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arguchikyesterday (sunday) i went downtown for awhile. i had gone to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
glaucon's house for a little bit, to pick up my glasses and a book i had left there the evening before, and decided to take care of a couple of errands downtown while i was out. i had to exchange a t-shirt because the hem of one sleeve had completely unravelled the second time i washed it. i also wanted to pick up some underwear, and maybe shop here and there for a new scarf for the winter.
so i took care of the t-shirt first, then waded through the crowds to one or two smaller stores. i went to pacific place, gave up on buying underwear at victoria's secret, which was just too fucking pink (not in a good way), too suffused with cheap fragrance, too littered with signs announcing a big sale, too full of tables that were too full of panties and bras, too full of people pawing through the tables. bleah. i went to nordstrom's, where i found a nice scarf in the men's accessories department. the whole time, as i went from place to place, i had to fight crowds and traffic, hordes of people carrying multiple shopping bags--huge packages of stuff they had purchased. they were everywhere, dressed in designer clothing, talking on their phones, sizing each other up with bored sweeps of gaze shaded by sunglasses. at every corner, waiting for the light to change, stacked 20 yards deep. i was noticing all of this without really noticing, you understand. there was something nagging at the edges of my awareness, but i was still enjoying the day, looking forward to going home and tackling some work, and not really thinking too much about what was going on all around me.
i was about ready to head home, but i decided to make one last stop. while i was at nordstrom's, one of the sales clerks had suggested that i check out the nordstrom rack store. it was almost on the way to my bus stop, so i figured...why not?
that's when the something started to take shape, to solidify into a real thought, a conscious awareness. i was looking around the store, watching the throngs of people pawing through the wares. i was still on the main floor, where they sell accessories, some sheets and towels, toiletries and cosmetics, and jewelry, and i suddenly noticed that most of the goods on display were things they don't sell at nordstrom's. that didn't bother me particularly, it just made me realize something i hadn't realized before: nordstrom rack is not a clearinghouse for nordstrom's per se, it is pretty much the same as a tjmaxx or a ross or whatever. again, no big deal, just new information to process. i made my way to the second floor, where i took one look at the ranks of shoe racks and retreated back to the first floor in a fit of claustrophobia. i tried the basement, where they have women's clothing, lingerie, etc., and poked around a little bit. they had rack after rack after rack of stuff: pants, shirts, sweaters, jackets, suits, skirts, dresses, winter coats, etc. etc. etc. i lasted about 5 minutes and i just had to get outside.
i am a bad shopper. when i see commodities densely packed on racks that in turn are densely packed in large spaces, i start to hyperventilate. it is just too much for me, the sheer quantities of stuff, spreading out all around me, being picked through, selected here and discarded there by throngs of people who then form themselves into serpentine lines to wait for one of the 2 or 3 available check stands, waiting for 15 minutes, 30 minutes, even longer.
yesterday it hit me: i was standing in the exhaust plume of the tailpipe of global capitalism. how much of this stuff will go unpurchased? what happens to it then? other clearinghouses further down the food chain...perhaps ultimately to a rag factory or a recycled paper mill? of the stuff that does get purchased, how much of it will end up in a secondhand store within the year? 90%? within a year after that, it will probably be in a landfill. the stuff i had seen at the "real" nordstrom's, earlier...will it have a longer half-life? how much longer? 2 months?
we are a wasteful people. we waste time shopping for things that we will later waste. we waste time working for the money we need to shop for things that we will later waste. in the evenings we go out and eat fast food (can't blame us for wasting time on that, i guess...which is only fitting, because not much time gets wasted on its production, either; not much money gets wasted on the wages of the workers who serve it to us). then we might take in a movie while munching popcorn, milk duds, sour patch kids. or we might go to a bar or a club to get wasted. we waste and are wasted.
on the bus home, i handled my nordstrom's bag cautiously, like the alien, contagious thing it is, peeking in occasionally to see my new scarf there, folded up, peeking coyly back at me from between layers of tissue paper the clerk had wrapped around it while telling me i could save a certain percentage (10%? 15%?) off my entire day's purchases if i would only sign up for a nordstrom's charge card.
i know, because i'm a good marxist, that the scarf is a commodity, and that as such it has a "secret" congealed in it. that secret is the labor that went into producing it, along with my labor that went into buying it for much more than the wage of the factory worker who made it. somewhere, someone has pocketed the difference. and that's only the half of it.
when i got home, i cut the tag off my new scarf, folded the bag and put it away in the cupboard where we keep paper bags. i wore the scarf today. it's thick, colorful, and warm. it looks pretty nice with my second-hand leather jacket.
and i keep wondering how it's all going to turn out, what the spark will be that finally blows this whole mechanism apart. will my hand help to place the charge, set the fuse, light the match, hold the match, signal frantically for errant passersby to take cover? will yours?
