When I first visited Latvia, I thought it was a charming side effect of communism that store names were quite small on the façades. Was there an ethic of abjuring crass commercialism? Then I noticed the shadows left by larger store names above the small Latvian store names. It wasn't that Marxism Leninism called for demure commercial logos. The Latvians had just taken down the Russian signs. Commercial promotion is, I suppose, a condition of life,