Cute, Quaint, Hungry and Romantic: The Aesthetics of Consumerism

NUTSHELL: Daniel Harris is the Camille Paglia (less insane, though equally brash) of consumer theory, and this is a superb examination of the ways in which advertising has created the look, the texture and the feel of the lives (or lies?) we live.

DETAILS: All of the mass-culture images and ideas we move through have historical precedents, of course, and Harris explains why and what they are. Why doesn't the phone "ring" anymore? ("This new computer-generated sound suggest that the telephone is more 'advanced' simply because its ring is different, a tonal adjustment that implies greater capacity.") Why flowers? ("Consumerism actively strives to undermine our confidence in our skills at seduction so that we feel compelled to rent the services of the love industry.") Who invented the whole odious concept of "dating"? ("Only in the first quarter of the century did "calling" give way to "dating," a response in part to the predicament of the urban proletariat who...had no parlor in which to woo...The shift of the setting for courtship from the domestic world to the public sphere created a whole new consciousness of the watching public and radically altered both the economics and the aesthetics of seduction.") Ever suspected that something is deeply, deeply wrong with contemporary culture? Then this is the book for you. (And yes, I do realize that that sentence was utter adspeak, which sort of proves Harris's point, doesn't it, that we live, speak and think in ads? That ads are the air we breathe?)

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