for service at differing tiers (datarate and caps on cumulative bits of data up or downloaded), the advent of fiber-optic broadband in place of copper-based cables may well give a taste of the extreme speeds of the Internet2.

Much like museum visitors staring at an early vacuum tube radio mutely on display, or seeing an early retail TV with its screen blank, people who visit a future museum and see a PC or section of copper cable or one made with fiber-optic stands will understand only the surface of the artifacts, not the programming that entertained, informed, challenged, or created worldviews of (social media) citizens immersed for large parts of their waking hours in the bright and dark corners of the Internet. As for teaching future museum-goers about the Dark Web, that is even a bigger stretch of the imagination.

At first look, this photos seems to show a straight-forward job of upgrading the on-ramp to the Information Superhighway, as Vice-President Al Gore phrased the Internet for a generation unequipped to imagine such a thing, But acknowledging that "the medium IS the message," as Marshall McLuhan described the effects of endless advertising and consumer appeals, the increase in Internet speed, capacity, and reliability is much, much more than swapping copper cable and connectors for the fiber-optic kind. By many orders of magnitude, this in-reach to householders and out-reach from residential and business locations makes the world much smaller and immediate. What once seemed far away now is just a few clicks or bookmarked websites away. Time zones still exist, but with prerecorded content, it is possible to engage with someone or something asynchronously, rather than "live" only. As a result, events of a fixed date and time, and taking place far from the online participants can form extended dialogues not limited to synchronous, "real time" experiences. And once archived or hosted online in recorded, transcript form, people also far into the future can revisit the conversation or presentation, too. And so, this photo of the warmly dressed workers putting all the pieces together for an even freer flow of data is bound to lead to unexpected good and bad things, unintended (and perhaps unknowable) consequences that maybe will only be seen in hindsight.

Well stocked grocery-super store after Christmas holiday

 

Monday after 2021 Christmas on Saturday - so much in stock

When compared to the inventory size and variety at a convenience store or old-time "mom and pop" grocery store before the 1950s, the massive scale of the Superstore - combining general merchandise (department store) AND grocery store, along with pharmacy, automotive center, garden products - is really astounding for sheer abundance. This photo shows the extra-wide space for rapidly changing seasonal and specially priced goods at the end of the numbered aisles to the right and the non-grocery (department store) aisles left of this photo. For example, the stacks of packing boxes in yellow reaching from ankle to chest height offer bags of chocolate chips that are essential to the many variations on chocolate chip cookies. A shopper need only reach into the opening at the side of the carton to pull out as many bags as the wish. Not far away are 5# bags of all-purpose baking flour. Behind the lens is an ever shifting inventory of regionally brewed (craft) beer varieties. The numbered aisle to the right still add prominent display of featured items on the "end cap," but these massive pallet loads amplify the idea of "end cap" greatly, insisting on attention by shoppers since the cubes of product reach eye-level or higher and require care when navigating with one's giant shopping cart.

With so much space occupied, so much color, so much quantity of any given item in the grocery inventory, the general impression is one of abundance. If this is a feast for the eyes, then the visual effect can quickly lead to indigestion: Too Much Inventory. Projecting the full life-cycle of a foodstuff: it goes from source (field, ocean) to manufacture or processing and packaging and palletizing. Then truckers go from factory to depot distribution site before local delivery vehicles stock the retail level shelves. Once the consumer selects things for the shopping cart and either whiles away the time at checkout lane by browsing magazines and impulse purchases of candy and savory snacks, or else lines up for a turn at the self-checkout corral with one or two staff ready to trouble-shoot some of the scanning problems (alcohol sales requiring ID verification, mislabel/prices item, coupons not valid or not machine readable, double-counting of an item incorrectly swiped across the laser field, etc). Then, once consumed in whole or in part, the package is discarded and hauled away for solid waste (landfill) deposit, or sometimes it goes into the single-stream recycle curbside service in the city or town or countryside. In other words, looking back at this photo of such masses of products concentrated here, eventually each packet of chocolate chips will end up in a household within a 5 or 10-mile radius, then all these bags -once emptied- will end up during these next weeks and months scattered through the stream of solid waste carted away to the towering landfill ziggurat.

In summary, the scale and diversity of grocery (and department store) inventory today is astounding. Carts are scaled accordingly (the reverse of portion control: go big to encourage more buying). First-time shoppers can be intimidated as they gawk and wonder at the choices and the packaging volumes. Even long-time shoppers can sometimes express a slightly weary look, knowing how many steps their personal exercise calculator will record between arrival and checkout and exiting into the sea of cars filling the parking lot. Perhaps this kind of supply chain, display method, and business transaction is here to stay, forcing out of business almost all except the biggest regional and national stores.

