Ever get pissed off while trying to find the socks section in a department store, instead finding yourself lost in a labyrinth? I've known for some time that this is intentional, but I didn't realize it is in fact a defining feature of the department store, as this passage suggests:
Emile Zola learned that Baucicaut, founder and "presiding genius" of the first 'grand magazin,' (in France, called the Bon Marche), had contrived purposefully to orchestrate the confusion of the store's layout. He did this in order to oblige shoppers to travel the length and breadth of the Bon Marche to find items they had come to purchase. In the meantime, they were exposed to the display, to the seduction of other items they had not initially thought to acquire....It was a neat trick: turnover and sales volume increased substantially" (Terdiman, 'Discourse/Counter-Discourse, p.136).
I avoid department stores.
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Overheard while at the cafe this morning...I thought of the philosophy student you once were...
A young scruffy student said, "Whenever I had to write philosophy essays the best ones I ever did were when I was drunk. What does that tell you about philosophy? (Chuckles)"
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