There is a theory in design (and, okay, approximately every other industry) that you have three choices with any given project delivery: good, cheap, and fast. And you can only ever have two. Stephan and I decided that food has a similar triangle of choice: healthy, cheap, and tasty. We vote healthy and tasty.
At least this is what we decided to rationalize our grocery bills once I started shopping at New Seasons. And may I just say, I heart New Seasons. Locally owned and operated! All-natural, organic stuff all over the place! They don’t even let you decide if you want organic produce or not; it’s all organic. On the weekends, they set up massive sample stations at the front of the store, and not a hairnetted retiree serving up Hot Pockets in sight: just chunks of fair-trade chocolate or mounds of cut-up fruit. And, and, they deliver to my personal ZIP code for $9.95.
Of course, the fancy food is a bit more expensive, but not terribly so, and it makes me feel better about myself. Because we can afford it, I feel like it’s my responsibility to help create a market for more sustainable products so that they can become more accessible for everyone.
But then there are things like sustainable clothing; for instance, nau is a newly formed Portland company with all sorts of warm and fuzzy ideas about saving the planet through fashion. Which I can certainly get behind, but for one: lay off the Flash animation, there, nau, and for two: a $55 T-shirt is right at the edge of where my social responsibility and my parsimony collide. For $55 I can go to the Gap outlet and buy not one, but eleven T-shirts lovingly handmade for me by an illiterate and/or criminally underpaid Guatemalan or her Indonesian counterpart.
You see my dilemma.
In my time of need, I turned to Outside magazine’s April edition, “The Green Issue.” Which features this picture of Summer Rayne Oakes, rocking the binder clip:
She must have gotten her copy of the magazine from a different print run, though, because this is the picture that she has posted on her website:
Weird, huh. Of course, there is always the possibility that it is nothing less than some Photoshops Gone Wild. To which I say: Why, Summer Rayne Oakes, Why?
Why the lies? What is there left to believe in? I mean, this just shoots the credibility of this whole “global warming” thing all to hell, doesn’t it?
6 Comments
i *love* that you’re blogging, katie! :)
Man, I gotta get me somma ‘em things you done called binder clips. If Summer Rayne Oaks is usen ‘em, they must be worth buyen.
But mostly, I’m commenting so that I can say 1) Not only am I completely caugh up with your blog, I have made several comments throughout and 2) I appreciate the smiley face at the very bottom of the page. It makes me smile.
Then Big Brother has succeeded. The smiley face at the very bottom of the page is a built-in hit counter monitoring your every move.
Seriously. It came with the blog and we can’t get rid of it. Not that we want to.
Also, I forgot to mention that New Seasons sells fresh spinach and herbs by the pound, so you don’t have to pay $6 for a package of herbs that will go to waste because you only need a tiny amount and can’t figure out what to do with the rest of it. Heart!
My publicist took the binder clip out! I love rocking the binder clips. I never leave home without them!
- SRO
I know, right: they’re so versatile! :)
I just couldn’t believe that Outside would let that go to print. And I’m sure there’s someone out there who doesn’t find the leap from innocuous Photoshopping to the discrediting of global warming too far to jump!