Smiley Face Gumballs...with a dark side.

Hello Gumball Fans!

The subject of today's post is Smiley Face Gumballs, those lovable, adorable little globes of fun and enjoyment. Unfortunately, it appears that this symbol of childhood and all that is good has been corrupted. Alas I say with a great deal of dysphoria and tristesse in my heart - these gumballs are being used to get high.

Here's the story from the Washington Post:

Four people in the Washington area have been charged in recent months with selling marijuana-laced gumballs, including an Arlington man who was arrested last month after police said they found more than two dozen of the altered candies at his apartment.

To the unsuspecting eye, the individually packaged gumballs look like regular bubble gum. They are yellow with a black smiley face stamp. But upon closer inspection, a small, crudely drilled hole in the gumballs marks where they have been altered.

Arlington police said the gumballs discovered July 22 at Paul C. Cofer Jr.'s Crystal City apartment contained THC, the main active ingredient in marijuana. THC, which is extracted from marijuana leaves, is more potent on its own, police said.

Cofer, 20, was charged with possession of marijuana with intent to distribute. Police said he was released on bond.

"This is the first that we've seen of this, and so we really want to get the word out to parents that these things are out there and they need to be aware if they see their child with one," said John Lisle, an Arlington County Police Department spokesman.

"It looks like he was breaking them open or drilling into them and putting the drugs inside," Lisle said. "But he wasn't just putting marijuana inside. He extracted the THC, and so they were more potent and highly concentrated."

Lisle said the gumballs were packaged in green wrappers with smiley faces and were being sold for $10 apiece.

Cofer is not the first person in the region alleged to be caught with marijuana-laced gumballs recently. In what authorities said could become a disturbing trend that could put illegal drugs into the hands of unsuspecting children, three 17-year-old Maryland students were arrested earlier this year on drug charges after a teacher allegedly saw two of them selling packaged gumballs to the third.

In that case, Howard County police charged the teenagers after the teacher told a school resource officer that she saw a student give a plastic bag containing what she thought was drugs to another student.

The officer seized the bag, which contained two gumballs wrapped in foil, police said. Instructions on the package, labeled "Greenades," told users to chew the candy 30 minutes to an hour "before you would like to receive your high" and to "chew for as long as possible, then swallow."

The gumballs were confiscated in January at Howard High School, police said, but federal drug tests didn't confirm the presence of marijuana until May. That month, the Drug Enforcement Administration released a bulletin about the candies and said each gumball contained one gram of marijuana.

Calls to a DEA spokesman were not returned.

In news reports, DEA and drug education officials said the gumballs found in Maryland and Virginia appear to be the first of their kind in the region. Concern over drug use is growing as dealers develop increasingly sophisticated methods of marketing and packaging illegal substances.

In the Arlington County case, Lisle said, police were called to Cofer's apartment building in the 1600 block of South Eads Street after residents reported seeing a man armed with a gun trying to break into an apartment. Police said they followed the man, later identified as Cofer, to his residence in the same building. He told detectives that his ex-girlfriend lived in the other apartment and that he was trying to get money that was owed him, police said.

While police where inside Cofer's apartment making a report about the gun, which was a BB gun, one officer noticed an odd-looking case in Cofer's bedroom. The officer asked Cofer's permission to look inside the case, where he found a bag of gumballs with a strong odor of marijuana, Lisle said. There also was a large bag of unaltered gumballs in the case, police said. [Washington Post]

It is a sad day indeed.

The Written Word...with gumballs?

Ah friends - another opportunity to share a unique, unexpected, and perhaps revolutionary use of the gumball and the gumball machine. In this case, a few literary fellows have used the gumball machine as a medium for expression, thus transforming a simple sweetened-orb dispensing machine into a potentially life altering apparatus. This is what Shakespeare or Whitman would have done if they had had a sweet tooth. The gumball is truly an apt locale for the written word.

