I'm reposting this in an effort to write more.
Did you Catalog The Great Recession?
Do you remember catalogs? I acquired these forgotten catalogs from my Mom's de-cluttering adventures. They are all from fall 2008 and their clean colorful organized content is a stark contrast to the events that were unfolding. I remember that was a dark and foggy year. Even my memories of the weather were of constantly cloudy days with cold biting rains. It was a time of great sudden rough change and confusion. That was the year that Obama inherited a messy war and the stock market crashed not too long after the housing bubble burst. The Lehman Brothers went bankrupt and collapsed late September and wild conspiracy theories were going around. Households were broken literally overnight in a lot of cases due to foreclosure and climate change as entire homes were abandoned along with their belongings and pets let out to roam and fend for themselves. Families were torn apart due to lack of money and drug addictions. The second wave of the opioid epidemic was developing; which was a transition from prescribed opioids to street heroin. A new style of music called 'Witch House' reflected the times with dark beats and slowed down vocals of pop songs that inverted their plastic happiness into brooding almost demonic sounding sadness. The container/storage economy boomed as junk themed reality shows such as Hoarders, American Pickers, and Storage Wars played all day on cable TV to an audience of sedated survivors. This was the beginning of a transition from a traditional material economy to a more digital one. Savvy collectors roamed backyards plundering for treasure to peddle to baby boomers hitting retirement. The TV series, The Walking Dead, aired in 2010; picking up on the dark frequencies of these times. We are now in the third wave of the opioid epidemic. Who would have guessed that 10 years later we would be living in a real apocalyptic post modern landscape where with the press of a Narcan button we are now reviving people from elephant tranquilizer Fentanyl overdoses; sometimes 3 and 4 times over. Across the street from the neighborhood park where their thin ulcerated bodies are sometimes found, autonomous semi trucks are being rolled out in the American west; passing by abandoned strip malls and Mom and Pop shops from retail's heydays. Carfentanyl (100 times Fentanyl) and subscriptions to 'experiences' paid with cashless coins will probably spearhead the fourth wave of the change that is rapidly unfolding. How did you make it through the Great Recession changes? Are you evolving with the next one?
