Beyond the shopping fix towards a healthier value system

Here’s an insightful if depressing snippet via WWD this week about the psychology of shopping:

“The irony is when times are tough, people often become more victims. They may take themselves deeper in a hole and keep spending. They rely on shopping is a quick, easy coping mechanism instead of doing the hard work to dig in and fix what’s really wrong.” Terrence Shulman, founder and director of the Shulman Center for Compulsive and Theft Spending.

Much has been written about our hyper-consumptive culture and its possible long-term, negative effects on both individual well-being and that of society at large…

Self-appointed salons aim to raise the consciousness

Still trying to figure out how to incorporate images into this blog to enhance the overall experience.

So this is a test post from Flickr… and you, lucky readers, are my guinea pigs.

This magazine spread (displayed in the window of a little wine bar in the West Village) caught my eye this morning as I biked past.

The caption (lower left) reads:

The eclectic group of artists and writers form Artistes Sans Hollywood-X, a salon that meets on the second Tuesday of each month in the West Village. “It is our responsibility as the cultural conscience of our nation to work toward consciousness-raising,” says Cintra WIlson (front right), the group’s leader.

And so history repeats itself… Hey, the Flickr thing worked!