Books organized and mental organization, too

 

Counseling office & church minister's study before moving day

Church ministers combine a life of the mind with a life in the community of worshipers and surrounding society, too. This photo shows some of the built-in bookcases in the minister's offices. The years of seminary and then the decades of leading a few different congregations, attending and presenting at conferences, and exchanging books with colleagues and church members has filled many shelves with books over the years. But the Covid-19 pandemic put a stop to normal face to face church life, confining it to online communication at first, then in summer 2021 with a hybrid of online together with in-person for those comfortable with the idea of mingling with others once again. Stalwart congregants got online or somehow kept in touch with some of their fellow believers. But others stopped participating casually as they would once do in seasonal high points of the church year.

Meanwhile, younger generations preoccupy themselves with things other than church fellowship and studies, praising and praying, and volunteering. Lifetime church members and friends move away, grow unable to participate freely, perhaps become sick or sometimes may die. The net result of declining attendance and therefore reduced donations of self and of money means that the fixed costs of the large property cannot be carried by the continuously shrinking body of believers. The church leaders brought a plan to the rest of the church to sell the old place and carry on the teachings of Jesus and community involvements at a smaller facility during a transitional year or two before resolving the best form to fit modern times and constraints while still supporting one another to "be God's person" or agent to enact positive change through action, relationships, and other times by inaction - being present, not just doing things.

This photo shows books organized by themes and thinkers for the current minister of the church in the weeks before vacating the old building and initiating church life in a much smaller setting so that effort, time, and money can be spent on community outreach and engagement rather than on maintenance and expenses of the 19th century worship space. The cases of books present a visual architecture of knowledge that has grown year by year organically, but which soon will be disassembled and fragmented into labeled boxes. This year by year structure of printed knowledge corresponds in some ways to the compartments and connections in the mind of the reader who has gathered these many authors of diverse eras and locations in one place. So while the physical edifice will soon be scattered into many cardboard boxes, the duplicate library inside the minister's head will remain in some ways.

National flag and personal life intersect at funeral

many meanings of the USA flag on the funeral hearse's front bumper

Late Wednesday morning, December 8, 2021, a funeral was getting underway. In the parking lot behind the church and the one across the street there were about 50 cars waiting to take people home or to the cemetery, if burial ceremonies were planned after the church service. In the context of 22 months of Covid-19 there is some chance that this life (or lives - since 2 hearses are positioned at curbside) was cut short directly by the virus, or indirectly that the hospital services were strained by the burden of unvaccinated people filling the hospital rooms and taking up the services there. But without stopping to talk to those present or searching for a published obituary, the cause of death is only guesswork.

The funeral hearse nearest to the camera displays the U.S. flag on the front bumper. Thinking of funeral customs for the other 200 national states, or for the many human societies that comprise the almost 7,000 languages that are spoken, surely this use of a national symbol on a personal and family-level matter is not common unless the deceased represents political leadership, national fame, or died in armed service (or veteran of military service). Without interviewing the owner of the hearse, its driver, or the company managers, along with the people attending the funeral, it is only speculation about possible significance (or more likely, multiple meanings) coming from the use of the national flag in connection with the dignified undertaking of funeral ceremonies and the safe conduct to and from the burial ground.

-Propriety (official, above-board, dignified, customary): This thread of meaning connects the person or business displaying the national flag to the country's wealth, fame, and all the life-affirming values that come with it. The darker chapters tend to fall into the shadows when the spotlight is fixed on the good things, though. In this photo, then, prominently exhibiting the flag (but not shouted loudly in oversize or multiplicity) assures like-minded people that the funeral company values and perhaps feels pride in belonging together with the present and the history associated with this banner. And for others who feel ambivalence about the mixed record of harm and healing carried out in the name of this flag, by displaying it out front, those who feel doubt will be put on notice that this vehicle and all those trailing behind it stand on the side of a positive accounting of the symbol and people connected to it.

-Authorized (halo-effect from close-association with the power of law and force): Seeing a flag in public as well as private spaces is a signifier that the proceedings are implicitly protected by the full faith and the rule of law of the land. In this photo, the presence of a national flag picture (or one made of cloth) seems to suggest that all procedures have been followed, duties fulfilled, and debts paid. No corruption should be suspected or expected or allowed.

-Conservative, button-down, standard-issue, government-conforming: Another meaning some will feel upon encountering a (USA; other countries have a different relationship of flag to citizens, no doubt) national flag is one of status quo; a sense that things will proceed as they have in the past.  No erratic, strange, or outlandish behavior is likely.

-Vocation (former government work for local, state, or federal employer): Before the funeral owner opened the business, perhaps he or she was a federal worker and/or a member of the military. In that case the flag signals the person's (or the company's) organic roots with Old Glory. The flag is part of their past work.

-Avocational (proud of team USA, symbols, popularly imagined history): Even when a person or organization has no direct connection to federal or national services and products, perhaps they feel strongly about expressing allegiance to this "one country, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all" (quoting the school child's Pledge of Allegiance recited many times). In that case, showing the national colors discretely in the panel reserved for a license plate in some states is an affirmation or aspirational statement.

