Redux
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Redux: Your Psychic Friends
Lynn Parramore looks back at the Great Depression to see the path ahead.
What’s in the crystal ball? Minds freaked out by the economy want to know.
So much so that folks are willing to shell out their scant cash on psychics during an economic downturn. The business of telling fortunes is thriving, with psychics reporting visits from a new class of customer – high powered business types and well-heeled Wall Streeters. Some clients fork over a hundred bucks for the privilege of staring at a pile of crystals. Seems kinda silly – until you consider the bad predictions they’ve likely heard from their financial advisors.
Shows like “The Medium,” or “Ghost Whisperer” have sparked a renewed interest in psychics in recent years, but the downturn has revved up a full-blown revival…
Redux: Give Us a Hero, Preferably in Tights
Lynn Parramore looks back at the Great Depression to see the path ahead.
Hard times were made for heroes. We want stories of the fearless, the bold, and the incorruptible. We crave somebody who stares danger in the face and stands up to the bad guys. If those bad guys are nasty pirates straight out of a storybook, then so much the better.
That’s why the sea captain Richard Phillips, who offered himself to Somali pirates to protect his crew, is hailed as “Captain Courageous.” And it’s no surprise that the daring Navy SEALS who felled his captors are celebrated with glowing media profiles, their valor and marksmanship like salve in wounded national pride. Score one for America!
After saving the lives of 155 passengers with his spectacular Hudson River landing, Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger got his own superhero nickname…
Redux: Bootleg Nation?
Lynn Parramore looks back on the Great Depression to see the path ahead.
How do consumers save when they make less than ever before?
Sometimes, they take their business underground. Call it the Downturn Hustle. As folks tighten their belts on just about everything, certain bootleg activities are on the rise.
That’s nothing new. When Prohibition went into effect in 1920, bootleggers got busy providing alcohol to speakeasies and thirsty consumers. By 1929, the year of the Great Crash, a vast underground industry of black market booze had arisen, an illegal trade unlike any the US had ever seen. Gangsters got rich, grew violent and became celebrities as newspaper stories and movies covered their exploits…
Redux: The Self-Help Industry
Lynn Parramore looks back at the Great Depression to see the path ahead.
Can we help ourselves out of the downturn?
Help, I need somebody,
Help, not just anybody,
Help, you know I need someone, help.
~The Beatles
Self-improvement is in the American cultural DNA. After all, the pursuit of happiness is one of our inalienable rights. From the get-go, American society was relatively fluid in its class structure compared to European counterparts. This dynamic situation encouraged people to believe that perseverance and hard work could bring the bluebird of happiness flapping to their door. Founding Father Ben Franklin was a self-improvement guru, outlining strategies for attaining moral perfection and improving body and mind. Franklin, was a pragmatist, too. He didn’t shy away from investigating the most orderly, self-disciplined path for the accumulation of wealth…
Redux: The Shape of the Recession
Looking back at the Great Depression to see the path ahead.
Will the Recession make women fat, or will we stop killing ourselves to be thin?
Body size is a moveable feast, and it changes according to cultural flux. After a long reign of fragile-looking, emaciated models, a strong, athletic form look may be making a comeback. First Lady Michelle Obama’s muscular shape recently graced the cover of Vogue, announcing a new look for the new reality. At the Academy Awards, Kate Winslett was queen of the evening, her gloriously curvaceous figure the envy of all. In interviews she announced – shocker!—that she is too busy to exercise and eats whatever she wants. Oprah Winfrey praised her “real” figure, telegraphing a message to women across American that it’s okay to sport a more natural look. The First Lady and the Academy Award Winner, substantial in both intellect and physicality, flaunt bodies that suggest strength and purpose. They look independent, normal, and accessible.
Redux: Digging the Downturn
Looking back to the Great Depression to see the path ahead.
Can we garden our troubles away?
During the Great Depression, people turned back to the land, growing vegetables in small suburban yards and vacant city lots. These subsistence patches were dubbed “depression gardens” and helped feed the nation during hungry times. People ate what they picked from their gardens, bartered their produce at stores for luxury goods like coffee, and traded regularly with neighbors. Folks reminiscing about those difficult times recall how much food could be coaxed from a few hundred yards…
Redux: Barter is Back
Looking back at the Great Depression to see the path ahead.
If past crises are any indication, a cash shortage won’t stop the wheels of commerce.
During the1930s, people without money started trading goods and services as a way to keep themselves afloat. Workers exchanged labor for room and board. Students traded farm produce for tuition. Moonshiners, bless them, exchanged goods with just about everybody.
People with skills in high demand did especially well. Someone who could bake delicious bread or sew quality clothing could draw people from miles around to barter for their products. Eventually, people established more formalized barter groups like The Unemployed Citizens League, which had 200,000 members across the country at its peak…
Redux: Fashion Takes a Turn
Looking back at the Great Depression to see the path ahead.
Is the Recession the final blow to SATC excess?
Flappers of the late 1920s were the Carries and Samanthas of their day: bold, sassy, and fond of flaunting fabulous frocks. They stepped out in sequined sheaths, pricy handbags tucked under their arms. They sported make-up, smoked cigarettes, and bared limbs. Trading petticoats for scanty panties, they shopped for sequined dancing shoes to replace sensible lace-up boots.
But the fashion orgy didn’t last.
Redux: Will Meals on Wheels be the Next Boom?
Looking back at the Great Depression to see the path ahead.
Will Meals on Wheels be the Next Boom?
A hot dog tale.
Good-bye filet mignon, hello meatloaf. As the recession rages, Americans are finding ways to chow on the cheap. Consumers are shifting food purchasing patterns. We’re trading down to private label and value brands. We’re eating out less, and getting more aggressive about buying products on sale. Fast food joints are luring us by including more premium items on their dollar menus. High end retailers like Whole Foods are feeling the heat as the organic revolution slows. Many of use are doing without that Starbucks latte.
Redux: Will the Recession Spark a Music Revolution?
Little known fact: Many of America’s quintessential cultural elements – the hamburger, the hotdog, Hollywood, baseball, horse-racing and rock-and-roll, to name a few – can be traced to Great Depression. We’ve been shocked into recalling that financial markets feature cycles of contraction and expansion. But culture does, too. Oddly, these cycles appear to be inverted. When the market contracts, culture seems to expand. Innovators emerge, values shift, and tastes change. People begin to play outside the box.
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