Branded Shopping Quotes

If you want to understand what’s most important to a society, don’t examine its art or literature, simply look at its biggest buildings.” In medieval societies, the biggest buildings were its churches and palaces; using Campbell’s method, we can assume these were feudal cultures that revered their leaders and worshipped God. In modern Western cities, the biggest buildings are the banks—bloody great towers that dominate the docklands—and the shopping centers, which architecturally ape the cathedrals they’ve replaced: domes, spires, eerie celestial calm, fountains for fonts, food courts for pews.

When Henry’s gone, Alex finds the stationery by the bed: Fromagerie Nicole Barthélémy. Leaving your clandestine hookup directions to a Parisian cheese shop. Alex has to admit: Henry really has a solid handle on his personal brand.

She found too much cheer undesirable, smacking of falseness. How did Americans keep up their good spirits day in, day out, year-round? It had to be the brand-shiny-newness of their country. It had to be all that freedom. No thousands of years' worth of stultifying rules to observe. Just easy-peasy rolling with the flow.

The point about pop culture is that so much of it is borrowed. There's very little that's brand new. Instead, creativity today is a kind of shopping process—picking up on and sampling things form the world around you, things you grew up with.

Because in [Lenin's] eyes the workers were only workers and not also customers, he believed they were already slaves under capitalism, and that one did not change their status when nationalizing all plants and shops. Socialism substitutes the sovereignty of a dictator, or committee of dictators, for the sovereignty of the consumers. Along with the economic sovereignty of the citizens disappears also their political sovereignty. To the unique production plan that annuls any planning on the part of the consumers corresponds in the constitutional sphere the one party principle that deprives the citizens of any opportunity to plan the course of public affairs. Freedom is indivisible. He who has not the faculty to choose among various brands of canned food or soap, is also deprived of the power to choose between various political parties and programs and to elect the officeholders. He is no longer a man; he becomes a pawn in the hands of the supreme social engineer. Even his freedom to rear progeny will be taken away by eugenics.

How did Americans keep up their good spirits day in, day out, year-round? It had to be the brand-shiny-newness of their country. It had to be all that freedom. No thousands of years’ worth of stultifying rules to observe.

I was in the local shop today, getting something to eat for lunch, when I suddenly had the strangest sensation—a spontaneous awareness of the unlikeliness of this life. I mean, I thought of all the rest of the human population—most of whom live in what you and I would consider abject poverty—who have never seen or entered such a shop. And this, this, is what all their work sustains! This lifestyle, for people like us! All the various brands of soft drinks in plastic bottles and all the pre-packaged lunch deals and confectionery in sealed bags and store-baked pastries—this is it, the culmination of all the labour in the world, all the burning of fossil fuels and all the back-breaking work on coffee farms and sugar plantations. All for this! This convenience shop! I felt dizzy thinking about it. I mean I really felt ill. It was as if I suddenly remembered that my life was all part of a television show—and every day people died making the show, were ground to death in the most horrific ways, children, women, and all so that I could choose from various lunch options, each packaged in multiple layers of single-use plastic. That was what they died for—that was the great experiment. I thought I would throw up. Of course, a feeling like that can’t last. Maybe for the rest of the day I feel bad, even for the rest of the week—so what? I still have to buy lunch. And in case you’re worrying about me, let me assure you, buy lunch I did.

To feel everything in every way; to be able to think with the emotions and feel with the mind; not to desire much except with the imagination; to suffer with haughtiness; to see clearly so as to write accurately; to know oneself through diplomacy and dissimulation; to become naturalized as a different person, with all the necessary documents; in short, to use all sensations but only on the inside, peeling them all down to God and then wrapping everything up again and putting it back in the shop window like the sales assistant I can see from here with the small tins of a new brand of shoe polish.

I had a bizarre rapport with this mirror and spent a lot of time gazing into the glass to see who was there. Sometimes it looked like me. At other times, I could see someone similar but different in the reflection. A few times, I caught the switch in mid-stare, my expression re-forming like melting rubber, the creases and features of my face softening or hardening until the mutation was complete. Jekyll to Hyde, or Hyde to Jekyll. I felt my inner core change at the same time. I would feel more confident or less confident; mature or childlike; freezing cold or sticky hot, a state that would drive Mum mad as I escaped to the bathroom where I would remain for two hours scrubbing my skin until it was raw. The change was triggered by different emotions: on hearing a particular piece of music; the sight of my father, the smell of his brand of aftershave. I would pick up a book with the certainty that I had not read it before and hear the words as I read them like an echo inside my head. Like Alice in the Lewis Carroll story, I slipped into the depths of the looking glass and couldn’t be sure if it was me standing there or an impostor, a lookalike. I felt fully awake most of the time, but sometimes while I was awake it felt as if I were dreaming. In this dream state I didn’t feel like me, the real me. I felt numb. My fingers prickled. My eyes in the mirror’s reflection were glazed like the eyes of a mannequin in a shop window, my colour, my shape, but without light or focus. These changes were described by Dr Purvis as mood swings and by Mother as floods, but I knew better. All teenagers are moody when it suits them. My Switches could take place when I was alone, transforming me from a bright sixteen-year-old doing her homework into a sobbing child curled on the bed staring at the wall. The weeping fit would pass and I would drag myself back to the mirror expecting to see a child version of myself. ‘Who are you?’ I’d ask. I could hear the words; it sounded like me but it wasn’t me. I’d watch my lips moving and say it again, ‘Who are you?

At its very core, the story of Jack the Ripper is a narrative of a killer’s deep, abiding hatred of women, and our culture’s obsession with the mythology serves only to normalize its particular brand of misogyny. We have grown so comfortable with the notion of “Jack the Ripper,” the unfathomable, invincible male killer, that we have failed to recognize that he continues to walk among us. In his top hat and cape, wielding his blood-drenched knife, he can be spotted regularly in London on posters, in ads, on the sides of buses. Bartenders have named drinks after him, shops use his moniker on their signs, tourists from around the world make pilgrimages to Whitechapel to walk in his footsteps and visit a museum dedicated to his violence. The world has learned to dress up in his costume at Halloween, to imagine being him, to honor his genius, to laugh at a murderer of women. By embracing him, we embrace the set of values that surrounded him in 1888, which teaches women that they are of a lesser value and can expect to be dishonored and abused.

Jessica peeked into the bathroom, then hurried back to report. "They got that boy stripped mother naked and they're scrubbing him with your brand-new loofah." I winced. Thirty-seven ninety-nine at The Body Shop, kaput.

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If you were a brand, would you buy yourself or keep shopping?

What a wonderful world that was, and how remote it seems now. It is a challenge to believe that there was ever a time that airline food was exciting, when stewardesses were happy to see you, when flying was such an occasion that you wore your finest clothes. I grew up in a world in which everything was like that: shopping malls, TV dinners, TV itself, supermarkets, freeways, air conditioning, drive-in movies, 3D movies, transistor radios, backyard barbecues, air travel as a commonplace—all were brand-new and marvelously exciting. It is amazing we didn’t choke to death on all the novelty and wonder in our lives. I remember once my father brought home a device that you plugged in and, with an enormous amount of noise and energy, it turned ice cubes into shaved ice, and we got excited about that. We were idiots really, but awfully happy, too. —

Jim purchased a brand-new book called How to Fix Damn Near Anything. In horror I discovered a $15.95 price tag on the inside of the jacket. Upon interrogation he confessed that he purchased it at the thrift shop for $.25.

Online shopping with discount coupons It is quite frequent that most manufacturers are using marketing and advertising strategies to be able to attract customers in their business. It is so usual that all of us want to save money on every product that we purchase inorder to incur extra saving. Thus the concept of online discount coupons came into effect and Saverr has in its credential reliable discount coupons from every possible big brands.

But it could have been worse. He did have a pass to shop for food at the Army–Air Force Exchange Service—otherwise known as the PX at nearby Greenham Commons Air Base—so at least they’d have proper hot dogs, and brands that resembled the ones he bought at the Giant at home in Maryland.

If I ever have kids, this is what I'm going to do with them: I am going to give birth to them on foreign soil—preferably the soil of someplace like Oostende or Antwerp—destinations that have the allure of being obscure, freezing, and impossibly cultured. These are places in which people are casually trilingual and everyone knows how to make good coffee and gourmet dinners at home without having to shop for specific ingredients. Everyone has hip European sneakers that effortlessly look like the exact pair you've been searching for your whole life. Everything is sweetened with honey and even the generic-brand Q-tips are aesthetically packaged. People die from old age or crimes of passion or because they fall off glaciers. All the woman are either thin, thin and happy, fat and happy, or thin and miserable in a glamorous way. Somehow none of their Italian heels get caught in the fifteenth-century cobblestone. Ever.

The smiling clerks at the various shops confused them a little at first by offering them new brands of breakfast foods with strange, oddly spelled names, but the girls explained patiently at each place that they were giving a dinner party, not a breakfast, and that they wanted nothing but the things on their list.

Over the past twenty years, Maher watched that pattern play out again and again as major clothing brands made demands on suppliers in Bangladesh to lower their prices while also completing orders faster and constantly improving their workplace and environmental standards. Fakir Fashion has implemented certified projects to treat its wastewater, harvest rainwater, use more solar power, provide meals and child care for workers, hire workers with disabilities, build schools in the local area and more. They have been unable to pass on any of the expenses of these improvements to apparel brands or consumers, who continue to want more for less.

