2007-02-18

Coming Soon - More Choices That Don't Involve Thinking

Here in the city proper, we ain't got what you'd call a proper "mall." What we have is a sprawling testament to New Luxury, a set of conjoined high-end retail twins known as The Prudential Center/Copley Plaza. Not a Claire's or a Hot Topic a Spencer's Gifts to be found. You want commodified "goth," you gotta haul ass to Burlington. You want a pink furry cellphone case, you have to go to Downtown Crossing. You want a blacklight poster or one of those fiber optic lights, you.....fuck if I know where you should go. Back to your parents' basement, circa 1982 would be my guess.

The "mall" we have here is home to a palatial two-story Barney's, as well as Jimmy Choo, Kenneth Cole, and bevy of other designers whose wares you will not be able to afford, ever. This is not a mall where you can idly flip through the sales rack at The Limited with your best friend, giggling about the guy who works at Chess King while taking long pulls off your medium Orange Julius. No, no - this is where you go when you're inexplicably flush with cash and have a perverse desire to spend $1,900 on a dress that's little more than a crotch doily.

Actually, the Copley end of this two-headed beast does have a Gap, and I'm frankly surprised that they allow it to remain, flanked as it is by its cooler cousin, Lucky Denim, and its staid aunt, J. Crew. Oh Christ - I went into J. Crew the other day looking for a hairclip and it was all the shit that's just never gone out of style in the town where I spent most of my formative years (Hingham, MA). Just an endless cavalcade of fucking plaid seersucker nautical-themed culottes and polo shirts and kicky little sweaters that actually provide no warmth. All the sunkissed girls with their tortoise-shell headbands that had their 16th birthday parties at the Yacht Club and wound up puking peach schnapps under the dock while their best friends held their hair back and giggled "Oh my GOD, Beth!"

So this "mall" actually did have a bookstore up until recently - Brentano's - which is where I would go when I first got sober and was crawling out of my skin and needed to roam about someplace where I could be relatively undisturbed by other human beings. The powers-that-be, Simon Malls, closed it about 2 weeks ago, and in its place is a large shelter-like structure bearing the promise: "Coming Soon - More Choices!" More choices that involve crotch doilies and $400 flip-flops. Certainly we don't want people, you know, READING or anything.

lisamcc at 6:17 p.m.

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