I was browsing through the themed appointments calendars in
a charity shop today, and I saw something interesting. Nestled among Paintings by Monet, The Best Paintings Ever, English
Castles, and Dogs & Puppies
was…
… Cupcakes.
‘Cupcakes?’ I queried with the woman who was doing something
or other by the door.
‘Cupcakes,’ she replied enthusiastically.
‘But I thought cupcakes were little things you bought in
boxes of six from Sainsbury’s for £1.50.’
‘Oh, no. They’re all the rage now. People buy cupcake making
machines.’
‘Do they?’
‘Yes.’
‘And now they’ve risen to the status of objet d’art, it
seems.’
‘Apparently.’
I left her doing something or other by the door and wandered
out. Whatever next?
Apples of Slightly
Different Shape?
A Banana Skin from All
Angles?
Pieces of Toast with
Varying Arrangements of Butter?
The avant garde sometimes leaves me speechless.
* * *
The next charity shop I went into had a dog standing with
its human. It looked a bit like a Yorkshire Terrier, but was lacking the usual
characteristics. Yorkies are mostly very tiny dogs, and tend to hide behind
legs, shivering violently. And they’re so fragile that you’re reluctant to
touch them for fear of doing irreparable damage. This one was bigger, more
confident, and a lot more robust. She came over with tail wagging heartily and
looked up at me.
‘Would you like to make friends?’ I asked, and held my hand
down for the sniffing stage. She omitted the sniffing stage, preferring instead
to raise herself on her back legs and place her front paws on my arm. Needless
to say, much fuss was forthcoming in return.
10 comments:
Cupcakes are a big deal here in TN, too. There are now several cupcake shops in my town. And i've seen t shirts with cupcakes on them, cupcake jewelry, and even patterns to knit or crochet cupcakes. Oh, and its really trendy now to have a lot of cupcakes on tiered cake stands rather than a tiered cake for weddings. Its a cute word, cupcake.
But that only happens if somebody is making a lot of money out of it. (Doesn't it?) So is there a big corporation somewhere that has a secret patent on the cupcake? Or could it be the Mormons, maybe? Cupcake is beginning to sound more sinister than sweet.
Who knows, but people are spending. I have no idea how so many cupcake shops in such a small town make money. How many people are buying how many cupcakes in a day? This is why we're so fat over here i guess. We even have a cupcake named after the University of TN football team... Vol Cupcakes or something like that. They make a lot of orange and white ones. Weird.
Reminds me... my ex used to say he wanted to start up a church in Knoxville, home of UT, and just call it Big Orange Jesus, lol. Said he could make a lot of money that way.
(Big Orange is a nickname of the UT Vols, by the way.)
How do you make a lot of money by starting up a church? Is that an American thing?
And I don't understand the cupcake phenomenon at all. My taste in cake is traditional. I like wedding cake, even though I hate weddings.
Ah, big churches often bring in a lot of money. Especially the Evangelicals. They're the ones who believe everything in the B-I-B-L-E is literal. And that things like Dinosaurs never existed, etc. etc. Members pay tithes, %10 of their income. Get a lot of members get a lot of money. And his joke was that there are a lot of Christian and college football fanatics in Knoxville so if he combined the two in one he'd be sure to have a lot of tithe paying members.
But... but... but... that means the religion becomes a sort of business. I thought that ended with the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Shouldn't the tithe go entirely to the upkeep of the church and charitable giving and so on?
I wonder what the real Jesus would have thought if he'd known that 2000 years down the line he would be turned into a commercial commodity. You're a mine of fun facts, P, and The Big Orange Jesus does have a certain ring to it.
Most churches do use the tithes for the upkeep of the church and to pay utilities. Some churches also pay the pastor a salary.
I once visited a family in Nashville and was shocked when i over heard a message on their answering machine reminding them that the up coming Sunday was double tithe sunday, and not to forget that they would need to pay twice what they normally do. Criminal.
Oh, and about the real Jesus... i doubt he'd go to church. I once saw a poster of a photo of a church congregation with Jesus sitting in the front row, about to drop his news paper because he'd fallen asleep. :)
The real Jesus? Who knows? I wonder whether he would have understood the phrase 'paying for utilities.' Water used to come from the spring, fire from the fallen wood in the forest...
Maybe he would... didn't the Romans have utilities, like a sewer system, etc. that citizens payed taxes on?
I'd say he'd be a bit like a liberatrian and a socialist. But like you said, who knows. ?
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