Thursday, September 30, 2021
Spaghetti Mayhem Thursday: Eminem Opens a Food Window
According to the the Detroit Free Press (which, when I was a kid, I thought was actually free, but it turned out my parents paid for a subscription), Eminem has opened a joint called "Mom's Spaghetti" in downtown Detroit. It sounds like it is pretty much just a food window where you can buy to-go spaghetti. Which isn't the worst idea I've heard lately, but I kinda wonder if it is what the world needs most right now.
The gimmick is that the name and theme of the place is a play on an Eminem lyric in Lose Yourself (a song I love). But... in the song the spaghetti gets thrown up, so maybe that's not the image to go for in food service.
Anyways, I thought about several other subjects for today, but I find the news just wearying. Things like record COVID deaths in Waco-- eight months after vaccines became available-- don't even seem shocking anymore; they are just like dull thuds to the head of a boxer who has already been knocked out.
There is a piece in the NY Times about how young people are watching the Sopranos, suggesting that they see it "as a parable about a country in terminal decline." And yes, I get that: The obsession with and unthinking fealty to a leader; a gun in every hand; the twisting of morality to somehow fit whatever greed demands; the problem of people who don't seem to realize that the world has profoundly changed; the embrace and celebration of principles like loyalty no matter if what they are loyal to is good or bad; the constant denial of the thing that is most true ("there is no cosa nostra"/"there is no global warming"); the service of the church to things opposed to human flourishing; the decay of people in roles that turn them to do what is wrong; the unfailing way in which those who want the most win out over those who love the most; the sad echoes of our grandparent's tragedies; the futility of law enforcement that just never gets around to making things better; the victory of time over strength.
Yeah, it's all there, I guess.
