Re: VLVL2 (1) "More is Less"

[Bandwraith at aol.com]

In a message dated 7/14/03 8:01:26 PM, jbor at bigpond.com writes:

<< Isn't it a jokey play on the maxim of the Modernist architect Mies van der
Rohe, "Less is more"?

http://www.abstractconcreteworks.com/essays/lessismore/ls_s_mor.html

It's a "discount store for larger-size women". The shop's name plays on the
idea that they get more dress for less money. The connection to Orwell's
"Doublethink" seems rather tenuous, in the context. >>

If it is a link to "Freedom is Slavery" it is rather oblique and
even to some extent inverted. My initial reaction was that it
echoed one of the novels themes, that, in fact, *more* as in
jumbo-sized bags of junk food, endless reels of sit-com drivel,
new-age commercial (or dope induced) *spirituality,* is less 
nourishing- for body, mind and soul.

Also, the slogan "More is Less" is itself less polarizing or mutually
exclusive than the Orwellian verses, and suggests a continuum
rather than a dichotomy, much in keeping with the thanatoid
"indistinction" between the living and dead, quite in pace with 
the novel's tendency to downplay major traumatizing dichotomies 
within the American culture of the time. The beginning of a healing?

Although possible, but less likely, it might also be an allusion to 
the Lot 49 formulation: High Magic/low puns, but inverted and
attenuated: less magic but more accomodation, fewer puns but 
greater recognition of the similarity between different types of 
people.

Of course, it's just another cute marketing ploy, as well, as if
"the market" in America can handle any issue, including being
extra-large.

respectfully