But not at the Target in Montrose we went to today, which had only been open since Sunday. I had to test out the mechanical Halloween novelties.
This one was called an animated portrait, but she just stuck her tongue out at you, and her eyes got a little weird.
This rock is perfect for where we live as it seems to define the neighborly spirit. It made a spooky noise, but failed design-wise because you have to push a button for it to light up. You'd want it to light up and do its thing as soon as anyone came near it. It was called a haunted rock. Pay attention, Linda.
Target was so red inside I felt as if I was entering the Communist Party. Here's Jon paying for our RED crock pot, which the gal in red is having trouble lifting.
This guy was a cool old timer, and seemed so out of place in this red shopping madness. I guess that's a cel phone in his holster. Montrose is an old ranching town which has decided to hell with zoning and the mega stores have all creeped in.
I wish I had a camera hat. I would have really liked to take a front view, not a back view, of this guy, and many others, but I'm just too shy and non-confrontational.
And about the title of this post: Things Fall Apart: A Novel
is a book by Chinua Achebe that appeared on so many people's lists of best books of the 20th Century that I ordered and read it. I thought it would be better. It's a very dignified and elegant book about tribal life in Nigeria before the missionaries and white men destroy it. Strange that the only animals mentioned are goats and chickens, and one serpent that gets destroyed. (It had a required reading/junior high school feel to me but I'm critical, as if you hadn't noticed.)The otherwise very stylish cover mentions four times how many copies have sold, which seemed tacky to me. The names of the characters were such mouthfuls it could almost pass for science fiction if you just changed a few details.
An essential book for someone interested in anthropology, but then, do people even study that anymore, or is the whole concept not p.c.? Just wondering.
9 comments:
And I thought you were referring to the Yeats' poem...Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world etc etc....Well that's what the megastores are, they are the rough beast slouching towards Bethlehem and the Communist Party wrapped up in one---every damn thing standard every damn where...relentless. Rant coming on...sorry...Why did you get a crock pot? Your cooking looks/sounds so good without one.
I know that Yeats' poem, katy, and love it.
Great post comment, thanks.
Fittin in with the crock pot. We spend a lot of time out doors and worry about leaving burners on. It was so cheap-- $19.99-- will see what we think. In winter stewy foods are quite tasty.
I read "Things Fall Apart" in college but remember astonishingly little about it.
All I can recall:
1. Snakes are referred to "string" at night so as not to invite trouble.
2. They grow yams.
3. Okwonko (sp?) beats a kid.
4. Missionaries ruin everything and say "what cheek!" when miffed.
This, I'm sure, is NOT what the author intended the reader to remember 20 years later. Probably my fault and not the author's.
I love Target. I'm not apologizing.
We don't have one anywhere around, of course, because S.Franciscans hate it.
That red crock pot! Let me know how it works, and if you like it, what kind it is. I can't read the box. Did you get the kind with the removable pot part like namowal suggested?
I bet it will look stunning in your kitchen. Did you get any of the upside-down Method dish detergent, a Target fave?
katy, that's the poem Joan Didion got one of her book titles from. Namowal, you get a prize for perfect recall. Wow, how could you remember all that!
okonkwo beats everybody in the book and then gets beaten.
Linda, Target was filled with method products and we bought one. The colors are so pretty. (not red!) When Dinah was little there was a Target right near our house, but I thought it was a gun store and didn't go in it for five years. It would have made buying all the baby stuff so much easier!
And yes we bought the removable inside for our crock. Lots of crock jokes around the house currently.
I like the fashion sense of some of Target's products. However, it's a half-hour drive across town, so I very rarely go.
Slouching towards Bethlehem is also the title of JD's essay about people hanging around the Haight district and Golden Gate Park, 1967. She has 2 epigraphs to the collection of essays---one from the Yeats poem. She wrote in the preface that lines from the Yeats poem "reverberated in my inner ear as if they were surgically implanted there." The second epigraph is a winner: "I learned courage from Buddha, Jesus, Lincoln, Einstein, and Cary Grant." Miss Peggy Lee. There's no doubt in mind...Peggy Lee and Cary Grant caused me to read Joan Didion.
Peggy Lee: "Is that all there is?" great song, great. I didn't realize she gets lyrics credit for that.
I always thought when it got to the time that women ordered male robots in whatever physical or ethereal form they came in, that Cary Grant would be my choice. I adore him, or his screen persona.
Yes, absolutely yes to Cary Grant, in all forms and fashions. I watched His Girl Friday the other day. He says "Get back in there you mock turtle" (words to that effect) to the murderer hidden in the rolltop desk in the press room. Mock turtle? Did he say that? I replayed it a couple of times to watch his charm and quick ease, yes he called the briefly revealed hidden murderer a mock turtle. I love him.
Post a Comment