She's Gotta Have It

I was browsing So New Media's latest offerings ("Little Books, Big Ideas") when I came across a new collection of essays called Consumed: Women on Excess. It looks intriguing from a conceptual standpoint, and my interest was especially piqued by "famous quotes to set the mood":

"We're consumers. We're by-products of a lifestyle obsession. Murder, crime, poverty -- these things don't concern me. What concerns me is celebrity magazines, television with five hundred channels, some guy's name on my underwear. Rogaine, Viagra, Olestra." -- from Fight Club, Chuck Pahlaniuk

"I like my money right where I can see it... hanging in my closet." --Carrie Bradshaw, Sex & the City

"Junk is the ultimate merchandise. The junk merchant does not sell his product to the consumer, he sells the consumer to the product. He does not improve and simplify his merchandise, he degrades and simplifies the client."--William S. Burroughs

"During the earlier stages of economic development, consumption of goods without stint, especially consumption of the better grades of goods,--ideally all consumption in excess of the subsistence minimum, --pertains normally to the leisure class." -Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class, 1902.

"All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume." --Noam Chomsky

See also, "Five Kelly Bags: The Language of Women and Things" and "The True Price of Shopping 'til You Drop", both from the forthcoming new magazine, Bee, "the first woman’s magazine devoted to personal finance, politics and lifestyle (the way we live, not how we decorate)."

Comments

[Niche]

Somewhat related to this topic is my
BlackList piece on Clothes Swap.
http://www.blacktable.com/blacklist050824.htm

[Editor]

Thanks, Nichelle! Great piece. I love your turn of phrase: "cool to recycle, in a fashionista-hippie sorta way." Most definitely! Best, LC