glaucon's house for a little bit, to pick up my glasses and a book i had left there the evening before, and decided to take care of a couple of errands downtown while i was out. i had to exchange a t-shirt because the hem of one sleeve had completely unravelled the second time i washed it. i also wanted to pick up some underwear, and maybe shop here and there for a new scarf for the winter.so i took care of the t-shirt first, then waded through the crowds to one or two smaller stores. i went to pacific place, gave up on buying underwear at victoria's secret, which was just too fucking pink (not in a good way), too suffused with cheap fragrance, too littered with signs announcing a big sale, too full of tables that were too full of panties and bras, too full of people pawing through the tables. bleah. i went to nordstrom's, where i found a nice scarf in the men's accessories department. the whole time, as i went from place to place, i had to fight crowds and traffic, hordes of people carrying multiple shopping bags--huge packages of stuff they had purchased. they were everywhere, dressed in designer clothing, talking on their phones, sizing each other up with bored sweeps of gaze shaded by sunglasses. at every corner, waiting for the light to change, stacked 20 yards deep. i was noticing all of this without really noticing, you understand. there was something nagging at the edges of my awareness, but i was still enjoying the day, looking forward to going home and tackling some work, and not really thinking too much about what was going on all around me.
i was about ready to head home, but i decided to make one last stop. while i was at nordstrom's, one of the sales clerks had suggested that i check out the nordstrom rack store. it was almost on the way to my bus stop, so i figured...why not?
that's when the something started to take shape, to solidify into a real thought, a conscious awareness. i was looking around the store, watching the throngs of people pawing through the wares. i was still on the main floor, where they sell accessories, some sheets and towels, toiletries and cosmetics, and jewelry, and i suddenly noticed that most of the goods on display were things they don't sell at nordstrom's. that didn't bother me particularly, it just made me realize something i hadn't realized before: nordstrom rack is not a clearinghouse for nordstrom's per se, it is pretty much the same as a tjmaxx or a ross or whatever. again, no big deal, just new information to process. i made my way to the second floor, where i took one look at the ranks of shoe racks and retreated back to the first floor in a fit of claustrophobia. i tried the basement, where they have women's clothing, lingerie, etc., and poked around a little bit. they had rack after rack after rack of stuff: pants, shirts, sweaters, jackets, suits, skirts, dresses, winter coats, etc. etc. etc. i lasted about 5 minutes and i just had to get outside.
i am a bad shopper. when i see commodities densely packed on racks that in turn are densely packed in large spaces, i start to hyperventilate. it is just too much for me, the sheer quantities of stuff, spreading out all around me, being picked through, selected here and discarded there by throngs of people who then form themselves into serpentine lines to wait for one of the 2 or 3 available check stands, waiting for 15 minutes, 30 minutes, even longer.
yesterday it hit me: i was standing in the exhaust plume of the tailpipe of global capitalism. how much of this stuff will go unpurchased? what happens to it then? other clearinghouses further down the food chain...perhaps ultimately to a rag factory or a recycled paper mill? of the stuff that does get purchased, how much of it will end up in a secondhand store within the year? 90%? within a year after that, it will probably be in a landfill. the stuff i had seen at the "real" nordstrom's, earlier...will it have a longer half-life? how much longer? 2 months?
we are a wasteful people. we waste time shopping for things that we will later waste. we waste time working for the money we need to shop for things that we will later waste. in the evenings we go out and eat fast food (can't blame us for wasting time on that, i guess...which is only fitting, because not much time gets wasted on its production, either; not much money gets wasted on the wages of the workers who serve it to us). then we might take in a movie while munching popcorn, milk duds, sour patch kids. or we might go to a bar or a club to get wasted. we waste and are wasted.
on the bus home, i handled my nordstrom's bag cautiously, like the alien, contagious thing it is, peeking in occasionally to see my new scarf there, folded up, peeking coyly back at me from between layers of tissue paper the clerk had wrapped around it while telling me i could save a certain percentage (10%? 15%?) off my entire day's purchases if i would only sign up for a nordstrom's charge card.
i know, because i'm a good marxist, that the scarf is a commodity, and that as such it has a "secret" congealed in it. that secret is the labor that went into producing it, along with my labor that went into buying it for much more than the wage of the factory worker who made it. somewhere, someone has pocketed the difference. and that's only the half of it.
when i got home, i cut the tag off my new scarf, folded the bag and put it away in the cupboard where we keep paper bags. i wore the scarf today. it's thick, colorful, and warm. it looks pretty nice with my second-hand leather jacket.
and i keep wondering how it's all going to turn out, what the spark will be that finally blows this whole mechanism apart. will my hand help to place the charge, set the fuse, light the match, hold the match, signal frantically for errant passersby to take cover? will yours?
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no subject
Date: 2006-10-17 12:58 pm (UTC)I often feel that way. I bring shopping bags home to an apartment that is already choked to the gills with STUFF, and no matter how much stuff I give away, there is always more of it creeping off the shelves, out of the ducts, etc. It's all useless and yet I hold on to it because I Might Need It Someday. How foolish. Books are different - some of them. Some books are also waste, and that makes me sad.
Gee, that was uplifting of me. :)
no subject
Date: 2006-10-17 01:50 pm (UTC)The heartrate thing was pretty suprising to me though.