Classicity

116 Classicity

They have a thing at Denny’s called “New Classics,” and no one can seem to figure out what a new classic is.

It’s another mild distortion of the language driving us further (or is it farther) into a new Dark Ages of expression.

A New Classic. Beethoven’s Eleventh? (There might really BE a tenth, so let’s skip that number.)

The 2007 Stanley Steamer?

Picasso’s red and white period (what better to go with the blue period?)

At the restaurant the phrase covers stuff like Ground Steak with mushroom sauce. Now, that’s a New Classic if ever there was one. It’s right up there with the “Signature Sandwich” at Arby’s and the Brooklyn Federal Courthouse for classicity.

Maybe they’re naming their cooks after famed conductors. “Arturo,” “Herbert,” “Willhelm,” “Leonard.”(Places like that have “cooks,” not chefs. Sometimes the duties of a cook include popping frozen stuff into a microwave. Extra credit for turning it on. Extra extra credit for knowing how long to LEAVE it on.)

Classic coffee? Right there, next to “signature coffee.”

Probably started with Classic Coke. Of which there are two kinds. There’s the shabby, diluted version of the soft drink and the “better” powdered form from Colombia.

Classic coke was labeled in a comeback of the so-called original drink which had been replaced by “New Coke,” which was and is a superior beverage but which didn’t sell.

Would be nice to have the REAL original secret recipe Coke back, the one with real Coke in it. (Is that another myth, like Beethoven’s Tenth?)

“Classic” has nothing to do with the immediate previous form of “regular” Coke, into which no one would ever have thought to put “high fructose.” That second burst of genius sent tens of thousands of soft drink drinkers to Royal Crown Cola, which used actual sugar in its formula, which was not secret and tasted okay.

Later, learning from the Big Boys, RC changed its formula to include Fructose and exclude sucrose. And try to find a bottle of the stuff anywhere but Ontario these days.

Classicity is a newly coined new classic word. Eat your heart out, Karl Marx! This is much snappier than “class struggle” or “class war,” or even “class-ISM.” Drown your sorrows in a Denny’s New Classic Chicken Parm Special.

They don’t serve beer, let alone GERMAN beer. You can buy Beck’s down the street. But you’d be hard pressed to find a Lowenbrau, even here in “Lion Country.”

I'm Wes Richards, my opinions are my own, but you're welcome to them.

(c) 2006 WJR