RANGE: These sweet-seeming but deadly creatures dangle from chipped metal racks in snack bars, bodegas, truck stops, movie theater lobbies, corner candy stores, fast-food franchises, neighborhood delis, superettes, souvenir stands, luncheonettes, cafeterias, national historic sites, drugstores, and ball park concession stands. They are also found in glove compartments, on the dessert tables of summer camps, scrunched beneath the Luke Sky-walker thermos bottle in a Star Wars lunch bucket, and as “impulse items” in the vicinity of any cash register. Their bright and glamorous paper garments clutter the gutters, line the highways, and tumble out of every trash basket in the land. Devil Dogs are, curiously, never found on shopping lists, but invariably make their ways into shopping carts. They are the spirits of junk food. HABITS: To be more precise, Devil Dogs are the shock troops of the Junk Food Army. They assault the body’s natural defense system—those rows of taste bud emplacements, which protect us against the ingestion of hardware, potting soil, and between-meal snacks. Once the Devil Dogs have knocked out this Siegfried Line of Good Taste, wave upon wave of allied synthetic chemical bud-numbers invade — cheese-food-flavored thingies, sour-cream-and-onion-dip-flavored gizmos, prefab burgers with nonbiodegradable sauces, petroleum-byproduct drumsticks, bubble-gum-flavored ice cream, peanut-butter-flavored popcorn clusters, and those nasty, mind destroying, multicolored sugar nodules known as jelly beans. HISTORY: The Sugar Plum Fairy was an early emigre, a rich Russian brownie who thrived among the wild sugar beets of pre-colonial America. When George Washington was inaugurated, all the nearby fairies invited each other to attend—except the Sugar Plum Fairy. The attendant good spirits wished George luck and courage and truthfulness—but then the enraged and unwanted Sugar Plum Fairy appeared, cursed President George and all Americans with a sweet tooth, and set a pack of Devil Dogs upon them, to hound them forever. (As a boy, Washington, overcome with sugar-lust, ate all the cherries from a tree in his backyard. This, naturally, rotted the teeth out of his noble head, but the resourceful lad then chopped down the tree, to fashion from it the wooden false teeth for which he is famous. The rest is history.) SPOTTER’S TIPS: Tar breath; love handles; a belt and suspenders; zits, wens, and blackheads; pitted green fangs, dilated pupils, seizures of undirected energy, furry tongue; belching; flatulence; ‘roids—if these are your symptoms, or the symptoms of someone you love, don’t be ashamed. Remember, junk food addiction is not a disease—merely the result of demonic possession by Devil Dogs. And help is as close as your nearest carrot.
棲息地 むかし, 町内にはかな
らず2つ3つ駄菓子屋があっ
た。 おばあさんが白いエプロン
かなんか着て, ちょこんとすわ
って店番をしていた。 店内はわ
りと薄暗くて, 安くて怪しげな
ものがたくさんならんでいた。
だが、いまはもうそんな店が少
ない。 30年もまえ1個5円のア
メ玉が貴重品だったころ,きれ
いな化粧箱に入ったキャラメル
やお菓子はお金持ちの子どもし
か買ってもらえず、ふつうの子
どもたちは駄菓子屋の店先で透
明のビンに入ったバラ売りのア
メや味つけしたイカの足やソー
スせんべいを買って食べてい
た。 たまに母親と外出したと
き,あるいは親戚の人がきたと
きだけ、あのキラキラした美し
い箱入りのキャラメルを買って
もらうことができた。
しかし、いまの子どもたちは
どうだろう。 駄菓子というのを
知っているのだろうか。
いまはもう駄菓子の妖精たち
は残り少なくなってしまってぃ
る。 あの暗い店のなかを飛びま
わって子どもたちを誘いこみ夢
を与えていた駄菓子の妖精は,
いまはあまり見ることができな
い。 なぜなら, 新興勢力のお菓
い。なぜなら、新興勢力のお菓
0
色料, むかしはそんなものはな
かった。 でもいまは きれ
いな化粧箱は、じつは欲望をか
くす衣装だったのだ。 大人たち
のお金儲けという欲望をかくす
ための・・・・・・。
駄菓子の 「駄」は安いという
なにが安いかとい
意味だった。
うと、駄菓子の値段ではなく、
それを作り運ぶ人たちの手間賃
だった。 「賃銀アップ」 「給料あ
げろ」 「豊かな生活を」 労働者
は生活の向上、豊かな生活を
でもそのど
ざして闘ってきた。
こかで小さな夢を置き忘れてい
ることに気がついていない。
1
歴史 駄菓子の妖精たちはまだ
人類に商業主義というものがあ
まり発達しなかったよき時代
に,子どものいない家庭の心や
さしい奥さんの心のなかに生ま
れた。 しかし, いまはほとんど
絶滅状態に近い。
子の妖精にとってかわられたか
らである。 人工甘味料, 人工着 人たちの夢のなか。
私立探偵の情報 30代以上の大
132
Habitat
Long ago, every neighborhood had two or three dagashiya — cheap candy shops. An old woman would sit quietly minding the store in a white apron. Inside it was fairly dim, with rows of cheap and mysterious things. But such shops are rare now.
Thirty years ago, when a single candy cost 5 yen and was considered precious, caramel and sweets in pretty decorated boxes were only bought for wealthy children. Ordinary children would stand at the dagashiya counter buying loose candies from clear glass jars, seasoned dried squid legs, and sauce crackers. Only on the rare occasion of going out with their mother, or when relatives came to visit, could they get those glittering, beautiful boxed caramels.
But what about today’s children? Do they even know what dagashi is?
The cheap candy sprites are now dwindling in number. Those sprites that used to dart around inside that dim little shop, luring children in and filling them with dreams — you rarely see them anymore. Because they’ve been displaced by the new wave of candy sprites. Artificial sweeteners, artificial colorings — none of that existed before. But now the pretty decorated box is actually clothing that conceals desire. The desire of adults to make money.
The da in dagashi meant cheap. But what was cheap wasn’t the price of the candy — it was the wages of the people who made and delivered it. “Wage increases.” “Better pay.” “A richer life.” Workers have fought toward improving their lives, toward a richer existence. But somewhere along the way they’ve left behind a small dream without noticing.
History
The cheap candy sprites were born in the hearts of kind childless women in a better era, before commercialism had developed much among humanity. Now they are nearly extinct — displaced by the new candy sprites.
Field Intelligence
In the dreams of adults aged thirty and over.
132
