"the summer of the backpack" -- "something so familiarly non-malevolent is part of such a grotesquerie"

A backpack! Has a more ordinary, more benign, more ubiquitous accouterment of modern life ever taken on such a sudden connotation of darkness?

But now in the age of terrorism and especially during this sweltering July, after the London bus and subway attacks and the institution of the New York Police Department's random search policy - events that led no less a social critic than Jon Stewart to christen this the summer of the backpack - the signature luggage of 1960's flower children and 1990's schoolchildren has been marked in nefarious colors.

It's almost preposterous that something so familiarly non-malevolent is part of such a grotesquerie ---

Up to maybe a half-century ago, the backpack was an accessory only for Boy Scouts and mountaineers. Its evolution from hiker's specialty item to urban, suburban and exurban fashion staple probably began with Dick Kelty's invention of the aluminum frame pack in the mid-1950's.
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the world is home to more backpacks than ever. A decade ago, manufacturers sold more than 8.5 million; last year, the number was 18.1 million. Such a vast sea of backpacks. It is both consoling and alarming, no?

Accessory to Murder
New York Times, July 31, 2005

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