Sherry Chandler » 2006 » March » 20
Spring Has Returned
Spring has returned. The earth is
like a child who knows poems.
Many, many…
– Rainer Maria Rilke (trans. Charles Haseloff)
This post was written by sherry
and a book that might be worth looking at. From a review of Judith Levine’s Not Buying It: My Year without Shopping:
…Levine begins the book by telling us about a mid-December day in 2003 when she found herself jammed into a subway car, fighting to protect her shopping bags from other people’s muddy boots. Her joy was depleting as rapidly as her bank account.
“I have maxed out the Visa, moved on to the Citibank debit card, and am tapping the ATM like an Iraqi guerrilla pulling crude from the pipeline,” she wrote. That was when the idea occurred to her: Why don’t we just stop buying? And thus was born the premise for this engaging and thought-provoking chronicle of 2004, the year that Levine and her domestic partner, Paul, simply said no to buying.
They did, of course, purchase what they considered necessities — basic foodstuffs, household items like toilet paper, and medicine for themselves and their cat.
But they shunned all processed foods (extras like cookies and crackers), clothes, books (other than those required for work — the rest came from the library), CDs, and — to the horror of their friends — even movies.
The motive was not financial. It was more about discomfort with patterns of overconsumption and curiosity about what would it would be like to survive daily life as a nonconsumer. “Is it even possible to withdraw from the marketplace?” Levine wondered.
In a country whose consumerism drives the world economy, where we were told the only thing we could do to support the war effort was go shopping, to stop buying is a truly subversive act, one I’m not even sure I could condone. I’ve always lived on the poor side of the economy, sometimes just barely above the official poverty line, and relatively speaking I’m not much of a spender. Nevertheless, I have a couple of little books that I’d like people to buy and I have a husband and many friends who produce and sell arts and crafts. We would be unable to go on if suddenly folk started vowing out of the marketplace.
Still, it’s true that we are a nation that overconsumes in every way. Having watched “Supersize Me” this weekend, I am just about ready to embrace an ascetic life. But the arts will have to remain on my necessities list.
Marjorie Kehe writes the review, which is featured at Powell’s.com. The review originally appeared in the Christian Science Monitor.
This post was written by sherry
