{"version": "1.0", "type": "rich", "title": "Met a friend, checked out a botanical garden. Shoulda considered that it\u2019s winter but a lot of it was interesting trunk...", "author_name": "kontextmaschine", "author_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "provider_name": "kontextmaschine", "provider_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "url": "https://kontextmaschine.com/post/170571906978/", "html": "<p><a href=\"/post/170520747773/\" class=\"tumblr_blog\" target=\"_blank\">kontextmaschine</a>:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Met a friend, checked out a botanical garden. Shoulda considered that it\u2019s winter but a lot of it was interesting trunk forms/ferns/ground cover with a winter-blooming section. Better than when I took someone to the rose garden off-season and they were just spiky bushes.</p>\n<p>Then she used her card to take me to CostCo and man! At first I hoped to get away being whelmed but no, I was overwhelmed.</p>\n<p>Even for Clackamas the patrons vibed red tribe as hell I noticed that right off. Next off though I was struck this was a *very* distinct vibe from Wal-Mart, which by comparison was closer towards the old Fred Meyer in Felony Flats on 82nd</p>\n<p>Like, snapshots:</p>\n<p>Dad with his 9th gradeish daughter in a tie-dye sweatshirt from the regional  Last Chance Cheerleading Tournament </p>\n<p>3 Hispanic guys buying work pants and gloves in English</p>\n<p>Old puffy guy in a Vietnam Veteran cap with his younger but not young asian wife</p>\n<p>Mom in gingham dress pretending to spoon-feed her daughter inside the demo cedar wood playhouse</p>\n<p>I mean I guess the membership structure favors the not-rich but with available property, long time horizons, an ability to live at least one payday out</p>\n<p>I guess it read like a red utopia, a bunch of yeomen and skilled workers and laborers rewarded for their earnest labor, like how red tribe idealizes itself without the underclass</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>OOOOHHH, I got it, here\u2019s the clever inversion, I just figured out the way it astounded me and what it reminded me of - <br/></p><p>the distribution warehouses from Edward Bellamy\u2019s <a href=\"http://www.powells.com/book/looking-backward-2000-1887-9780451527639/2-1\" target=\"_blank\">Looking Backward</a>, the 1888 utopian novel that inspired a nationwide intellectual movement towards what was later called a pre-Marxist variant of socialism but his militant fandom was adamant should be called \u201cNationalism\u201d<br/></p>"}