Cathedrals of Consumption

 Happy New Year. 

   I will begin slowly and likely stay at that pace. There are not many incentives to action and we are being actively encouraged to remain inactive and inside. I suppose this should mean that I could blog more, but even an unread blog, about nothing in particular, requires some effort and more effort would be required should I attempt to edit it, out of fear that someone might stumble over one of my posts. I am not too concerned about libel suits, or posses consisting of those out chasing the politically incorrect, but I am worried about the odd, enraged grammarian, even though I have the Internet to help me figure out what the plural of posse is.

   That is a very slow start and now I will back up a few days and discuss a couple of the emails I received at the dawn of the New Year. Reading and answering emails is another reason I am not a very productive blogger, that along with the fact that I don't get paid for blogging.

   One email was from THE BAY and the one immediately following it was about the Hudson's Bay Company. THE BAY was reminding me that I could still take advantage of Boxing Day, if I missed Black Friday and they will soon be letting me know about the wonderful sales to be had at Easter. They will probably even let me know that they will host the President's Day sales that are held on Washington's Birthday, since we can't go across the border.

   The second email was nostalgic in nature and it came in the "Canada Letter" which is a weekly column sent out by Ian Austen, a columnist for the New York Times.  Ian is a local boy (born in Windsor) who cobbles together items for the benefit of the Canadian subscribers. He let us know that the old bricks and mortar version of the Hudson's Bay Company is not doing so well and that the big old branch in Winnipeg is no more. 

   Here is what he had to say: While it was already on death row, Hudson’s Bay Company’s presence in downtown Winnipeg, ended with unexpected abruptness. After announcing that its much diminished former flagship outlet would be shut in February, the retailer permanently locked the doors of the 600,000 square foot store at the end of November. As the caption hints, the Winnipeg store was valued at $0.00.

   Ian, like many of us, has "a soft spot for large, downtown department stores" and remembers going to that other old Canadian department store, Eaton's, and even venturing across the river to visit the other Hudson's, the J.L. Hudson store on Woodward Avenue in Detroit. As, he points out, they were where Santa could be found, perhaps when he wasn't in the one in Winnipeg or London.

   The old days were good as the picture above indicates. Kingsmill's in London is also gone. As the days go by, things become less good as the photo below illustrates. Simpson's is also gone. 

   I shouldn't have my first post be a negative one, so let's look at the bright side. It's not like The Bay is Canadian. As well, we can't go shopping anyway and you are probably broke because of Christmas and all those other sales. Perhaps we should also find something to do other than shop. Environmentalists warn us to cut back on our consumption and the earlier critics of consumer culture asked us to consider rejecting "the cult of the new, the constant pursuit of mere comfort, the culture of desire." As one of those critics said, "we have become a society preoccupied with consumption, with comfort and bodily well-being, with luxury, spending, and, acquisition, with more goods this year than last, more next year than this. American [and Canadian] consumer capitalism produced a culture almost violently hostile to its past and to tradition, a future-oriented culture of desire that confused the good life with goods." 

Perhaps the current pandemic will force us to examine some less acquisitive options.

Source: The quotation is from: Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture, by William Leach. p. XIII.

There is a book with the title of: Cathedrals of Consumption: European Department Stores, 1850-1939. 

The Bonus: 

It appears that the bonuses were good for Canadian CEOS as these free Factlets will indicate.  1) After working just a couple of hours on Jan. 4,  the average top Canadian CEO had already earned as much as the average Canadian will make all year. 2) At the top of the list is Jose Cil who made $27,482,409. He is the fellow who runs Tim Hortons, Burger King and Popeyes.

The source for the above: The Golden Cushion: CEO Compensation in Canada, David Macdonald. Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.