The Last Catalog
The last catalog? Yes.
The Last Catalog.
A catalog is a record of items for sale, systematically arranged on a page, including descriptions. The descriptions qualify each item tempting us to consume it.
The asking price is how much we are expected to pay for it.
That is, how much we are expected to pay for the thing we want to consume.
By now—the catalog—has existed for generations as an often—but (as you know) not always—heavy, paper-bound listing. A book to be thumbed through in moments of expanding wishes, and wants. In moments of imagining what we could be (wearing) (buying) owning. On page 92 and page 93 of the 1957 Sears Christmas catalog, for example, buyers were advertised “Long Sparkling Evening Gloves and Sparkling Iridescent Hankies.” The product descriptions offered: “Gifts that say ‘You’re Glamorous.” “Gifts that say ‘You’re Somebody Special.”
Perhaps this feeling of wanting to be somebody special is how we’ve developed such a “special” relationship with the catalog. The things in the catalog are the things that come before what comes next which is the next version of the better us after we purchase the thing. Thus, the catalog is a place for marketers to fawn over us. They see the potential in us to be our better, more beautiful, fulfilled selves—and they visualize all of this on the pages of the catalog. (Or maybe they just want to sell us something.)
Before it was associated with our shopping for things, though, the catalog began when Aldus Pius Manutius created a catalog in Venice in 1498. He aimed to introduce printed editions of Greek and Latin classics to Venice in the first printed catalog of the day. Then William Lucas, an English gardener, introduced the seed catalog. We credit Benjamin Franklin with expanding the catalog’s reach. He published a catalog of books, too, and invited those who lived in remote places to be included in his purchasing network and so the catalog extended its reach. “Those Persons that live remote, by sending their Orders and Money to said B. Franklin, may depend on the same Justice as if present,” read the cover of one such catalog. Its contents? “Books of Divinity, History, Law, Mathematics, Philosophy, Physics, Poetry.”
“We did get catalogs in the mail when I was a kid. I can remember every one of the pages in this catalog. I poured over them. Looking at them I can still remember every detail.”
If that were the beginning of the catalog’s arc into society, the arc’s reach continues into an ever-expanding presence of catalogs as a fundamental part of our experience in an ever-expanding culture of consumption.
Spring, summer, fall and winter catalogs deliver delights and promises for each new season. School clothes in the fall catalog collection. Toys in the winter catalog collection. And lots of other things! Consider–Vardagen, Utrusta, Uppoatera, (a pie plate, a pull-out pantry, a plate holder) – specific items–or shall we say things?– featured in a recent IKEA catalog.
The catalog’s arrival parallels the season’s arrival. The earth’s spinning axis underpins the season — our culture underpins our use of the catalog. Both ground our lives in ritual.
It’s not only ritual. It’s emotional.
This observation on Reddit demonstrates our (emotional) attachment to the catalog. Reflecting on images of an old American Girl Doll catalog a person observed: “I've never even had an AG (American Girl Doll) - too expensive- but we did get the catalogs in the mail when I was a kid. I can remember every one of the pages in this catalog. I poured over them. Looking at them I can still remember every detail. Especially the Samantha pages from the 2005 catalog.”
It is likely that we’ve each poured over the pages of a catalog. We’ve touched the coated paper of a catalog–just like that person did. We’ve felt the glossy/matte finish of its paper between our fingertips. We’ve held 70# text weight paper in our hands. Thus, you see, the catalog has offered us a little physical intimacy. It's something we can touch—with our fingers (which are meant to touch). Except that now, we often find ourselves—as you find yourself now— thumbing through the catalog’s digital equivalent. A social media scroll. Using fingers over plasticky keyboards or a sticky screen.
Whether paper or digital—when we buy the thing we find—the thing we wanted! —what we wanted arrives the way a handwritten letter from a friend used to (See The (Death of a) Thing catalog entry: Letter writing).
Meanwhile the leaves on the tree drop off every season. They let go. They purchase nothing. (They unbuy)–folding back into the earth. Meanwhile the seasons as usual, aren’t usual anymore.The clock of consumption is speeding up and we can’t keep up.
Paradigms are shifting all around us, too. How we consume, just one.
So, Aldus Pius Manutius created the first catalog in Venice in 1498 introducing books, and now we'd like to close the loop on the arc of the catalog by introducing—nothing to buy—but rather a catalog to record what we are leaving behind.
Just as in the usual catalogs, in this, The Last Catalog, we’ll list the item and a description of it.
We’ll also list the following:
A cost.
What is a cost in The (Death of a) Thing: The Last Catalog?
Technically speaking, a cost is an amount that has to be paid or spent to buy or get something. A cost requires the payment of (a specified sum of) money before we can acquire it.
In this catalog, The Last Catalog, we’ll estimate the price of the thing we feel is being lost. We’ll assign a cost to it.
But for us, the cost won’t usually be a dollar amount as it isn’t an amount to be paid as much as it is a loss we’ll feel. So here, the cost is more a gap that might remain because this thing might be dying.
Let us introduce The (Death of a) Thing.