Wacky World of Choc Wednesdays: The Cacao Rap
Oh dear…
“The Cacao Rap” from Christian Bates and Irresistible Health.
Lyrics are available here.
Wacky World of Choc Wednesdays: Cocoa pod coffin, Kane Kwei (c. 1970)
Cocoa pod coffin, photo by Christina B. Castro
This coffin in the shape of a cocoa pod is on exhibit at San Francisco’s de Young Museum.
Museum notes:
Kane Kwei
Coffin in the shape of a cocoa pod
Ghana, Teshi, Ga people
Ca. 1970
Wood, paint, cloth
Gift of Vivian Burns, Inc.Kane Kwei (1927-1992) was a Ghanaian artist who lived in the city of Teshie, near Accra. He was once apprenticed to a carpenter and sometimes made coffins, which traditionally were straight-sided rectangular boxes. When Kwei’s dying uncle, a fisherman, asked him for a special coffin, he made one in the shape of a boat. Soon other customers asked Kwei to build representational coffins, the subjects always alluding to their lifetime trades or status. The most popular early shapes were boats, fish, mother hens with chicks, onions, and cocoa pods (in the 1970s Ghana was the world’s largest cocoa producer).
Unlike most traditional African art, Kane Kwei’s coffins are pieced together like European furniture rather than carved from a single piece of wood. They are finished with enamel paint. Each one has a hinged lid and an upholstered interior (satin, velvet, or tie-dyed), including a mattress and pillow.
Suggested reading:
Ghana Coffin: Kane Kwei Carpentry Workshop, a site built by visitors to the Kane Kwei workshop in Ghana.
Funeral chic: Colorful coffins convey the deceased’s interests, profession, an article introducing these types of coffins and their connection to northern California.
Going out on a high: The master sculptor who turns caskets into works of art in the shape of fish, birds… and even aeroplanes, an article about a coffin gallery exhibit in London.
Two Journeys: The Deaths and Lives of Ga ‘Fantasy Coffins’, a longer piece that contextualizes Ghanaian funeral traditions and the question of funeral coffins as art.
This piece, traditional or not, art or not, pushes me to think more on the flexibility of funeral customs, symbolic objects and the deceased, and the relationship between chocolate and grief.
Wacky World of Choc Wednesdays: Soul Control’s “Chocolate (Choco Choco)”
A chocolatey mid week boost — international dance hit “Chocolate (Choco Choco),” from Soul Control. The wacky music video celebrates chocolate along with a striking number of cultural stereotypes.
Wooo!
Everybody in the world likes chocolate
Mmm we love it!
Whoa it makes you happy
Yeah, it gets you sexy
It makes you fat!
But we don’t care about that!Uno, dos… uno, dos, tres!
Mama she said roly poly,
Papa he said holy moly,
Everybody wanna chocolate
(Choco choco)
All the girls were canny canny
All the boys get ready ready
Everybody wanna chocolateC’mon!!
Choco choco – clap clap
Choco choco – slap slap
Everybody sayin’ chocolate
Choco choco – clap clap
Choco choco – slap slap
Everybody sayin’ chocolate
C’mon!!Chocolate
(Choco choco)
(Repeat)Here we go… uno, dos, tres!
Mama she said roly poly,
Papa he said holy moly,
Everybody wanna chocolate
(Choco choco)
All the girls were canny canny
All the boys get ready ready
Everybody wanna chocolateC’mon!!
Choco choco – clap clap
Choco choco – slap slap
Everybody sayin’ chocolate
Choco choco – clap clap
Choco choco – slap slap
Everybody sayin’ chocolate
C’mon!!Chocolate
(Choco choco)
(Repeat)Uno, dos, tres!
Wave to the people on the left hand side
Now wave to the people on the right hand side
Now wave to the people with the pretty backsides
Now we do it all again and we feel alrightUno, dos… uno, dos, tres!
Choco choco – clap clap
Choco choco – slap slap
Choco choco – clap clap
Choco choco – slap slap
Choco choco – clap clap
Choco choco – slap slap
Everybody sayin’ chocolate
C’mon!!Chocolate
(Choco choco)
(Repeat Till End)
Wacky World of Choc Wednesdays: Chocolate (2008): She’s Sweet But Deadly
Chocolate, a film released in 2008, features a main character who is an autistic martial arts prodigy. Her most important training food? Chocolate.