The Court, the biggest and best shopping center within walking distance of Kilda’s and Colm’s, the wrapping of every moment in the world that doesn’t have some sour-faced adult looming over it ready to pounce. The Court pulls like a towering magnet and everyone comes. Anything can happen here, in the sparkling slice of freedom between classes and teatime; your life could lift right off the ground and shimmer into something brand-new. In the dizzying white light all the faces glimmer, they mouth words and crack open in laughs you can almost catch through the cloud of sounds, and any one of them could be the heart-stopping one you’ve been waiting for;

Like our other needs, meaning is an inherent expectation. Its denial has dire consequences. Far from a purely psychological need, our hormonees and nervous systems clock its presence or absence. As a medical study in 2020 found, the "presence [of] and search for meaning in life are important for health and well-being." Simply put, the more meaningful you find your life, the better your measures of mental and physical health are likely to be. It is itself a sign of the times that we even need such studies to confirm what our experience of life teaches. When do you feel happier, more fulfilled, more viscerally at ease: when you extend yourself to help and connect with others, or when you are focused on burnishing the importance of your little egoic self? We all know the answer, and yet somehow what we know doesn't always carry the day. Corporations are ingenious at exploiting people's needs without actually meeting them. Naomi Klein, in her book No Logo, made vividly clear how big business began in the 1980s to home in on people's natural desire to belong to something larger than themselves. Brand-aware companies such as Nike, Lululemon, and the Body Shop are marketing much more than products: they sell meaning, identification, and an almost religious sense of belonging through association with their brand. "That pressuposes a kind of emptiness and yearning in people," I suggested when I interviewed the prolific author and activist. "Yes," Klein replied. "They tap into a longing and a need for belonging, and they do it by exploiting the insight that just selling running shoes isn't enough. We humans want to be part of a transcendent project.

conveniently at adult eye level, with the generic brands placed down by your knees. Sugary cereals or other items meant to appeal to children are placed at eye level for children. Even the giant size of the shopping carts is intended to encourage more purchases. “Even the music is meant to manipulate us,” I explain to Luke. “A study of supermarket

or creed.” These rights included: The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation; The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation; The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living; The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad; The right of every family to a decent home; The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health; The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment; The right to a good education. Roosevelt

If you were to ask the developers of Lakeside or any shopping center what they are offering consumers (formerly known as “people”) they’d say, “It’s all under one roof”—great, a ceiling, and, more importantly, “choice.” Choice is the key. Apparently, then, what excited me as a bulimic Smiths fan and onanist was the possibility of choice, and for anybody to be stimulated by the idea of choice, the precondition must be a lack of choice. Which is a way of saying a lack of power, a lack of freedom.

Like bees with flowers, we are drawn to reliable signals of honest intent, and we choose to do business where those signals are found. This explains why we generally buy televisions from shops rather than from strangers on the street – the shop has invested in stock, it has a stable location and it is vulnerable to reputational damage. We do this instinctively; what we are prepared to pay for something is affected not only by the item itself but by the trustworthiness and reputation of the person selling it.

I thought of all the rest of the human population – most of whom live in what you and I would consider abject poverty – who have never seen or entered such a shop. And this, this, is what all their work sustains! This lifestyle, for people like us! All the various brands of soft drinks in plastic bottles and all the pre-packaged lunch deals and confectionery in sealed bags and store-baked pastries – this is it, the culmination of all the labour in the world, all the burning of fossil fuels and all the back-breaking work on coffee farms and sugar plantations. All for this! This convenience shop! I felt dizzy thinking about it. I mean I really felt ill. It was as if I suddenly remembered that my life was all part of a television show – and every day people died making the show, were ground to death in the most horrific ways, children, women, and all so that I could choose from various lunch options, each packaged in multiple layers of single-use plastic. That was what they died for – that was the great experiment.

When the Down Days first came swinging, the government hired workers in plastic suits to spray the streets each week. Everyone was told to wash their hands with chlorine, disinfect with bleach. Within six months the shelves at your local shop were filled with new brands, plastic bottle after plastic bottle promising all sorts of miracle properties. Some people took the ads to heart, started cleaning like their salvation depended on it. A few suckers even started drinking diluted bleach, thinking it would cure them from the inside out.

We stop at nothing, in offering a quality selection of your pet's everyday needs. Our Fast and Free India wide shipping service extends to +6500 pincodes covering small towns and metros across the country. We bundle up Easy Payment options on most popular pet brands in India with an selection of 3000+ products from all popular brands in dog, cat and fish supplies available in the Indian Pet Care Industry and then some. Our customer service team is a zealous lot to ensure an acme online shopping experience for the pet parents who shop with us.

Functional, elegant, outrageous or wacky: the choice is yours. The capital’s decidedly nonmainstream chic is best explored by browsing the vast variety of design shops that spatter its centre. Whether examining iconic 20th-century Finnish forms in the flagship emporia of brands such as Iittala, Marimekko and Artek, or tracking down the cutting-edge and just plain weird in the creative Punavuori backstreets in the heart of its Design District, you’re sure to find something you didn’t know you needed, but just can’t do without. And yes, they can arrange shipping.

The shop-boys in the neighbourhood had long been in the habit of branding Noah, in the public streets, with the ignominious epithets of 'leathers', 'charity', and the like; and Noah had borne them without reply. But now that fortune had cast in his way a nameless orphan, at whom even the meanest could point the finger of scorn, he retorted on him with interest. This affords charming food for contemplation. It shows us what a beautiful thing human nature sometimes is, and how impartially the same amiable qualities are developed in the finest lord and the dirtiest charity-boy.

As we were chatting in the back room, her gaze suddenly fell on the ballet flats I was wearing. "Oh, those shoes are from that shop in Omotesando, aren't they? I like that place too. I have some boots from there." In the back room she speaks in a languid drawl, the end of her words slightly drawn out. I bought these flats after checking the brand name of the shoes she wears for work while she was in the toilet. "Oh really? Wait, do you mean those dark blue ones you wore to the shop before? Those were cute!" I answered, copying Sugawara's speech pattern but using a slightly more adult tone.

A lot of unemployment, though. We’ve got two closed factories and a rotting shopping mall that went bankrupt before it ever opened. We’re not far from Kentucky, which marks the unofficial border to the South, so one sees more than enough pickup trucks decorated with stickers of Confederate flags and slogans proclaiming their brand of truck is superior to all others. Lots of country music stations, lots of jokes that contain the word “nigger.” A sewer system that occasionally backs up into the streets for some unknown reason. Lots and lots of stray dogs around, many with grotesque deformities.

At Universal Studios, Marston had a hand in films like Show Boat, in 1929. He also helped get films past the censors, including All Quiet on the Western Front, in 1930. When Carl Laemmle’s son, Junior Laemmle, took over Universal, he turned it into a specialty shop for horror films: Marston’s theory of emotions lies behind the particular brand of psychological terror in Laemmle’s Frankenstein (1931), Dracula (1931), and The Invisible Man (1933). Before Marston left Hollywood, he also worked for Paramount. For Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931), he tested audience reaction by strapping viewers to blood pressure cuffs while they watched the rushes.30

Today, do the exact opposite of what you normally do. And look forward to seeing what happens as a result. Change means changing your ways—only by so doing can you have new experiences that may surprise you. Make a break with your habits, test yourself, expand your horizons! If you usually hold the phone in your right hand, use your left. Do your shopping in a different supermarket and buy different brands, take the bus instead of the car, be particularly friendly to people who usually irritate you. If you eat out, order food you don’t usually eat. Experience the world around you as something completely new, as though you were a different person and not yourself. Enjoy!

Andreasen wanted to know why these people had deviated from their usual patterns. What he discovered has become a pillar of modern marketing theory: People’s buying habits are more likely to change when they go through a major life event. When someone gets married, for example, they’re more likely to start buying a new type of coffee. When they move into a new house, they’re more apt to purchase a different kind of cereal. When they get divorced, there’s a higher chance they’ll start buying different brands of beer.7.7 Consumers going through major life events often don’t notice, or care, that their shopping patterns have shifted. However, retailers notice, and they care quite a bit.

i was in the local shop today, getting something to eat for lunch, when suddenly i had the strangest sensation — a spontaneous awareness of the unlikeliness of this life. i mean, i thought if all the rest of the human population — most of whom live in what you and i would consider abject poverty — who have never seen or entered such a shop. and this, this, is what all their work sustains! this lifestyle, for people like us! all the various brands of soft drinks in plastic bottles and all the pre-packaged lunch deals and confectionery in sealed bags and store-baked pastries — this is it, the culmination of all the labour in the world, all the burning of fossil fuels and all the back-breaking and work on coffee farms and sugar plantations. all for this! this convenience shop! i felt dizzy thinking about it. i mean i really felt ill. it was as if i suddenly remembered that my life was all part of a television show — and every day people died making the show, we’re ground to death in the most horrific ways, children, women, and all so that i could choose from various lunch options, each packaged in multiple layers of single-use plastic. that was what they died for — that was the great experiment. i thought i would throw up. of course, a feeling like that can’t last. maybe for the rest of the day i feel bad, even for the rest of the week — so what? i still have to buy lunch. and in case you’re worrying about me, let me assure you, buy lunch i did.

Sitting at the edge of his bed those days, weaving and watching television movies – movies themselves, mostly made from the seasickness of misguided creative endeavor. Normalization of commercial compromise had left his medium as one of dominantly irrelevant fantasies adding nothing to the world, and instead providing a perfect storm of merchanteering thespians and image builders now less identifiable as creators of valued products than of products built for significant sales. Their masses of fans as happy as hustled, bustled, and rustled sheep. A country without culture? Nothing more than a shopping mall with a flag? Still, business is branding buoyantly, leaving Bob to yet another bout of that old society-is-sinking sensation.

All the recent marketing successes have been PR successes, not advertising successes. To name a few: Starbucks, The Body Shop, Amazon.com, Yahoo!, eBay, Palm, Google, Linus, PlayStation, Harry Potter, Botox, Red Bull, Microsoft, Intel, and BlackBerry. A closer look at the history of most major brands shows this to be true. As a matter of fact, an astonishing number of well-known brands have been built with virtually no advertising at all. Anita Roddick built The Body Shop into a worldwide brand without any advertising. Instead she traveled the world looking for ingredients for her natural cosmetics, a quest that resulted in endless publicity. Until recently Starbucks didn’t spend a hill of beans on advertising either. In its first ten years, the company spent less that $10 million (total) on advertising in the United States, a trivial amount for a brand that delivers annual sales of $1.3 billion today. Wal-Mart became the world’s largest retailer, ringing up sales approaching $200 billion, with little advertising. Sam’s Club, a Wal-Mart sibling, averages $56 million per store with almost no advertising. In the pharmaceutical field, Viagra, Prozac, and Vioxx became worldwide brands with almost no advertising. In the toy field, Beanie Babies, Tickle Me Elmo, and Pokémon became highly successful brands with almost no advertising. In the high-technology field, Oracle, Cisco, and SAP became multibillion-dollar companies (and multibillion-dollar brands) with almost no advertising.

For too long we have been the playthings of massive corporations, whose sole aim is to convert our world into a gargantuan shopping 'mall'. Pleasantry and civility are being discarded as the worthless ephemera of a bygone age; an age where men doffed their hats at ladies, and children could be counted on to mind your Jack Russell while you took a mild and bitter in the pub. The twinkly-eyed tobacconist, the ruddy-cheeked landlord and the bewhiskered teashop lady are being trampled under the mighty blandness of 'drive-thru' hamburger chains. Customers are herded in and out of such places with an alarming similarity to the way the cattle used to produce the burgers are herded to the slaughterhouse. The principal victim of this blandification is Youth, whose natural propensity to shun work, peacock around the town and aggravate the constabulary has been drummed out of them. Youth is left with a sad deficiency of joie de vivre, imagination and elegance. Instead, their lives are ruled by territorial one-upmanship based on brands of plimsoll, and Youth has become little more than a walking, barely talking advertising hoarding for global conglomerates. ... But now, a spectre is beginning to haunt the reigning vulgarioisie: the spectre of Chappism. A new breed of insurgent has begun to appear on the streets, in the taverns and in the offices of Britain: The Anarcho-Dandyist. Recognisable by his immaculate clothes, the rakish angle of his hat and his subtle rallying cry of "Good day to you sir/ madam!

The sharpie uniform is perhaps the most unlikely fashion statement you will ever see, a Frankenstein’s monster of baby-doll plucked eyebrows, skinhead-meets-mullet hair, 1970s fat ties and just a hint of bovver boy. Clothes worn too tight and too small. Kerry had prepared a shopping list: • bluebird earrings • three-inch Mary Jane corkie platform shoes • treads (shoes made using recycled tyres for the sole with suede thonging for the upper) • Lee canvas jeans • beachcombers • short white bobby socks • ribbed tights • a short, flared, preferably panelled skirt • satin baggies • a striped Golden Breed t-shirt or a KrestKnit polo shirt • a tight coral necklace from the surf shop • a Conti brand striped cardigan • blue metallic eye shadow from a small pot or a crayon

Inequality makes people feel that the material goods they have are inadequate. We constantly want more, not because we need it but because we want to keep up with the Joneses. The more our friends and neighbours have, the more we feel that we need to match them just to feel like we’re doing OK. The data on this is clear: people who live in highly unequal societies are more likely to shop for luxury brands than people who live in more equal societies.21 We keep buying more stuff in order to feel better about ourselves, but it never works because the benchmark against which we measure the good life is pushed perpetually out of reach by the rich (and, these days, by social media influencers). We find ourselves spinning in place on an exhausting treadmill of needless over-consumption.

This lifestyle, for people like us! All the various brands of soft drinks in plastic bottles and all the pre-packaged lunch deals and confectionery in sealed bags and store-baked pastries—this is it, the culmination of all the labour in the world, all the burning of fossil fuels and all the back-breaking work on coffee farms and sugar plantations. All for this! This convenience shop! I felt dizzy thinking about it. I mean I really felt ill. It was as if I suddenly remembered that my life was all part of a television show—and every day people died making the show, were ground to death in the most horrific ways, children, women, and all so that I could choose from various lunch options, each packaged in multiple layers of single-use plastic. That was what they died for—that was the great experiment.

Prabhakar was waiting for me at the bus station, smiling happily through the rain. He led me through the people gathered at the bus station, past shops selling cheap household items and eating places where pakoras were being fried in bubbling oil. The brands and consumerism of urban India had disappeared, and although I felt an acute sense of displacement, I was oddly comforted by the rough utilitarianism of the place, which reminded me of the India I had grown up in. There were no cafes where I could hide my loneliness behind a cup of coffee and an open laptop, no shopping aisles where I could wander, picking out items that momentarily created an image of a better life. There was no escape here except through human relationships, and for that I was utterly dependent on Prabhakar speeding through the rain on his motorcycle.

Compared to a British corner shop, Japanese conbini are light years ahead in terms of the sheer breadth of services they provide. The big three brands are 7-Eleven, Family Mart and Lawson, and as well as being open twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year, absolutely without fail, each store is fully stocked with an ATM, a photocopier/printer, washrooms and a computer you can use to pay for everything from flights to Disneyland tickets. You can even pay your bills at the till. And that’s not even mentioning the extensive range of food, drinks, ready meals and an area where you can prepare them, complete with microwave, coffee machines and a kettle. Simply put, living off just a single Japanese conbini is frighteningly easy. The only inconvenience is deciding which one to go to. Even out here in the middle of nowhere, I had no less than four stores within a five-minute radius to choose from.

Decouplers often trip up on this step in two ways. First, they are overly generic in articulating the CVC. When mapping the process of buying a car, auto executives tend to describe it as: feel the need to buy car > become aware of a car brand > develop an interest in the brand > visit the dealer > purchase the car. This is a start, but it is not specific enough. Decouplers must ask: When do people actually need a new car? How exactly do people become aware of car brands? How do people become interested in a make or model? And so on. The generic process of awareness, interest, desire, and purchase isn’t specific enough to help. Decouplers also flounder by failing to identify all the relevant stages in the value chain. For the car-buying process, a better description of the CVC might be: become aware that your car lease will expire in one month > feel the need to purchase a new car > develop a heightened interest in car ads > visit car manufacturers’ websites > create a set of two or three brands of interest > visit third-party auto websites > compare options of cars in the same category > choose a model > shop online for the best price > visit the nearest dealer to see if they have the model in stock > see if they can beat the best online price > test-drive the cars > decide about financing, warranty, and other add-ons > negotiate a final price > sign the contract > pick up the car > use it > wait for the lease to expire again. With this far more detailed CVC, we can fully appreciate the complexity of the car-buying

The hot case at a kombini features tonkatsu, fried chicken, menchikatsu (a breaded hamburger patty), Chinese pork buns, potato croquettes, and seafood items such as breaded squid legs or oysters. In a bit of international solidarity, you'll see corn dogs, often labeled "Amerikandoggu." One day for lunch I stopped at 7-Eleven and brought home a pouch of "Gold Label" beef curry, steamed rice, inarizushi (sushi rice in a pouch of sweetened fried tofu), cold noodle salad, and a banana. Putting together lunch for the whole family from an American 7-Eleven would be as appetizing as scavenging among seaside medical waste, but this fun to shop for and fun to eat. Instant ramen is as popular in Japan as it is in college dorms worldwide, and while the selection of flavors is wider than at an American grocery, it serves a predictable ecological niche as the food of last resort for those with no money or no time. (Frozen ramen, on the other hand, can be very good; if you have access to a Japanese supermarket, look for Myojo Chukazanmai brand.) That's how I saw it, at least, until stumbling on the ramen topping section in the 7-Eleven refrigerator case, where you can buy shrink-wrapped packets of popular fresh ramen toppings such as braised pork belly and fermented bamboo shoots. With a quick stop at a convenience store, you can turn instant ramen into a serious meal. The pork belly is rolled and tied, braised, chilled, and then sliced into thick circular slices like Italian pancetta. This is one of the best things you can do with pork, and I don't say that lightly.

