1

The Act of Collecting

2

The Object’s Voice

3

Whoops, It Broke

4

The Better Mousetrap

5

Plumb Wore Out

6

Taste Changed

7

Owners Lost Faith

8

Owners Lost Interest

9

Owners Grew Up

10

nobody cared

11

Got Lost

12

Part of Something Bigger

13

Used Up

14

Better in the Afterlife

15

A Bad Idea in the First Place

16

Never Made Enough

17

Provisional Utility

18

Made for One Use Only

19

Unintended Survivors

20

Mental Collections

21

So What’s Left?

22

Just in Time

About the Author

From the Author

From the field

From You

« back a bit
skip ahead »

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

Nix-Mao champion Ping-Pong set, 1972. Wood and printed rubber, 10 1/2" high. Made in Hong Kong

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.