Leslie Price (A&F and Uniqlo) joins Devin and Andy again to talk about the Trader Joe’s shopping experience. Is TJ’s inspired by Tiki culture, nautical culture, or old-time whimsy? Do you know the meaning of the store bells? Has TJ's solved the issue of line stress? Has Trader Joe’s also done the impossible and made a store brand something that’s a good value and worth seeking out? Are you someone who sees the cart half-full of dairy, or half-full of lactose??

Hello, Gloria

NPR Joe Coulombe obituary

Trader Joe’s Wikipedia 

Are Trader Joe’s Bags the Last Vestige of American Soft Power? (Guardian)

Fig Glazed Skillet Chicken (knock your socks off recipe)

Full Carts Social: Bluesky, Instagram

Theme music by⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Jed Becker⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, cover art by⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Margaret Flatley⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, music insertion by Skye MacLeod

Contact: [email protected]

Devin, Andy, and guest Carlo Blackmore (see also: Michaels) visit the New York Transit Museum. What does the new Vignelli-influenced subway map say? What’s more fun than a turnstile to nowhere? What is your favorite era of subway car? What does MetroCard nostalgia mean? What will you do with your vintage, subway-used grab hold? Did you cast your vote for Miss Subways??

Goodbye (and Good Riddance?) to the MetroCard by Dodai Steward (NYT)

MetroCard Cookies Fly off Shelves (NYP)

Poetry in Motion: Ragtime by Kevin Young

Inside Lllewen Davis trailer

MetroCard subway curtain (old map!), Ugly Sweater

Wayne Chrebet (former NY Jet)

64,000 Attempts at Circulation

Some MetroCard collabs

Full Carts Social: Bluesky, Instagram

Theme music by⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Jed Becker⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, cover art by⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Margaret Flatley⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, music insertion by Skye MacLeod

Contact: [email protected]

Devin and Andy visit the holiday market in Union Square. Is bigger always better with holiday markets? Does a good market experience mean finding that one vendor you really like, or an overall vibe that you’re into? What is your personal ranking of: Holiday Markets, Street Fairs, and Farmer’s Markets? Are we at peak ornament? Are booths selling old novels that have been turned into clocks part of some larger plan to take books out of circulation? Can skullcap really help us get back to sleep??

Mentioned:

Made in Philadelphia Holiday Market

Hell’s Kitchen Hot Sauce

Makeshift

Wafels and Dinges

Mulled Wine Cup Specialists

Pixie Doodle Farm

Full Carts Social: Bluesky, Instagram

Theme music by⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Jed Becker⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, cover art by⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Margaret Flatley⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, music insertion by Skye MacLeod

Contact: [email protected]

Devin and Andy get their plaid on and visit the Filson (not Wilson, not Failson) flagship store in Union Square, Manhattan. Is this stuff for working outdoors, or for looking like you work outdoors? Are you supposed to actually sit on that cozy couch upstairs, play Scrabble, and read someone’s old scouting scrapbook? What do we talk about when we talk about the Raymond Carver book on display here? Are stained glass displays on their way out, or still coming up? Does Ace + Freemans + Woolrich = Filson?  

Insulated Bomber Jacket

Field Notes Armed Services Edition of The Maltese Falcon

Full Carts Social: Bluesky, Instagram

Theme music by⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Jed Becker⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, cover art by⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Margaret Flatley⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, music insertion by Skye MacLeod

Contact: [email protected]

Devin and Andy visit Spirit Halloween and suss out whether it’s a trick or a treat. Or both! Can a Spirit store serve as a haunted house substitute? Is Bobby Strings the ultimate example of the name-letter effect? Are SpongeBob and Scooby-Doo characters as embedded in the costume canon as policeman, cheerleader, convict, and clown? What percentage of folks are looking to win a best costume award at the party? Have you thought this Skelly purchase through??

Display VHS of The Exorcist

SNL Spirit Halloween sketch

Punkrocker by Teddybears w/ Iggy Pop (with correct lyrics!)

Full Carts Social: Bluesky, Instagram

Theme music by⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Jed Becker⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, cover art by⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Margaret Flatley⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, music insertion by Skye MacLeod

Contact: [email protected]

Devin and Andy visit a Banana Republic Factory Store. Are old Banana Republic catalogs the real Great American Novel? At what age does a Newsies-style cap stop being ironic? Should a factory store offer a more affordable version of its big sibling’s styles, or be more of its own thing? Why can’t even AI figure out when Banana Republic Factory started? When culturally important chain stores close or radically change, should one location be preserved for posterity? Is the handkerchief ready for a comeback??

Some Banana Republic history by nickthrowsafit

Full Carts Social: Bluesky, Instagram

Theme music by⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Jed Becker⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, cover art by⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Margaret Flatley⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, music insertion by Skye MacLeod

Contact: [email protected]

Devin, Andy, and guest Sam Talevich visit the Bandai Namco Cross Store in Industry City, Brooklyn. What is a Cross Store, exactly? How many Gashapon machines are required to have something for everyone? 150? 300? 3000?? Can you win at claw machines with proper training? Should there be a flagship store dedicated solely to Pac-Maniana? Do Taito no Tatsujin skills translate to real world drumming?

Lucky Wander Boy by D. B. Weiss

Full Carts Social: Bluesky, Instagram

Theme music by⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Jed Becker⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, cover art by⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Margaret Flatley⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, music insertion by Skye MacLeod

Contact: [email protected]

Devin and Andy visit Daiso, a Japan-based discount home goods and variety store, in Brooklyn’s Industry City. Will “two and a quarter store” catch on as much as “dollar store”? Is pickle candy ever good? Can electric erasers bring us back to a time of buzzing offices and techno-optimism? Are we at, past, or still climbing to Peak Bag Dangler? How bougie do you like your garbage bags? Does your life have a feeling of cleanliness??

Brimful of Asha by Cornershop

Full Carts Social: Bluesky, Instagram

Theme music by⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Jed Becker⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, cover art by⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Margaret Flatley⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, music insertion by Skye MacLeod

Contact: [email protected]

Devin and Andy visit a newly opened Lidl—a discount grocery chain with roots in Germany—on a warm August day. Do people confuse Lidl and Aldi? What about Aldo and Lids? Are all the prices with surprise endings, like, say, $2.47, trying to scramble our brains? How important is music to the grocery shopping experience? Are we ready for the grueling psychological test of comparing store brands and national brands at close range?

This episode features a new segment: “That really steams my beans!” What about the shopping experience steams your beans??

Gap playlists

LIDL wiki

Vintage Mickey Mouse ice cream bars

Full Carts Social: Bluesky, Instagram

Theme music by⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Jed Becker⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, cover art by⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Margaret Flatley⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, music insertion by Skye MacLeod

Contact: [email protected]

After a stop at See’s Candies, Devin and Andy visit America’s oldest apothecary, C.O. Bigelow. Will the drugstore soda fountain please come back? Does Bigelow represent peak tortoiseshell? Are swanky manual toothbrushes bought exclusively for apartment photo shoots? Will the dream of Smell-O-Vision in every home be realized? What’s the best health-to-beauty ratio for a pharmacy? Are those real vices, or are you vice signaling? 

Deuce Bigelow trailer

Just a Gigolo/I Ain’t Got Nobody video by David Lee Roth

POH (Personal Oral Hygiene)

Sun Bum & Vacation sunscreens

Full Carts Social: Bluesky, Instagram

Theme music by⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Jed Becker⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, cover art by⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Margaret Flatley⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, music insertion by Skye MacLeod

Contact: [email protected]