Starbucks Coffee, at least in its US branches, is celebrating nothing in particular by inviting consumers and customers in the United States to enjoy a free pastry with the purchase of a beverage.  Apparently, Starbucks just got rid of artificial flavors, dyes, trans fats, and high-fructose corn syrup in its pastry selections, although you can never be too sure with the Venti mocha frappucino.  As with everything “free,” the fine print in the invitation can make you think twice about getting a free bagel.

Thorstein Veblen – the Viking rock god of economics – once wrote that conspicuous consumption happens because people accumulate enough wealth to be economically capable of showing off.  Starbucks is to Veblen’s conspicuous consumption as Disneyland was to Jean Baudrillard’s simulacrum: no other place in the world turns out a greater profit from non-essential goods than the McDonald’s of all coffee.  The coffee does not have to be good.  It just has to be expensive and symbolic.  It has to represent the difference between instant coffee and one made in funky machines.

I’m not one for coffee, but the thing with Veblen goods is that as non-essential as they are, and even if they don’t have a useful value to human existence, they’re ubiquitous.  There are at least under a dozen Starbucks outlet in the Ortigas area alone, and even more perhaps at Makati.  What is sold is a name, an experience, and an ambience.  The rest of the day, you’re pretty much drinking a frothy, creamy version of a 3-in-1.  You don’t have to get it, though: it’s still Starbucks.  At least here, these non-essential goods also include college kids doing the top-view emo pose with cellphone cameras.

To me, though, there’s no coffee better than Pokka.  They have yet to import Pokka vending machines from Japan that could hand me all that umami goodness in a can, so for now, it’s a cold Coke.  Or two.

I decided to do some “housekeeping” today.  You can think of this as a “total blog revamp,” but a little organization is necessary every now and then.  It can get a bit messy here in the writing laboratory, so I figured I need to expand things beyond the dump that is the Experiment.

So with the help of Ederic Eder, I decided to expand the writing laboratories.  Subdomains, if you will.  While I’m still figuring out the technicalities of lyrics translations, there are a couple of subdomains I’d like to introduce to you guys and gals:

• Marocharim’s Notebook. I like to call this subdomain my own personal Hell, but here’s where it gets really personal.  This part of the writing laboratories is one I’ll be watching.  Let’s see how it goes, and let’s see how it grows.
• Anthology. Want poetry?  Fiction?  Or whatever passes for it?  Then “Anthology” is the place to be.  So far I’ve dumped poetry and fiction there from Anthology of Anger and No Ordinary Sunshine, but I won’t be updating those sites anymore.

And yes, they don’t come in black.