By k3 (kev@tnw.org) Date: 6 July 1999
While some things in life may defy measurement, as grief, truth, or the national debt, beside inches and degrees and hours I submit to you the measurement of the Whistle-Pop (with apologies should that name be trademarked by some lucky soul).
Your Whistle-Pop, albeit worth at best sixty-nine cents, measures for me the value of us. First, that a grown man dares giveth, there is something to be said for that. But the true value is in how it is consumed.
Will it be opened carefully, admired and played, savored and swallowed, satisfying, at the end producing want?
Or, will it be opened recklessly without glee, wholly devoured with nary a hint of its claimed berry taste, not a note to be heard, empty calories to the end?
This Pop—-not the kind containing Tootsie or Blow, or the pop without prefix (which is, in the real world, called "soda")—-is not the most comely sight to behold. It is rather small, charming perhaps but quite obviously not a full-grown instrument of either candy or music. If you play it, will it make a sound? Even if misshapen by design or warped by manufacture, will its sound be airy but still discernable?
I wait for the outcome of this Whistle-Pop as I wonder if we, like it, are a sweet thing beginning or better left in the wrap.