Watch the trailer:
Read the synopsis:
Prachya Pinkaew, director of Ong Bak: The Thai Warrior, returns with CHOCOLATE, an explosive new martial arts masterpiece starring his new protégé, “Jija” Yanin Vismistananda, who spent five years training for the role. Jija plays Zen, a young autistic girl who grows up next to a Muay Thai boxing studio and is raised on a steady diet of chocolate and marathon viewings of Tony Jaa and Bruce Lee films. Zen’s father, a Japanese gangster, has been driven out of the country by a rival Thai gang, so her mother has been forced to raise her alone.
It becomes clear over time that Zen has miraculously absorbed formidable Muay Thai techniques from watching the boxers next door and repeated viewings of martial arts classics. When Zen’s mother is diagnosed with cancer and the cost of treatments prove overwhelming for the family, Zen sets out with her cousin on a violent mission to collect debts from the corrupt gangsters that owe her mother money.
Featuring death-defying stunts and a charming newcomer who is sure to blow the minds of martial arts fans everywhere, CHOCOLATE represents Prachya’s proper follow-up to the smash success of Ong Bak.
(via Magnolia Pictures)
“‘CHOCOLATE’ is a sweet, brutal, bloody treat.” – Harry Knowles, Ain’t It Cool News
“One of the most anticpated films for well over a year, CHOCOLATE is madness. Madness of the brilliant, painful kind.” – Todd Brown, Twitch
Wow. Need I say more?
The film is widely available to watch online, e.g. via YouTube or Netflix.
Wacky World of Choc Wednesdays: Chocolate Scent Marketing
Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve struggled to ward off the last of a dreaded summer cold. Fighting a fever while Boston matched its highest temperature ever (!) wasn’t exactly fun, but my main complaint stems from the cold’s interference with my sense of smell. For several days, food lost all its appeal and the thought of eating normally beloved chocolate actually made me cringe. It’s only temporary, I told myself over and over, hopeless with despair. As is so often the case when I face times of strife, I begged the internet for distraction.
Image courtesy of Enokson
Turns out, marketers have long understood the importance of scent to triggering the desires of smellers. That’s why, when I read this article in my sinus pressure induced haze, all I could think was “I wish I could go smell that right now!”
From the article:
A supermarket chain thinks the fastest way to its customers’ pockets is through their noses, so it’s filling up the aisles with intoxicating, artificial food aromas to entice customers to buy.
A Net Cost supermarket in Brooklyn, N.Y., has specialized scent machines mounted on its walls that fill the air with a never-ending scent of decadent milk chocolate or fresh-baked bread, among other scents.
The Brooklyn supermarket has five of the machines, including a grapefruit smell in the produce section, chocolate in the candy aisle and rosemary focaccia by the bakery.
These scent machines are pricey, costing the supermarket $99/month. The store’s merchandise coordinator, however, states that she has already seen a 7% rise in produce sales, which she attributes to use of the machines. Not too shabby!
Learn more in this video from CBS News:
There are a number of other notable chocolate scent marketing cases. For example, when Verizon launched its LG Chocolate phone back in 2006, it used small plastic strips that emitted chocolate scent in its stores to lure customers in and excite their interest. And, according to an in-depth article from the Los Angeles Times, chocolate scent marketing has proven efficacy: “In 2006, when ScentAndrea, a scent marketing company in Santa Barbara, put chocolate scent strips on 33 vending machines in factory break rooms in Ventura (plus a sign that said it was Hershey’s candy people were smelling) the brand’s sales tripled.”
The product lines for scent marketing are really fun to learn about – there are scent cannons to remove odors, scent lights to project images and release scents, scented digital signage for use in store displays… There’s even a whole bunch of so called scent science in process. And just when I was thinking it’s too bad we can’t yet smell scents through our web browsers, I ran across this Scent Mouse, which can be customized to release up to four scents during the exploration of a website, and the ScentScape which claims to deliver “the NEXT Dimension of Digital Media” by releasing scents during gaming.
The scent marketing industry brings in hundreds of millions of dollars a year and is still expanding. Get a whiff of that chocolate.
For a basic intro to the field, check out this video, “What is Scent Marketing”:
Also check out the following companies and institutions to get a better sense for the industry:
ScentAir
ScentAndrea
Scent Marketing Institute
Sniff, sniff!
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About
Bittersweet Notes is an open source research project on chocolate, culture, and the politics of food. I invite you to join me as I explore the story of chocolate and the life stories of those involved with chocolate at its many stages of production and consumption.
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