In act three of Something For Nothing, the August 29 episode of This American Life, Dirk Jamison tells us about his father, who gave up the confining lifestyle of a 9-5 construction worker for the less traditional world of dumpster diving. There is a particularly beautiful moment in the story when a dirty, toothless old man generously offers up part of a huge bounty of food he has just found in a local dumpster before bringing it back to his girlfriend.

I was reminded of the lesson taken from The Gift, a fantastic book by Lewis Hyde, about the sharing and the eventual wealth that it brings about. Dirk’s entire story reminded me of The Gleaners and I, a film by Agnès Varda that Jacqueline and I recently saw at MoMA (at the suggestion of Tim), that deals with modern-day gleaners, trash pickers and dumpster divers.

All three are worth checking out.

Photo by Pete Erickson/The Bulletin

From the Week In Review:

“Once you’re up, it’s really pleasant,” [Couch] said. “It’s so serene. That’s a word I never used before this.” … Although Mr. Couch is largely self-taught, cluster balloonists like Jonathan Trappe, who went aloft for four hours on June 7 with 55 huge helium balloons, prefer to take no chances. “Cluster ballooning is something people can do,” Mr. Trappe said. “They just need to do it safely. I’m very concerned that people will do it without the appropriate training.” … Mr. Trappe’s gondola was actually his office chair. “It represents a contrast between the normal mundane world,” he said, “and the world of my dreams.”

I wonder how my office chair would do.

A great article in the Times today about Paul Otlet, an early predictor and creator of hyperlinking, data storage and information sharing. Read it here. The piece (and the above photograph) is by Alex Wright, who talks more about this topic here.

Paul Otlet and his Mundaneum are also the subject of a documentary:

Reading about his dedication to collecting data on every book and catalog ever printed, I can’t help but think about the mission of Bob George and the ARChive of Contemporary Music.

I am looking for a muse. This person can be of any gender or age. He or she should exhibit characteristics of a freebird, be okay with me taking a lot of casual photos, and be able to ignore the camera all at once. Bonus points for strangely attractive and mega points for big ears. I love big ears, I can’t help myself. If you are interested or have a recommendation please email me.

Last night (or sometime early this morning) I dreamt that I had been arrested and, along with the arresting officer, placed in a taxi cab headed for central bookings. I was wearing a suit and appeared to be in L.A., or somewhere equally open, flat and sunny. On the way to the precinct, or bookings, or wherever we were headed, the cop asked the cab driver to stop at a gas station so he could get a drink. At that point, I pulled $90 out of my suit pants, handed it to the cabbie, and asked him to head for the beach. 

The drive to the beach was great, and after arriving at Coney Island, or maybe Venice Beach, I kicked off my shoes and enjoyed the sand. I started worrying that the cop I escaped would be able to track me down, even though the license he recorded was out of date. In the midst of this train of thought I found myself back in my apartment, running to lock the door after hearing the sound of footsteps. After securing the door, I looked through the peephole and saw it was Jacqueline coming home, not the cops. Relieved, I let her in, and still scared that they’d eventually find me, I sat down on the couch, began to explain and woke up.

After that dream, I had another that started with me sitting in a living room in Cincinnati looking out a large bay window at an above ground pool that took up the entire neighboring lawn. It had attracted quite a crowd of onlookers. I became aware of the neighbor’s plan to euthanize their dog (a Jack Russell) by exploding him over the pool, and watched in horror as they did just that. At the sound of applause and cheer, I turned away, closed the blinds and, again, woke up.

“I consider sex a destination.” on 01/16/08

These have made the internet rounds before, but I felt that in light of some recent events they were worth sharing again. If you haven’t seen these before, they’re from 1989 and are…real.
More on Garfield coming soon.