honku madness
Apr. 30th, 2002 03:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wickedfleaGreat article from The New Yorker on some badass haiku:
Copyright 2002 The Conde Nast Publications, Inc.
The New Yorker
March 25, 2002
SECTION: The Talk Of The Town -- MAD AS HELL DEPT.; Pg. 39
LENGTH: 595 words
HEADLINE: THE BASHO OF HONK
BYLINE: NICK PAUMGARTEN
Most New Yorkers, at some point or other, have been tempted to hurl semi-solid objects at automobiles operated by drivers who lean too heavily on the horn. A few days before Christmas, Aaron Naparstek had the urge. It was around noon. He was working at home, in a third-floor apartment in the Cobble Hill section of Brooklyn, while outside, on Clinton Street, the cars were backed up and, as usual, honking away. This stretch of Clinton, one block south of Atlantic Avenue, is often jammed, owing to the timing of various traffic lights, so it tends to be one of the city's car-horn hot spots, right up there with Broome Street and Herald Square.
"I'd reached my limit," Naparstek, who is thirty-one and works as a web-site producer, said last week. He recalled that one car in particular, "a shitty little blue sedan," was issuing forth a single, sustained honk. After at least a minute of this, Naparstek got up from his desk and calmly walked toward the kitchen, thinking, If he's still leaning on that horn when I get back, he's going to get it. The honker was still leaning when Naparstek threw open his window. "I want windshield," Naparstek vowed, and hurled three eggs, in quick succession, down onto the blue sedan. The first hit the trunk, the second the roof, the third the windshield, just as the driver was getting out of the car. "He was a fireplug, balding, fortyish-a Brooklyn man of indeterminate ethnicity," Naparstek said. "He went ballistic. He yelled up at me, 'I see where you live, motherfucker! I'm coming back tonight! I'm gonna kill you!' He kept saying this, over and over. 'I'm gonna kill you!' Then the other cars started blasting their horns at him.
"After he drove away," Naparstek went on, "I realized, I am insane now. I have become the honking, and the honking has become me. I cannot throw eggs. It is bad and wrong. But I can't just do nothing, either."
That night, to calm himself, he wrote about twenty haiku about honking, which he called "honku." He made fifty printouts of each, numbered them, and, in early January, began affixing them to lampposts around the neighborhood. The first to appear was:
He found the act of posting this first honku therapeutic, so he posted some more:
One day, he went out to put up another round and discovered that there were new honku on the lampposts, composed by others. Soon the lampposts were wrapped in honku by a variety of anonymous neighborhood honkuists:
Throughout the winter, there have been dozens of honku, which have helped give rise to a shadow antihonk movement. "No doubt, this has raised consciousness of the honking," Naparstek said. "Literally moments ago, there was a huge blast of honking, and I heard a guy yell, 'What's the point?' I looked outside, and he was walking down the street with his girlfriend, pointing to a sign on the street that reads 'No Honking-$125 Penalty.' "
Now Naparstek is thinking of suing the Taxi and Limousine Commission over the decibel level of the horns on Ford Crown Victorias (that is, most cabs). He is also moving ahead with plans to blanket the neighborhood with "honkards": detachable messages, like those tearaway help-wanted tags, that passersby can hand to honkers as the need arises. One such honkard reads, "How would you like it if I walked up to your open window and shouted at the top of my lungs: 'Hoooooonnnnnnnk!' Wait, let's see."
"That's something I've done before, actually," Naparstek said. "You have to be careful. People go nuts. I honked a guy, and he got so angry he was making gurgling sounds."
Copyright 2002 The Conde Nast Publications, Inc.
The New Yorker
March 25, 2002
SECTION: The Talk Of The Town -- MAD AS HELL DEPT.; Pg. 39
LENGTH: 595 words
HEADLINE: THE BASHO OF HONK
BYLINE: NICK PAUMGARTEN
Most New Yorkers, at some point or other, have been tempted to hurl semi-solid objects at automobiles operated by drivers who lean too heavily on the horn. A few days before Christmas, Aaron Naparstek had the urge. It was around noon. He was working at home, in a third-floor apartment in the Cobble Hill section of Brooklyn, while outside, on Clinton Street, the cars were backed up and, as usual, honking away. This stretch of Clinton, one block south of Atlantic Avenue, is often jammed, owing to the timing of various traffic lights, so it tends to be one of the city's car-horn hot spots, right up there with Broome Street and Herald Square.
"I'd reached my limit," Naparstek, who is thirty-one and works as a web-site producer, said last week. He recalled that one car in particular, "a shitty little blue sedan," was issuing forth a single, sustained honk. After at least a minute of this, Naparstek got up from his desk and calmly walked toward the kitchen, thinking, If he's still leaning on that horn when I get back, he's going to get it. The honker was still leaning when Naparstek threw open his window. "I want windshield," Naparstek vowed, and hurled three eggs, in quick succession, down onto the blue sedan. The first hit the trunk, the second the roof, the third the windshield, just as the driver was getting out of the car. "He was a fireplug, balding, fortyish-a Brooklyn man of indeterminate ethnicity," Naparstek said. "He went ballistic. He yelled up at me, 'I see where you live, motherfucker! I'm coming back tonight! I'm gonna kill you!' He kept saying this, over and over. 'I'm gonna kill you!' Then the other cars started blasting their horns at him.
"After he drove away," Naparstek went on, "I realized, I am insane now. I have become the honking, and the honking has become me. I cannot throw eggs. It is bad and wrong. But I can't just do nothing, either."
That night, to calm himself, he wrote about twenty haiku about honking, which he called "honku." He made fifty printouts of each, numbered them, and, in early January, began affixing them to lampposts around the neighborhood. The first to appear was:
He found the act of posting this first honku therapeutic, so he posted some more:
One day, he went out to put up another round and discovered that there were new honku on the lampposts, composed by others. Soon the lampposts were wrapped in honku by a variety of anonymous neighborhood honkuists:
Throughout the winter, there have been dozens of honku, which have helped give rise to a shadow antihonk movement. "No doubt, this has raised consciousness of the honking," Naparstek said. "Literally moments ago, there was a huge blast of honking, and I heard a guy yell, 'What's the point?' I looked outside, and he was walking down the street with his girlfriend, pointing to a sign on the street that reads 'No Honking-$125 Penalty.' "
Now Naparstek is thinking of suing the Taxi and Limousine Commission over the decibel level of the horns on Ford Crown Victorias (that is, most cabs). He is also moving ahead with plans to blanket the neighborhood with "honkards": detachable messages, like those tearaway help-wanted tags, that passersby can hand to honkers as the need arises. One such honkard reads, "How would you like it if I walked up to your open window and shouted at the top of my lungs: 'Hoooooonnnnnnnk!' Wait, let's see."
"That's something I've done before, actually," Naparstek said. "You have to be careful. People go nuts. I honked a guy, and he got so angry he was making gurgling sounds."
