saved by the holy dollar
This is the window of a Dollar Store up on Snelling near University in Saint Paul. The emphasis on the spiritual nature of the dollar--that holiest of symbols in contemporary capitalist culture, to be sure--suggests all sorts of associations between religion and consumer desire.
What does it mean to be "saved" in today's culture? Amid the relentless faith in money and commodities in capitalist culture, salvation acquires an increasingly commercial character to the point where visual spectacles depicting consumerism as a route to personal salvation are entirely in keeping with the signs and symbols that structure our everyday environments.
Taken August 11.
posted by . at
1:50 PM
5 Comments:
A religious dollar shop. Amazing. Maybe we needs to be saved from people who connect religion blatantly with money-making.
Considering how a buck is no longer a buck, they should have named this bargain store "Dollar Savor." Or "Dollar Savior." They could have done so much more, don't you think?
By the way, a strange compulsion of mine is to snap photos of mis-spelled words, particularly when hand-lettered. From a Popeye's Fried Chicken in Little Rock Arkansas: "Closed. Power failer." Indeed.
Come to New Zealand, Phlegmfatal, you'll have a hey day. For one thing, there is no such concept as an apostrophe in this country, and after 12 years, I forget how to use it, too.
By the way, over here, because of the low rating of our Pacific Paso called the Kiwi Dollars, we have $2 Shops. So consider youselves affluent.... (I need a spellchecker for the comments, too.)
meg nakagawa - I'd love to come to NZ if for no other reason than to see the spectacular scenery. I'd love a $2 shop - you can always pretend it's twice as fancy! And speaking of apostrophes, the language has been so butchered by popular culture that it's on a trajectory to dissolve into a terrible mess. Illiteracy is a major concern, and yes, years of exposure to poor grammar dulls the wits, I'm convinced.
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