Geesh, I’m getting it in the ear for suggesting that the Gaffney Peach is ‘bad taste’. C’mon, it is bad taste, just like the hot dog car and those those bottles of holy water from Lourdes shaped like the Blessed Mother with the crown that unscrews.
The question is not whether it is bad taste or not, but whether it matters, and whether bad taste is okay. Now I agree with Thomas Traherne who said something like, “Can a man be just unless he loves all things according to their value.”
This is a wise saying, and my second favorite quote after, “A man is most often right in what he affirms and wrong in what he denies.”
If we love all things according to their value, then we can cheerfully love the Gaffney Peach and all other bad taste artifacts. We just love them according to their value, that’s all.
So what is the value of the Gaffney Peach? Well, it’s a cheerful, happy bit of vulgarity. It’s a great bit of public relations. It’s a comical piece of Americana, a monument to a cash crop, a local identity and a fun artifact, and a testament to American chutzpah.
Does it compare, say, to the Statue of Liberty, Mt Rushmore or the Lincoln Memorial? Nah, but it wasn’t meant to. Does it compare to the Sistine Chapel, a Raphael Madonna or Rembrandt’s head of Christ? Nah. It’s the Gaffney Peach.
So if I say it’s ‘bad taste’ that’s all I mean. I really do like the Gaffney Peach. Honest!
The principle is a good one though, when extended. If we want to know how much to value a movie, a book, a work of art, decide it’s intrinsic value and love it accordingly. Some stuff, therefore, we love simply as entertainment. That’s okay. Some stuff we love because it is so sublime that it is almost sacramental in its power.
Other stuff we ‘love’ not at all. If it is trash or absolutely negative in its influence, like Sex in the City, bikini mud wrestling, Stalin, or Taco Bell, well to love it according to its value is to hate it with a perfect hatred.
I disagree with your definition of “Bad taste” in this .. your definition sound more as it being “art” that is “poorly done” … bad taste implies something else … and in vulgarity or something like that … I happen to love the various things like that found across the country and find them in “better taste” than billboards for “gentlemen’s clubs”
I think a just-for-fun thing like the peach is in good taste. ‘bad taste’ makes it sound like it is something bad, and it clearly isn’t bad. Just as you feel some support for keeping the sacred where it is due per your post regarding Fr. Z, there is a time and place for the not-so-formal, not-so-sacred, folksy good humor.
I should have put ‘bad taste’ in quotes to indicate that what tasteful people consider ‘bad taste’ I think is fine for what it is–but that’s the point of my post
LoL, so what do tasteful people consider to be good taste in water towers? Fr. L, you’re not a self-loathing southerner are you? Hmmm…
Yes — what lavona said! The buttocks-esque Gaffney Peach sure doesn’t compare with the billboards for that Bedtyme Stories establishment near the SC-NC state line.In fact, it’s charming. It harks back to an era when small towns celebrated their burgeoning crops by crowning a peach queen.
Father, I was being hyper-sensitive, and you are more than kind. You have certainly atoned for your cultural gaffe, and I apologize for being so abrupt and unkind. The Gaffney peach is not really “poor taste”, it’s just tacky. It is tacky in a corny way,a bygone Americana way, but on close examination, it actually represents the sacred. Not the sacred in a Catholic way ( re: your other post), but a sacred representative of a time gone by. A time where the agrarian culture represented the best in American society: a respect for the land, and a dedication to hard work that yielded crops that fed the family and made a living.It’s representatve of a God-fearing culture that barely exists anymore. A culture that went to church on Sundays, made their kids polite with “yes, ma’am” and “no sir” dictums, a culture not afraid of strenuous work, and one that was always willing to help their neighbor. I, myself, am not a member of this culture, but think about what I’ve said next time you’re cruising down 85 and see if that peach that resembles a baby’s butt doesn’t take on a new symbolic meaning.
What’s wrong with Taco Bell?
Taco Bell is pretty yummy sometimes. Those soft tacos… mmm. Can’t get those in a fancy mexican restaraunt.
I’d like to point out that the peach is way cooler then stick figures drawn onto the white cliffs of Dover and in way better taste since it adds a bit of flare to a water tower as opposed to marring the surface of a hill.Any brit who says otherwise deserves an immediate wedgie from the nearest yank.I was going to proscribe a self-administered wedgie for Fr. L for just the perception of getting all britto about the peach, but I suppose he’s properly attoned for his blasphemy.
Some lovely water towers can be seen by entering ‘wasserturm’ into Google Images.
I tried an image search with that and you’re quite right, there are several attractive ones in the shape of wizard’s towers and the like. Didn’t see one to match the giant peach though!!
Coming at this from a homeschooling mom angle… The Gaffney peach is a TERRIFIC place to take your kids after reading “James and the Giant Peach.” Now TinyTown? That’s another story…
Post or link plz. The non-locals have no idea what you’re talking about.I’m guessing it’s equivalent to “Chew Mail Bag Tobacco” painted on the sides of backer barns in Appalachia and the Butter Cow at the Iowa State Fair. To Clark Griswold encouraging the family to stop and see the World’s Largest Ball of String.
You can see the peach here:http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/2213Like I said, it’s a GREAT place to take your little ones right after reading JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH.