Rampant consumerism

A New York shopping report

The Hat, in its unnatural habitat (Roncesvalles library)

There was a time when you could get different things in different places. This is easy to romanticize, but in practice it meant that only people who could afford expensive trips could also get whichever nice $15 t-shirts.

That time is mostly over. If you want to do the Muji-Uniqlo rounds, you can do them at Yonge and Dundas or on lower Broadway or in Midtown or at this mall that exists in both Toronto and NYC but also neither and only exists in my (literal) dreams. It has a consistent layout and everything.

To say that this trip to New York was not a shopping expedition is an understatement. We were in the city for other reasons, and with children of a not-shopping-compatible age, and kitchen renovation, and and and.