Fashion predicts an economic upturn and a victory for Romney.

Interpret this shirt:



That's something new, selected to illustrate the latest email from Macy's. Macy's — and the shirtmaker, Ralph Lauren — are in the game for the money, so they've got to predict where the mind of the American shopper is going (and where they can make it go, with some prodding). Anyway, you read the tea leaves, I will read the fabric print.

First: Ann Romney! How many ways does that shirt say "Ann Romney"? 1. Horses, 2. Animals boldly emblazoned on on your chest, 3. Unapologetically rich.

Second: The 80s! This thing looks like it sprang right out of the 80s, the Reagan era. Put aside your sorry old sweaters, your poverty looks. We're going to strut proudly into the Morning in America.

Did you know that Time Magazine, just last January, ranked Jimmy Carter's cardigan one of the Top 10 Political Fashion Statements"?

In Feb. 2, 1977, just two weeks after being sworn in as the 39th President, Jimmy Carter delivered a fireside chat from his West Wing study. Carter, a peanut farmer from Plains, Ga., was using the power of network television to "keep in close touch with the people of our country, to let you know informally about our plans."

Your plans to depress the hell out of us. Thanks, old man.

What caught the attention of viewers that night wasn't necessarily what Carter said, but what he wore: Unlike today's era of hyper-stylized image consultancy, in which everything a politician wears is scrutinized, Carter simply wore for the taping what he had worn to dinner. 

Oh, really? What was for dinner? Ramen noodles?

He asked his TV adviser and adman what they thought, and they told him to look at the TV monitor to see for himself. While Carter would have myriad difficulties in the coming years, that early high point was purely authentic. "He was folks, and folks is in," a Republican insider told TIME. "I hate to say it, but from a purely analytical point of view, I loved it."

Folks was in. But not permanently. We got exuberance later.

The Daily Caller gets jazzed up about something Michelle Obama wrote in law school in 1988.

Go over there and read the gasping about how racist and left-wing it all was, but to me, having lived through Critical Race Theory, every single thing she wrote looks completely banal by the standards of 1988. She said exactly what you'd expect someone in her place and position to say at that time to please her superiors and to gain favor. I'd only knock her for a lack of originality and daring. To uncover this dreary student work and declare a-ha is embarrassing and silly.

It's not Lady Gaga unseating Oprah that disturbs me. It's Elton John and Bon Jovi in the top 10.

"The World's Most Powerful Celebrities"... according to Forbes.

We need better celebrities! It was bad enough back in the 80s when Elton John and Bon Jovi were the celebrities we had to settle for. But here they are. Still "powerful," whatever that means. Growing up in the 50s and 60s, I really got the wrong impression of the speed of the flow of new celebrities into the popular culture.

Maybe this is why time has seemed to go faster as we (Baby Boomers) have gotten older. Or do you think it should be a reason why things should appear to be going slower? When nothing's happening and you're bored, time does seem to go slower. But uneventfulness also makes long stretches of time look shorter. It's a paradox. The paradox of the puzzling persistence of Bon Jovi and Elton John.

Fear Of Strangers - "Shopping For A Dog" (1982).

Something I heard a lot in the 80s — just found in YouTube:

The game that burned your eyeballs and made you question your sanity in the 1980s.

Tetris is 25.

Live-blogging Halloween.

5:08: I'm ready for the kids. I've chosen M&Ms as the classic all-American candy. How about you? Last year, I was in NYC and my house was unattended. I felt bad about that. I've lived in my house since 1986, and that was the first time I did not give out Halloween candy.

5:23: No kids yet, but I've started eating some of the candy on the theory that the peanut M&Ms make a substantial dinner entree.

5:41: The first person is an adult! Weird, but female, so not scary. She's collecting nonperishable foodstuffs, and I give her some canned soup, peas, and tuna fish.

6:09: Finally, some kids. 4 teens. One was the Joker, but only one. There was also a cat, a Supergirl, and... oh, I forgot.

6:47: Uncomfortable dialogue:

Me: Are you a KKK guy?

Kid: Uh, no. I was asked that a couple of times. I'm a snow trooper from [unintelligible].

Me: Oh. Uh. Good. That would have been scarier.

6:49: A bat and (a little girl in a tux) a magician.

6:59: A professional wrestler and a (very well done) wolf.

7:10: The tiniest Halloweener arrived, in the classic baby costume: pumpkin. I'm just going back and reading my original Halloween live-blogging, from 2004. Hippie was a popular costume back then. Haven't seen a hippie tonight. I think that's a sign that Obama will win. (Get it? The year the conservative won, the hippie was "scary.")

7:33: Best example of me thinking twice before guessing the costume: "Are you 80s girls?" That was correct. Prostitutes would have been incorrect.

7:42: More 80s girls. 80s girl seems to have replaced hippie. A generational shift. Also, there was a witch. I complimented her for choosing the classic Halloween costume.

8:18: It seems over. Not much of a crowd this year. There's always Freakfest, but it's said that Freakfest isn't what it used to be. For the last few years, you've had to buy a ticket to get onto State Street, and this year they've installed a lot of surveillance cameras to keep the freaks in line.

8:25: It must be over. Anyone who shows up now is a straggler. I think it's time for me to close up for the evening.

8:42: I've turned off all the lights in the front of the house. I note that there were no political costumes at all. Not one Sarah Palin. No Obama/McCain masks. Not even a Nixon ... and I think in past years, there's usually been at least one kid wearing a parent's old Nixon mask. How do I interpret the lack of political costumes? I think it reflects a relaxed confidence that Obama will win.

"Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan... would have won a third term easily and still could (even though Reagan is dead)."

That's not the first thing that amused me this morning, just the first thing that amused me enough to blog. It's from this Stanley Fish piece about how people don't much like George Bush now, but we'll probably like him when he's not President anymore.

I was previously amused this morning by this collection of commercials from 1986, especially the "Hot Topper," one of those minor and strangely specific countertop appliances of the era, and "I'm ready to... participate." The 80s seemed to be more about sensuously drizzly liquids than the 00s are.