no. 455

"It strikes me as sad when something becomes widely disregarded. Piles of unsold Halloween “goods” are shoved into bins, to wait in the shadow of aisles filled with Christmas and Thanksgiving. No, I don’t especially want or care about plastic skulls and pumpkins. It is not about the object, I think, but the inherent humanity present in that object. Somebody made it. This would not exist if not for them, and yet what value does that add to such a thing? There is no passion in the factory, so none ends in the product. It is the way of our world to create in surplus while stripping away significance, one very much costing the other. I know the person who made this stuff didn’t give a shit. I wouldn’t. But when I look at that pumpkin, I see a small bit of someone’s life and can’t help but feel it deserves better than the throwaway bin at Fred Meyer."

Alex Hobbs

no. 397

"Ed Ochester has a poem that goes something like (paraphrasing, including the spacing):

A retired miner in Dr. Cappaletti's office, crippled and wheezing:

"If someone tells you he
got rich from
hard work ask him
whose."

Might be from his book Dancing on the Edges of Knives."


junior, commenting at Gin And Tacos