Random
One man’s trash…
Maybe this dude is old news, but I just found out about NYC Garbage by Justin Gignac via a newish blog called polis I’ve been reading. Here’s what the polis folks say about themselves:
polis is a collaborative blog on urbanism with a global focus. It is a space for our regular contributors and readers to share ideas and information about anything and everything urban from multiple lenses.
But back to the garbage: from the outset I wanted to hate the guy who figured out how to market crushed cans and mangled plastic spoons from the streets of NYC. But I don’t know. The collecting part, more than the academic arguments about the irony of preserving and profiting from the very stuff that’s creating environmental havoc, etc., is what I can’t shake. Here’s maybe why:
A few years ago at a coffee shop in L.A. a guy hefting a piece of driftwood on his shoulder sat down next to me and said, “We collect the conscience of a place, the ideas, the attitude, and we become them.” I’d been reading something Philip Levine wrote about the poet Antonio Machado, “the whole history of Castille is the history of Machado, an empire gone to ruins, and the moment which is his life, the lasting moment he lives and relives, becomes the place itself.” This was either a weird coincidence or the guy had been reading over my shoulder. I don’t honestly know. But here’s what that day taught me:
1. The driftwood was named Samantha.
2. Humans seem to be in the business of collecting. We’re like that creepy lady who dies, and the authorities find thousands of porcelain dolls lining every wall of her house, all staring and smiling into the fading daylight.
3. Much of what we collect has to do with place and landscape and how to reconcile ourselves to the places we exist in. Writers collect place. Sometimes I’ll post about this very thing, as it’s sort of an unpaid internship at this point.
4. Those NYC Garbage boxes sell for $100 bucks a pop. They collect place very literally. I hope someone has something to say about this.
So, that’s by way of an introduction. Thanks, Blake, for inviting me to post!
Tags: collections, NYC Garbage, Philip Levine, polis blog, urbanism
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i’ve had that ‘weird coffee shop guy happens to say something to you over your shoulder that happens to coincide with what you are reading’ thing happen before too. i think i was reading johannes goransson, and he said something about being uncomfortable in his ‘torso’ which johannes always says, and that freaked me a little, and then across the table there was a guy editing photos of ultimate fighters, up close shots of their upper halves that made it look like they were doing fuck. it was yikes/neat.
i wish somebody sold trash from like idaho or mississippi. i’d buy that before new york. but i do kind of like that taste of place cased in and sold, especially encased in language.
is there a book that encases florida? that’d be scary.
i’ve had that ‘weird coffee shop guy happens to say something to you over your shoulder that happens to coincide with what you are reading’ thing happen before too. i think i was reading johannes goransson, and he said something about being uncomfortable in his ‘torso’ which johannes always says, and that freaked me a little, and then across the table there was a guy editing photos of ultimate fighters, up close shots of their upper halves that made it look like they were doing fuck. it was yikes/neat.
i wish somebody sold trash from like idaho or mississippi. i’d buy that before new york. but i do kind of like that taste of place cased in and sold, especially encased in language.
is there a book that encases florida? that’d be scary.
I’ve been watching the show Hoarders lately and it has shown me how attached people can be to the things they collect. The propensity for collection is really interesting. I can’t believe there’s someone selling trash (very nicely packaged) and people buying that trash.
There are some really great books encasing Florida which is such an awesome curious place. The most recent one that comes to mind is How to Leave Hialeah by Jennine Capo Crucet.
I’ve been watching the show Hoarders lately and it has shown me how attached people can be to the things they collect. The propensity for collection is really interesting. I can’t believe there’s someone selling trash (very nicely packaged) and people buying that trash.
There are some really great books encasing Florida which is such an awesome curious place. The most recent one that comes to mind is How to Leave Hialeah by Jennine Capo Crucet.
Some words are missing from the last sentence of the first paragraph like “that there are.”
Some words are missing from the last sentence of the first paragraph like “that there are.”
florida seems awesome and curious until you live there. once you live there, you are hot and your body is uncomfortable all the time. alex can maybe back me up on this.
my friend’s uncle wrote this really great “memoir,” collections of nothing, that came out a couple of years ago. might be of interest.
florida seems awesome and curious until you live there. once you live there, you are hot and your body is uncomfortable all the time. alex can maybe back me up on this.
my friend’s uncle wrote this really great “memoir,” collections of nothing, that came out a couple of years ago. might be of interest.
er, i mean alexis.
er, i mean alexis.
I live in FL, or at least, I do part of the year, when school is out. I really love it there.
I live in FL, or at least, I do part of the year, when school is out. I really love it there.
what do you like about it? maybe we are into different climates. the weather is nice sometimes.
what do you like about it? maybe we are into different climates. the weather is nice sometimes.
What I’ve noticed in my limited time here in Florida is that where I am at (Tallahassee) is disgusting, but the farther south you go the more it seems okay.
What I’ve noticed in my limited time here in Florida is that where I am at (Tallahassee) is disgusting, but the farther south you go the more it seems okay.
Blake–weird that you’ve had that experience too! I love random coffee shop conversations prolly best of any. Books that encase Florida…I’m not up on anything new, but I thought The Orchid Thief did an awesome job with swamp/orchid culture in Florida. I learned a ton about Florida history from that one. I hear Shadow Country is great for Florida history/people setting the Everglades. Their Eyes Were Watching God is still one of my favorites, and captures a very particular Florida–but it’s great b/c it’s really about men and women and love.
