Here in New York, the line at my local Trader Joe's almost always wraps twice around the store, often spilling out onto the sidewalk, where college students and militantly frugal adults wait in the cold to purchasericed cauliflowerandJoe Joe'sin bulk. Me? I'm there for the cheap groceries, sure. But I'm really there for the new issue of TJ's Fearless Flyer.
传单坐落之间通讯,catalog, and a comic book. It is, as advertised, rife with "product stories"—in other words, articles about snacks—"that are at times fascinating and amusing." But it's mostly a thin newspaper announcingnew productsand, occasionally, deals. You can pick it up in stores, naturally, but you can also have it sent to youelectronically or via snail mail. I highly recommend signing up for both.
Why? For starters, each edition is approximately 80% cringe-inducing puns (corn salsa is an "a-maizing" condiment) and out-of-place SAT vocabulary words ("sour cherries... are now exalted as a drupe to be pressed for juice"). And though they're often an abuse of the thesaurus, TJ's product descriptions are usually hilarious. Here's one for Organic Tomato Basil Marinara: "It's simply delicious... supremely satisfying in stuffed peppers; beguiling as a braising liquid for beef or pork; and... we could go on, but there are so many other products to tell you about, we're going to put a lid on it." Get it? Lid. Because thisbeguilingsauce comes in a jar.
Interspersed between blurbs are these weird,old-timey illustrationswithgoofy captions, which might actually be the best part of the whole deal.Sometimesthey're on the brink ofnonsensical, other timescharmingly self-aware.
I'm not the only one obsessed with the joyful chaos that is the Fearless Flyer.The Awlwas on the FF beat for a while, andthis artisthas been using the Flyer as a canvas for hererasure poetryon Instagram. Very into it.
I love to rag on your Flyer, Trader Joe's, insane vocabulary and all, but you really ought to keep it up. It separates you from the cold, corporate grocery entities taking over the world (cough,Lord Amazon, cough)—and it makes the long line just a bit more bearable.
