May 15, 2001

12:55 PM

When the commercial sectors of our suburbs and cities fall, and our entire way of life changes, will we live in stores like Fred Meyers? It's a question posed by not only singer Glen Phillips, but an oldish Wired article as well. [more...]
posted by hijinx (12 comments total)

I first heard Glen Phillips's "Fred Meyers" a few months ago and enjoyed it immensely; I love the lyrics, I think it's finely executed, and it's darned catchy. But underneath the skin there's a bit of introspection: living at a store? What is this, absurd? I was immediately struck by the all-too-similar theme posed back in a December 95 Wired feature. The similarities were great: suggesting that the commercial area was well-suited as a living space. Great lighting, huge square footage, lots of parking. Can someone live in a mall? Perhaps, but only if the entire concept behind the mall is transformed into something else.

The Glen Phillips song offers up some activities in this post-commercial world, and some of it reflects a simplicity arguably missing from our buy-work-repeat lives today. What do you think? Life in a Target - will it ever come to fruition, or is it something destined for the work of artists, poets, and singers?
posted by hijinx at 12:55 PM on May 15, 2001

> Life in a Target

You can't raise chickens under a Target.
posted by jfuller at 1:03 PM on May 15, 2001

ever been to a Fred Meyer's late at night?

you want those sort of people wandering around in you 'home'? ugh.
posted by jcterminal at 2:07 PM on May 15, 2001

*chuckle*
posted by SpecialK at 2:29 PM on May 15, 2001

Hey, I was one of those people.

Point taken, I guess...
posted by kindall at 2:30 PM on May 15, 2001

wait a sec. that means i am too.

double ugh.
posted by jcterminal at 3:12 PM on May 15, 2001

I've been wondering for a while what's going to become the new cheap, funky housing when all the old industrial buildings are gone. Using old big-box retail outlets is an interesting idea, but I have to wonder: won't people want windows? Or will windows become a luxury for rich suburbanites, like grass lawns?

-Mars
posted by Mars Saxman at 3:48 PM on May 15, 2001

Who needs windows when you've got Ott-Lites?
posted by kindall at 3:57 PM on May 15, 2001

Broadway musicals aside, can one honestly describe squatting as the new cheap, funky housing and keep a straight face?
posted by dhartung at 4:37 PM on May 15, 2001

my first time wandering around a Costco years ago i had a vision of a future where society had broken down into city states again...but not really citystates buy city stores, tribes. The searsians would trade tools for food with the foodmaxians, and stores like costco and walmart would become their own closed societies. Why leave costco ever?
posted by th3ph17 at 5:10 PM on May 15, 2001

Because the trucker tribes couldn't get fuel from the pumpjockey tribes?
posted by rodii at 5:32 PM on May 15, 2001

Mars: sorry, I was walking around the clutter, looking for something I could respond to. Windows... I would anticipate that, as the Wired article suggests, massive skylights and windows would be installed. Certainly at first, the building would be either severely modified or entirely untouched. (Imagine living in a "vintage" K-Mart, complete with original signage.)
posted by hijinx at 1:37 PM on May 18, 2001