The Multitudes Five
Week Five • Spring • Year One
Each Friday, I publish The Friday Five, a weekly ledger drawn from the shop floor, the windshield, and the workbench.
The structure borrows its language from the old farmer’s almanacs, those annual guides that combined observation, wisdom, tools, and seasonal preparation in one place.
Walt Whitman didn’t rank things, he noticed them: the crowd and the individual; the sacred and the profane; the extra and the ordinary.
He moved easily between micro and macro, shadows and light, never asking permission, never insisting on hierarchy. He made room for everything. The natural fluctuations I experienced this week felt like movements Whitman would recognize: nothing too loud nor declarative. I was met with a series of moments whispering to be paid attention to—some public, some private, all worth holding onto a little longer than usual.
Proverb
“I am large, I contain multitudes.”
— Walt Whitman
This classic TV moment from Ted Lasso’s 8th episode in season 1, entitled "The Diamond Dogs" (Sept 18, 2020) gets at this notion from another of Whitman’s angles—curiosity over judgment, attention over assumption: different language, same posture.
Tool
My college mentor’s book, Writing Dialogue.
Tom Chiarella’s seminal book on the subject of writing in a conversational tone provides a series of tools honed to enliven the senses. Each aids in noticing without deciding what it is too quickly, allowing whatever you’ve encountered linger long enough to reveal itself and manifest new ways of considering the world around you.
Sounds simple, right? It’s an exercise I’ve been practicing from first read well over 25 years ago, and I still find myself baffled by what I glean from it and as importantly by what I miss.
This week, inspired by Whitman (and Chiarella by proxy), I’ve been trying to stay in the batters’ box of paying attention for as long as the robot umpires will allow it.
Text
There’s something about hearing large swaths of Whitman’s ethereal words spoken aloud that brings him–and them–closer to the ground; less literary, more exploratory, more immediate, like a person trying to make sense of his surroundings in real time.
In this recent clip from The Late Show, Edward Norton reads Whitman in this way: not performative nor overly reverent, just… present.
As longtime readers of my work may recall, I took the end of David Letterman’s run on CBS harder than I expected to (#socksfordave, anyone?)
We’re nearing another one of those moments.
There’s a quiet sense that here, in the late innings of Stephen Colbert’s time behind that desk, things have begun to feel different. Each moment gets highlighted, underlined, emboldened, projected onto a different plane of existence….
Signal
… which is why Maggie Rogers’ rendition of Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer’s American Standard “One for My Baby” carries a quiet lineage with it.
Bette Midler sang it to Johnny Carson on his final night hosting The Tonight Show, bringing a tear to the host’s eye. It was a moment that marked the end of more than just a show; it was the end of a way of doing things.
Rogers cover nods to the end of yet another way of doing things, no pronouncement needed. It’s a subtle acknowledgment that something familiar is dying.
The song remains the same, imbued evermore with new meaning. The river rolls on, taking with it only that which has broken loose from the foundation.
Weather Advisory
Low noise, high signal. A quieter stretch than usual. Don’t rush to fill it.
Favor observation over reaction. Hold off on conclusions. What feels indistinct now will sharpen with a little more time.
There’s more to be gained this week from noticing than declaring. Let things sit a beat longer than you normally would. Not everything needs to be resolved right away.
On the Workbench
Twenty years ago, I started mapping something I didn’t quite have the language to finish. It began as a question about a single shoe, and turned into a much broader curiosity about the many ways a simple canvas upper and a vulcanized sole have been shaped, re-shaped, and reinterpreted across time and place. So, I let it sit.
This week, I went back and found the work I’d started, realizing I didn’t need to start over. I just needed to see it more clearly and finally see it through.
I’m building it out properly now—a working field guide to white canvas footwear: what to look for, what’s worth knowing, and where most of the real differences actually live.
Originally published in The All Plaidout Almanac on Substack, April 3, 2026.