Sillybean

Contemplating the monkey

I can’t stop thinking about the process that led to a ceramic monkey trash can arriving on the shelves at Target. I mean, let’s take another look at this thing:

Someone designed that. (“What is missing from my monkey trash can? YES. A banana. That’s it. My work here is done.”) And furthermore, someone else approved the design (“Why yes, this is good, there are Americans who will pay money for this.”) and sent it off to a manufacturing division somewhere. And someone in the manufacturing division said, “Plastics will not do justice to this objet dâ