July 15, 2024
Greetings from the sheltered one,
Herein we will discuss the versatility of bananas.
There was a time that I paid closer attention to movies when they were released, perhaps because in years past the funnel for delivery of entertainment was somewhat narrower and the arrival of a movie was an event. But these last few years, which now that I think about it, would be more accurately described as ‘last few decades’, I have paid less attention.
So once in a while someone will mention a film, or it will win an award, and I will say, “Huh.” “Huh” is my main comment when I encounter something curious, but not terribly interesting.
After writing those last sentences I had reasons to doubt the relevancy, but I can’t go back and change it now. No doubt you read this last paragraph and said “Huh.”
Bananas, I will mention here, so as to add some credibility to the opening, are often referred to as ‘nature’s perfect fruit’. This claim may be true or have no validity, and for reasons I can only attribute to slothfulness, I haven’t researched the subject.
My own opinion on the banana’s degree of perfection would be limited to the ease in which it can be eaten. And there are no annoying seeds. If you told me that you threw a banana peel in the woods, I would not judge you, assuming, as you probably did, that they are biodegradable. Again, I haven’t looked into the subject, a little bit of sloth, a little bit of google dread.
I do remember that sloths eat leaves, not bananas. One of those little “Huh” things that come to me when I’m spreading peanut butter on my toast, and then slicing a banana on top.
Years ago there was an unfortunate movie called “Bananas” starring Woody Allen, in which he played a bumbling New Yorker, which could describe any of his films. Unfortunately. Or perhaps for marketing purposes, fortunately. It was released when one noticed such things, usually in the newspaper or perhaps because of colorful posters at the theater with the label “Coming Attractions”. (I resented the assumption that whatever was coming was going to be an attraction, since I like to make up my own mind about what I find interesting. Huh.)
Around this same time there was a kid’s show on TV called “The Banana Splits”, which I thought was terrible, but I was in that awkward time where I wasn’t a kid and didn’t have any kids so you can see how I wasn’t really the target market.
Here I’ll pause in that digression to say that nearly every time I spell ‘banana’ I never get the right number of a’s and n’s. It sometimes becomes ‘banananana’. I have the same problem with the words ‘vacuum’ and ‘parallel’, so I am loathe to describe vacuuumming in parallellel lines.
Nowadays, a word that looks old-fashiony when I write it, like it comes from the olden days, I find out about movies through annoying interruptions in my doomscrolling. I don’t pay attention to any of these since I probably won’t hitch the buggy up and go to town to watch a talkie at the picture show. Instead, I’ll wait until it is available free on Netflix, during an awkward time when I shout at the television if it wants to charge me $3.99 to watch something.
I am trying to break the habit of looking at unsettling events on my phone, including the price of movie tickets, which is harder to do nowadays. If I were going to invent an app I would name it “Unsettling Events” so that users could get all the bad news in one place, and then we could look at everything else without being annoyed. But until that unlikely event, I am avoiding whatever is passing for important events and disastrous coming attractions. Which is why I was thinking about bananas. And movies.
I like to put bananas in smoothies. I am told by a local authority that they have potassium in them, which I was told by the same authority was good for me. Sometimes I put chocolate in the smoothie, completely uncertain of its nutritional value or potassium content, but I like the taste, which is a premium motivator in my day.
I like a banana that is just right. Not too green, not too soft, not brown or pulpy. I don’t eat the strings. You know what I mean. Occasionally I will catch a banana in an awkward time when it is not quite ready to be eaten, at which point a battle between my epicurean principles and my hunger ensues. (Later today you will tell someone that you have never seen the phrase ‘epicurean principles’ before today.) Huh.
Since my attention has been more focused, undiluted by doom, I actually noticed the banana (just misspelled it again) that I was eating. On the skin where one might find a sticker with the banana brand name of whatever corporation is exploiting Central America this week, I noticed something else. Huh.
It was an advertisement for the movie “Despicable Me 4”.
It won’t surprise you to hear that I didn’t know there was a sequel to “Despicable Me”, let alone multiple iterations. Somehow, I had escaped the Despicable promotional juggernaut, perhaps because I am at that awkward age when I am not a kid and I don’t have any kids, so I’m not really the target market.
I have to admit it made me curious. What did that marketing meeting sound like?
“We are having a hard time reaching immature men between sixty and one hundred years old.”
“Huh. Have you tried advertising on banana peels?”
“That’s genius! Men that age are always eating bananas while vacuuming in parallel lines.”
It turns out that the Despicable Me series is the largest animated franchise in the world. They have box office sales of over $5 billion. They featured a trailer introducing the latest version during the Super Bowl, that’s the kind of money they have to sell a cartoon. I didn’t see the Super Bowl, so they missed me, hence the banana peel.
Which serves to underscore the versatility of the banana, nature’s perfect fruit. And perhaps the most underrated delivery method for coming attractions.
Take a deep breath, and go read your bananas. The doom can wait.
Hope this finds you appealing,
David
Copyright © 2024 David Smith
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