In my introduction to Warriors, the first of our crossgenre anthologies, I talked about growing up in Bayonne, New Jersey, in the 1950s, a city without a single bookstore. I bought all my reading material at newsstands and the corner “candy shops,” from wire spinner racks. The paperbacks on those spinner racks were not segregated by genre. Everything was jammed in together, a copy of this, two copies of that. You might find The Brothers Karamazov sandwiched between a nurse novel and the latest Mike Hammer yarn from Mickey Spillane. Dorothy Parker and Dorothy Sayers shared rack space with Ralph Ellison and J. D. Salinger. Max Brand rubbed up against Barbara Cartland. A. E. van Vogt, P. G. Wodehouse, and H. P. Lovecraft were crammed in with F. Scott Fitzgerald. Mysteries, Westerns, gothics, ghost stories, classics of English literature, the latest contemporary “literary” novels, and, of course, SF and fantasy and horror—you could find it all on that spinner rack, and ten thousand others like it. I liked it that way. I still do. But in the decades since (too many decades, I fear), publishing has changed, chain bookstores have multiplied, the genre barriers have hardened. I think that’s a pity. Books should broaden us, take us to places we have never been and show us things we’ve never seen, expand our horizons and our way of looking at the world. Limiting your reading to a single genre defeats that. It limits us, makes us smaller. It seemed to me, then as now, that there were good stories and bad stories, and that was the only distinction that truly mattered.

I will not forget the last time he looked at me. The morning light filled the room, reminding me of so many mornings and of the morning I had first come there. Giovanni sat on the bed, completely naked, holding a glass of cognac between his hands. His body was dead white, his face was wet and grey. I was at the door with my suitcase. With my hand on the knob, I looked at him. Then I wanted to beg him to forgive me. But this would have been too great a confession; any yielding at that moment would have locked me forever in that room with him. And in a way this was exactly what I wanted. I felt a tremor go through me, like the beginning of an earthquake, and felt, for an instant, that I was drowning in his eyes. His body, which I had come to know so well, glowed in the light and charged and thickened the air between us. Then something opened in my brain, a secret, noiseless door swung open, frightening me: it had no occurred to me until that instant that, in fleeing from his body, I confirmed and perpetuated his body's power over me. Now, as though I had been branded, his body was burned into my mind, into my dreams. And all this time he did not take his eyes from me. He seemed to find my face more transparent than a shop-window. He did not smile, he was neither grave, nor vindictive, nor sad; he was still. He was waiting, I think, for me to cross that space and take him in my arms again - waiting, as one waits at a death-bed for the miracle one dare not disbelieve, which will not happen. I had to get out of there for my face showed too much, the war in my body was dragging me down. My feet refused to carry me over to him again. The wind of my life was blowing me away.

My Father mapped out the perfect blueprint for how to treat a woman. He caters hand and foot to my Mother. Even showers that love onto my sister. He never had to tell me how to treat my woman because his actions spoke louder. Did I cling to my woman? Absolutely. Being up under soft melanin skin pleased me. You want to read a book? Cool, what story we reading? Wanna go shopping? Take my card if you promise to model everything for me. Those females at work bothering you? Let’s get animated in the mirror and act like we about to tag team. Your period on? Baby, want me to rub your belly? You need me to get those diaper looking pads with the wings? How about some lemon ginger tea? What are your dreams? You want to sell weave? Let’s catch a flight to China or India and figure out how we can become wholesalers. You wanna make cute Snapchat filter videos? What filter do you want? Are they not liking your pics? Fine. I’ll blast you all over my page. Your Mother threatening to kick you out. Where you wanna move? Better yet, move in with me. Just focus on school and building your brand. I got everything else. You got finals coming up. Pick a tutor. Heck, can I pay for the answers to the quiz? You think those stretch marks make you unattractive? Come here and let me show you how much I appreciate your stripes of glitter. Do you want to go to Dr. Miami? Absolutely not. We going to the gym. Gym grown not silicone. We are working out together. Go ahead and hashtag us as #baegoals #coupleswhoworkouttogetherstaytogether. You want to switch the hair and get a tapered cut? Let me call my barber and see when we can go. Stressing and worrying? You keep hearing whispers while you’re sleeping? Nah bae, that’s not a ghost. That’s me praying for you.

I stood on the street corner. I thought about chasing after her, but she was churning swiftly through the neighborhood -- she was already almost a block away -- so instead I entered a coffee shop. This is why I was on the street. I was going to a coffee shop, and I was buying a coffee, and then I was walking to class, and then I would teach, and then during office hours I would reassure the students who needed reassuring, and I would be tough on the students who could take it, and if someone cried in my office for reasons unrelated but maybe sort of related to the imperfect short story they'd written, I would tell them that fiction makes you cry, the fiction you read though more often it's the shitty fiction you write that makes you cry, and I would also be thinking, You poor person, you have no idea what awaits you. A life awaits you, like a serious fucking life. This is what I would want to say. And then I would go home to my serious fucking life, and it would be so ridiculously unserious; it would involve soup spills and dirty dishes and lengthy logic proofs meant to coerce tired, inarticulate people to bed, and I would think how lucky I was to have this unserious life, i.e., to be forced to do somewhat or even thoroughly banal things every day. Because what awaits you if you don't? What kind of life awaits you then? A life where you don't calmly think, as you're scraping up the crystallized juice rings before showering before getting dressed before buying coffee before teaching class before reassuring people their hard lives would only get harder, Fuck this whole existence. You're running down the street and you're screaming at a university to which you no longer belong, you're wearing a sweatshirt not even branded with the insignia of the university on which you blame your breakdown, the university to which you are no longer affiliated, because you are so deeply unaffiliated that you are barely even affiliated with your own face.

Starting a little over a decade ago, Target began building a vast data warehouse that assigned every shopper an identification code—known internally as the “Guest ID number”—that kept tabs on how each person shopped. When a customer used a Target-issued credit card, handed over a frequent-buyer tag at the register, redeemed a coupon that was mailed to their house, filled out a survey, mailed in a refund, phoned the customer help line, opened an email from Target, visited Target.com, or purchased anything online, the company’s computers took note. A record of each purchase was linked to that shopper’s Guest ID number along with information on everything else they’d ever bought. Also linked to that Guest ID number was demographic information that Target collected or purchased from other firms, including the shopper’s age, whether they were married and had kids, which part of town they lived in, how long it took them to drive to the store, an estimate of how much money they earned, if they’d moved recently, which websites they visited, the credit cards they carried in their wallet, and their home and mobile phone numbers. Target can purchase data that indicates a shopper’s ethnicity, their job history, what magazines they read, if they have ever declared bankruptcy, the year they bought (or lost) their house, where they went to college or graduate school, and whether they prefer certain brands of coffee, toilet paper, cereal, or applesauce. There are data peddlers such as InfiniGraph that “listen” to shoppers’ online conversations on message boards and Internet forums, and track which products people mention favorably. A firm named Rapleaf sells information on shoppers’ political leanings, reading habits, charitable giving, the number of cars they own, and whether they prefer religious news or deals on cigarettes. Other companies analyze photos that consumers post online, cataloging if they are obese or skinny, short or tall, hairy or bald, and what kinds of products they might want to buy as a result.

That's Branton, Michigan, by the way. Don't try to find it on a map - you'd need a microscope. It's one of a dozen dinky towns north of Lansing, one of the few that doesn't sound like it was named by a French explorer. Branton, Michigan. Population: Not a Lot and Yet Still Too Many I Don't Particularly Care For. We have a shopping mall with a JCPenny and an Asian fusion place that everyone says they are dying to try even though it’s been there for three years now. Most of our other restaurants are attached to gas stations, the kind that serve rubbery purple hot dogs and sodas in buckets. There’s a statue of Francis B. Stockbridge in the center of town. He’s a Michigan state senator from prehistoric times with a beard that belongs on Rapunzel’s twin brother. He wasn’t born in Branton, of course – nobody important was ever born in Branton – but we needed a statue for the front of the courthouse and the name Stockbridge looks good on a copper plate. It’s all for show. Branton’s the kind of place that tries to pretend it’s better than it really is. It’s really the kind of place with more bars than bookstores and more churches than either, not that that’s necessarily a bad thing. It’s a place where teenagers still sometimes take baseball bats to mailboxes and wearing the wrong brand of shoes gets you at least a dirty look. It snows a lot in Branton. Like avalanches dumped from the sky. Like heaps to hills to mountains, the plows carving their paths through our neighborhood, creating alpine ranges nearly tall enough to ski down. Some of the snow mounds are so big you can build houses inside them, complete with entryways and coat closets. Restrooms are down the hall on your right. Just look for the steaming yellow hole. There’s nothing like that first Branton snow, though. Soft as a cat scruff and bleach white, so bright you can almost see your reflection in it. Then the plows come and churn up the earth underneath. The dirt and the boot tracks and the car exhaust mix together to make it all ash gray, almost black, and it sickens your stomach just to look at it. It happens everywhere, not just Branton, but here it’s something you can count on.

Miraculously, thirty minutes later I found Marlboro Man’s brother’s house. As I pulled up, I saw Marlboro Man’s familiar white pickup parked next to a very large, imposing semi. He and his brother were sitting inside the cab. Looking up and smiling, Marlboro Man motioned for me to join them. I waved, getting out of my car and obnoxiously taking my purse with me. To add insult to injury, I pressed the button on my keyless entry to lock my doors and turn on my car alarm, not realizing how out of place the dreadful chirp! chirp! must have sounded amidst all the bucolic silence. As I made my way toward the monster truck to meet my new love’s only brother, I reflected that not only had I never in my life been inside the cab of a semi, but also I wasn’t sure I’d ever been within a hundred feet of one. My armpits were suddenly clammy and moist, my body trembling nervously at the prospect of not only meeting Tim but also climbing into a vehicle nine times the size of my Toyota Camry, which, at the time, was the largest car I’d ever owned. I was nervous. What would I do in there? Marlboro Man opened the passenger door, and I grabbed the large handlebar on the side of the cab, hoisting myself up onto the spiked metal steps of the semi. “Come on in,” he said as he ushered me into the cab. Tim was in the driver’s seat. “Ree, this is my brother, Tim.” Tim was handsome. Rugged. Slightly dusty, as if he’d just finished working. I could see a slight resemblance to Marlboro Man, a familiar twinkle in his eye. Tim extended his hand, leaving the other on the steering wheel of what I would learn was a brand-spanking-new cattle truck, just hours old. “So, how do you like this vehicle?” Tim asked, smiling widely. He looked like a kid in a candy shop. “It’s nice,” I replied, looking around the cab. There were lots of gauges. Lots of controls. I wanted to crawl into the back and see what the sleeping quarters were like, and whether there was a TV. Or a Jacuzzi. “Want to take it for a spin?” Tim asked. I wanted to appear capable, strong, prepared for anything. “Sure!” I responded, shrugging my shoulders. I got ready to take the wheel. Marlboro Man chuckled, and Tim remained in his seat, saying, “Oh, maybe you’d better not. You might break a fingernail.” I looked down at my fresh manicure. It was nice of him to notice. “Plus,” he continued, “I don’t think you’d be able to shift gears.” Was he making fun of me? My armpits were drenched. Thank God I’d work black that night. After ten more minutes of slightly uncomfortable small talk, Marlboro Man saved my by announcing, “Well, I think we’ll head out, Slim.” “Okay, Slim,” Tim replied. “Nice meeting you, Ree.” He flashed his nice, familiar smile. He was definitely cute. He was definitely Marlboro Man’s brother. But he was nothing like the real thing.

Today I had a lively discussion with a merchant in Fez with a view to finding out what the Moors think of European civilization.... He was a fine man, about forty years old, with an honest and serious face, who had made business visits to the most important cities in Western Europe and had lived for a long time in Tangier, where he learnt Spanish.... I asked him therefore what kind of impression the large cities of Europe had made on him.... He looked hard at me and answered coldly: “Large streets, fine shops, beautiful palaces, good workshops, everything clean.” He gave the impression that with these words, he had mentioned everything in our countries that was worthy of praise. “Have you not found anything else in Europe that is beautiful and good?” I asked. He looked at me questioningly. “Is it possible,” I went on, “that an intelligent man like you, who has visited several countries so marvelously superior to your own can speak about them without astonishment, or at least without the emotion of a country boy who has seen the pasha’s palace? What can you possibly admire in the world? What sort of people are you? Who can possibly understand you?” “Perdone Usted”, he answered coldly, “it is for me to say that I cannot understand you. I have told you all the things which I consider to be better in Europe. What more can I say? Have I to say something that I do not believe to be true? I repeat that your streets are larger than ours, your shops finer, that you have workshops such as we do not have, and also rich palaces. That is all. I can only add one more thing: that you know more than we do, because you have many books, and read more.” I became impatient. “Do not lose patience, Caballero,” he said, “let us speak together calmly. Is not a man’s first duty honesty? Is it not honesty more than anything else that makes a man worthy of respect, and one country superior to another? Very well, then. As far as honesty is concerned, your countries are certainly not better than ours. That much I can say right away.” “Gently, gently!” I said, “Tell me first what you mean by honesty!” “Honesty in business, Caballero. The Moors, for example, sometimes cheat the Europeans in trade, but you Europeans cheat the Moors much more often.” “There must be a few cases,” I replied, in order to say something. “Casos raros?” he exclaimed angrily. “It happens every day! Proof: I go to Marseilles. I buy cotton. I choose a particular thread, give the exact reference number and brand-name, as well as the amount required. I ask for it to be sent, I pay, and I return home. Back in Morocco, I receive the cotton. I open the consignment, and take a look. I find the same number, the same brand-name, and a thread that is of one third the thickness! This is anything but good, and I lose thousands of francs! I rush to the consulate, but in vain. Another case: A merchant from Fez places an order in Europe for blue cloth, so many pieces, of such and such a length and breadth. He pays for it when the bargain is made. In due course he receives the cloth, opens the package, and checks the measurements. The first pieces are all right, those underneath are shorter, and those lowest down are half a meter too short! The cloth cannot be used for cloaks, and the merchant is ruined. . . . And so on and so on!

For the canny traveler, the map is dotted with tourist traps that were once something sincere, something worthy of reverence that gave way to branded merchandise. We follow the billboards that are as accurate as those guiding us to the Corn Palace or the World’s Largest Ball of Twine, kick at the dirt a bit, watch an overinflated PowerPoint or squint at a dusty artifact, peek at the gift shop, and go home with less money but nothing in value gained. These sites are mental stamps that one was in a place where something had once mattered, but the veil between Then and Now is thick and impermeable.

I shop in a grocery store designed for the haute bourgeoisie. The prices are ridiculous. Other than the organic produce, every product in my local grocery has, somewhere on its packaging, a goofy narrative about the company that manufactures the product. In my neighborhood, it is impossible to go to the local grocery store and buy mustard without encountering a whimsical tale about rural people from Northern California and Oregon and how their quirky values are reflected in the ingredients of their products. These quirky values are why it costs $3 for a vegan cookie. The narratives go something like this: Twenty years ago, my wife Betty and I were in our kitchen, talking about the taste of the mustard that our parents bought. All of the store brands weren’t anything like what we remembered, and they were made with pre-processed ingredients and contained preservatives. These chemicals might have allowed for a longer shelf life, but they reduced flavor, and even worse, no one knew what they did to people’s health. “I wish someone would go back to old-fashioned values,” I said. “Why won’t someone make a mustard that tastes great and is good for people?” Then Betty asked a question that changed our lives. “Why don’t we do it?” I have watched hundreds of people read these narratives. And as I have watched people read these narratives, the thought has occurred to me that people are more conscientious about their mustard than they are about the media they consume.

Jenna, you are halfway to freedom from Wayne. A few more months and you can hand him back to us, and not have to deal with him anymore. If you launch this business with him, you are locked in, day in and day out, for a minimum of four or five years. And really, can you imagine him really helping at these events? I just see him knocking over ice sculptures, and tipping over cakes, and generally being a bull in the china shop everywhere he goes. A bull on steroids. With an inner ear imbalance. On roller skates." "Enough, lawdouche, she gets it." "I know. But again, Wayne is pretty clear that his area here would be identifying and helping land clients, and consulting on thematic details and event brainstorming, and keeping up with all industry aspects of the target market." "You mean going to movies, reading comics, and playing video games." "Yep, something like that." "You can't really be thinking you are going to do this." "I can be thinking that. And I'm pretty sure that the only opinion I asked you for on this was legal ramifications and financial obligations. I don't really care about your personal opinions." "Well, that hurts my feelings, because I still care about you on a personal level, and I think this is a huge mistake for you personally." I wait for my heart to race, for the sweats to start, for my colon to twist itself into a pretzel. And when none of that happens, I look at Brian. "I think, that being the case, that perhaps you ought to speak to your partners about who might be the best attorney to work with me moving forward." "You're firing me? Because I care about you?" "I'm firing you because I need an attorney who is less personally interested in the decisions I make. I'm a big girl, and I have a dad. And clearly, this is no longer a good fit. I'll appreciate a call from the other partners by the end of the week with a plan that I can review." "Seriously, I feel like you've completely lost your mind!" "Careful, Brian. At the moment, I'm asking you be removed from my account. However uncomfortable that may be for you with your partners, I assume you would rather that, than having to explain why I'm leaving the firm entirely. And I will be advising Wayne to shift to the same person I am with, obviously, for convenience." His chiseled jaw snaps shut, and while I can see a dozen retorts on the tip of his tongue, he doesn't speak. "Thank you. I'll review this further, and will discuss my decision with my new attorney. You'll get formal word from Wayne on his choice soon, I'm sure.

The new desktop publishing tools meshed perfectly with Brand’s editorial design for the Catalog. By purchasing an $850 halftone camera, he freed the Catalog from the world of print shops and graphic design houses completely. It made self-publishing not only possible but easy and adaptive in real time.

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He steps into the brand-new coffee shop on the corner, one of those joints that specify the growers and regions and acidity levels of their humanely sourced fair-trade beans. He orders a three-dollar macchiato from an alarmingly muscled and extravagantly tattooed woman wearing a wifebeater and a skullcap, operating a machine that bears more than a passing resemblance to a Lamborghini, house music thumping at seven-thirty a.m., a miasma of patchouli.