Now, more about the folks who have spawned this cross-breed of the mellifluous and the lexical. Gumball Poetry is "a non-profit literary magazine that publishes the best poetry it can get a hold of. But we publish it differently - into gumball machines (capsules) and onto the Web." [Gumball Poetry]

Check out their great looking gift boxes complete with gumball poetry:


















Also of note - the folks at Gumball Poetry have set up gumball poetry gumball machines! Check it out:





The machine looks a lot like some of the gumball machines at Gumball.com like this one.















What a great idea this truly is. An inspiration for intellectuals and foodies alike.

Music with...gumballs?

Another answer to the gumball skeptics out there! Gumballs have truly infiltrated all parts of our diverse and complex culture, influencing philosophy, microfinance, and even football. The diverse uses of that rubbery orb confirm the range of potential thought of the human race. Divinely inspired? Perhaps.

The next use of the gumball has arrived. It is known as the "Bubblegum Sequencer." Techno fanatics might already grasp what this device entails simply from its title, but for the gumball fans out there, the explanation of this "sequencer" my evade comprehension. Here goes.

Here's the simplistic explanation:
The Bubblegum Sequencer is a physical step sequencer that lets you create drumloops by arranging colored balls on a tangible surface. It generates MIDI events and can be used as an input device to control audio hardware and software. Finally, people can't claim anymore that electronic music isn't handmade.
Here's how it works: A grid of holes, consisting of several rows with 16 holes each is the canvas. On it, you arrange colored gumballs. The 16 columns represent the 16th-notes in a measure. Each color is mapped to a specific sample.
Because the output is generated in the form of MIDI events, the Bubblegum Sequencer can be used to control any kind of audio hardware or software. [http://backin.de/gumball/]
From the video, it appears that these gumball techies have used basic, 1 inch assorted color gumballs. Perhaps not from our friends at Gumball.com, but a similar product nonetheless.

The lesson for today: Gumballs are delicious and, at times, can be down right groovy.

Nietzsche...blowing bubbles?

So, my last post got me thinking. Nietzsche - did he blow bubble gum bubbles?

Well, I set out to find out. My research began and ended at Wikipedia. Unfortunately, there was no information to be found regarding Friedrich's chewing habits. I did, however, come up with an image of what Nietzsche blowing bubbles would have looked like.

I think if Nietzsche had chewed gumballs, he would have chewed Dubble Bubble pink gumballs from Gumball.com.

That is all for now.

I hope you have enjoyed your stay at Maison de Gumball.
-Shmoel

Welcome to Maison de Gumball

Hello fellow bloggers and gumball fans!

Obviously, this is my first post. I'm very excited about this opportunity to share my thoughts with you about one of my favorite topics: gumballs. Yes, gumballs - that saccharine globe that carries with it flashes of childhood exuberance.

The gumball has, in fact, permeated many media, and in this blog I hope to share those instances in which the gumball has attained a position as perhaps more than simple piece of candy. I have seen the gumball used as a symbol of childhood (in window displays at high-end fashion stores) and of technological process (more on that to come).

Yes, "gumball" may seem like a limited concept. In fact, you may be asking yourself: Shmoel - how the hell do you expect to sustain a blog on GUMBALLS? My friends, the answer lies in the gumball's sheer simplicity and flexibility of use. Think of a gumball not as a malleable piece of chewing rubber but instead as our civilization's progress. Current and future uses of the gumball will reveal the inner-workings of a complex and evolving society - one that turned a rock into a wheel and wound up with the car. Perhaps in a pink, 1 inch sphere lies the future of our very way of life.

Wow, I drifted a little off topic. Honestly, this blog will be a space for anything gumball - and that generally implies fun (and not philosophy -- interesting side-note: did Nietzsche chew gum? or, better yet, did Nietzsche blow bubbles?).

Now, please - grab a chair. Sit back, and enjoy. And, WELCOME to Maison de Gumball.