ZIPLOCK SECURITY.(The Talk of the Town)

Publication: The New Yorker

Publication Date: 17-APR-06

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COPYRIGHT 2006 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.

It is a matter of public record that bags--schoolkids' backpacks, mainly, but also women's handbags--are getting bigger all the time. An undocumented corollary is that bags are more plentiful, too--that there are more bags per capita on the street today than at any other time in history. If this is true (and if you go out right now and start counting you will be convinced within minutes that it is), possible explanations could include the proliferation of portable gadgets, a reading-material boom, a trend toward tight or pocketless clothing, or cheap bagmaking labor overseas.

But, much as nature finds ways (disease, famine) to combat overpopulation, city life has thrown up impediments to bags. To enter many public buildings, theatres, ballparks, and--theoretically, at...

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