Objects Quarterly

Volume VI: Give It Up!, fighting over clutter, "bin" stores, objects in the news, and more

Welcome to the sixth edition of OBJECTS QUARTERLY, a roundup of object-related items of interest published, uh, quarterly, for supporters of The Art of Noticing. Attending to objects is a sub-theme of TAoN, and a favorite subject of mine. Revisit prior OQ issues, and other mindful materialism posts, here. While this is for TAoN supporters, I encourage you to forward OQ to potentially interested parties. Enjoy!

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LETTING GO OF (FORMERLY) SPECIAL OBJECTS

I’m thinking about objects a lot lately. Partly because I just taught my annual writing-about-objects workshop as part of SVA D-Crit’s fantastic Summer Intensive program; the participants this year were so great! I love teaching that workshop. (If you want me to do one for your organization or program, get in touch!)

But also, my longtime object/story collaborator Joshua Glenn and I have something new in the works. It’s a project about a particular category of object — something that’s definitely not clutter, but whose utility and personal significance have faded. The kind of thing you probably ought to get rid of … but just can’t.

The project is called GIVE IT UP.

GIVE IT UP is a place-based, interactive storytelling project from Josh Glenn and Rob Walker, creators of the fiction experiment SIGNIFICANT OBJECTS and the nonfiction series PROJECT:OBJECT.

This summer, 10 Hudson Valley, NY, residents will share stories about what a particular object means to them, and why they’ve had a hard time letting it go. Our contributors include Will Hermes, Halimah Marcus, Annie Nocenti, and more.

The objects will be displayed in venues around Kingston, NY, along with their stories. Visitors to the exhibits and the project’s website will be invited to respond with suggestions, regarding each object, on why and how to … give it up.

What can objects mean? How can we let meaningful objects go? Let’s find out together.

If you’re in or near Kingston, check out the GIVE IT UP exhibits, which will run from August 15 through September 10. And even if you’re nowhere near the Hudson Valley, you can follow and participate in the project via giveitupkingston.substack.com (free). We’re already posting updates; the stories will start to appear later this summer.

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IN OTHER (OBJECT) NEWS:

DEPT OF CLUTTER:

Speaking of objects to let go of, The Wall Street Journal had a funny story about couples “at war” over who has too many objects:

His G.I. Joe action figures and comic books, hauled from his parents’ house, now compete for space with a rack of clothing his wife bought on sale, some of it never worn. He will argue a comic book might gain value. She will point to the deal she got on a designer coat. Neither is eager to give up ground.

“We both justify our clutter,” [the husband] says.

Other highlights: