Saturday Links

In praise of the long commute, how Peeps are made, Renata Adler’s style, a night in Bass Pro, the Jewishness of Marcel Proust, in praise of tonality, and more.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Good morning from Asheville, North Carolina, where we are visiting our son for Easter. One can lament that Easter is merely another consumeristic occasion for most people and still enjoy the occasional Cadbury egg or Peep. I have never had the latter, but this article on the history of Peeps in the Philadelphia Inquirer made me want to try one:

Just Born was founded by Russian immigrant Sam Born, who, according to company history, was a candy-making whiz. In 1912, he automated the process for inserting sticks into lollipops (dubbed the “Born Sucker Machine”), eventually earning him a key to the city of San Francisco. Later on, he pioneered technology for making chocolate jimmies (said to be named after a factory worker) as well as the chocolate coating used on ice cream bars.

Samuel Born started Just Born — at first specializing in “French chocolates” — in Brooklyn in 1923. By the time the company moved to Bethlehem, he had brought on his brothers-in-law, Irv and Jack Shaffer, and Just Born had started segueing toward jelly candies. It introduced Mike and Ikes in 1940 and Hot Tamales in 1950. In 1953, Just Born acquired Lancaster’s Rodda Candy Co., known for its jelly eggs. They had also unwittingly purchased what would become the company’s biggest brand.

Speaking of consumerism, Steve Russell spent a night in the Bass Pro Shop in the Memphis Pyramid . . . and liked it: “The retail floor is sprawling, and with 535,000 square feet to play with, the reborn complex also includes restaurants, pistol and archery ranges, a bowling alley, aquariums, a spa, and a full-on mock cypress swamp . . . The kids were surprised, amused, and ready to post ironic selfies as we drove up Bass Pro Shop Drive, left our car with a valet at the base of the hulking pyramid, and checked into Big Cypress Lodge. Our room, all faux-cabin rustic elegance, was certainly comfy, but the big attraction was the balcony. From that vantage point, I could discern how the two-story lodge formed a ring around the structure’s interior perimeter, with the three-sided Pyramid ceiling stretching upward and the massive sales floor serving as a de facto courtyard. As I sized up where I thought the stage for concerts used to be, a dash of déjà vu told me that our room was right around the location of my seat for a 1995 R.E.M. show.”

Peter Hitchens writes about losing trees in The Lamp: “I have just failed to preserve a beautiful tree from being felled. Worse, I have become complicit in its destruction. I may never be sure that I did the right thing. I hate the cutting down of trees, even though I know that it is sometimes necessary. Trees are the lovely works of God, still living in every city among the ugly works of man. These large friendly vegetables are not just plants, but stores of goodness, peace and calm. I once tried hugging one and got nothing out of it. But a walk amid great woods will always mysteriously refresh my spirit.”