Next to each other on the shelf at Safeway this afternoon
Top: “Now 15% More!” Weighing in at 14 Oz. for $2.99
Bottom: “Classic Vanilla” Weighing in at 16 Oz for $2.99
To be fair you get a 15% bigger container to throw away.
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Even though a cloud’s white curtain in a far-off corner flashed
An’ the hypnotic splattered mist was slowly lifting
Electric light still struck like arrows, fired but for the ones
Condemned to drift or else be kept from drifting
Tolling for the searching ones, on their speechless, seeking trail
For the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale
An’ for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
Starry-eyed an’ laughing as I recall when we were caught
Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended
As we listened one last time an’ we watched with one last look
Spellbound an’ swallowed ’til the tolling ended
Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an’ worse
An’ for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you foredefeated
Challengers of oblivion
Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down,
The square-limbed Roman letters
Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as well
Builds his monument mockingly;
For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun
Die blind and blacken to the heart:
Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained
thoughts found
The honey of peace in old poems.
— Robinson Jeffers
Reason will not decide at last; the sword will decide.
The sword: an obsolete instrument of bronze or steel,
formerly used to kill men, but here
In the sense of a symbol. The sword: that is: the storms
and counter-storms of general destruction; killing
of men,
Destruction of all goods and materials; massacre, more or
less intentional, of children and women;
Destruction poured down from wings, the air made accomplice,
the innocent air
Perverted into assassin and poisoner.
The sword: that is: treachery and cowardice, incredible
baseness, incredible courage, loyalties, insanities.
The sword: weeping and despair, mass-enslavement,
mass-torture, frustration of all hopes
That starred man’s forehead. Tyranny for freedom, horror for
happiness, famine for bread, carrion for children.
Reason will not decide at last, the sword will decide.
His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block,
Or trampled by insistent feet
At four and five and six o’clock;
And short square fingers stuffing pipes,
And evening newspapers, and eyes
Assured of certain certainties,
The conscience of a blackened street
Impatient to assume the world.
I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.
Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;
The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots.
— Eliot
The scientists are in terror
and the European mind stops
Wyndham Lewis chose blindness
rather than have his mind stop.
Night under wind mid garofani,
the petals are almost still
Mozart, Linnaeus, Sulmona,
When one’s friends hate each other
how can there be peace in the world?
Their asperities diverted me in my green time.
A blown husk that is finished
but the light sings eternal
a pale flare over marshes
where the salt hay whispers to tide’s change
Time, space,
neither life nor death is the answer.
And of man seeking good,
doing evil.
In meiner Heimat
where the dead walked
and the living were made of cardboard.
Even though a cloud’s white curtain in a far-off corner flashed
An’ the hypnotic splattered mist was slowly lifting
Electric light still struck like arrows, fired but for the ones
Condemned to drift or else be kept from drifting
Tolling for the searching ones, on their speechless, seeking trail
For the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale
An’ for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
Starry-eyed an’ laughing as I recall when we were caught
Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended
As we listened one last time an’ we watched with one last look
Spellbound an’ swallowed ’til the tolling ended
Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an’ worse
An’ for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
Gerard Van der Leun
Comments on this entry are closed.
I ought to comment on a material property known as “density”, but I’m more interested in reading the commentary this post will evoke from your proletariat following.
Maybe it’s a warning label…”Now 15% More Expensive!”
I’m not gonna do the math.
Wow! I just saved $2.99. That stuff is mainly sugar and grease, not part of a healthy breakfast. I’ll spend the money on beer, once called “the runner’s most perfect beverage.” And great for breakfast, especially with leftover pizza.
Hmmmm…they also look suspiciously like soup cans. Chicken whipped cream, anyone?
edaddy-
I could provide a learning moment for you about mass vs volume (and about making dense statements), but I won’t.
Edaddy thinks I am a plebeian?
Whoops. I meant we. The collective.
10X and milk and vanilla
hit it with the wisk on the mixer and set your tastebuds on high
don’t need no can full of chemicals
TJ obviously belongs to the bourgeoisie. He probably also owns a gun. That means he hates women, gay people, black people, peoplekind and … kittens!
