The Reappearing Donut and the Return of Pleasure

The rebirth of the donut is inextricably tied to its identity as a dessert food. Sugar, glaze, cake, creme -- these do not belong to the class of things which comprise breakfast. These are dessert things. And dessert things come after other things, after dinner, after the business of nourishment has been attended to. The re-emerging donut bodes well in this regard for it would seem that we are finally through attending to our lives. That we once again have time for dessert. Room for donuts.

We tend to be ashamed of the small quirky pleasures which make us happy because we cannot define them. All of our best words having been co-opted in poll results, we have lost our vocabulary of appreciation. We no longer have a framework of shared experience that exists independently of media culture. And yet instead of insisting on our unique differences we have become obsessed with attempting to forge new, shared preferences. This quest for community requires increasingly distinct experiences and the common donut functions elegantly in this regard as an identity-defining pleasure. And it is in this sense that the donut's presence in our collective cultural landscape is profoundly telling.

November 5, 1998

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