Illustration: The New York Times; Cars and sign: Michael Appleton for The New York Times; Horn at right and goose: Associated Press; Horn at left: Agence France-Presse â€" Getty Images Please share your honking haiku with us.So the city is taking down all those “No Honking†signs, as The New York Times reported Tuesday, having concluded that their efficacy is, at best, uncertain.
But honku will endure forever â€" perhaps even drawing strength from this act of bureaucratic capitulation to the forces of noise pollution.
Honku, huh you ask. Why, haiku about honking, a form invented in 2001 by a Brooklyn-based Web designer named Aaron Naparstek, who with his neighbors distilled their annoyance with neighborhood motorists into keenly observed three-line missives of five, seven and five syllables, like:
When the light turns green
like a leaf on a spring wind
the horn blows quickly.
and
Gruesome hit and run
fatalities up ahead
how awful â€" I’m late.
The little poems caught on, spinning off a Web site, a book and, incidentally, a career for Mr. Naparstek as a clean-transportation advocate.
Mr. Naparstek, who worked for Transportation Alternatives and founded Streetsblog, is in Massachusetts this! school year teaching in M.I.T.’s urban planning department. Reached by phone on Tuesday, he said he had dimly heard about the city’s move.
“I’m just assuming that the signs are coming down because the honking problem must have been solved, am I not correct†he asked. “I’m sorry not to be in New York City to experience the victory and the sweet sound of silence. But I’m happy for the people in New York.â€
Perhaps Mr. Naparstek is not kidding as much as he thinks he is, and the fanfare-played-upon-the-steering-wheel is gradually fading from the city soundscape. Perhaps the music of the automotive horn is here to stay.
Either way, won’t you share your own honku with us in the comments