There’s a moment in Daniel Duane’s book, Caught Inside, about surfing the California coast that gets at things “encased in language.” He writes, “I thought again about throwing language all over a scene, wondered if the emotional mystery of one’s response to a place doesn’t lie in the inchoate play of possible words, of felt meaning and poetries.”
Alec, I can back you up on the summer heat. It slows everything down to almost complete stasis–mind and body. I think there’s a lot great about Florida if you dig around a little. Its history is fascinating, and the landscape is almost impenetrable–from swamp to Gulf to the Florida steppe (yes, it’s real). I like a place with a bit more human energy, more happening culturally and intellectually, but there are all sorts of adventures here–you just have to seek them out.
Blake–weird that you’ve had that experience too! I love random coffee shop conversations prolly best of any. Books that encase Florida…I’m not up on anything new, but I thought The Orchid Thief did an awesome job with swamp/orchid culture in Florida. I learned a ton about Florida history from that one. I hear Shadow Country is great for Florida history/people setting the Everglades. Their Eyes Were Watching God is still one of my favorites, and captures a very particular Florida–but it’s great b/c it’s really about men and women and love.
There’s a moment in Daniel Duane’s book, Caught Inside, about surfing the California coast that gets at things “encased in language.” He writes, “I thought again about throwing language all over a scene, wondered if the emotional mystery of one’s response to a place doesn’t lie in the inchoate play of possible words, of felt meaning and poetries.”
Alec, I can back you up on the summer heat. It slows everything down to almost complete stasis–mind and body. I think there’s a lot great about Florida if you dig around a little. Its history is fascinating, and the landscape is almost impenetrable–from swamp to Gulf to the Florida steppe (yes, it’s real). I like a place with a bit more human energy, more happening culturally and intellectually, but there are all sorts of adventures here–you just have to seek them out.
Here’s a good Florida moment:
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/308851-the-10-best-tattoos-in-the-nba#page/9
Here’s a good Florida moment:
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/308851-the-10-best-tattoos-in-the-nba#page/9
My log has something to tell you.
My log has something to tell you.
Errol Morris’ “Vernon, Florida” is the only book about Florida you ever need to watch.
Errol Morris’ “Vernon, Florida” is the only book about Florida you ever need to watch.
good call. love that one.
good call. love that one.
Alec, I love the heat and humidity, the people, the fact that I can go for days at a time without hearing English. I should note that I make my sometimes home in South Florida which is very different from the rest of Florida.
Alec, I love the heat and humidity, the people, the fact that I can go for days at a time without hearing English. I should note that I make my sometimes home in South Florida which is very different from the rest of Florida.
Nice introduction, Alexis. Pleased to meet you, polis, always boxes of anything.
Per Florida: Caryl Pagel, author of Visions, Crisis Apparitions, & Other Exceptional Experiences (Factory Hollow) who read in these parts this weekend, told us a true story about her mother rescuing a man who had fallen, and lay very still, on top of an alligator, in a sandtrap. In Florida.There’s also my favorite, FLORIDA, Christine Schutt’s 168-page-turner. Reading over my own shoulder:
Mother wasn’t always in her Florida box.
+
One winter afternoon–an entire winter–it was my father who was taking us. Father and Mother and I, we were going to Florida–who knew for how long?
+
“Good-bye, good-riddance,” she was saying to Walter when we were caught up in our Florida.
+
Arthur’s homemade Florida, and mother on her knees, waving to me–waving to the neighborhood!–her legs glossy and oiled and white, the sun invisible in murk. “Look where I am!” Florida, Florida, no matter that we lived in the land-of-lakes state where Spring was slow to come.
+
He made her Florida.
+
Florida, where was it, I wondered, but nobody knew.
Nice introduction, Alexis. Pleased to meet you, polis, always boxes of anything.
Per Florida: Caryl Pagel, author of Visions, Crisis Apparitions, & Other Exceptional Experiences (Factory Hollow) who read in these parts this weekend, told us a true story about her mother rescuing a man who had fallen, and lay very still, on top of an alligator, in a sandtrap. In Florida.There’s also my favorite, FLORIDA, Christine Schutt’s 168-page-turner. Reading over my own shoulder:
Mother wasn’t always in her Florida box.
+
One winter afternoon–an entire winter–it was my father who was taking us. Father and Mother and I, we were going to Florida–who knew for how long?
+
“Good-bye, good-riddance,” she was saying to Walter when we were caught up in our Florida.
+
Arthur’s homemade Florida, and mother on her knees, waving to me–waving to the neighborhood!–her legs glossy and oiled and white, the sun invisible in murk. “Look where I am!” Florida, Florida, no matter that we lived in the land-of-lakes state where Spring was slow to come.
+
He made her Florida.
+
Florida, where was it, I wondered, but nobody knew.
Thanks, Nathaniel. FLORIDA looks great–another one for the xmas lists.
Thanks, Nathaniel. FLORIDA looks great–another one for the xmas lists.
I’m having trouble keeping up with you fiction people. You read so much!
I’m having trouble keeping up with you fiction people. You read so much!
now it’s this:
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/308851-the-10-best-tattoos-in-the-nba#page/11
now it’s this:
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/308851-the-10-best-tattoos-in-the-nba#page/11