CASTRO PRICE WAR

I resolved to report/comment on any good news as soon as I hear it.

It may not be news to you, but I just found a source of cheap Nag Champa in Eureka Valley (“the Castro”).

I thought the price was pretty standard, around $0.13/gram, a little more for the 15g box, less for the 40g box.

Then, the Bead Store near the Castro Theater raised their price for the 15g box from $2.00 to $3.00.

This is still incredibly cheap when you consider that the raw ingredients and the packaging, not to mention labor, all have a cost that is greater than zero, and then the shipping halfway around the world, then the merchant’s markup. I wonder what the price could be FOB/factory.

I was unaware that Planetweavers with their glitzy uckteen-dollars-per-square-foot façade [pictured below] on Castro was the same group as the funky erstwhile shop on Haight, or I would have tried them.

So I saw some moving-in activity at a storefront next to sfmike’s favorite dildo emporium on 18th Street and checked it out. Turns out it’s Planetweavers. I guess rent is an issue. [They haven’t updated their website yet; to find them follow the directions to Autoerotica.]

Planetweavers has a large selection of incense including the most popular Nag Champa at $2.99 for the 40g box. This works out to $0.0748/gram. At the counter the guy even gave me a 25% discount.

Good news has been rarer than sunshine in the Sunset District lately. And there’s no escape. Gas costs too much. Biking or walking burns unaffordable food calories.

But, hey, incense is still cheap.

I light up a stick of Nag, close my eyes, and it’s like I’m in India.

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BURNING NAG

You know, the Magi brought baby Jesus three gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. I’m guessing gram-for-gram, the myrhh was most precious.

I’m not saying I’m the baby Jesus, but like the humble stable of His birth, my digs, after some recent archeology, needed purification.

So I’ve been burning Nag, Champa that is, in my bedroom. It smells like a Hari Krishna parade, or a Head Shop. Such sweetness!

I’m using joss sticks from Bangalore, mfrd by Shrivinas Sugandhalaya. They named it after the religious leader Satya Sai Baba. [This might be like giving a great player’s name to a particular model of baseball glove—my first was a “Marty Marion.”]

I’m not religious, but the smell seduced me and I actually looked the guy up.

There’s lots of mumbo jumbo and the usual pedophilia claims, but Wikipedia distills Satya Sai Baba’s doctrine for us:

Sathya Sai Baba's teachings are said to be realized by observing the following four principles:

There is only one Caste, the Caste of Humanity;
There is only one Religion, the Religion of Love;
There is only one Language, the Language of the Heart;
There is only One God and He is Omnipresent

One can study these words, or, one can light an excellent stick of Nag Champa.

And breathe.

Normally.

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