SOUNDTRACK: REAL ESTATE-“It’s Real” (2011).
Right from the start, the combination of the fuzzy guitar picking and the whacking drums was a major draw for me. Finding out that these guys are from Ridgewood, NJ (a town away from my hometown) was a little icing.
This is a charming little pop ditty. It propels along at a nice clip, it’s got a catchy chorus and it makes me feel warm and sunny. And for all of that it’s not even three minutes long. That’s a nifty little trick.
Interestingly, in NPR’s discussion of the song, the guys play the song “Easy,” but for some reason the full length song is for “It’s Real.” And I actually like “It’s Real” more, so good for the mix up.
[READ: September 15, 2011] “The Patented Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich”
I actually read this Gastronomica article before the other one, but this seemed like a good Saturday subject. This article is the kind of thing I don’t normally write about. I read a bunch of non-fiction and for the most part I don’t bother ever posting about it because, really what’s the point of summarizing a nonfiction piece. Most of them I don’t have an opinion about, I just say hmm, interesting. But since I’m doing some special articles that were pointed out to me from JSTOR, I’m going to include this one for historical amusement (even if unlike the hobo memoir, this article is less than ten years old).
Anyhow, this brief article looks at the patented Smucker’s Uncrustable Sandwich. At the time, these were novel, but now they are ubiquitous. Smucker’s had taken two discs of white bread, filled them with an inner casing of peanut butter and then stuffed the PB with a splooge of jelly. It’s the shell of PB, which keeps the jelly from touching the bread and the crimping method to squish the breads together that really seal the patent. And, I admit, that despite the mockery they received for patenting a PB&J, I think they did hit on some novelties and have earned their unique status.
But the article proceeds to tell how other companies tried a similar idea and were summarily sued. So Shih unpacks the patent to see what Smucker’s has protected and how a lawsuit might be avoided (in short, Smuckers covered their bases really well (as you’d expect from a corporation), so it’s unlikely that a mom and pop PB&J machine will withstand the scrutiny). (more…)
I Just Read About That... 