New and Old #44
Friday roundup and commentary
How bad are plastics, really?, The Atlantic, Rebecca Altman, January 3, 2022
I like pieces like this mostly for their bits of cultural and commercial history and neat storytelling. I don’t doubt that plastics are a big environmental problem, but this is the kind of thing that most grabs my attention:
Dad, back in the 1960s, had manufactured a more resilient variety of polystyrene for Union Carbide, one of the 20th century’s major plastics manufacturers, since acquired by Dow Chemical Company. Now, in the parish hall, I recognize he is seconds from crushing the cup. As if on cue, he closes his grip. Being a certain type of polystyrene—and this is his point—the cup splinters into a strange bloom of shards arrayed about the cup’s circular bottom.
It’s a long piece that intertwines discussion of plastic’s environmental issues with a lot of obscure history of the chemical industry—including how many plastics began basically as industrial byproducts, for which canny manufacturers sort of reverse-engineered commercial uses. It’s interesting stuff.
I had never seen or even heard of this product—celery-flavored soda—until I somehow came across this article looking for a recipe the other week. It’s another really interesting dive into American history, this time from the period of tonics and patent medicines, when celery was believed to have curative or therapeutic effects. It’s still made, although the brand profiled in the piece may be the last one who makes it. It’s apparently a great pairing with salty, fatty meat like pastrami and corned beef, and can be found in some old-school Jewish delis. Would you try celery soda? I will, if I ever see it for sale!
How the tractor wars pulled us into modernity, Washington Examiner, Joseph Bottum, February 3, 2022
Bear with me, for the widespread use of tractors on American farms came about through an odd set of trends and ideas — mostly unrelated and yet pushing in the same direction. The elective affinities that gave us the tractor may be small and unlikely, but they also form a useful figure, a synecdoche, for how the modern age happened.
Well, I can’t tell you how accurate this piece’s thesis is, but it is a fun look at the period that birthed the tractor, and how the tractor altered farming, attitudes about food, and more. Read the whole thing.
The fourth entry this week is not an article, but a Google search! Many years ago, when I was a kid, I noticed that some supermarket paper bags had names on the bottom. I was always curious about this, and my simply Google search—“why do paper bags have names on the bottom?”—brought up a whole bunch of web forum discussions and articles about this neat bit of commercial trivia.
Click here if you want to see the results and peruse them.
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