From an interview with the cartoonist Roz Chast, interviewed — at "Roz Chast’s 'Fireworks Megastore'/The artist discusses stumbling across surprises while shopping, and rebelling against efficiency" — about her new New Yorker cover.
Have you ever done artwork based on the visual stimulation of shopping? This was based on Chast's encounter with one of those big fireworks stores:
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It's always amusing when New Yorkers go out into the rest of the world.
Ever since I was a kid accompanying my mother to the grocery I've enjoyed wandering around in the brightly lighted and colorful aisles of supermarkets. I enjoy perusing the products, familiar or unknown to me, offered for sale. (For the same reason, I also like wandering the aisles of hardware stores, though I'm not at all a handyman or "project"-doer.)
Not only have I never done artwork based on a grocery store's visual stimulation, I don't even do grocery stores anymore. I have it all delivered now, and it is wonderful. Driving to the store and navigating a cart past everyone else is no more! Standing in line is over!
Leaves more time for artwork.
Back when government nannies and Karens routinely said "Won't somebody think of the children?", the State of California banned all sorts of fireworks and firecrackers as neither safe nor sane. Even Sparklers cause burns to little hands and...'should' be banned... Today, I suppose the same Karens welcome fireworks as a gender transition starter set. "If a body part offends you, just burn it off."
"Won't somebody think of the children": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3D8670smTI
https://www.shouselaw.com/ca/defense/laws/fireworks/
"If your eye offends you": https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Matthew-5-29/
$8.99, huh? No wonder.
Temujin
From where I'm standing the New Yorkers voyages of discovery of the rest of the country are getting,.....tedious.
"I like to look at the packaging and the strange products—like the 'outer-space-flavored' soda that Coca-Cola released last year."
Me too. My interest is professional as well. Less focused on the graphics, generally, and more on the package itself. How it is designed, how it might be manufactured, how and unusual bottle might be filled and closed. and so on.
I used to drive my kids nuts in the grocery store when they were younger. I still make my wife shake her head from time to time. Posing products on a shelf for a photo. Buying products for which we have no possible use but which is in an interesting package.
Grocery stores are amazing places that too many people take for granted.
It is almost a cliche the reaction of people from socialist countries going through an American grocery story for the first time.
John LGB Henry
Tens of thousands of new products are introduced every year.
60-70% of them fail to gain traction and are taken off the market in 1-2 years.
Who in the world felt that Strawberry-Vanilla Coke would be a good idea? That was a real product and I have a bunch of labels to prove it.
On the other hand, Adidas sneaker with the computer, battery, motor & controls to automatically adjust heel firmness always struck me as fantastically innovative. I've been using it in my books and workshops for 20 years.
https://newatlas.com/adidas-launches-the-intelligent-running-shoe/2810/
Others, like so-called "New Coke" are branded failures but find niche markets and last for 20 or more years. Is a product that stays on the market for 20 years a "failure"?
John LGB Henry
LGB now. Lose the T&Q. Let's just get Brandon. There seems to be enough legal basis to investigate, at the very least.
Cook and I actually agree on a lot:
(For the same reason, I also like wandering the aisles of hardware stores, though I'm not at all a handyman or "project"-doer.)
Puerto Rican hardware stores traditionally have about 80% of their items behind a counter. You have to ask for what you want. I do a lot of tinkering and often have no idea what I need. Even if I know what I need, I may not know what it is called in spanish. Sometimes not even in English.
I needed some "chicago nuts" a week or two back to fix some cabinets. I've used them all my life. Not often but regularly. Never knew they were called Chicago nuts until I had to look up what they were called.
I love Home Depot because I can wander around until I find something that works for what I need.
Harbor Freight is even better, for all the bad mouthing they get. Not as broad as HoDe but deeper in what they do have. And especially for unusual stuff that you may not see elesewhere.
John Henry
Big fireworks stores? Where are those allowed? As they say in the commercial, I can't even.
Traveling without leaving home at the mall.
And on the subject of hardware stores, there is a local chain, founded by Cuban immigrants, called Ferreteria Nacional. Not as big as HoDe but similar idea with everything on display. Very knowledable sales people who, in my local store, have been working there forever.
