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Don’t read this article.  You think it’s going to be about Candwich, the “sandwich in a can” that has been ripping up the Internet tubes with memes-of-fire?

More so, it’s an exploration of the dark side of language and how a certain word has lobotomized all of us consumers:

Product.

Candwich is a sandwich product, as they state.  Why?  Well, I’ll tell you why, and you’re going to sit there and like it.

A Short History of the Misuse of “Product”

The word product has enjoyed despicable notoriety since around the early 2000s as being overused and unnecessary.  Now, everything has this product suffix slapped on.

Product is used in 2 main ways:

1. Because the Thing is Essentially Fake: Orange juice product.  It’s 12% juice; 86% high fructose corn syrup; and 2% Fuck-You-Consumer.
2. To Make the Intangible Appear Tangible:  Mortgage loan product.  It’s mysterious shit we’re doing for you, Mr. and Ms. Homebuyer–more a service than anything–but we’ll call it a product so you feel like you’re getting something you can hold in your hands.

In the case of Candwich, it’s already a laughable concept.  Oh – and it doesn’t exist, either. Their site tells us:  “Check Back Soon for Product Release Dates!”  What was that, two years ago already?

I first encountered China Miéville via his stunning third novel, The Scar.

What I find amazing about this interview with Miéville about his latest novel, Kraken, in The Onion’s AV Club is that The Scar isn’t mentioned at all.  Yet so many of the commenters echo my amazement with The Scar.

Words like “stunning” are cheap and too easy to toss out.  But even then, around 2002 when the novel was published, I was in my late thirties and had tons and tons of books under my belt (as a reader), and you’d think I’d be sufficiently world-weary.

But I hadn’t been there, done that–to use a phrase popular around the turn of the millennium–enough to be fully prepared for Miéville’s dark, twisted, baroque worlds of Bas-Lag and New Crobuzon in The Scar and Perdido Street Station.

The Los Angeles Times has a photo essay about cell phone towers being cleverly disguised as palm trees.

I think the best thing about Emily Shur’s photo essay is its title:  Nature Calls.

But come on, I’ve got this one beat.  For years, my parents in Medford, Oregon have had a church down the street with a cross that doubles as a cell phone tower…or cell phone tower that doubles as a cross.  However you choose to view it.

According to Hi-Tech Composite Structures, the company that built the cross:

This cross at a church in Medford is doubling as a cell tower. Verizon Wireless approached the First Christian Church and the congregation agreed. So the church got permission from the city and built a new cross that connects people’s faith and their phone calls. The church receives a monthly stipend from Verizon, which parishioners say will allow them to do things they could not otherwise afford.

I cannot get this out of my head.  I had heard about Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg breaking out in a huge, visible sweat when Walter Mossberg and Kara Swisher of The Wall Street Journal asked him about privacy problems that Facebook has brought onto its users recently.

Mossberg and Swisher, I should mention, did not grill Zuckerberg.  They were simply asking questions.  Yet Zuckerberg was still unable to control himself.

He repeatedly says that he’s okay, and that he will not remove his famed hoodie (he supposedly never removes it).  Finally, Mossberg, as mild-mannered as ever, just says this:

Mossberg:  Can you explain this personalization thing you did and why you did it and what’s the value of it to your users.

Zuckerberg:  Maybe I should take off the hoodie.

Swisher:  Take off the hoodie.

Then about a minute of futzing while Zuckerberg removes the hoodie, complicated by the lapel mic and wires.  Mossberg and Swisher even help him with the removal.

Wait, wait.  As if that’s not sublime enough, after the hoodie is off, Swisher notices a mysterious symbol on the inside-back:

Swisher reads some of the words, and then:

Swisher:  …this weird symbol in the middle that is probably for the Illuminati.

Now, as if that’s not good enough, overlay Vega Choir’s “Creep” on the whole event, and it becomes sublime, important, and creepy.  See the exchange here.

Holy crap.

Hausu (1977) is a Japanese film that blog Dangerous Minds calls “a mixtape compiled by a demented Carl Jung–immersive, repellent, hysterical and visionary.”