Notes on Kamp

Postscript to "Potatohead Blues," from Citizen Truth:

When discussing the origins of food retailer Dean & DeLuca in The United States of Arugula, David Kamp quotes that Woody speech, talking about how he was the man "to articulate the ascent of the 'lifestyle' ethos." Kamp then presents a response by Joan Didion that was in the NYRB. She wrote that the monologue proved the existence of "a subworld of people rigid with apprehension that they will die wearing the wrong sneaker, naming the wrong symphony, preferring Madame Bovary." He gives her credit for noting the beginnings of a new, intensely status-hungry class in America, but notes that she "was being inordinately doomy and apocalyptic." (pp 216-217)