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A Supermarket in CaliforniaAllen GinsbergWhat thoughts I have of you tonight Walt Whitman, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon.??????????In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!??????????What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes!—and you, Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons???????????I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys.??????????I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel???????????I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following you, and followed in my imagination by the store detective.??????????We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier.??????????Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour. Which way does your beard point tonight???????????(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel absurd.)?????????Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be lonely.??????????Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage???????????Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe??Berkeley, 1955Lost in the SupermarketJoe Strummer [Refrain] I'm all lost in the supermarketI can no longer shop happilyI came in here for the special offerGuaranteed personalityI wasn't born so much as I fell outNobody seemed to notice meWe had a hedge back home in the suburbsOver which I never could seeI heard the people who lived on the ceilingScream and fight, most scarilyHearing that noise was my first ever feelingThat's how it's been all around me[Refrain]I'm all tuned in, I see all the programsI save coupons from packets of teaI've got my giant hit discotheque albumI empty a bottle, I feel a bit freeThe kids in the halls and the pipes in the wallsMake me noises for companyLong distance callers make long distance callsAnd the silence makes me lonely[Refrain]And it's not hereIt disappearedThe Clash, London Calling, 1979From White NoiseDon DeLillo. . . . The supermarket shelves have been rearranged. It happened one day without warning. There is agitation and panic in the aisles, dismay in the faces of older shoppers. They walk in a fragmented trance, stop and go, clusters of well-dressed figures frozen in the aisles, trying to figure out the pattern, discern the underlying logic, trying to remember where they’d seen the Cream of Wheat. The see no reason for it, find no sense in it. The scouring pads are with the hand soap now, the condiments are scattered. The older the man or woman, the more carefully dressed and groomed. Men in Sansabelt slacks and bright knit shirts. Women with a powdered and fussy look, a self-conscious air, prepared for some anxious event. They turn into the wrong aisle, peer along the shelves, sometimes stop abruptly, causing other carts to run into them. Only the generic food is where it was, white packages plainly labeled. The men consult lists, the women do not. There is a sense of wandering now, an aimless and haunted mood, sweet-tempered people taken to the edge. They scrutinize the small print on packages, wary of a second level of betrayal. The men scan for stamped dates, the women for ingredients. Many have trouble making out the words. Smeared print, ghost images. In the altered shelves, the ambient roar, in the plain and heartless fact of their decline, they try to work their way through confusion. But in the end it doesn’t matter what they see or think they see. The terminals are equipped with holographic scanners, which decode the binary secret of every item, infallibly. This is the language of waves and radiation, or how the dead speak to the living. And this is where we wait together, regardless of our age, our carts stocked with brightly colored goods. A slowly moving line, satisfying, giving us time to glance at the tabloids in the racks. Everything we need that is not food or love is here in the tabloid racks. The tales of the supernatural and the extraterrestrial. The miracle vitamins, the cures for cancer, the remedies for obesity. The cults of the famous and the dead.Don DeLillo, White Noise, New York: Viking, 1985, pp. 325–26Whole Foods Parking LotDavid Wittman, Berkeley, 2011Yo man… Yo I know you see me here dude!!I’ve been waiting here like 10 minutes, man!No, no no… this is MY parking space man.What you need to do is put your little hybrid in reverse,And go out the way you came in.WHAT?!?! Yo it’s about to get REAL in the Whole Foods parking lot man…[Refrain] It’s getting’ REAL in the Whole Foods Parking LotI got my STEEL and you know it gets sparked a lotI’m on my grind homie… It’s on my mind homie!These fools with clipboards are lookin’ at me like they know me!It’s getting’ REAL in the Whole Foods Parking LotYou know the DEAL with the little shopping carts they got…Check out what I say, it happens every day…It’s how we LIVE on the west side of LA!! I’m ridin’ slow in my Prius…all leather, tinted windows… you cant see us!!Everybody’s trying to park, you can feel the tensionI’m in electric mode… can’t even hear the engine (Shhhhhhh)Just then I saw a spot open up,my timing’s perfect… I’m creepin’ up…But then this other dude tried to steal it going the wrong wayYo man, I’ve had a LONG DAY![Refrain]Now I’m on this inside, looking at my listOrganic chicken, Kale Salad and a Lemon Twist.Some girl in yoga pants is lookin’ at me funnyI’m just trying to find a decent Pinot Noir for under twenty!Then I take it to the cheese counter, Humboldt Fog?We just ran out sir! Really Dog?Take it easy man, I try to calm myself…I’ve been on edge ever since they took Kombucha off the shelf…[Refrain]This Buster’s on his iPhone talking to his friends,Picking up some cayenne pepper for his master cleanse.You’re the most annoying dude I’ve ever SEEN brah…Could you PLEASE move? You’re RIGHT in front of the Quinoa.Damn, I’m about to check out.Pay my 80 bucks for 6 things and get the heck out.The express lane is moving hella slow…Man, these fools don’t know… that shit is getting REAL… ................
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