Cue the world’s tiniest violin

The New York Times reports on the awful plight of rich New Yorkers who find themselves having to tighten their alligator-skin belts with diamond-encrusted buckles a notch or two:
The wealthy don’t generally speak publicly about their finances, in good times or bad. It’s in poor taste, for one, and their employers could fire them for [...]

Homeless chic, agency, and exploitation

Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal had a story about a high-end clothing boutique in L.A. selling a line of high-priced t-shirts and sweatshirts bearing the image of a man dancing on roller skates. The “Crazy Robertson” brand takes its name and image from John Wesley Jermyn, a homeless man who has been a fixture on L.A.’s [...]

More inexplicable catalog items

The very notion of a catalog exclusively featuring brocade household items is bizarre enough. But who the hell would want a brocade-patterned tool set?

Free rice or free publicity?

FreeRice.com is evidently the latest hot “viral” web marketing scheme. The premise of the site is that viewers play a game in which they try to choose the correct definition of a word. For each correct answer, they will donate 10 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program.
Thus far, the total quantity [...]

Does it have a matching toilet paper dispenser?

Once again, it’s that time of the year when we are inundated with catalogs hawking endless arrays of useless merchandise. As Ann Bartow observes, some of the items are truly odd. But this one is by far the oddest I have ever seen:

Stone Statue Tissue Box Cover
For centuries, the giant stone statues on Easter [...]

Oh!

I was somewhat startled to see, while perusing the New York Times Magazine this afternoon, a story about something called Buddylube. It turned out not to be at all what I’d imagined.

The decline of western civilization

It’s been a long time since Brooks Brothers was really Brooks Brothers. But these items, featured in the catalog that arrived in my mailbox today, are really OTT:

4-Plaid Fun Pant (not as sexy as they sound. And why “pant”? Is there just one?)
Lacquer Dinnerware
Holiday Soup Tureen

Cutting through the pink ribbon hype

As an inveterate skeptic of all “shopping-for-a-better-world” schemes, I was very pleased to learn  about this (thanks to Christine Hurt at Conglomerate Blog):
Think Before You Pink, a project of Breast Cancer Action, launched in 2002 in response to the growing concern about the overwhelming number of pink ribbon products and promotions on the market. [...]

I’m all lost in the supermarket, I can can no longer shop happily

The Situationist explains why.

Hello, do you have Prince Albert in a can

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been subject to a constant, and seemingly endless, stream of telephone solicitations from various outfits offering to consolidate my student loans. They appear to be taking advantage of the gap between my getting a new phone number and my signing up with the FTC’s do-not-call registry. Though, like everyone, [...]