As you trudge to your thankless job some wet mornings, don't you yearn for those days of sitting around in a too-warm classroom and pretending that talking about total bullshit constituted some kind of important work, as long as you managed some references to encoded signifiers and diff rance and used the word "problematize" a lot? Well, uh, we do. Which is why the bullshitty discussion of the new vs. old Payless logo in the new issue of n+1 (disputed book-hottie Ben Kunkel's lit mag) gave us a warm and fuzzy feeling, even as it annoyed us as all things asssociated with n+1 must. Specifically, there was this one part of n+1's interview with "commerical semiotician" A. S. Hamrah that we think probably wouldn't have sat well with our 'Engendering Gender: The Semiotics of Postfeminism' professor:

ASH: The reason Howard Johnson's was turquoise and orange was supposedly—this is a rumor as far as I know, I've never read this anywhere (I should look into it more)—that turquoise and orange make you hungry. Anyway, who says? I don't believe that. But the orange and pale blue in the Payless logo look like Howard Johnson's. So maybe it's supposed to make you hungry. Hungry for shoes. I do think women buy shoes as a sublimation of eating. You can shop for shoes instead of eating. n+1: Eh, I don't know. I think it's about choosing and stocking up. Women are probably still in thrall to their thousands of years as gatherers of berries and edible tubers and things. Women take a lot of pride in their power to discern and select. ASH: Well, that's true. Shoe shopping is like gathering tubers. Shoes are like potatoes. It's like that Jerky Boys joke, "I'll take my shoes with me so I'll have them." But I see it more as a sublimation of eating and of sex. I like women's shoes a lot, personally.

That sort of problematized the whole interview for us, honestly.

The Haunting of Payless [n+1]

9:10 AM on Fri Jan 19 2007
By Emily Gould
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13 comments

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blueribbon at 09:38 AM on 01/19/07
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oh, différance -- those really were the days.
zkemeny at 09:54 AM on 01/19/07
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It's true. I came home the other day to find my girlfriend sitting on the floor with a pile of high heels, tearing the backs open with her teeth, trying to get to the edible cork centers so we'd have something to eat for that night. Then we picked fleas from each others' hair.
ronbo at 10:00 AM on 01/19/07
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Actually, if you strain the interview through a pretension filter Hamrah doesn't sound completely stupid. He's right to call Payless on "unmaking" its brand: They're trying to go from "Pay Less" to what sounds like "Payliss." It sounds like "painless."

But some of the interview is priceless, not painless: There's a tiny picture of [Thomas Lipton] in the corner of the box. He's all white, not like a white colonialist, but white like a ghost. . . . I guess they don't want their tea to be associated with imperialism. Because that would be bad for sales.

I'd to enter this in the T-shirt contest: Not white like a colonialist, white like a ghost
Gynoklastes at 10:37 AM on 01/19/07
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I, for one, am happy you have moved on to days of sitting around in a too-warm office and pretending that writing about total bullshit constitues some kind of important work, as long as you manage some references to annoying hipsters and quasi-intellectuals and use the wrod "douchebag" a lot.
moff at 10:49 AM on 01/19/07
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Connectedness Index: 583

Oh, I keep feeling guilty about the debut issue of n+1 that a friend pressed into my hands over a year ago, and which I have neither read nor returned. But come to think of it, maybe I'm doing him a service.
lypocenes at 10:59 AM on 01/19/07
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well, dr. christian, spare the wrod, spoil the wtatwaffle
sheistolerable at 11:00 AM on 01/19/07
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Wow, he's so right. "Payliss." That would be why the new logo makes the word "Payless" bigger and hides the word "shoe," and also, it makes sense, because people who pay $20 for shoes (myself included) are DEEPLY ASHAMED.
KittyPryde at 11:01 AM on 01/19/07
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You know, I miss the days when orange and black were acceptable logo colors for products. Every time I see an old Minute Maid orange juice carton, I get nostalgia pangs.

Probably because my family was sorta' broke back then and having that orange and black container in the fridge was always a sign of my parents having a good month...
Gynoklastes at 11:14 AM on 01/19/07
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lypocenes -- daaaaamn. So right.
Sigerson Holmes at 12:00 PM on 01/19/07
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It's tempting to offer the Kristevan view on this, but I won't.
Flashman at 01:09 PM on 01/19/07
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n+1, you could say more, but why?
Mike Barthel at 02:18 PM on 01/19/07
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True, it can get a little recursive.
raincoaster at 10:41 PM on 01/19/07
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I'll take any amount of condescention if it means I can get Kenneth Cole knockoffs for $15 bucks Canadian the same season.