When Worlds Collide
by Michael Schaffer

Almost fifteen years ago, after college, I spent a year living in Sri Lanka.

This year, I published a book on the changes in how we live with pets, and what they mean.

Among the things I write about are how petmania isn’t just confined to Yuppie enclaves. In fact, in places from Ypsilanti to New Delhi, the arrival of doggie day spas and pet-industry trade shows gets hailed as a sign that modernity has arrived.

I was reminded of this when my pal Dan Bass, who also lived in Sri Lanka as an anthropology student, forwarded me this email he’d gotten. It’s an advertisement for a pet fashion show. And, yes, it’s in the capital of Sri Lanka.