OUT ONE DAY - TRASH KINGS AND QUEENS: ROADSIDE SCORES DURING COLLEGE KID CHRISTMAS
Kerb score: A magical week in the city (photo: Jamie Chiarello)
TRASH KINGS AND QUEENS
By Jamie Chiarello
This time is bright and yet fleeting, starting around mid early to mid may and usually fading out by early June.
You're driving down the road without thinking of much, undirected by the pull of any particular desire. And then you see it. A lonesome shoe. A pile of hangers. A desk chair with wheels in pretty good shape. Like the first signs of a budding flower these too are signs of a shift in season. These are the signs of College kid christmas. What is this holiday which Hallmark has somehow overlooked? It is the time of year when New Orleans college graduates, in the process of stepping into their new adult lives, shed the accumulation of stuff they have hoarded over the past 1-4 years.
There's something of the beautiful, random chaotic order that this city is so capable of demonstrating inherent in this shifting of seasons. As festival time slows down and the termites and heat accumulate, this sudden burst of useful trash appears like a merciful bounty as we enter the financially lean summer months. In the hurry to fly freely into adulthood (or back to Connecticut) many students do not or can not be bothered to physically separate useful items from actual trash.
This makes the venture into the uptown trash piles an inherently mysterious undertaking. Will you find a $120 bottle of perfume or a bag of banana peels? Is it an old frappacino bottle or 15 unopened packages of Narcan? A green and white umbrella or an unopened jar of bee pollen? (I have actually seen all these items.) Treasures can range from clean clothing with brand new tags to unidentifiable rotten things that truly do need return to the underbelly of the earth.
While I hovered over one pile that had already been picked through a young woman came out. In a haughty tone she told me I really needed to pick through her trash more delicately. Blinking slowly I asked her, "Have you taken a look at the world lately? There are people that have so much they can throw out a whole bag of shoes, yet where I work in the Quarter I routinely see people shuffling past me without any shoes at all. I've found enough unopened shelf stable food to feed me and my son for weeks. This pack of pencils costs $30." She turned on heel without responding, but this interaction was pretty indicative of what particular part of late stage capitalism we are inhabiting.
I can imagine her and the many like her opening a plastic sealed package- brand new, box within box, soft paper cradled within, the dopamine hit of getting something new. Living in a world that makes increasingly less sense by the day these little dopamine hits are understandable, they soothe our desperation. As much as it may seem like we live in worlds that do no touch, there is a strange and very human connection happening in the trash piles. As I tear open another bag, without particular delicacy, I feel the same dopamine hit, like opening a potentially disappointing present; apprehension and a palpable sense of curiosity and possibility.
Jamie Chiarello is a professional artist - click here to see her work at Nameless Art
By Jamie Chiarello
This time is bright and yet fleeting, starting around mid early to mid may and usually fading out by early June.
You're driving down the road without thinking of much, undirected by the pull of any particular desire. And then you see it. A lonesome shoe. A pile of hangers. A desk chair with wheels in pretty good shape. Like the first signs of a budding flower these too are signs of a shift in season. These are the signs of College kid christmas. What is this holiday which Hallmark has somehow overlooked? It is the time of year when New Orleans college graduates, in the process of stepping into their new adult lives, shed the accumulation of stuff they have hoarded over the past 1-4 years.
There's something of the beautiful, random chaotic order that this city is so capable of demonstrating inherent in this shifting of seasons. As festival time slows down and the termites and heat accumulate, this sudden burst of useful trash appears like a merciful bounty as we enter the financially lean summer months. In the hurry to fly freely into adulthood (or back to Connecticut) many students do not or can not be bothered to physically separate useful items from actual trash.
This makes the venture into the uptown trash piles an inherently mysterious undertaking. Will you find a $120 bottle of perfume or a bag of banana peels? Is it an old frappacino bottle or 15 unopened packages of Narcan? A green and white umbrella or an unopened jar of bee pollen? (I have actually seen all these items.) Treasures can range from clean clothing with brand new tags to unidentifiable rotten things that truly do need return to the underbelly of the earth.
While I hovered over one pile that had already been picked through a young woman came out. In a haughty tone she told me I really needed to pick through her trash more delicately. Blinking slowly I asked her, "Have you taken a look at the world lately? There are people that have so much they can throw out a whole bag of shoes, yet where I work in the Quarter I routinely see people shuffling past me without any shoes at all. I've found enough unopened shelf stable food to feed me and my son for weeks. This pack of pencils costs $30." She turned on heel without responding, but this interaction was pretty indicative of what particular part of late stage capitalism we are inhabiting.
I can imagine her and the many like her opening a plastic sealed package- brand new, box within box, soft paper cradled within, the dopamine hit of getting something new. Living in a world that makes increasingly less sense by the day these little dopamine hits are understandable, they soothe our desperation. As much as it may seem like we live in worlds that do no touch, there is a strange and very human connection happening in the trash piles. As I tear open another bag, without particular delicacy, I feel the same dopamine hit, like opening a potentially disappointing present; apprehension and a palpable sense of curiosity and possibility.
Jamie Chiarello is a professional artist - click here to see her work at Nameless Art