A Supermarket in California (1955)
24 comments
·January 8, 2025mmanfrin
ubasu
The Trader Joe's at University and MLK is very recent, only since 2010 [1]. It used to be an auto-parts store before. Perhaps it used to be a grocery store back in 1955?
[1] https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/place/article/Complex-houses-...
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princearthur
[dead]
mitchbob
Wonderful. And another Ginsberg Berkeley poem, maybe my favorite:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49304/sunflower-sutra
squircle
Nice. I was vibing to this poem you shared earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42639593
(I'm not familiar with Carl Sandburg and appreciate the introduction.)
WalterBright
The Air Force didn't let kids into the base supermarket if they were too big to sit in the shopping cart, and under 10. So I had to hang out in front while my mom shopped.
Eventually I turned 10 and got a military ID and could go into the supermarket. My mom would buy a huge pile of groceries (because it was a bit of a drive to the base and she only shopped every 2 weeks), and the cashier's fingers would just fly over the mechanical keyboard. I'm surprised their fingers didn't bleed from doing that all day.
The laser scanners are sooo much better.
Can you imagine these days leaving your six year old outside while you shopped?
asah
Howl was the poem that spurred inspired a generation:
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sema4hacker
I remember growing up with supermarkets that had no sealed packaging, no pop-top drinks, just glass no plastic, no drinking water, the ice cream choices were only vanilla/strawberry/chocolate/neopolitan and maybe rocky road, chips were only plain, ruffles, fritos, or BBQ, there were no barcodes only price stickers, no nutrition labels, no microwave instructions, only oreo or hydrox, no expiration dates, no plastic bags, no security cameras, no self-serve checkout.
wvu
It’s best heard, as read by Allen Ginsberg himself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKf3b9AXoG8
informal007
Sorry for the unrelated comment.
It seems that I saw "AI" when I glance "A" in the title, I'm like a LLM trained by news in recently years...
dmd
I cannot stress enough: wat
shove
Do I even want to know why Ginsberg is being posted to HN?
apengwin
Go Bears
mrayycombi
Apparently Mr Ginsberg was a friend to young men. And not in a good way:
https://chroniclesmagazine.org/web/allen-ginsberg-pedophilia...
sitkack
The Southern Poverty Law Center has characterized it as catering to "intellectual wing of white nationalist movement" wrt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronicles_(magazine)
Everything in that article might be true, but I'd use a different source.
mistrial9
Mr Ginsberg was known to inappropriately start up the exposed genitals now and then
source: people who saw it
squircle
Well, yeah... If you read this poem, it's right there on the surface. I see no reason to defend the author's character--the text is what it is.
mrayycombi
There are wonderful texts by people who didn't rape minors or advocate for its legalization(although arguably the latter is an opinion, while the former is a crime).
Just sayin'
squircle
> There are wonderful texts by people who didn't rape minors or advocate for its legalization(although arguably the latter is an opinion, while the former is a crime).
Of course there are. Apologies if I triggered you?
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The supermarket this takes place at is now the Trader Joe's in Berkeley on University.
Also a radiolab episode opener takes place at Berkeley Bowl West (the ep on the paradox of choice, they try to decide what apples to get).
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