I absolutely LOVE kittens. My kitty absolutely loves me, too. Kitten videos, OMG!? TJ is evil and should go to prison for, like, everrr because I think he hates kittens.
We’ve created a dynasty for our 5 cats. Though they are all gurlz they live like kings, deservedly.
Driving around ruralville way back when I observed that almost nobody has a screened in porch on their house. Lot’s of open decks, but with the plethora of insects in the summertime, most of them are vacant, thus the need for screened enclosures. But nobody thinks that far ahead I guess. Our house was no exception so within a year I built, with my own hands, and 28′ long, 2 story, screened in porch for our cats as they love to sit out there and observe the wildlife and the sun.
I’m from Florida and it is the rare home that does not have at least 1 screened in porch. A porchless house simply will not sell in the marketplace. They are mandatory for the insects will consume you. Here in ruralville not only are screened in porches extremely rare the materials for creating them are rare also. When building ours I found out that 20/20 screen material (20 squares per inch each direction) were just not available at any cost. Larger screening was available but the holes were so large entire fleets of insects could come inside toting their luggage. So I ordered what I needed from Florida and paid huge shipping costs because of the size. I needed 8′ wide material to do what I wanted. So the chore got done, 10+ years ago, and each evening in the weather appropriate days my wife and I sit out there on that west facing porch and sip our wine/mud/suds and watch the sunset and converse, with our 5 cats and 1 dog lounging about, as it should be.
Gerard, why are you hanging out in the frosting aisle? You know it’s Lent, right?
This is easy, it’s just “New Math.”
It’s simple: One pound (16 oz.) for $2.99; or get 15% more for the same price. Now 15% of 16 oz. is 2.4 oz. so carry the 3 and divide. See how simple that is? Or, you can get 14 oz., which is 2 oz. less than the one pound, for the even cheaper price of $2.99, but then you’ll miss out on getting that 15% extra! That was pretty obvious, but after kindergarten it does get more complex; you just have to remember, the string goes on the longest finger. Then Bob’s your uncle!
Why, any teacher of Common Core could do this. Just ask ’em! It’s the same exact math as used by Government Departments everywhere, particularly the I.R.S!
A couple of decades ago someone in a food lab noticed that if you whipped some air into stiff, hard-to-spread things like frosting and cream cheese, it was easier to spread. It didn’t tear up the cake or the bagel. Then it went to focus groups where they tested different densities, to find the ones consumers like the most. Finally, they paid companies to have someone stand in the store, spreading the stuff on something, to demonstrate how easy it was. Printed coupons were handed out with the samples, offering 40 cents off that $2.99 price.
They also found out they could charge the same price, and in some cases a higher price, for less product (by weight). Win win all around!
You would not believe how much money is being spent these days to find new variations on the snack bars (Lara, Clif, Nature Valley, Quaker). Do people want three squiggles of chocolate on top, or two? The lesser make folks feel virtuous, and if one is liberal in political outlook, virtuous in one area allows you to cheat in other areas, without guilt. We all knew this, or had observed it, but it’s Science! now. Snack bars are a big, big category that didn’t exist in 1974. Have you eaten a Clif bar? They are dense and bursting with healthiness. After you eat one, you reach for another, because that wasn’t very much. And then you stop, because that one little bar is sitting in your tummy like a chunk of lead, and you really don’t want to eat anything else. Thus, it’s slimming.
Hershey does that, makes a bar twice as big as the others cause it’s pumped full of air, and they charge twice as much. It had been years since I ate Hersheys anything and recently I ate a standard bar and the bitch was completely flavorless. WTF? Tasted like soft chewable plastic. How do they keep selling those things?
Clif Bars. Tried one of those expensive things recently too. Never again. Was like eating ground up cardboard that had been mixed with elmers glue. And yes, it felt like I ate a spare tire, for the rest of the day. Never again.
Inflation, the real one we all see everyday – not the fake one which is much lower that the gov’t puts out, is causing food manufacturers to up with clever ways to prevent you from realizing you are getting less and paying more.