Where Dreams Are Made

Get a Pogo Stick for Your Brain!

Make your mind into a weapon of mass discovery.
Supersize your mental fries.
Experience the brain-building power of daily KnowledgeNews emails now!

I don't really know what to make of the above ad copy of KnowledgeNews.net; especially when juxtaposed against the one below.

In these forlorn regions of unknowable dreary space, this
reservoir of frost and snow, where firm fields of ice, the
accumulation of centuries of winters, glazed in Alpine
heights above heights, surround the pole, and concentre the
multiplied rigours of extreme cold.
--Francis Spufford, I May Be Some Time: Ice and the
English Imagination

Found both pieces in my daily dose of vocabulary from dictionary.com. I don't usually pay attention to ads included in emails, but for some eerie reason, like some iniquitous unknown force was at work, my eyes wandered to that particular copy.

Pogo stick for the brain. From the first time I read that to this very minute, my brain's been puzzling over what the mental image of such a product should look like. And, more importantly, the purpose of such. I believe a pogo stick in the brain would do more harm than good. And who will be riding the pogo stick? Nerve impulses? A nerve impulse on a pogo stick traveling across a synapse, taunting axons and dendrites. That should make for some geeky fun. Then for the warfreak in you, make your mind into a weapon of mass discovery. Oh, this should give Al-Qaeda a run for their money. And, lastly, for the fast-food enthusiasts, supersize your mental fries. Whatever that means.

See the stark contrast between that ad copy and the second quote? The latter is a product of literary genius. Hmm...makes me think. You're not saying the author actually got a pogo stick for his brain? Oh, what a terrifying idea.