How Baker Changed the Way I Think

            Upon reading Nicholas Baker’s The Mezzanine I have become consciously aware of what I am thinking at certain times and have noticed how “interesting” our brains can make everything if you have the “Howie mindset.” In other words, I’ve been thinking about thinking.   There are two main “categories” The Mezzanine focuses on besides Howie himself: ordinary objects that Howie is intrigued and surrounded by and the microanalysis of any interactions Howie has with other people.  For the sake of brevity, I will only be talking about how my view on consumer goods and objects has changed. 

            When I was trying to write my Baker pastiche and was brainstorming ideas for what objects I was going to discuss and “be fascinated” by, I realized that I primarily remember the negative aspects of most consumer goods.  It’s a lot easier to notice the parts of goods that need fixing, rather than noticing what they do well.  We take a lot for granted and only really notice when stuff doesn’t work, rather than when it does. For instance, I began writing my pastiche about the little twisty tie squares on bread wrappers that never seem to work and always let the air out, causing the bread to go stale. In my trial pastiche I was mainly focusing on how the design of the tie was flawed and how grateful I am that they are not used on other products besides breads and English muffins. I quickly realized that griping about products was definitely not in Baker’s style, so I changed topics to something that I could more positively analyze. 

One instance of how Howie’s and my initial views differed was towards milk cartons:

            “Because I grew up as the tradition evolved, I have an awe, still, of the milk carton, which brought milk into supermakets where all the rest of the food was […] the radiant idea that you tore apart one of the triangular eaves of the carton, pushing its wing flaps back, using the stiffness of its own glued seam against itself, forcing the seal inside out, without ever having to touch it, into a diamond-shaped opening which became an ideal pourer, a better pourer than a circular bottle opening or a pitcher's mouth because you could create a very fine stream of milk very simply, letting it bend over that leading corner, something I appreciated as I was perfecting my ability to pour my own glass of milk or made my own bowl of cereal—the radiant idea filled me with jealousy and satisfaction.” (pg 42)

             Milk cartons have always bugged me.  I remember in grade school having to ask someone to open my milk for me because I would repeatedly manage to incorrectly pull the flaps back and have to poke my fingernail through the top to get any of the milk to come out.  Baker, on the other hand, finds these same flaps that I found so annoying to be “satisfying” and “radiant”.  Throughout The Mezzanine, every object that I saw as needing improvement, Baker saw as ingenuity. Baker has forced me to reevaluate this negative thinking towards consumer goods and start to see the beauty in objects which a month ago I would have overlooked.