Taking ourselves too seriously, perhaps?

I think the same person who wrote that uber-serious article about LC from Laguna Beach also wrote this article about Anthropologie.

It helps the shopper create the illusion of household continuity by allowing her to reimagine a place where Grandma might leave out her pre-fluoride tooth powder, to simulate a life in which Mom and Dad still live together in a house with European teacups and flocked bedspreads. In a world of Anthropologie furnishings and clothing, the consumers can reclaim lost childhoods, lost marriages, lost virginities. The store's philosophy takes the colloquial and sad world of regrets and realities and wraps it up in a swath of vintage calico, tied with a satin bow.

But the bicycle of the Anthropologie customer's summertime memories has disappeared; it is now in pieces, on untouchable display behind the sealed walls of an enormous glass box.

Uh. What?

(Admittedly if I get another e-flyer from Anthropologie with a hazy summerish background - grass, pebbles, some vague tree in the sky - with summer references like "Dappled sunlight" and "croquet" and "stargaze" I might kill myself. It's like a better-made bad Apprentice assignment. And I get these like 3 days a week. )