A few years ago they had a billboard campaign that I thought brilliant. It really spoke to me.
It was a picture of a plumbing part, as I recall, and the caption "El Desto" with the store name and logo.
El Desto, colloquial pronunciation of "El de esto" or "one of these" unpacks to "I have no idea what this is but I need one. Can you help me?"
I thought it a wonderful way to show "We can help you find what you need even when you don't know what you need"
It impressed me so much I wrote an article about it which I cannot now find online.
John Henry
Oh God I love her. She would hate me for my politics.
I am reconsidering my politics.
I like grocery shopping as well. Living overseas heightens the appreciation dramatically. I used to have a lot of British co-workers, and got to be friends with many of them, and their families. One of them came to the US for the very first time, in order to attend another co-worker's wedding in El Paso. The wife went to her first WalMart there. She had been raised in the English countryside.
Six hours later, she came out - she had entered the store, and then proceeded to traverse every square foot, in amazement, inspecting each and every product. On their return from El Paso, they were accompanied by a half-dozen of those Rubbermaid Action Packers, packed to their weight capacity with 'stuff'.
These are the secret weapon of overseas dwellers who occasionally come home for shopping trips. The large Action Packer is a virtually indestructible, lockable plastic box that conforms (to the inch) to the maximum size dimension restrictions of the airlines. They're just barely not oversize, and they're very light, so there's not much parasitical weight.
I used to use them everywhere I worked. In certain - shall we say, highly-religious - countries I would lay a sealed package of bacon, featuring a happy cartoon pig on the label, across the top of my stuff, virtually ensuring that it would pass through baggage handling and customs unmolested.
That's great... I love Roz Chast so much, I might just stop by Barnes & Noble and buy a paper copy of this New Yorker issue.
Roz, a saint, not a woman.
I'm with Dark island. I do the shopping in our house, because I genuinely love the grocery store. To me it's a playground crammed with amazing things. I will say, though, that I've switched to ordering and picking up; the app is just as fun and so much quicker.
I was amazed the first time I stumbled on a fireworks supermarket while traveling to visit relatives. I could have easily dropped $500 if my wife hadn't been there glaring and tapping her foot.
I love Roz Chast. She is the New Yorker's best cartoonist, now that Bruce McCall is dead. And that cover -- I haven't received the actual zine yet -- has a McCall vibe. Roz's Fireworks of Doom are sort of the mirror image of McCall's famous reimagining of Times Square.
Um . . . here?
If she wants the experience of grocery shopping, she should try Jungle Jim's in Cincinnati. Its so notable it even has its own wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jungle_Jim%27s_International_Market
Robert Cook, I'm with you. I love to examine new and different products and the whole grocery store experience. I suppose it's because I like to cook and I like to eat. Pretty simple.
And I'm remind of football coach Bill Parcells argument for authority in personnel decisions: "If they want you to cook the dinner, they ought to at least let you buy the groceries."
After my 1st divorce in 1966 I took a course in college called Consumer Economics and learned about loss leaders, brand name shopping, the way stores loaded shelves for subtle stimulation to purchase such items. Today I am still an excellent shopper now how to evaluate food items by weight, substance, brand , ingredients etc.(though there are a few brand name items I will always buy but not like salt or pepper or sugar etc. I enjoy shopping with my wife but she takes forever!!!Thats the time I get the things we need and then go play about $40.00 worth of scratch off lottery tickets, have a cup of coffee and sit out in the hallways. My wife ,any day now!!!
Jim Gust, the one I've been to is Phantom Fireworks, in Breezewood, PA.
"Big fireworks stores? Where are those allowed?"
Rocky Mountain Fireworks, Caldwell, ID.
Rocky Mountain Fireworks & Fur Co. is Idaho's largest Fireworks wholesale & retail Superstore! Open year 'round for Fireworks sales to the public since the 80's, Rocky Mountain Fireworks has blazed the trail for the way Idaho fireworks companies operate today. Rocky Mountain proudly carries some of the world's best, high quality brand name Fireworks including Black Cat, World Class, Brothers & Boomer.
https://rmfur.com/fireworks/
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