a bit confusing, like these leaves seem to be,

showing the colors of two seasons

—

listening to npr

they talked about starbuck’s

starting the pumpkin spice train

a month earlier this year

pumpkin spice everything = fall/autumn

 i don’t remember the calendar saying

that fall begins in august

the seasons/holidays/calendar

shift with the world of marketing

 not with the weather (90F) recently

or dates

but by creating their own

‘extended seasons and festivities’

 people get excited early

 start the buying frenzy

happy summerween

i’m holding out for my favorite real season – fall.

—

‘the seasons change their manners, as the year had found some months asleep and leapt them over.’

-william shakespeare

 

here is a partial transcript of the npr conversation:

KIM: Summerween is that time of the year when major retailers start to promote all things sweater weather, even though shorts and flip-flops are still in season. George John is a marketing professor at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management. He says it’s been a trend for a while now.

JOHN: This is the trend of moving up Christmas and Thanksgiving and Halloween, the three big sort of seasons that run into each other, earlier and earlier and earlier.

KIM: But this year, fall- and Halloween-related goods seem to be popping up sooner than ever. Take Home Depot, for instance. The retailer launched an online Halloween campaign in April. In June, Lowe’s, Party City and Michaels all released spooky seasonal items online, earlier than in previous years. Most recently, on Thursday, Starbucks began serving its iconic pumpkin spice latte on August 22, the coffee chain’s earliest rollout yet. Most of the big businesses say that these early rollouts are in response to excitement from consumers.

JOHN: if they just stretch every darn holiday out to being a season, it just loses its meaning, and it loses its intensity. A risk they are willing to take.

 

 

—

Source credits: Juliana Kim, NPR News, George John, University of Minnesota