http://sadstuffonthestreet.com/
I usually go to this website for a laugh, but what we've been talking about in class got me thinking about this blog's significance in the public/private discourse. The whole concept of the site is based on the idea of an item or a belonging having been discarded, whether purposely or accidentally, on the street. That we consider this "stuff" to be "sad" means that we find inherent sorrowfulness in loss of value; in other words, it makes us sad that a toy--presumedly to have held value for someone, maybe a child--no longer matters to them. We don't like the idea that something so intensely private, personal, and meaningful, such as clothes, a baby carriage, a stuffed animal, a ticket, or "Happy Valentine's Day" balloons, can be converted into garbage or waste, just another part of the public domain of the street. These definitions of public and private aren't necessarily synonymous with the commercial/state concepts of the words, but they relate more to the concept of access: private as something with limited access (an object in the home), and public as something which everyone can access (an object on the street).
Rebecca Willett
"Sad Stuff on the Street"
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1 comments:
DL - Rebecca, this is a great site. I see how it is tongue in cheek, but despite that, it is still really quite sad! the discarded toys suggest a failed or disrupted childhood, other things seem emptied. with the wave of foreclosures in the last couple of years, there have been articles about how devastating it is to see houses turn into ruins. The full interior, the dwelling space, should not, must not, be abandoned on the streets, and so the sad things that become trash are symbolic of other things and processes.
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