I just found a fascinating quote from a NY Times interview with Thomas Pakenham who has authored 2 photography books on trees. I blogged it to Joi Ito’s post on Alex Kerr because it perfectly supports Kerr’s thesis on Japan and it’s environment.
NY Times – A Writer Leaves History Behind to Celebrate Trees
Q. In the new book, you confess to a loathing for bonsai. What is so bad about bonsai?
A. They give me the creeps. I never would want to be involved with a bonsai. Because they cut all the living material of the root, except the youngest growth, in order to confine it to this prison of a pot. It’s like tying Chinese women’s feet. Natural bonsai can be rather moving. Sometimes you see them growing out of rocks on mountains and surviving in terribly hostile environments, and that is moving.