Cyberlink Monday (3 links for the price of 1!)

I'm bursting with excitement over three articles I read online this holiday weekend, and despite the fact that I have posted links to them on Twitter (follow me @cwblog!), I want to recommend them in a more proper ramble.

1) Department Store Movies: A $ign Of Our Times is a timely post-Black Friday article written by suzidoll [at TCM's Movie Morlocks blog]. It explores the depiction and symbolism of the department store ("a landmark of urban life") in twentieth-century cinema. Department stores are seen as "an ideologically rich setting in our pop culture for understanding attitudes, issues, and problems related to our economy and the differences among the classes." I've always been attracted to old movies that are set in department stores because, even on a subconscious level, they come across as emblematic of a less stylized view of daily life. You get a better sense for what it was like to live in a certain place at a certain time.