h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This entry reminds me of my first employer, the Dupont Co. Yup, the massive chemical conglomerate that invented nylon. I'm a chemical engineer, but I worked in another division - you don't want to know. Some of my company acquaintances were involved in the fibers division - nylon was simply the first of many (one "unofficial" story of the company's history is titled "The Nylon Curtain" ...) Those folks got a great kick out of the British movie "The Man in the White Suit", starring Alec Guinness. And I have to confess, its a brilliant takeoff on the whole story - I even bought an original VHS version and still get it down and watch it sometimes - and laugh every time, great stuff.

I remember that movie, but not very well. Was it an indestructable fabric - thereby bringing about the demise of industry and the world as they knew it?

Thats what fashion is for - making sure we all buy clothes we don't need and throw away clothes we could still wear.

***B
*Wearing a pair of 8 month old jeans, a 14 month old t-shirt and a 3 month old jumper, and proving the point*

Yup, that's the plot. Some funny scenes with Guinness wearing a WWI helmet and crouching behind sandbags in his lab ... the mixture tended to have "rapid pressure buildup and release" (we chem e's don't use the "e" word).

Lots of clothes, right. Interesting that Fitzgerald had Gatsby show his wealth by displaying his dozens and dozens of shirts.

I was shocked recently when as part of some recent space-clearing I gave 2 bin-bags of clothes to the womens' shelter in January, and another 2 bin-bags full in June. And I couldn't describe a single one now...

Not a fashion icon called Ben

Yup, consumerism has become a science (plague?), at least in the US, and has been for a long time. FDR was asked what book he would give to every Russian Communist, he replied, "The Sears Catalogue".

QUOTE

Modern man, if he dared to be articulate about his concept of heaven, would describe a vision which would look like the biggest department store in the world, showing new things and gadgets, and himself having plenty of money with which to buy them. He would wander around open-mouthed in this heaven of gadgets and commodities, provided only that there were ever more and newer things to buy, and perhaps that his neighbors were just a little less privileged than he.
Erich Fromm (1900-1980), U.S. psychologist. The Sane Society, ch. 5, "Alienation" (1955).

END QUOTE

Present company excluded, of course (unless we're talking about certain categories of software, books, movies, ...)

Great quotes, both of them.

As a friend of mine said swerving off towards the electronics department in a department store: "Toys!"

***B