*TILT*

[ksmith]

I usually buy whatever paper towel brand is on sale--they all seem to work about the same. If I have a choice between an all-white towel and a pattern, I'll opt for the pattern since the color will brighten up the kitchen. Sometimes these patterns incorporate words as well, usually spice/herb names like "Rosemary". "Pepper."

The latest batch of towels is a brand called "Sparkle". There's a pattern of butterflies, and the towel brand name, and...a saying, which reads "Nature forever puts a premium on reality."

This isn't the type of thing I expect to find printed on a paper towel. I'm more used to the Dove chocolate type platitudes--"Never settle", or "Seize the chocolate", or somesuch. "No thyme like the present."

"Nature forever puts a premium on reality." What does this mean, exactly? Is this a major new saying that I missed? Does everyone know about this except me? Was it in all the papers before it moved to the paper towels?

I'm trying to imagine the marketing meetings during which they thought up this thing. I'm wondering how the meeting attendees related this saying to paper towels, or butterflies, or both. To me, the saying seems to mean that nature favors reality, that if given a choice between reality and other sorts of perception, reality would come out on top. Ok, this is all well and good, but it seems a little stilted and I still can't fathom why this sort of concept, which strikes me as though it was a once-lucid thought that was run back and forth through Babelfish one too many times, is doing on a paper towel.

Comments

Ok-dokey

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Sparkle paper towels has a website, and on one page displays all the various prints:

http://www.sparkletowels.com/prints.asp?id=4

The pattern I have is called "Butterfly Zen."

Paper towel speaks
Of nature and perception
The floor is still wet

Re: Ok-dokey

[jacardie.livejournal.com]

So... paper towel haiku. Interesting.

Re: Ok-dokey

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Um...I made up the haiku.

I probably should have made that clear.

Re: Ok-dokey

[jacardie.livejournal.com]

Oh! Never mind, then. :)

Gee

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

It's a quotation by Ralph Waldo Emerson. No Babelfish involved.

The things you learn from your paper products...

Re: Gee

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

So they couldn't give him the credit? They're so tight with ink?

Re: Gee

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

That's the thing--there are other patterns with quotations complete with attributions. Even the ubiqitous "Anon" is cited.

I don't understand it either...

Re: Gee

[janni.livejournal.com]

It's a quotation by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Which still tells us, like, nothing at all about what it means.

Which I recall was my experience reading Emerson in college, too. :-)

Re: Gee

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

This makes me feel better. I thought I might be missing something obvious.

[shayl.livejournal.com]

Who knew that paper towels had that much depth?

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Just imagine the possibilities with facial tissue. Bathroom tissue. Those little towelettes they provide with crab legs and lobster and such.

Did all the English majors who skipped grad school segue into marketing, I wonder...?

[janni.livejournal.com]

Forget all those famous people--I'll write work for hire paper towel fiction for them! :-)

[shayl.livejournal.com]

Nah, an English major would have known to credit the source. This was the work of a business major with a book of quotations. Possibly the kind of book with a trendy name like 'Vitality' or 'Renewal'.