IT'S NACHO PROBLEM, BRAH!

A Cheesy Solution

In Arkansas, a transport truck travelling along Interstate 30, carrying untold numbers of nacho cheese cans, tipped onto its side after colliding with another vehicle. No humans were injured. However, there was a moral injury to all humanity in the form of lost cheese. What must be thousands of cans of orange goo spilled along the highway, their melty yellow splotches stretching for maybe a hundred metres along the highway! How much cheese did the cheese-truck chuck? Truly, a deplorable amount.

Yet a few hours later, the road was clear and reopened to traffic. Presumably they just sprayed the road off with fire truck hoses or something. Which means it was not only a waste of cheese, but a waste of water. Here’s a better idea. Close the road a little while longer, and let the wildlife have at 'er.

Think about it. Have you ever heard of an animal (human or otherwise) that doesn’t love cheese, given the chance? You can bet the local deer, opossums, coyotes, and armadillos would love to snack on a little highway fondue. There’s surely a bobcat out there that would love to be a…saucy lynx. Or better yet, add some tortilla chips, ground beef, and peppers to the mix to make those critters a salty, crunchy, calorie-laden nacho feast: a generous offering to our environment. Welcome to the Natural State. 

ON THE... LAMB?

She's the Real G.O.A.T.

Have you ever heard of rodeo goats? Can’t say I had, but anyway, they’re a thing in Willacy County, deep in rural South Texas. And they’ve been a thing in the news, too, ever since a little chestnut goat escaped from a pen at a youth rodeo event on July 31 and disappeared into the surrounding farmlands.

You can Google pictures of Willy the goat, and she is adorable. But when she went missing, she didn’t actually have a name. Her owners, who run a livestock fair, didn’t even know if their goat was a he or a she. It was pretty much just, “Hey, sooo... we’re looking for a goat.” So, to get the word out to neighbouring farms, they held a poll on their Facebook page that settled on the name Willy, alongside hashtags such as #willyisaspecialgoat and #fortheloveofwilly. A elusive star was born!

While she roamed the county’s corn and sugarcane fields, Willy became a household name. Local businesses donated thousands of dollars worth of salon services, beef jerky, and hay bales as rewards for her capture. Meanwhile, community members scoured the whole county for signs of Willy, on horseback, ATVs, and (actually) by drone.

Cartoons taught me that as long as you watch all the local clotheslines, you’re bound to find any goat within a matter of minutes. Well, lesson learned: real goats are considerably savvier. At least, Willy is. It was two whole weeks before a pair of teenagers finally managed to round her up, and then only because her head got stuck in a fence when they were running after her.

What’s next for Willy? Her cheeky little face is now the profile photo of the livestock fair’s Facebook, which in South Texas definitely means she’s made it big. Her owner told AP, “We plan to let ol’ Miss Willy lead a very sweet life going forward.” Sweeter than hiding away from humans, chowing down on unlimited sugarcane, and not having to do goat rodeos? I suspect it’s gonna be hard to beat that, TBH.

SHRINK-FLATION?!

Shrinking Expectations

There’s been a trend with designer handbags where the bags are getting smaller. Like, almost too small to carry anything in. It’s the pinnacle of style over utility, not exactly a surprise in the high-fashion world. A few years into this trend, New York-based art collective MSCHF decided to offer some artistic “commentary” on these tiny accessories that sell for hundreds or, more likely, thousands of dollars.

How? By creating a bag that’s microscopic. I’m not kidding. The 3D-printed, neon yellow-green bag measures 657 by 222 by 700 microns. It’s literally a speck.

Microscopic Bag is decorated with the Louis Vuitton logo and designs, but you’ll need to magnify them—which is what happened at a Paris art museum, where the bag briefly appeared on display, with the help of a microscope. “As a once-functional object like a handbag becomes smaller and smaller its object status becomes steadily more abstracted until it is purely a brand signifier,” MSCHF noted in an Instagram post. “Microscopic Handbag takes this to its full logical conclusion.”

Now, my boring, practical question is, what’re you supposed to do with an art object that’s so little, you could accidentally inhale it? The answer is unfortunately not ‘Time-travel back to the ’90s and add it to your Polly Pocket collection.’ It’s too small even for that, honestly.

The answer is: 1. Make headlines, of course. 2. Call Pharrell Williams. Why Pharrell? Because Joopiter, his “global digital-first auction house,” caters to collectors with money to burn (said money certainly won’t fit into their tiny handbags). The item was put up for auction, and an anonymous buyer was only too happy to purchase that molecule of plastic…for a cool $63,750 USD. So the question becomes, what are THEY going to do with it?? Hopefully they've got some cash left over for a microscope.

Phew. That’s some pretty lucrative, uh, commentary, MSCHF. Maybe I’m going out on a limb but I don’t think you’re really doing critical commentary if you make an object that’s almost invisible to the naked eye and then sell it for enough money to buy at least a couple dozen of the luxury items you’re “commenting” on. Clutching my unfashionably large purse, I squint, and I can just make it out: the fading line between cultural commentary and bandwagon-hopping.