Dennis Kennedy

I'm always intrigued by unexpected patterns and convergences. As the commercials say, it helps me "think different."

In Des Moines last week, I was given a gift for giving the keynote speech at the joint fall meeting of the Mid-America Association of Law Libraries and the Minnesota Association of Law Librarians, some of the nicest people you'll ever meet. My gift was a book of photographs of Iowa barns by Michael Harker.

The book was quite appropriate for me, even though they didn't know that I had spent quite a bit of time while growing up on my grandparents' farm in Indiana. My brother now lives at the farm. The barn at the farm always showed its age and wear, and a few years ago, it had to be torn down. It's still a little unsettling not to see it when we go to the farm.

I'll be darned if there isn't a picture of a barn on the cover of this book that reminds me of that old barn. The book itself documents a passing era of barns and I've enjoyed it greatly.

Here's where the synchronicity comes into the picture. In today's mail, out of the blue, I got a sample copy of Metropolis, the design magazine. The cover story on the November 2004 issue is about the way digital design is reshaping the American farmhouse. The picture of the farmhouse and barn on the cover have a Frank Gehry look and feel and reflect a reworking of the traditional farmhouse style. It's cool.

I love the convergence of these two things and am curious to see how they percolate together and what new ideas come from them.