11-10-09: The Significance of the Insignificant
November 9, 2009 at 10:18 pm 2 comments
Listen to the story here.
Everyone has junk hanging around their house. Inexplicable boxes of useless, weird stuff. Why do we hang on to it? Rob Walker thinks it’s the stories we’ve attached to these things. Rob is the co-founder of the Significant Objects project, and the author of the “Consumed” column in the New York Times Magazine. At SignificantObjects.com, authors are asked to write stories for yard sale detritus. The objects, with their newfound meaning, are then auctioned off to the highest bidder. Kind of like e-bay based on emotional value. Rob Walker joins us by phone to talk about the project and how it started with a dropped mug. Authors Laura Lippman and Lizzie Skurnick then join us to read the stories they wrote for the project.
Rob Walker’s “Consumed” column at the New York Times Magazine
Laura Lippman’s story
Lizzie Skurnick’s story
Entry filed under: Arts and Culture, On Air. Tags: laura lippman.
Maryland Morning with Sheilah Kast 
1. Thanks… | Significant Objects | November 14, 2009 at 4:20 pm
[…] more impressively, got Lizzie Skurnick and Laura Lippman to read their S.O. stories on the radio, here. Crooked Timber offers some interesting analysis here, considering this project in the context of […]
2. Dad Men and other works of note | Lizzie Skurnick | December 1, 2009 at 8:01 pm
[…] Maryland Morning asked me to read my contribution to Rob Walker’s Significant Objects project on the air. Apparently found objects bring out my affectless, alienated side. Better that than BUYING found […]