KEY POINTS:
Let's turn our back on the world this week. It won't miss us. Or go away. Especially since it's Christmas - or nearly Christmas. The perfect time to ignore life's sulphurous pit of horrors and humours.
Christmas is a time for better things, a time of miracles and
wonders and joy, a time to send cards to accountants and goodwill to lawyers. A time for unexpected lumps in the throat at the school's Christmas concert. It's a time of renewal, hope, reflection - and shopping.
But even that burdensome chore can bring its own unexpected delights, especially if you happen to be - by virtue of poverty or parsimony - a fan of the $2 shops, because that's where you find one of the accidental marvels of Christmas.
What the $2 shops have got that others lack is cheap stuff from China. And what the cheap stuff from China has got is packaging that includes some of the most whimsical language you'll ever find.
The items may be worthless but the words are priceless. Like the ones on the Spiderman Walkie Talkie package - It must in the spacious place use. And if that doesn't open your wallet, the Walkie-talkie mores code surely will.
Ah, but wait a moment. What about the Funny planting series for children, with its little packet of seeds in "pure savageness medium, innocuous, pollutionfree, noncorroding" and a set of instructions that includes:
* Plant the seed in lie the quality inside, transplant the roughly seed thickness in depth 2 times.
* Wait for the burgeon about 7-10 days.
* Do not let the seed in the sun, and bring it up with your love, it is very funny to see the flower.
Well, yes. Precisely. If memory serves, James Joyce said something similar in Ulysses, and if he didn't, he should have.
Just as some literary genius should have penned the wondrous words that promote the New Edition Magcal Hen (Best gifts for the children) - "Many color a lot, selected freely by your! When it walks, the wings and the tail are flashing, the eggs will be born out, and the music is heard."
Hallelujah. A promise only matched by the Welcome Village Electromotion Duck Toy with its "All new characteristict" and the ability to "Turn in ten thousand directiont".
"Send out the interesting voice," the message continues. "The wing of the duck can or so fluctuate."
Forget the library, folks. If you want real literary pleasure, simply buy the Evilstick Glow-In-The-Dark Wand - "Powerful Transcendence! Cast shadow the function! Send out the luster of the beauty! Band your eyes on the super toys. Be full of your brain cell all the time and all!"
Alternatively, get the Smite Scatter-Gun (New Equipment for New Challenges) which offers a rare "Sense of heavy mental nature". Or the "Powerful Transcendence Combat Gun - The gun have a part can circumrotate & change with 32 color of lights".
And don't forget the Force Powerful P191B Cuspidate SportGun (Special for you of children design), the only handpiece in the world to invariably "Send out the moving vocality".
As you can, too, but only after you've studied the Super Spaceship box, which, among other things, invites its purchaser to "Enjoy the excitemem", "make the baby wonder the reason of moving" and "perform to combine the happiness gleams to fix attention on the light".
Now there's a notion to stir the hardest heart, along with an obligatory safety warning that, by any measure, must stand as accidental poetry: "Please recognise the clear packing a last markedness beats clear".
Then again, perhaps it's not accidental. Perhaps it's intentional. Perhaps minds far greater than ours are cleverly using the packaging of children's toys to communicate apparently random but still powerful adult themes.
It's been done before, you know, not least by the famous American novelist William Burroughs, a man renowned for randomly cutting and pasting various bits and pieces to produce his fiction.
Perhaps we can do something similar with the commercial messages above. Perhaps, assisted by the extinguished poet laureate, Mr Jam Hipkins, we can grasp the $2 truths so long overlooked. Perhaps the transcendent wisdom of the bazaar can be transformed into a cleansing and liberating piece of blank verse.
Indeed, through the wonders of cutting and pasting our very own laureate has helped the market's anonymous bards to finally find their voice:
Powerful Transcendence!
Pure savageness medium,
Cast shadow the function
Send out the moving vocality.
Turn in ten thousand directiont
Wonder the reason of moving.
BE FULL OF YOUR BRAIN CELL
ALL THE TIME
AND ALL!
Be patient to wait for the burgeon
Bring it up with your love.
Enjoy the excitemem
Transplant the roughly seed -
Sense of heavy mental nature.
It is very funny to see the flower
perform to combine.
BAND YOUR EYES
The happiness gleams
Fix attention on the light
The eggs will be born!
Send out the luster of the beauty
A last markedness beats clear.
Now you won't get more Christmas than that.