*JESUS IN LONDON 'INASMUCH AS YE DID IT NOT—' If JESUS came to London, Came to London to-day, He would not go to the West End, He would come down our way; He'd talk with the children dancing To the organ out in the street, And say He was their big Brother And give them something to eat. He wouldn't go to the mansions Where the charitable live, He'd come to the tenement houses Where we ain't got nothing to give. He'd come so kind and so homely, And feed us with love and bread, And then He'd tell us how to behave, And then we'd mind what He said. In the warm, bright, West End churches They sing and preach and pray, They call us “Beloved brethren,” But they do not act that way; And when He come to the church door He'd call out loud and free, “You stop that preaching and praying And show what you've done for Me.” Then they'd say, “Oh, Lord, we have given To the poor both blankets and tracts, And we've tried to make them sober And we've tried to teach them facts. But they will sneak round to the drink shop And pawn the blankets for beer, And we find them very ungrateful— But still we persevere.” Then He would say, “I told you The time I was here before, That you were all of you brothers, All you that I suffered for. I won't go into your churches, I'll stop in the sun outside. You bring out the men, your brothers, The men for whom I died!” Out of our lousy lodgings, From arches and doorways about, They'd have to do as He told them, They'd have to call us out. Millions and millions and millions, Thick and crawling like flies, We should creep out to the sunshine And not be afraid of His eyes. He'd see what God's image looks like When men have dealt with the same— Wrinkled with work that is never done, Swollen and dirty with shame. He'd see on the children's foreheads The branded gutter-sign That marks the girls to be harlots, That dooms the boys to be swine. Then He'd say, “What's the good of churches When these have nowhere to sleep? And how can I hear you praying When they are cursing so deep? I gave My blood and My body That they might have bread and wine, And you have taken your share and theirs Of these good gifts of Mine!” Then some of the rich would be sorry, And all would be very scared; And they'd say, “But we never knew, Lord!” And He'd say, “You never cared!” And some would be sick and shameful Because they'd know that they knew, And the best would say, “We were wrong, Lord. Now tell us what to do!” I think He'd be sitting, likely, For someone 'ud bring Him a chair, With a common kid cuddled up on His knee And the common sun on His hair. And they'd be standing before Him, And He'd say, “You know that you knew. Why haven't you worked for your brothers The same as I worked for you? “For since you're all of you brothers, It's clear as God's blessed sun That each must work for the others, Not thousands work for one. And the ones that have lived bone-idle, If they want Me to hear them pray, Let them go and work for their livings— The only honest way! “I've got nothing new to tell you; You know what I always said. But you've built their bones into churches And stolen their wine and bread. You with My name on your foreheads, Liar, and traitor, and knave, You have lived by the death of your brothers, These whom I died to save.” I wish He would come and say it; Perhaps they'd believe it then, And work like men for their livings And let us work like men. Brothers? They don't believe it, The lie on their lips is red. They'll never believe till He comes again Or till we rise from the dead

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In Search of El Dorado by Stewart Stafford A meandering mountain path awaits, Build a bonfire of remembrance, With crunching staff on gravel, Certainty slowly becomes a stranger. The funereal pace of the brand-new, Is reborn in accelerating steps, In concert with liberation's adrenaline, And a cooling breeze through the brim. Startled young fox on a crag, A hawk circles overhead, Sage standing stones keep counsel, Their shadows pointing the way forward. Sheep stare and chew in nearby wet fields, Occasionally bleating confused directions, A pillar of black smoke stretches into the sky, A beacon on the horizon. A ridge around a corner, The crêpe shop comes into view, Relief exhaled upon reaching El Dorado's gates, Golden sustenance and home via the car park. © Stewart Stafford, 2021. All rights reserved.

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How to Make Bone Broth Being stocked up on bone broth means you’re always just a few steps away from a flavorful and nutritious meal. I use it for simmering grains and beans, steaming vegetables, making sauces, and as a base for soup. And since reliable brands like Brodo and Bonafide Provisions have made bone broths accessible (always shop for your bone broth in the freezer aisle), I rarely make bone broth at home. But I always store spare chicken backs and clipped wing tips in the freezer and end up making a batch whenever I have enough. The process for making bone broth is simple; the main ingredient is time: 1. Use bones with a lot of meat/cartilage attached, like wings, backs, knuckles, and feet. 2. Cover the bones with 1 to 2 inches of cold filtered water. 3. Add ½ tablespoon vinegar per 1 pound of bones. (Recipes I’ve seen claim this maximizes collagen extraction. I don’t know if it actually does anything, but it doesn’t hurt!) 4. Bring to a gentle simmer and cook, skimming any froth/scum/fat regularly and topping off with water as needed, until the bones start to fall apart (12 hours for chicken, up to 18 hours for beef, pork, and lamb). 5. If you want to use aromatics (like carrot, celery, onion, and herbs), add them an hour before the cooking time is over. 6. After simmering, strain through a fine-mesh sieve and taste. If looking for a more concentrated flavor, return the bone broth to

I have this slightly woolly hope that creativity itself is the next thing," Turner said. He imagines a world in which we form our identities around creative pursuits and self-expressions, letting go of the "anchor of brands" to express who we are.

Even the way the shelves are organized is a psychological trap. The most expensive items are always placed conveniently at adult eye level, with the generic brands placed down by your knees. Sugary cereals or other items meant to appeal to children are placed at eye level for children. Even the giant size of the shopping carts is intended to encourage more purchases. “Even the music is meant to manipulate us,” I explain to Luke. “A study of supermarket shoppers found people spend more time shopping when stores play music. You’ll notice there are no windows or clocks or skylights that give you any external time cues.

After pushing the appliances into place, I emptied our hamper into the washer and started a cycle. As the remarkably quiet load finished, I observed that many of Nia’s clothes, particularly her undergarments, appeared old and worn. “Nia,” I stated, holding up a blouse with an obvious hole in it, “This is unacceptable. You need to go out right now and buy yourself some new clothes.” I didn’t have to ask her twice. The next morning, she went out shopping for a new wardrobe with her friends. While she was gone, my friend Erick and I cleaned up the flower beds in front of our house, planting fresh flowers and shrubs. When we were done, the kids and I decorated the driveway with sidewalk chalk, leaving messages of appreciation for Nia. After putting the kids to bed, I cleaned the house, intent on making everything sparkle on her return. With shopping bags draped over her shoulders, Nia approached the front, radiating a happiness and gratitude I hadn’t seen in her since the day before my confessions to her two weeks prior. Her gaze fell upon her new flower bed. “It’s beautiful,” she said. As she entered the house that smelled brand new, she turned to me with misty eyes and said something that overwhelmed me with emotion. “You’ve been so sweet to me,” she said after dropping her bags, covering her face with her hands. I didn’t deserve to hear those words; the things I was doing should have been done long ago, but they immediately brought me to tears. I walked over and wrapped her up as she sobbed into my shoulder. I reassured her of my undying love for her and reminded her that I was no longer the man I had described in my confessions. “I know you may think I’m doing this stuff just to win you back,” I said, “but I hope time will show how much I truly love you.” I wouldn’t need much time at all. An opportunity to demonstrate my physical and emotional faithfulness to her was on the horizon. 33 Shiny Boxes As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.

top research company in Myanmar scene is powerful and different, with a few driving organizations offering thorough types of assistance to organizations looking to comprehend and enter the neighborhood market. Here are a portion of the top exploration firms in Myanmar: Myanmar Study Exploration (MSR): Laid out as the main free exploration organization in Myanmar, MSR brags north of 25 years experience. The organization offers an expansive scope of administrations including quantitative and subjective exploration, web-based entertainment research, and CATI (PC Helped Phone Talking) research. MSR is known for its profound comprehension of the nearby market and its capacity to convey experiences across different areas like farming, medical care, and customer products (Statistical surveying Organizations) . STP Exploration Myanmar: STP Exploration Myanmar (Single Touch Point Co., Ltd.) works in both market and social examination. With a rich history of leading north of 150 examination projects, STP has shown skill in areas like wellbeing, farming, schooling, and monetary effect evaluations. Their accomplished group offers subjective and quantitative examination administrations, custom fitted to meet the particular necessities and spending plans of their clients (STP Myanmar) . Aventura Exploration Myanmar (ARM): ARM gives a far reaching set-up of statistical surveying administrations including brand following, client experience, secret shopping, and B2B research. ARM is especially noted for its imaginative methodology and the utilization of a delegate portable exploration board of more than 85,000 shoppers spread across Myanmar. This permits them to catch continuous bits of knowledge and convey significant outcomes to their clients (ARM) . Statistical surveying Myanmar by YCP Solidiance: Under the umbrella of YCP Solidiance, Statistical surveying Myanmar assists organizations with growing in the Burmese market by giving proof based statistical surveying and methodology suggestions. Their administrations incorporate market section and development technique, cutthroat benchmarking, channel model distinguishing proof, and M&A warning. They have major areas of strength for a record of helping global organizations in exploring the neighborhood monetary scene and recognizing manageable learning experiences (Exploration in Myanmar) . Xavey Exploration Arrangements: 1. Xavey Exploration Arrangements is known for its tech-driven statistical surveying arrangements. They have practical experience in catching "in-the-occasion" bits of knowledge through portable and advanced stages, which is essential for grasping powerful purchaser ways of behaving in Myanmar. Their inventive methodology considers proficient information assortment and examination, settling on them a favored decision for educated clients seeking influence computerized instruments for top research company in Myanmar 2. These organizations feature the top research company in Myanmar , offering a scope of administrations that take care of different business needs from top to bottom area examinations to constant shopper bits of knowledge. Each firm brings its exceptional assets and procedures, guaranteeing that organizations can track down the right accomplice to assist them with prevailing in the Burmese market. Whether it's through customary subjective techniques or high level advanced procedures, these organizations are exceptional to give the experiences important to informed direction and key preparation.

