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8 ESSENCE January 13, 2010

Caretaker Consumerism: Wings Night


ILANA KRONICK
The World’s Silent AARON KREUTER

Eight servers, seven busboys,


swimming pool of soft drinks,
four hundred and fifty packages of
old growth napkins, five hundred

Birds fly over me &


reign the sky that is so blue
Religion two hosts: a coveted night. Three
hundred coins plus in tips, kitchen
staff grumbling as they hoist fifty-
toilet flushes, three close calls, one
reluctant use of the plunger. Eight
bathtubs of sauce, two thousand
& clean, unlike these streets. pound bags of chicken wings potatoes skinned and dumped into
A plastic bag hisses NATHALIE DOWN are the top 40s, the sacrifices are out of the deepfreeze, thinking boiling oil, thirty-five garbage bags
at me — me, inhabitant, caretaker the debts, the missionaries are the
of the streets — scraping across Last year after hearing of a young marketers, and the clergy are the
painted lines and wet trash. Who man trampled to death by a stam- corporate leaders.
reigns? pede of crazed bargain hunters at
The plastic bag fills with nothing a Walmart in New York, I couldn’t Consumerism acts as a religion
but demands for me; the flight help but be because it
and the blue above, gone. reminded enshrines
of the tram-
pling deaths “ Consumerism acts a system of
beliefs and
that have practices to
occurred in
as a religion because it deal with
Mecca dur-
enshrines a system of life. But un-

Broke ing the Hajj,


the annual
Muslim pil-
beliefs and practices
like other
world reli-
gions found-
grimage. I to deal with life. ed upon PHOTO BY ADAM PODOLEC
LINDEN SHERMAN

You can forgive the soul


began won-
dering to
myself, is
” compassion,
goodwill
and love,
mutiny. Forty minutes for a table,
the line blossoming outside like
an expanding waistline. Inside a
bulging with wet sticky bones. Six
hundred and fifty one cycles of
the industrial dishwasher. Three
But you can’t forgive the rent Consumerism a religion? Consumerism is founded upon ex- soundtrack of Bowie, Zappa, and brooms, one soapy mop, chairs
So it’s harder to control ploitation, oppression and greed. Rush, though it’s hard to hear over flipped onto tables, dirty aprons
The money you have spent Suddenly I saw parallels every- Unlike other world religions where the noise of eighty people ordering, tossed into laundry, tips divided,
But you can’t buy back the words where: the symbols are the brand believers profess their faith, Con- eating, pouring pitchers of coke deep frier put to sleep. The lights are
After they’ve been said names, the deities are the celebri- sumerists may not even know they into plastic cups. The rush starts at dimmed, the door is locked, a quiet
And once you’re in the hole ties, the places of worship are the are believers. six-thirty and flows until midnight. six days until next Thursday, four-
One cannot repent. shopping malls, the scriptures are Overall, two thousand orders of axle trucks slowly bringing forth
the advertisements, the hymns I suggest apostasy. wings, five hundred blue bowls another night of plenty.
of carrots and celery, an Olympic

Canadian Consumption: A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

THE SUMMER 2009 TORONTO GARBAGE STRIKE. PHOTO BY: ADAM PODOLEC

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