chapter 22
Just in Time
Events, Situations, Fads, and Accidents ★ Here Today, Gone Tomorrow ★ A Flash in the Pan ★ By-Products of Indiscretion ★ Lost Animals and Wanted People ★ Living and Yearning ★ Military and Political Playing Cards
Just in Time eschews hindsight and the perspective of distance as aids in collecting meaningful things. It articulates the necessity for visual presence (ex: casino change cups, lost pet posters, sign misspellings, a life in a box, other peoples’ photographs). It champions an alertness factor for sensing flash in the pan resounding artifacts that capsulize the era in its moment and advocates grasping them while they are still hot (ex: Mao/Nixon Ping Pong rackets, Growing Up Skipper, Gorbachev’s birthmark cockamamie, by-products of indiscretion, F. B. I. Most wanted posters, military and political playing cards). This chapter connects the object, the collector and the marketplace in a cycle of living and yearning.