Absolutely Everything Changes

     An author recounts buying an exorbitantly expensive briefcase - "a true 'attache case'" - as a young man, and how he now, in his 60s, feels about his once-prized status symbol:

     "When I see it at all, when it emerges from the shadows of familiarity, I look at it with a fond melancholy, a sadness for the young fellow who thought he needed this emblem to sustain his identity in the world."

       Richard Todd. "The Thing Itself. On the Search for Authenticity." Riverhead Books, NY, 2008.