[Image via TeachNet UK]

Congress Approves Nineteenth Amendment [Library of Congress]
Seneca Falls Convention [National Portrait Gallery]

Whose rooms were bedecked in Bo Jackson and Andre Agassi posters, posters that sated a little satisfied void of American pop culture during some three years of my life. Shall I continue? This is getting indulgent, even for me, which I guess explains my reluctance to discuss Chuck Taylors, a three-year-old pair of which I happened to be wearing a minute ago before I realized I was wearing shoes while blogging.

And that I would be more comfortable without them on. This thought does not occur to me nearly enough; the night before last I passed out still wearing them. Not that they are particularly comfortable. They are just not uncomfortable. It's funny to think my Chucks are three years old, because they still seem relatively new. As Chucks go, you understand. The "All Star" seal hasn't so much as begun to fade. I accept mediocrity in my Chucks as I accept it in myself and in this blog post, which almost failed to point out the serendipitous fact that Converse is now an advertiser on this blog, which might not exist had companies like Converse yielded to market forces and shuttered their factories so as to save more cash for marketing. Thank you, Nike! You acquired a decent little product here. Would I rather be working in one of your factories? No I would not.

I came to be a Chuck Taylor person through the gateway of Kurt Cobain and one-stars and "angst," and at some point it of course occurred to me that commodified angst is still a commodity, and that Chuck Taylors would be offering some migrant girl in Shenzhen a job soon enough, this time making shoes for Shanghai hipsters, imitating to the Hong Kong hipsters imitating the Japanese hipsters paying homage to the Ramones...that we are social creatures, driven to imitate and impress one another, to broadcast our psychographics tacitly through our choice in footwear.

And yes, all that happened, very very quickly, and in the meantime I wore Chuck Taylors, which wore out very very slowly. You might say it all happened in the lifetime of three and a half pairs of Chucks, and you might call that "discusting" but any southern Chinese factory worker could tell you that was all anyone really needed.

From Hoops To Hipsters [Wash Post]
A Tribute To Converse Chuck Taylors [Angelfire]
Chicks In Chucks [Chucks Connection]
Nike To Buy Converse For About $305 Million [WSJ]
Converse Files Chapter 11; Will Move Manufacturing To Asia [NYT]

Charlie did not drink in the office. At least not until the end of the day.

We did not show cleavage in the office. I had no cleavage to show.

[Wilson's apartment] was much cheesier in real life [than it was in the movie]. It was floor-to-ceiling mirrors.

The movie made it seem like he called us all jailbait. He never called us jailbait.

I thought, 'Who is this Neanderthal?' and I stormed into his office. He burst out laughing. He has spent his whole life figuring out how to pull people's chains — and he was pulling mine.

He'd never met Farrah [Fawcett] in his life, but he reads [in a gossip column that the two are dating] and says, 'You think if I call her, she'll go out with me?'

He asked me to dance, and somebody took a picture of us dancing and published it in The Washington Post and Charlie said, 'I've never been seen dancing with a woman that old! Those damn liberals printed it on purpose, showing me dancing with an old lady!'

He used to drive us crazy because he was such a chauvinist, but he also gave us so many opportunities. For heaven's sakes, I was a woman on Defense Appropriations, where there weren't very many of us. I'm a big fan.

Sticking To His Guns [Washington Post]

I remember a lunch conversation with my dear friend ... around the art of the brand. Logo'ed luxury items were top sellers, but why? Was it simply to send a message about status and class? ... As this was happening in my outer world, something was happening inside. Of course I was deeply proud to represent a major designer house, founded by one of the most brilliant designers in history. At first I was proud to have the ability to buy and wear $900 pants, $1,000 blouses...But over time I started to pay more attention to the push pull inside of me every time I put my credit card on the counter. In order to continue to stay current season after season, it seemed I 'required' more. Another pair of shoes. That dress. Yes, it was fun at first. But over time all of this started to feel deeply 'out of proportion' - it was all out of proportion with what it meant to me as a human being. Was that blouse really worth $1,000? Even if I could afford it, did I WANT to???

It was written by Cosmo bachelor of the year 1977 John Kenneth Galbraith, and because I was feeling geeky today I decided to just excerpt the parts I found relevant to your personal crisis.

Economic theory has managed to transfer the sense of urgency in meeting consumer need that once was felt in a world where more production meant more food for the hungry, more clothing for the cold and more houses for the homeless to a world where increased output satisfies the craving for more elegant automobiles, more exotic food, more erotic clothing, more elaborate entertainment — indeed, for the entire modern range of sensuous, edifying and lethal desires. Although the economic theory which defends these desires and hence the production that supplies them has an impeccable (and to an astonishing degree even unchallenged) position in the conventional wisdom, it is illogical and meretricious and, in degree, even dangerous.

Few economists in recent years can have escaped some uneasiness over the kinds of goods which their value system is insisting they must maximize. They have wondered about the urgency of numerous products of great frivolity. They have been uneasy about the lengths to which it has been necessary to go with advertising and salesmanship to synthesize the desire for such goods....The weakness, as well as the ultimate defense, lies with the theory of consumer demand. This is a formidable structure; it has already demonstrated its effectiveness in defending the urgency of production. In a world where affluence is rendering the old ideas obsolete, it will continue to be the bastion against the misery of new ones.

The theory of consumer demand, as is now widely accepted, is based on two broad propositions, neither of themquite explicit but both extremely important for the present value system of economists. The first is that the urgency of wants does not diminish appreciably as more of them are satisfied or, to put the matter more precisely, to the extent that this happens, it is not demonstrable and not a matter of any interest to economists or economic policy. When man has satisfied his physical needs, then psychologically grounded desires take over. These can never be satisfied, or, in any case, no progress can be proved....

The second proposition is that wants originate in the personality of the consumer or, in any case, that they are given data for the economist. The latter's tasks is merely to seek their satisfaction. He has no need to inquire how those wants are formed. His function is sufficiently fulfilled by maximizing the goods that supply the wants.

As Adam Smith observed: "Nothing is more useful than water; but it will purchase scarce anything; scarce anything can be had in exchange for it. A diamond, on the contrary, has scarce any value in use: but a very great quantity of other goods may frequently be had in exchange for it."

Yesterday the man with a minimal but increasing real income was reaping the satisfactions which came from a decent diet and a roof that no longer leaked water on his face. Today, after a large increase in his income, he has extended his consumption to include cable television and eccentric loafers. But to say that his satisfactions from these latter amenities and recreations are less than from the additional calories and the freedom from rain is wholly improper.

To summarize: you are a tool of the Western World's obsession with quantifying the worth of its situation via continuous, sustained GDP growth. Also: get a life.

P.S. Did not mean to be snippy! Clearly you are making headway! Just suggesting that empty feeling you're feeling — Paris is feeling it too! — does not have its origins in anything that happened, say, the year Scarlett Johansson started shilling for Vuitton or whatever.

How I Escaped The Luxury Brand Tsunami [Huffington Post]

The Affluent Society [Amazon]