Every issue of The New Yorker is full of signs of the apocalypse, if you chose to look for them, but this week I was particularly struck by three items that may, alas, say a good deal to future time capsule excavators:

1) A Mastercard contest in which you can win a commissioned portrait by Julian Schnabel. The game piece/involvement device is simulated formal stationary, including a wax (i.e. paper) seal reading “certificate of authenticity.”

2) A shiny, color, pull-out 10-page brochure from Shell about how much they are doing for the environment.

3) An ad promoting Irish tourism that reads (I'm not making this up): “After a show at The Grand Opera House and an Irish coffee in a local cafe, the Smithgalls of Atlanta had seen as deep into the Irish soul as Samuel Beckett.”