Burberry incinerated £28.6 million of unsold stock in 2017 alone.66 These vanity bonfires aren’t uncommon among luxury brands. They’d rather £28.6 million of perfectly good product went up in smoke than see their brand cheapened a cent by discounted sales to the ‘wrong’ sort of customer.

Giving while shopping seems to reduce overall giving. Most of the research on these relationships focus on the benefits to the companies that sell the product, not on how these partnerships affect either you—the consumer/giver—or the cause itself. There are a few academic studies of cause marketing that focus on the end result for the nonprofit partner or on how people’s behavior changes after they’ve purchased one of these branded products. The most generous read of the research on cause marketing is that it is good for the marketer, not so much for the cause.

Each of those relationships ended because the love I gave was considered too hard… too suffocating. My father mapped out the perfect blueprint for how to treat a woman. He caters hand and foot to my mother. Even showers that love onto my sister. He never had to tell me how to treat my woman because his actions spoke louder. Did I cling to my woman? Absolutely. Being up under soft melanin skin pleased me. You want to read a book. Cool, what story we reading? Wanna go shopping? Take my card if you promise to model everything for me. Those heffas at work bothering you? Let’s get animated in the mirror and act like we about to tag team. Your period on? Baby, want me to rub your belly? You need me to get those diaper looking pads with the wings? How about some lemon ginger tea? What are your dreams? You want to sell weave? Let’s catch a flight to China or India and figure out how we can become wholesalers. You wanna make cute snapchat filter videos? What filter do you want? Are they not liking your pics? Fine. I’ll blast you all over my page. Your mother threatening to kick you out. Where you wanna move? Better yet, move in with me. Just focus on school and building your brand. I got everything else. You got finals coming up. Pick a tutor. Heck, can I pay for the answers to the quiz? You think those stretch marks make you unattractive? Come here and let me show you how much I appreciate your stripes of glitter. Do you want to go to Dr. Miami? Absolutely not. We going to the gym. Gym grown not silicone. We are working out together. Go ahead and hashtag us as #baegoals #coupleswhoworkouttogetherstaytogether. You want to switch the hair and get a tapered cut? Let me call my barber and see when we can go. Stressing and worrying? You keep hearing whispers while your sleeping? Nah bae, that’s not a ghost. That’s me praying for you. There are no stipulations with me. I gave it all. I had to. It was a part of my DNA. I needed to give the love I had in me unconditionally.

In l982, however, the success of the KFAC broadcasts was so apparent that I dropped all newspaper advertising and put the money into outright commercials for Trader Joe’s. These were broadcast on demographically suited radio stations: mostly all-news or all-classical. This is still the pattern followed by Trader Joe’s. About the format of the sixty-second radio spots, which has attracted a lot of attention in media circles: I think that most radio commercials are terrible. They have too many “production values.” Even worse, they issue commands to the listener: “Buy this!” “Shop now!” “Hurry!” One should never use a mandatory sentence in addressing a customer; should never give orders. The subliminal message of a Trader Joe’s commercial is, “We’re gonna be around for a long time. If you miss out on this bargain, there’ll be another. If you have the time and inclination . . .” Most supermarket radio spots are paid for by cooperative advertising allowances from manufacturers. The supermarkets jam as many brands into sixty seconds as possible, because it maximizes their revenue. Information be damned! In sharp contrast, each Trader Joe’s spot was devoted to a single product, about which we tried to develop a story.

Zara, a brand that produces around 10,000 new designs a year,

Good On You (goodonyou.eco) is currently the world’s leading source for fashion sustainability ratings. Led by campaigners, scientists, academics and industry insiders, the Good On You directory features 2,200 brands at the time of writing, all rated by a five-point system that takes into account more than fifty different certification schemes and standards. Child labour, modern slavery, worker safety, living wages, energy use, carbon emissions, water consumption, chemical waste, animal welfare – it’s all represented.

ethical fashion brands

TENCEL™ The brand name for lyocell or modal fibres, TENCEL™ is made from wood pulp, like viscose, and shares the same smooth, slippy properties. But unlike most viscose, it uses trees from sustainably managed plantations and a closed-loop method in which solvents are recycled again and again with as little as 1 per cent wasted. TENCEL™ uses less water to produce than cotton, and is 50 per cent more absorbent too, making it ideal for sportswear or any other potentially sweaty situations.

Hemp Marijuana’s sober cousin is out to redeem its dreary sandal-wearing reputation. Requiring no pesticides, very little water and comparatively small amounts of land to grow, there’s no doubt as to hemp’s environmental credentials – but its style kudos is looking up too. New, refined production means the days of rough hessian textures are over, and there are countless brands using it to make clothes that are more hip, less hippie. Inhale at leisure.

Social media is where people search for restaurants, shops, brands, movies, and books to read. So there's a hard but true rule: "If you're not there, you don't exist".

MANY YEARS AGO, I had joined the local news desk of a prominent newspaper in Bengaluru, the sleepy south Indian town that became the country’s Silicon Valley. After trying my hand at crime reporting and general business journalism, I developed an interest in tracking technology. Among other things in the mid noughties, I had half a page in the paper to feature new gadgets every week. Nokia, Blackberry, Samsung and a few other companies were regulars on the page. While I was enjoying my work, my salary needed a boost. (The media industry’s decline was just about beginning, and salaries were as poor then as they are today.) Getting out of the rather difficult circumstances that I found myself in, I moved on to the Economic Times to report on technology. The business daily was India’s largest pink paper by circulation, and I worked with some of the best journalists of the time. My job was mainly to write about technology services companies. Soon I got bored with tracking quarterly results and rehearsed statements. This was around 2012, and India’s start-up ecosystem was in its infancy. I quit the paper to join a start-up blog. I didn’t ask for a raise. I was just happy to be able to write about start-ups and their founders. It was something new, and their excitement was infectious. In those days, ‘start-up’ was not a mainstream beat in India. Only niche blogs wrote about them. On the personal front, there were months when I was flat broke. One evening I sold my old Nokia 5800 for ₹300 at a second-hand electronics shop to buy a packet of biryani. That is still the best biryani I’ve ever had. The two years at the start-up blog were also my best two years ever. As start-ups became the buzzword, I went back to the pink paper to write about them. I was able to upgrade my life a little. I moved into a middle-class apartment with my family. I got some furniture and so on. After selling the Nokia phone, I used a feature phone for a few days. But now I had to upgrade my phone. After much research, I zeroed in on a Micromax handset. Micromax, a Gurgaon-based company that began making handsets in 2008, had some smartphones that were affordable on a young journalist’s salary. It was also a leading brand and had some interesting features such as dual SIM and a great touchscreen display. Going from a phone that ran on Symbian (Nokia’s proprietary operating system that failed) to an Android-based phone was like suddenly being

Crazy Prices, as its name suggests, was a shop whose branding might seem slightly, or perhaps wildly, insensitive nowadays. Its titular conceit was that the store’s contents were so bafflingly discounted, so preposterously inexpensive, that they raised very real questions about the mental health of the proprietors. Their staff, and possibly their customers, were also implicated in this contagion of madness, branded throughout their locations with bulging eyes and outstretched tongues. These prices, they implied, were so dribblesomely inscrutable that even to glance in their direction posed a very real risk of derangement. These prices weren’t merely cheap, you understand, they were crazy, and any attempt to comprehend them was as pointless as considering the chasmic, gnawing depth of infinity itself. ‘You must understand,’ their day-glo ads seemed to say, ‘if you step inside, you may never recover from these prices.

Still, thankfully, York swings us by a local-brand coffee shop, which is about all there is up here.

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Grocery stores are an exercise in psychological manipulation. It is virtually impossible to enter a supermarket intending to buy a quart of milk and emerge with only the milk. First, consider the entrance. Once you enter the grocery store, you must traverse the entire store in order to reach the checkout line. And where do the entrances to grocery stores usually leave you? In the produce department. You are surrounded by scents, textures, and bright colors that result in a surge of endorphins. The lighting of the store is manipulated to make fruits and vegetables appear at their brightest and best. And of course, the dairy aisle—one of the most popular locations to visit—is always hidden in the back of the store so you are forced to pass through a wealth of tempting products before reaching it. Even the way the shelves are organized is a psychological trap. The most expensive items are always placed conveniently at adult eye level, with the generic brands placed down by your knees. Sugary cereals or other items meant to appeal to children are placed at eye level for children. Even the giant size of the shopping carts is intended to encourage more purchases. “Even the music is meant to manipulate us,” I explain to Luke. “A study of supermarket shoppers found people spend more time shopping when stores play music. You’ll notice there are no windows or clocks or skylights that give you any external time cues.

