Agency Topics

If modernism had tried to anchor in consciousness a centre which could no longer hold—the conscience of the heroic, socially alienated artist—postmodernism had shown us an even darker side of modernity and the aporias of the aesthetic. It had shown that there is nothing for consciousness to be anchored to: no universal ground of truth, justice, or reason, so that consciousness itself is thus “decentred,” no longer origin, author, location of intentional agency but a function through which impersonal forces pass and intersect—Dover Beach displaced by an international airport lounge.
—Patricia Waugh, British educator. “Stalemates? Feminists, Postmodernists and Unfinished Issues in Modern Aesthetics,” The Politics of Pleasure: Aesthetics and Cultural Theory, ed. Stephen Regan, Open University Press (1992)

I had a wonderful job. I worked for a big model agency in Manhattan.... When I got on the subway to go to work, it was like traveling into another world. Oh, the shops were beautiful, we had Bergdorf’s, Bendel’s, Bonwit’s, DePinna. The women wore hats and gloves. Another world. At home, it was cooking, cleaning, taking care of the kids, going to PTA, Girl Scouts. But when I got into the office, everything was different, I was different.
—Estelle Shuster (b. c. 1923)

It is possible that the telephone has been responsible for more business inefficiency than any other agency except laudanum.... In the old days when you wanted to get in touch with a man you wrote a note, sprinkled it with sand, and gave it to a man on horseback. It probably was delivered within half an hour, depending on how big a lunch the horse had had. But in these busy days of rush-rush-rush, it is sometimes a week before you can catch your man on the telephone.
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)