Six decades after the 1960s, are t-shirt slogans still powerful or are they merely wistful for the time they once were? The best take on the subject I have ever, ever come across was by RICHARD MARTIN and HAROLD KODA, who exhibited t-shirts from a single year as an acute portrayal of politics and current events, limited to a span of 365 days. The year was 1991, and sample phrases include “This Scud’s for You,” in response to the GULF WAR, and “Go Gorby Go,” on the dissolution of the SOVIET UNION. “Pray for Magic” t-shirts were sold on the street in LA a mere 48 hours after MAGIC JOHNSON made the announcement he was HIV-positive. Looking back, the limited span of time is what makes the project so striking. That t-shirts are markers of temporality, of bodies and lives at a certain place and a certain time, makes us consider them as portals to the past. Like I said. Merely wistful?... With the combined burden of history and shifting contexts looming over every symbolic gesture we make in 2016, is it any wonder people decry the safety pin around the same time people begin relentlessly publishing listicles about it? Post-everything, our many historic failures don’t bode well for faith in the symbolic. Or do they? This powerful t-shirt messaging may prove otherwise. Was discussing with a friend last night that the message conveyed by the safety pin has morphed for several movements across at least 3 continents… Respect to VÉRONIQUE HYLAND for this self-professed piece of “investigative journalism,” ;) on where to find safety pins in AMERICA. And to the photo editor on that one, I salute you… Messages formerly reserved for the t-shirt have blithely shifted to the tote bag, and for all their two-handled novelty, just think about All. That. Waste. Or don't, depending on how many tote-able freebies you have stuffed in your pantry. I dunno about you, but despite all well-meaning intentions I can’t responsibly “re-use” 500 tote bags in my lifetime… POLYESTER ZINE has an abecedarium of anxiety, quite apropos… The exhibition MADE IN CHINA, situated in JAMESTOWN, NY (near LAKE ERIE) looks cool.