Leave Paris?” I stare at her, stunned. “But where would I go? Paris is my home.” “Not anymore. And you will leave. You must.” “But the shop. The work. You always said—” “I said a lot of things. I taught you to live for the work, because that’s what I was taught, but I was wrong. I was wrong about so much.” “Maman—” “Let me speak!” I open my mouth, then close it again. It will do me no good to argue. “I’ve always kept you at arm’s length. No, don’t shake your head. We both know it’s true. But you don’t know why.” She drags in a breath, rattling and wet. “You were so like him, Soline. So much it hurt to look at you. You have my eyes, my hair, my mouth, but you have always had his heart. He was a dreamer—un rêveur. He had such plans for us.” She pauses to drag in a shuddering breath. “I took that from him—and I was reminded of it every time I looked at you.” Something in my chest lets go as I process her words. For years, I’ve wondered what I had done to deserve her wintery brand of motherhood, hoping to find something, anything that might thaw her toward me. Now I understand that there was nothing. There’s a strange relief in knowing.

asked a woman what factors she considered when buying a new pair of jeans. She didn’t hesitate to answer. She said, “Fit is my number-one factor.” I then asked her to tell me about the last time she bought a pair of jeans. She said, “I bought them on Amazon.” I asked, “How did you know they would fit?” She replied, “I didn’t, but they were a brand I liked, and they were on sale.” What’s the difference between her two responses? Her first response tells me how she thinks she buys a pair of jeans. Her second response tells me how she actually bought a pair of jeans. This is a crucial difference. She thinks she buys a pair of jeans based on fit, but brand loyalty, the convenience of online shopping, and price (or getting a good deal) were more important when it came time to make a purchase. This story isn’t unique. I’ve asked people these same two questions countless times in workshops. The purchasing factors often vary, but there is always a gap between the first answer and the second. These participants aren’t lying. We just aren’t very good at understanding our own behavior.

[Shopping is a] Mardi Gras of consumerism.

Franklin set up a pair of franchise versions of his print shop in other locations: the first in South Carolina, and the second in New York City. These complicated arrangements required Franklin to install a printer to run each operation locally, while he provided capital and expertise in exchange for splitting the profits. During this period, Franklin began to keep a daily checklist of cardinal virtues he desired to observe. Not surprisingly, one of these virtues was “industry,” which Franklin defined in his autobiography by the resolutions to “lose no time” and to “be always employed in something useful.” One can assume that this particular row on his list consistently received his check marks. This view of Franklin as the patron saint of busyness, however, misses a more nuanced story. While it’s true that his professional career began in a state of overload, it didn’t stay that way. Biographer H. W. Brands points out that as Franklin ground his way through his thirties, he began to burn out.

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Toilet paper was either bleached white or unbleached gray, yet there were more than a dozen kinds of ketchup and about 30 brands of cookies. I approved of their priorities.

Many thrifts layered a billion dollars of brand-new loans on top of their existing, disastrous hundred million dollars of old loss-making loans, in a hope that the new would offset the old. Each new purchase of mortgage bonds (which was identical to making a loan) was like the last act of a desperate man. The strategy was wildly irresponsible, for the fundamental problem (borrowing short term and lending long term) hadn’t been remedied. The hypergrowth only meant that the next thrift crisis would be larger. But the thrift managers were not thinking that far in advance. They were simply trying to keep the door to the shop open. That explains why thrifts continued to buy mortgage bonds even as they sold their loans.

The electronics effort faced even greater challenges. To launch that category, David Risher tapped a Dartmouth alum named Chris Payne who had previously worked on Amazon’s DVD store. Like Miller, Payne had to plead with suppliers—in this case, Asian consumer-electronics companies like Sony, Toshiba, and Samsung. He quickly hit a wall. The Japanese electronics giants viewed Internet sellers like Amazon as sketchy discounters. They also had big-box stores like Best Buy and Circuit City whispering in their ears and asking them to take a pass on Amazon. There were middlemen distributors, like Ingram Electronics, but they offered a limited selection. Bezos deployed Doerr to talk to Howard Stringer at Sony America, but he got nowhere. So Payne had to turn to the secondary distributors—jobbers that exist in an unsanctioned, though not illegal, gray market. Randy Miller, a retail finance director who came to Amazon from Eddie Bauer, equates it to buying from the trunk of someone’s car in a dark alley. “It was not a sustainable inventory model, but if you are desperate to have particular products on your site or in your store, you do what you need to do,” he says. Buying through these murky middlemen got Payne and his fledgling electronics team part of the way toward stocking Amazon’s virtual shelves. But Bezos was unimpressed with the selection and grumpily compared it to shopping in a Russian supermarket during the years of Communist rule. It would take Amazon years to generate enough sales to sway the big Asian brands. For now, the electronics store was sparely furnished. Bezos had asked to see $100 million in electronics sales for the 1999 holiday season; Payne and his crew got about two-thirds of the way there. Amazon officially announced the new toy and electronics stores that summer, and in September, the company held a press event at the Sheraton in midtown Manhattan to promote the new categories. Someone had the idea that the tables in the conference room at the Sheraton should have piles of merchandise representing all the new categories, to reinforce the idea of broad selection. Bezos loved it, but when he walked into the room the night before the event, he threw a tantrum: he didn’t think the piles were large enough. “Do you want to hand this business to our competitors?” he barked into his cell phone at his underlings. “This is pathetic!” Harrison Miller, Chris Payne, and their colleagues fanned out that night across Manhattan to various stores, splurging on random products and stuffing them in the trunks of taxicabs. Miller spent a thousand dollars alone at a Toys “R” Us in Herald Square. Payne maxed out his personal credit card and had to call his wife in Seattle to tell her not to use the card for a few days. The piles of products were eventually large enough to satisfy Bezos, but the episode was an early warning. To satisfy customers and their own demanding boss during the upcoming holiday, Amazon executives were going to have to substitute artifice and improvisation for truly comprehensive selection.

I do want everything you want. I just can’t have it.” I lay her hand on my chest and spread her fingers over my heart. “You already have me.” I laugh. “You had me from that first moment in the shop.” I hold up my arm, so she can look closely at her tat. “I’m wearing your fucking brand, dammit.” I tip her face up to mine. “What are you afraid of? You’re hiding from something. I know that. But I don’t know what.

Consumers can now scan the code on the product when they are running low, and it will be ordered and delivered within hours to their home, completely side-lining all the tools and techniques of competing manufacturers who would wish to get the consumer to brand switch. Tesco’s Homeplus in South Korea also launched a campaign that engages shoppers to buy products using QR codes. Homeplus created virtual billboards of their store aisles in subway stations, allowing passengers to shop while they waited by scanning the products’ QR codes – the groceries being delivered when they arrived home. The goal of the campaign was to help Homeplus compete with the number-one retailer, E-MART, without increasing their store numbers. Since the launch, their online sales have increased 130%, making them the top online retailer in South Korea, and a close second offline.

Role of quality: The quality of the shopping experience provides weaker differential advantages than quality can bring to product brands, but it can still have an impact. As retailers add new services, such as banking, insurance etc., they can strengthen the quality of the shopping experience and enter new markets. Brands,

Once negotiations begin, nine-tenths of the battle is over. The balance of power is dictated by brand loyalty, store loyalty, shopping habits, retail structure and manufacturer size, and the extent to which the two parties understand these parameters.

Developing a business depends on many factors. But you should basically understand the exchange between value. In other words, you must provide value to receive equal value. If you look at single people, you can see that they can’t provide any value – they don’t smile, dress, talk or behave in a way that makes others want to spend time, much less a life, with them. Relationships and Business are not much different. In a business, people know that appearance and the way you talk to a costumer is as important as the value of your product, and that’s why brands sell, even when their products have no quality. For example, in shopping malls you can see shops packed with people buying clothes that have no value and will be ruined or out of fashion very soon, because the brand is selling an image, not quality anymore. China, on the other hand, managed to compete in the world markets by reducing price over quality, and is now paying the price of a very bad reputation, as most people don’t trust Chinese brands anymore. This is already impacting the economy, so I don’t know what will happen in the next years. It’s all in the hands of the politicians and the internationalization of the companies. Actually, that’s why this Chinese government sends its companies to other countries. And yet, I just said this to explain the relation between value and product. But here’s another. I tried to share what I know about Learning with Teachers, Parents and Psychologists, and nobody cared. Besides, what I earned in helping children with learning disabilities was a very low payment, and I had to quit that as I couldn’t afford to pay an apartment and daily expenses with such job. However, there are people making thousands of dollars with drugs that have no effect, toilets for cats and pet-rocks. In other words, is never about what the world needs but what the world wants.

Acclimatizing to its customs and particular brand of bustle, he’d gotten a sense of Wewoka. Without the lens of a fever-induced vision, it proved to be a dense, vertical city of narrow, terraced streets with expansive walkways. Largely devoid of motor traffic, any point could be reached by foot in fifteen minutes. Pictures painted on the sidewalks provided a colorful trail. With a central street lined with shops bustling with commerce, the noise and smell were different from what he was used to. Wewoka had none of the overworked smokestacks from innumerable factories; much of the city was made up by parks. The air had a hint of ozone to it. A collection of buildings sprouted at the heart of the city. Gleaming green and metallic spires in the distance, the sun reflected from their solar panels. A mushroom-like structure drew in sewer water from its “roots” and funneled it to its dome. Solar energy evaporated the water, which was then collected and released throughout the streets, watering the surrounding green spaces. Photovoltaic panels lined solar drop towers. Titanium dioxide reacted with ultraviolet rays and smog, filtering and dissipating them. They had developed similar technology in Jamaica. Vertical gardens and vegetation covered the steep towers of housing units and work offices. The exterior vertical gardens filtered the rain, which was reused with liquid wastes for farming needs. A deep calm reverberated through the city, quiet preserved like a commodity. Desmond