“Jump the Shark” is a phrase I’m very fond of. It references an episode of Happy Days where the Fonz literally jumps a shark on water skis. For many people, the Fonz jumping the shark signaled the moment when Happy Days went from being a cool show, to uh… not being a cool show.
So to say that something has “jumped the shark” means that it was once cool, but that it has now done something to marginalize itself, and is risking becoming kitsch.
That said, I’d like to share two things I saw recently:
For the first time ever, I saw a canvas bag had been used exactly like a plastic bag would be. Someone had filled a canvas tote bag with trash and chucked it into a trash can in NY. I saw it and had to stop and take a picture. I thought: I should grab that! A quick wash and it would be right as rain. But something about it gave me pause. Like finding a pair of pants on a park bench in the dead of Winter. There’s reason someone took off those pants and discarded them. You probably simultaneously know and don’t know why there are there, so to take them requires a certain daring-do, and a high tolerance for “potential-poo.”
(Filled with poo? Or rich, glittery treasure? I guess we’ll never know)
Secondly, I was standing in JFK waiting to buy a sandwich when a package caught my eye. At first I thought it was fabric softener. Turns out it was a box of cookies! And not just any cookies, ECO-COOKIES! Yum!
(Wind turbines, Earths, Suns and Priuses! Yum!)
Thanks Heaven Scent! You made me laugh.
I don’t know how these two events go hand in hand, but it seems like “green” has reached a tipping point. Not that it’s going to recede or fade away, but it’s reached a level of ubiquitousness that indicates that as a society we are ready for the next step. Now that we know that we can use commerce, commercialism, and capitalism to fight its own excesses, we are ready for something a bit more strenuous.
I guess a step up from buying eco-cookies is MAKING your own eco-cookies.
Trends are everwhere, and so much fun to try to pick out.
Recent Comments