Showing posts with label consumerism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label consumerism. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

The Walk to Pig Out

The annual 'Pig Out in the Park' was happening all last week. Only a few blocks away with lots of greasy food, pretty good music and so on--something to do for an evening.

Lourdes-those Catholics really know how to build a pretty church. I'm not catholic, much less religious but I still attend mass here occasionally as it pleaseth my soul.

Nordstrom: You want a sweet little $500 sweater for the fall season-get it here.

The ever popular ode to greasy carnival food and the myth of abundance: The Pig Out in the Park. I don’t eat much meat so the whole thing struck me as a bit repulsive (I occasionally eat chicken or fish when feeling especially saucy or when someone else is paying, but fish etc. don’t have feelings, so it’s OK, sort of). My biggest impression from the whole affair was the stench of about 20 separate flavors of spent fry oil mingling through the air...pretty vile and ironic considering that the smell of food cooking is usually delightful.

I had to escape from that unpleasant fried oil smell, so I here am with my son’s friend in the beer garden trying, rather successfully, to act like an idiot. I thought the hand signal was ‘cool’, something I must have seen in ‘Wayne’s World’ or something…little did I know, I was actually invoking Satan…check it out here.

Here is the son-Brendan. He’s standing in front of some public art on the border of Riverfront Park. Like most art specified by bureaucrats, pretty lame stuff, but someone had the brilliant idea of putting tags on the runners with names of local area kids killed in the Iraq war-now it all means something. I'm thankful that he's here and not on one of those tags.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Only in the USA

Where else do we obsessively stay the course…thumb our collective noses at global warming, etc?

Where else in the world can one see a fridge, in the middle of summer (almost), on a street corner, dispensing ‘the official soft drink of NASCAR’...nice touch, eh?

The hidden hand, the 'genius' of the marketplace at work I suppose, don’t really get it….but, hey…it’s been fun...

Sunday, April 01, 2007

Another monkey story

I look at this and ask myself…what were you thinking of? My normally discriminating taste in objets d’art was apparently absent the day I spied it. Well, the artist was a cool guy who was really putting it out there, something that should be encouraged, right? So, I wanted to support him in his quest and thought I should get something and the monkey pic was the least expensive painting he had on display. At the time I thought it was great...oy vey!

I suppose I’ll put it next to the family portraits at the lake place.

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Atomised

“…all you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be…” Pink Floyd ‘Talk to Me’

I used to sort of believe that, but it wasn’t good enough…it seems as if too many of us are just wasting away in this so-called paradise. Except it’s just a vision of paradise for the many and ends up being a living hell. Not the gut wrenching reality of medieval life, the ‘vale of tears’, but a separateness…a hell with no explanation, no closure, no meaning. Such is the world we have inherited. Lo and behold, miracle of miracles, this is the document that attempts to tell all. After reading this, I am all a quiver with hopefulness and dread. Such is life…this book gets right to the soul of our modern dilemma....society's listlessness as it slips away in a sea of boredom inversely proportionate to our materialism and diminishing fundamental values or belief's in anything. It is a sophisticated and unsparing look at where we're headed.


A good read and translation, full of laughs but deadly serious--highly recommended. I first came across it while reading the top ten lists in The Guardian. Purchased it used on Amazon as it apparently hasn’t been published in the USA. Atomised and Houellebecq are the most thought provoking pair I've met in many a moon. I mean, who would have thought that John Paul II was right all along! I certainly never did, until now. I am confused.

Friday, October 06, 2006

Squirrel Trophy Head

It seems as if the one of the main functions of the internet has been to provide a virtually unlimited consumerist smorgasbord catering to every known fetish and creating new ones along the way. For example, the squirrel trophy head available at Custom Creature Taxidermy Arts. No cottage is complete without one. I think I’ll get two.


Or how about 'bringing your cottage to life' with custom toilet seats.

Friday, September 22, 2006

Never buy from Amazon…

…fooled ya, I buy loads of stuff, always from the Amazon marketplace. With almost anything, but especially with the likes of CDs and books, the Amazon marketplace is the place to shop. The marketplace is a clearinghouse for a zillion independent sellers worldwide of your favorite items, usually at a huge discount. I purchased a CD from Argentina once and it came in 3 days-how do they do that? After 20-30 or so purchases I’ve only had a couple of bad deals: one from the Amazon warehouse, a double CD that was missing a disk and the other a book that had the correct cover but was a different book inside (the book only cost about $1 plus shipping, so whatever).

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Painter of Light™

Ah…Thomas Kinkade, the beloved Painter of Light™. Beyond goofy?..corporate kitsch?…sentimental crap?..no, no, no…he’s much more. Here you have a choice selection from his little known collection "Demons of the Apocalypse”. And you thought he was just into feeding off the clueless who have just a wee bit too much disposable income.