Americana Contained

Everything about a gift show is kind of kitchsy and Americanized. No one really needs another throw pillow or baby stroller covered in your alma mater's color and logo. It proves our materialistic values, our lack of insight into the Reduce, Reuse Recycle program, and our belief that these things are not just whims and desires but will actually make our life better, and are as important as water. My job is to smile and convince people that they are right, that they need our company in their life and desperately want it as well. We will not only improve their lives as buyers and store owners but as consumers. Also, I happen to have a knack for it, which I'm not sure is a good thing. I have been trained and responded well to suckering people in to turn the tables and make them desperately want our products as much as we want to sell them. I always use good posture (thanks to all those piano and dance lessons) a smile and my Southern accent to make it happen fo ra company that doens't pay me enough to cover my rent each month. I spend four or five long, exhausting days smiling at strangers and pretending we're all on the verge of becoming best frineds.

Finishing this show up I am more aware than ever of how much New York has changed me. Before, when I would buy something ust because it was cute, I would have spent a fortune here. It's like being at the "Everything is 50-75% off sale" Now I think "Why do I need that [dog bed, chandalier, chair with deer antlers on it] in my life?" I am much calmer about letting that be a part of my life. Because I don't really need any of it. Reading the Times while in Atlanta made me aware of how much better off I am than so many other people in this world and even this country. And I know that secretly this stuff won't change my life, who I am, won't make me a better or worse person, get me that promotion or provide food. The decision to us that is a concious one. As is the decision to screw that moral and buy something. I now tend to focus on smaller things that aren't for a home the size of most people's closets. For instance, I love jewelry but have a hard time justifying the expense.

I wonder if we will always insist on the newest, most advanced, the quote-unquote "best". If so, what happens to everything leftover? As a New Yorker, I am continually disappointed in people's ability to discard everything from clean laundry to furniture, just on the street. I've even picked up a few things from the trash pile on my way to work or home. A few years ago, in a college geography class, I was involved in a group project on a Haitian family. Our task was to analyze, from a photo, how they lived, what they did, and what kind of environment they lived in. The family of eight stood in front of a couple of dirt floor shacks with Mickey-Mouse sheets acting as doors. All their belongings were spread outside on the ground for us to view, among themselves and their animals. It was like looking at a gallery of Americana discards. Their pride was incredible given that they had about a hundred Coca-cola glasses, mixed shoes and socks, two dishes, cowboy boots, to name a few, surrounded by their goats and chickens that provided them with food and drink. The children wore t-shirts emblazoned with places in the United States- The Grand Canyon, Chicago- places that they had more than likely never been. The average person there makes the US equivalent of $40 per year.

We can eat basically whenever and whatever we want. We can even specify how it's cooked or what's seclected. There are no problems asking for seconds or even thirds, and I think we must be one of the few countries that specialize in 95 foot buffets. Water is given with free refills. We don't hunt and gather as we used to, conviently finding everything we could possibly need through online food producers or by walking or driving ourselves to massive super markets. Even during natural disasters, people rarely truly suffer while awaiting aid (excepting the recent Katrina hurricane, of course). Food water and shelter are already set up ahead of time, which limits loss of life and even injuries. Even Katrina's measly 2000 dead certainly does not compare to the Indian Ocean's Tsunami, which caused the loss of roughly 200,000. At the gift show there were already stores from New Orleans, Lafayette, and Slidell purchasing. Everything's on the rise again.

As we try to better our position in life by absorbing consumers, I wonder what kind of messgae we're sending other countries. This month alone, there are seven international gift shows in the US- I'm talking international markets that are held like the Atlanta one. Buess I'll have to work on a solution in another career. As John Cusack's character said in Say Anything, "Sir, I don't want to buy a product, sell a product, manufacture a product, or work for someone who sells buys or manufactures a product".