On putative topnotch bagelry

If you’re lost and you want to stay lost, I could be your guide.
– The Colorblind James Experience

...let criticism do what it may, writers will write, printers will print, and the world will inevitably be overstocked with good books. It will soon be the employment of a lifetime merely to learn their names.
– Washington Irving, “The Mutability of Literature”

Per my post day before yesterday, my work this morning was to finish assigning text to the Jersey Bounce Varieties of Considering My Bliss Options:

If ever you’re in Jersey (New Jersey)
you’ve got to go to the place
where they make the finest onion bagels,
though there’s disagreement just where that is.

I said,
if ever you’re in Jersey (east of Philly)
you’ve got to go to the place where all the bagels are the greatest,
poppy seed, or garlic, rye or onion,
the bagels baked in Jersey are topnotch,
but just where in Jersey people can’t agree.

West Orange, Hoboken, Pohatcong, HoHoKus,
Saddle River, Pompton Lakes, or Jersey City,
North Arlington, Pequannock Township,
New Providence, Tenafly, or Carteret,
Ringwood, Atlantic City...

[scat]

Perth Amboy, Newark...

[scat]

Mt Olive Township, Willingboro, Cliffside Park,
Maple Shade, Weehawken, Bayonne, Red Bank,
South Orange, Dumont, or Morristown,
Englewood Cliffs, Carlstadt, Elizabeth, Egg Harbor,
Wyckoff, Trenton, Union City, Clifton, Sussex,
Elmer, Sea Girt, Wayne, Irvington, Vineland...

[scat]

Secaucus, Lyndhurst...

[scat]

If ever in the future, you’re in Jersey (New Jersey)
you know the drill, (tellin’ ya)
get yourself a bagel you could die for,
up in Wallington, or down in Avalon.

Again, if ever, Mantoloking, Interlaken, Cape May,
Passaic, Cherry Hill, they’re the finest bagels on the planet,
Paterson, East Orange, Kearny, Teaneck,
Rahway, Allamuchy, Edison,
though there’s always disagreement, disagreement,
Pennsauken, Bass River, Hackensack, New Brunswick,
Piscataway, Clark, West New York,
if a bagel is your thing, go Jersey (oh, yeah.)