Public
displays

High
school obsession? Anonymous love for everyone? Admiration for the telephone
repairman? An art project? The new bunny?

There’s
a slew of telephone poles (and some trees) out in Chili and Gates with “I
[heart] you” spray-painted on them. I’ve been noticing these tokens of
affection for the past couple years, but never thought much of them until I
realized they were everywhere. And when I started to seek them out rather than
just happen upon them, I found even more.

My
3-year-old daughter accompanied me during one hunt and kept saying, “There’s
another! I like this game.” As we drove away from Chili she asked, “Daddy,
where are the hearts? I like the hearts.”

How
much love is out there?

—
Joe Tunis

Krunch
time

I
was stopped in my tracks today by a cereal box at Tops, a knockoff by the
grocery store’s generic brand of Cap’n Crunch called Krunch Heads. The box
announces the name in huge, shattering, crunched-on letters. Adding to the
impact are illustrations of two large pieces of the cereal, one boy, one girl.
The girl is wearing make-up. One labors to imagine the beauty regimen of a
piece of cereal, especially one that involves mascara. The boy actually has a
tuft of hair sprouting out of his head, but I’m pretty sure that’s a wig on the
girl.

They
are eating, with unbridled enthusiasm, smaller versions of themselves out of
little bowls, using their little cereal arms and hands. “Krack Heads” seems
like an obvious joke when you see the box, but that’s what’s so scary — it
fits all too well. The boy krunch head, with the lines under his eyes, looks
like he hasn’t slept in five days. And I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a cereal
box where the cereal was depicted eating itself, but not only is that what
these two are doing, they are doing it with what can only be described as
maniacal glee, scrabbling frantically in their bowls, milk flying. Maybe they
are thinking about the “krunchtastic” cannibalistic Rainbow Raisin and
Chocolate Krunch-Head Krispy Treats they are going to make later (recipe on
side panel). I know I am.

On
the back of the box is a maze for children who have not yet thrown the box down
out of utter fear. An alligator explains that you have to help lead him to his
swamp, because, and I quote: “Somebody wants to turn me into a wallet.”
Charming. I guess the kids have to learn sometime.

—
Andy Davis

This article appears in Jun 15-21, 2005.