Food, grocery stores and idealism

David Brooks, author of “Bobos in Paradise” and the more recent “On Paradise Drive,” has a way of tapping into the sore spots in my generation’s outlook on life, love and consumer goods. I was not surprised, therefore, to see him cited in this week’s Isthmus article on the Madison organic food market expansion.

Why do we shop at Willy Street, Magic Mill and especially Whole Foods? Well yes, because the food is damn healthy and tasty, and efforts are made by the stores to support small, regional farms that have respect not only for the food but for also the environment (meaning they practice sustainable agriculture). A win-win situation –but for the prices.

Enter the cheaper, but still trendy Trader Joe’s. Or – about to enter, since, as the Isthmus piece tells us,  no decision has been made as yet if it will occupy the anointed grocery spot on Monroe Street (EVERY grocer in town wants that spot which lays there waiting for the well heeled click click of Vilas – Edgewood area shoes.) The battle between Trader Joe’s and Willy Street to woo the developers is at the heart of the news story.

But I want to return to the Brooks comment, which addresses (ridicules?) our state of the mind as we enter the grocery store. We are indeed longing for that feel-good market shopping experience. And, ever since Whole Foods and before that, Magic Mill, moved to the west side, grocery shopping has become a happy experience for me. I hated grocery shopping prior to this in the same way that I still hate going to big malls. But is it only because of the better food that I am now happily throwing pricey items into my green cart? Brooks says that the “feel good” experience stems from something else. He writes:

“You get the impression that everybody associated with Trader Joe’s [fill in: Magic Mill, Willy Street, Whole Foods] is excessively good – that every cashier is on temporary furlough from Amnesty International, that the chipotle-pepper hummus was mixed by pluralist Muslims committed to equal rights for women, that the Irish soda bread was baked by indigenous U2 groupies marching in Belfast for Protestant-Catholic reconciliation and that the olive spread was prepared by idealistic Athenians who are reaching out to the Turks on the whole matter of Cyprus.”

Exactly! You mean all that’s not really the case????

I have to add, as a post scriptum, that Brooks doesn’t forget to throw a quick little punch at our restaurant culture. He writes: “the rule in these pedestrian-friendly town centers [nc: hello State street] is ‘Fight a war, gain a restaurant.’ You’ll find Afghan eateries, Vietnamese restaurants, Lebanese diners, Japanese sushi bars alongside dining options from Haiti, Cambodia, India, Mongolia and Moscow.” No wonder there aren’t any Polish eateries – America hasn’t had much grief with Poland in the last century or two. 

Convention notes from someone who is still a bit mystified by American elections (even though these will be the 5th* in which I will be voting)

Ann writes (here) that she doesn’t “want to watch the phony display that is a political party convention.”  Household preferences do force her to tune in, at least in the first days of the speeches. By the third day she prefers to retreat into a room where she can flip on “Amish in the City.”

I am less critical of the speechmaking. Where Ann sees Obama’s words as “banal” with perhaps excessive references to “hope,” I see them as a rather successful attempt by a novice politician to position himself as someone who can speak well to the general public. As for Clinton’s rapid-fire words delivered with his typical (and contagious) pleasure in being on the stage,  aren't they exactly what Kerry needs to buffer his own lackluster oratorical style? And Edwards? Half of the country is taking in that Southern accent, watching the aged parents in the audience and believing that the ticket represents more than just the viewpoint of the liberal Democrats of the Northeast.

A commentator on NPR’s Fresh Air yesterday (believe me, if I remembered who it was, I would have said the name) noted the great transformation that has occurred in the last 40 years where politics have now become quite public. Before, politicians got elected, passed laws, waged wars, while the public watched performances of people belonging to the performance world. Now the two are intrinsically intertwined. We know that, like it or not, selling an image on TV is crucial. Who can deny that Gore lost in part because he could not shake the fueled-by-media accounts that he was two-faced? And how often did the media scramble to show us every instance of GWB misspeaking to reaffirm the idea that this man is basically illiterate? [In the end, it was argued that Gore ran the stupid campaign and GWB was the bigger liar of the two.]

In these times, then, the Convention is monumentally important. If GWB’s image is bolstered by the “performances” of the politicians who surround him, so, too, Kerry must enter on the wings of the best of the best, so that he can minimize his own particular shortcomings. And he has had a splendid crew. Clinton (whom Ann admits is an “engaging” speaker) roused the audience on the first night, Obama (whom I did not hear, but I did read his speech; Ann gave him high marks for his “delivery” and so I’ll go with that) delivered a speech that was rated A+ by a vast majority of the pundits and Edwards reeled in the unity theme with a number of well chosen and well stated sound bites.

I don’t even have to watch tonight (and I wont because of “blogger dinner” – more on that later). Kerry had his henchmen and women working hard to use the stage in the way that we have come to expect it to be used. Insofar as politics now belong on that stage, we had as good a presentation as we can get. Me, I’m saying a silent thank you to the openers -- Clinton, Obama and Edwards. Kerry can't carry the show alone. He needed their act and they served him well. Now we can all just sway and sing along to the well-known favorite songs.

* Presidential, that is (Blogger refused to let me insert a single other word into the title).