Welcome! (Again.)
This week’s artifact is a sparkly used mass produced party banner. It’s approx. three feet long, and was salvaged from a CVS dumpster in West Hartford CT, back in spring of 2020.
Back in high school, my delinquent friends and I apparently had nothing better to do than oscillate between remote spots of parking garages, somebody’s fridge, and a nearby drugstore. There was a CVS within walking distance, and we would drive the employees nuts by hanging around, loudly, and buying nothing. When the disapproving gaze of the employees became too much, the back of the plaza had enough to keep us happy: a curb to sit on. Privacy from the mothers of West Hartford while we engaged in some underage pot usage. There was enough non-cracked asphalt to write crude things in sidewalk chalk, and a strip of grass. Which I believe to have contributed to the ambience, as I picture it in my memory. In truth though, it was a total dump and there were definitely better places to have wasted my free time.
The dumpiness was, at the time, part of the draw. Junk from the CVS would get tossed in a truck-sized dumpster out back, which would never be closed. (Lovely, I know.) We would sometimes peek in to see if there was anything good and non-sticky. I came home with a lot of old signs; one had been for the candy aisle, and my friend maddy helped me crack off the C, to make it “andy,” my name. I got a cardboard sign DC superheroes selling socks. I accumulted a lot of those sheets that come inside picture frames — if there was a cool image I grabbed it. Once, there was a bunch of those plastic flowerpots, cracked, with nary a drainage hole, and they became storage for makeup brushes.
Going Forward
I’m being haunted by the germs of my adolescence, which is relevant for two reasons.
One, it’s my dumpster diving origin story. To this day, my idea of interior decorating is slapping shit i found/made onto walls that are already covered in other shit i found/made. And two, all this junk is in my childhood bedroom. Meaning, I’m in my childhood bedroom. And I’m thusly no longer bound by the demands of the semester. (And I’m technically no longer bound to this newsletter, but let’s not go there just yet.)
What to expect from me
The Scrolls will henceforth be updated twice a month, with a regular shmegular long-form entry. The type we’re used to, the type that involves a bit of scrolling and thinking and me doing research (blech.) Something like “here’s a picture of a lollipop I found on the ground, and here’s what it says about the human condition.”
And in between the deep dives, expect some shorter form updates as it suits me. Something closer to “here is my cat’s ranking of certain household trash based on how fun they are to play with,” and “a review of everything in my box of leftover junk from my breakup.”
Each entry, long and short, complete with a lil’ reading list. Sound good?
Reading List
📚 The System of Objects, Jean Baudrillard
📚 Wall-E (2008)
📚 Rubbish! The Archaeology of Garbage, William Rathje