click-bait for pseudo-intellectuals
Justā¦umā¦incidentally, this analysis of the āPumpkin Spice Latteā is equally applicable to a discussion of transubstantiation and the āhostā.
Given the historical success of highly ritual catholic practice in premodern Europe, it is therefore obvious that exposure to Starbucks would likely have driven the population into an intense belief in the reality of a pumpkinness that transcends any material pumpkin(perhaps even to the point where material pumpkins are idolatrous intrusions) and it is precisely the arbitrary seasonality and total absence of pumpkin derived by mundane means that elevate the Pumpkin Spice Latte above the world of the everyday and into the realm of something that both literally is, and is profoundly symbolic of, Pumpkin.
Itās only postmodernity that reduced it to a focus-group tested flavor syrup. Obviously.
Brilliant.
Your transubstantiation pepon treatise reminds me that the Catholic Church needs to modernize:
They need to mix stuff up a bit and perhaps bring in a younger/hipper crowd by offering pumpkin spice Jesus meat hosts ā not only do you get the flesh of Christ, but you also get a nice dose of beta carotene from the double miracle.
On the other hand, ideas of pumpkinness may remind people of āItās the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brownā and Linusā disillusionment with the being he had faith in. That might be problematical.
Philosophers should be rated in J-numbers.
Aka, how many joints you have to smoke until they start making sense.
I was thinking about an experiment, re transsubstantiation.
Take a group of believers, say B, and a group of nonbelievers (different doctrine, or atheism), say N. Split both groups to three parts, say 1, 2, and 3.
Feed the holy cookie (cannot remember the name) to B1 and N1, feed a piece of ham to B2 and N2, feed B3 and N3 a non-holy cookie of similar composition.
Take blood samples before ingestion of the substance, and then in intervals.
If the B1 results mimic B2 results and stray from B3 results, and N1 results stray from N2 results but mimic N3 results, the doctrine is truthful.
I like Pumpkin Spice Late! ā¦but then I also like the taste of candles.
Preferably N2 is Jewish or Muslim, so you can see if you detect particles of sin in their bloodstream at the same time.
What kind of existing biochemistry tests could be used for thisā¦?
I think you just need a microscope. Youāre looking for something like this:
Today, we have replaced The Body of The Savior with Folgerās Crystals!. Letās see if they can tell the differenceā¦
Thatās how they make Episcopalians, right?
The āthereās no pumpkins in pumpkin spiceā meme seems to have gone viral this season. Is anyone really surprised? Duh! Itās the spice blend traditionally used to season pumpkin pie. Who would want pumpkin in their coffee anyway?
#There are no babies in baby-oil!
This is L.H. Puttgrass signing off and heading for the tub.
I donāt much like pumpkins, so not me; but some sort of solvent-extract of pumpkin seems no more implausible(especially in company with pumpkin seasonings) than some of the other flavors that get added to coffee. Thereās practically a genre of pumpkin themed beers that have some sort of relation to pumpkins, so it isnāt terribly radical.
I thought boingboing writers were smart enough to ignore the āFood Babeā when it comes to, well, anything.
I feel obliged to point out that the āpumpkinā used in pies is usually not āpumpkinā at all, but a rather different variety of squash. Apparently breeders can have either something that looks like a pumpkin (since one does not eat it, one can imagine that it tastes like pumpkin), or something that tastes like a pumpkin (since it is canned, one can imagine that it was originally round and orange). Pumpkin spice bridges this divide by leaving both the essense of taste and the essense of appearence to the imagination.
