Like a lot of new businesses, it started as a lark. Stacey Blankenbaker and Elaine Romanelli were at an outdoor concert in San Francisco in 1996, waiting for the post-music fireworks. They began writing haiku about the people and things around them. That was nothing unusual; as housemates a few years earlier, they had become fascinated by the spartan Japanese form of poetry with the strict structure -- 17 syllables in three lines of 5-7-5. "Anytime something happened around the house, we'd write a haiku," recalls Blankenbaker, '93, MA '94. "We'd go through the day counting syllables on our fingers," says Romanelli, '93. But at the concert in Justin Herman Plaza, they took the next step, tearing a paper bag in half and making a banner that read: "Support the Arts." For 50 cents, they'd interview you and then write you a personal haiku. They made $17 that evening, thanks to a $10 tip from "a guy in a tuxedo."
Okay, so it wasn't pay dirt. But they had a good time -- and even gave their "company" a name, Hanabi Haiku. (Hanabi means "fireworks" in Japanese.) These days they tend to set up shop in bars in San Francisco's Mission District, where more often than not they're paid with free drinks. "We dispense life wisdom," says Blankenbaker. Needless to say, they've kept their day jobs -- Romanelli as a classical singer, Blankenbaker as a children's advocate. They wrote this haiku for Farm Report: Stars in Stanford mag/Two poetic fuzzy grads/Aren't our mothers proud?
