Human Flower Project
Change is Language
Change Is Language
La Grange, Texas, 2020
The last message here, nearly nine years ago, turned to poet David Ignatow to disclose a season of withering. At the time, we had no other language for that but neglect.
Then in August 2019, our webhost shut down. People who still checked on Human Flower Project from time to time notified us that it had vanished.
Once we contacted the hosting company six months thereafter and were told nothing could be retrieved, the language of neglect was transposed to regret. We’d published for eight years, not just our own efforts but the works of enormously talented others — writers, photographers, researchers — all of whom had become friends.
There were notebooks left, stray files, and some very homely pdfs of every page created one tedious, though prescient, summer. Could these somehow be transformed into HTML and re-presented through another webhost without agony? Some good advisors only shuddered.
WayBackMachine is the brainchild of Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat who, collecting backward, were actually looking into the future when, for a thousand reasons, information once posted on the web could be – would be – lost. How our humble blog made it into this magnificent digital library is a mystery, one for which we are amazed and profoundly grateful.
2022 arrived with incentive for resolutions. We decided to pour out the woeful story to a new friend, computer genius Greg W. (abbreviated so as not to crush him with more requests for help). Ever curious and never one to give up, Greg began poking around in whatever manner wizards do. He came upon waybackmachine and discovered there hundreds of HFP webpages that had been archived.
With Greg’s help, and lots of further assistance from Mohamed at waybackmachine downloader, we are able to revive Human Flower Project. The search feature is functioning but other elements may not have “translated” into wordpress smoothly. Perhaps in time.
Yes, Mr. Ignatow. Change indeed is language, in our case very literally. We’re slowly learning the language of WordPress.
And in the years since ignoring the site we’ve been increasingly devoted to studying Spanish. That challenge has involved a good deal of withering, also new friends, new growths. Human Flower Project has always aspired to be international. As we celebrate the spring equinox and the re-publication HFP, we hope to grow toward bilingualism.
Es decir, Spanish-speaking folklorists, gardeners, horticulturalists, we especially welcome you, as readers and as collaborators.
Folcloristas, antropólogos, jardineros, horticultores, les damos la bienvenida especialmente a ustedes, como lectores y como colaboradores.
¡Adelante!