T-Shirts and the Coming Collapse of Capitalism

Abstract

To start with a couple of brief scenes. It was my birthday in April and Deirdre asked me what I wanted. ‘I don’t know … Oh, yes, I need a T-shirt or a sweatshirt. See if you can get me a plain one without advertising or some dud slogan on the front.’ After all, I was not keen to appear at a lecture with a chest that announced VIRGIN or HAWAII BEACHBOY to a group of students with a healthy disrespect for their elders, students who in the past have been known to heckle a colleague in an ill-advised wig. I was told later that it took a couple of deeply dispiriting Saturdays trailing round the shops before something as apparently simple as a plain sweatshirt appeared in amongst the racks of 83M AMERICAN SYSTEM and MID PACIFIC CARNIVAL. Next year I’ll ask for some handkerchiefs.