-Personal history (recent immigrant or else a genealogy enthusiast with long roots in USA): The flag display on lapel, desk, office wall, or raised on a pole could also signify something particular for that person. For example, a "new" American may have come via career path and advanced studies, as an asylum seeker or refugee of disaster, or as family member of someone previously establishing American citizenship by birth or marriage, for instance. In that case, a sense of ownership and belonging and gratitude, among many other possible mixed feelings could be carried by the visual presence of the banner. In a related but different way, someone who has looked deeply into family histories may feel a multi-generational sort of loyalty or allegiance to the many people, places, and things symbolized by the flag.

-Personal identity (define and view oneself by the category of flag and anthem more than by local ties): Some people see themselves, and are regarded by others, as a patriot and outspoken supporter of the things that the flag stands for in that person's mind. Others downplay their national citizenship and the source of their passport and build their identity instead on a foundation of the wider planet, or conversely, on a foundation of the immediate surroundings of their town or county. However, for the person who wants to be known, and feels most satisfied in seeing herself or himself, in national terms, then displaying the flag is a particularly personal statement; a sort of credo for who they are.

This list of possible meanings conveyed by a public display of the United States flag is not exhaustive; there are probably other sorts of significance being purposefully or subconsciously expressed when making a decision to put a flag on view. Realistically, the uppermost meaning in the eye of the beholder, the eye of the one displaying, or in the mind of others just passing by will be a combination of factors rather than a single dominant meaning. And for complicated, context-dependent meanings, it may well be that much lies underwater, like the bulk of an iceberg: part can be seen and discussed, but the greater part is unseen and is hard to put into words. So, directly asking a person what comes to mind when they see the flag might only turn up a few meanings or hints of meanings rather than a fully formed verbal response.

In any case, though, for the funeral company staff their minds are focused on providing professional and personal care for the people in mourning. The attention of the family and friends participating in the ceremonies is occupied with the events as they unfold minute by minute, the feelings that come up in themselves and in those nearby. It is probably only in the mind and lens of a passer-by that such considerations about the meanings of the national flag are studied in reflection. And yet, even for the funeral workers and the mourners, at least a little of the flag's presence and the meanings it triggers will be present, whether or not they stop to imagine the many kinds of meanings that arise when personal life and national symbols meet each other.

Cultural landscape at bus stop - Forensic Brainstorming

mid-morning heap of possessions at bus stop (8 Dec. 2021)

At first "brainstorming" and "forensic interpretation" appear to be opposite in purpose. One is meant to open up possibilities, unrestrained by ordinary habits of perception. The other is meant to eliminate all except the (single-most) probable explanation. But upon seeing this collection of clothing, backpack, and other personal items, the pool of possible meanings began to come into mind (brainstorming). But more than idle interpretation, instead I proceed with a view to turning up something close to the true significance of this sight (forensic scrutiny). However, in the end, this is an exercise in social commentary, so no DNA samples are going to the lab; no missing persons reports will be consulted; and no enhanced magnification of the contents will be inventoried. Instead, an initial pool of meanings will be offered in order to turn up some or all of the actual interpretation for this strange sight.

Brainstorming some lines of interpretation, in no particular order. (1) Donation deposited halfheartedly (casual, careless, anonymous versus carefully calculated to fit a particular person frequently at this location). (2) Discarding unwanted items in halfhearted attempt to donate to another person. (3) Dropped in haste by a person carrying too many pieces of luggage to board the bus. (4) Discovered by a passer-by who noticed a bus rider losing the things en route to this location. The good Samaritan picked up the things and brought them to that bus stop supposing that the rider may well return at some point. (5) Demonstration of interpersonal malice or ill will: dumping the possessions of the person diminished in the eyes of the person depositing the things in a pile here. (6) Dithering by the person who received these donated things. At first they carry the things to the bus stop, then studying them more carefully, the person discards unwanted parts there and then, keeping only the items desired. (7) Distress by the person fleeing a person or vehicle: drop these things and run. (8) Dumped items stolen from nearby laundromat's washer or dryer.

Each of these initial interpretations of the heap of clothing is a self-contained story, but very often the true sequence of events is not simple or single cause, single effect. Instead there could be a set of events or sequence of circumstances that intersect at the moment of decision that produces the sight in view here. In other words, while there may be some truth in one or more of the string of imagined self-contained situations leading to the heap of clothing, above, it may well be that there is some combination of the interpretations here, along with other factors not yet imagined in the list. The habit of overthinking and projecting meanings where none were originally present is well known. Less well known, though, is "underthinking" a problem or a general lack of imagination to solve the case. And yet, it is somewhere between thinking too much and too little that the most progress can be made with "forensic brainstorming."

In summary, are these possessions "single-use" (disposable), a person's entire stock of worldly goods, or maybe somewhere in-between? Beyond the relationship of the items to the person or persons, though, what is the social condition of the person(s): unhoused and bereft of supporting social fabric, homeless but migrating from one hosting friend or family member to the next, a traveler who is in the city only long enough to get to the other side, someone is distress from alcohol/drug use disorder, or a person who is unable to secure and maintain a fixed residence where personal belongings like these can be kept? Without investigating further or actually meeting the person last touching the things when they were abandoned, it is impossible to compose a complete picture of the meaning of these belongings at the bus stop.