In Favor of Mess (Talk of the Nation: 12/28/06 - 30:19). "Dave Freedman, co-author of A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder, and Kathy Waddill, an author and professional organizer, discuss whether the moderately messy are more efficient, more resilient and more creative."Cleaning House, and Cherishing Memories (All Things Considered: 6/14/06 - 3:31). "Housecleaning is a necessary evil. But at what point do mementoes become clutter -- and when should the memories of a home be taken out to the curb? Commentator Marion Winik pondered those questions recently when she helped her mother clean out her house. It made her realize that some people are "things" people -- they define home as the place where their things are. But others are "places" people -- home is a specific familiar location. Marion Winik is the author of Above Us Only Sky. "
Resolving to Clean House (News & Notes: 1/11/06 - 3:55). "Commentator Joseph C. Phillips is cleaning up the clutter in his house as his new years resolution. He has good reason to consider his excess more of a blessing than a curse."
Musings
- Clutter is a universal phenomenon. Use one of these 3 pieces to introduce an account of your own experience with too much stuff; or, vice versa, introduce a comparison of the opinions presented in these pieces, with a brief account of mess in your life.
- One of the most beloved comedy skits is George Carlin's A Place for My Stuff. Compare Carlin's take on our stuff with the somewhat more serious take by 19th-century essayist, Henry David Thoreau (in an excerpt from Walden):
Furniture! Thank God, I can sit and I can stand without the aid of a furniture warehouse. What man but a philosopher would not be ashamed to see his furniture packed in a cart and going up country exposed to the light of heaven and the eyes of men, a beggarly account of empty boxes? . . . I could never tell from inspecting such a load whether it belonged to a so-called rich man or a poor one; the owner always seemed poverty-stricken. Indeed, the more you have of such things the poorer you are. Each load looks as if it contained the contents of a dozen shanties; and if one shanty is poor, this is a dozen times as poor. Pray, for what do we move ever but to get rid of our furniture, our exuviae; at last to go from this world to another newly furnished, and leave this to be burned? It is the same as if all these traps were buckled to a man's belt, and he could not move over the rough country where our lines are cast without dragging them, -- dragging his trap. . . . I cannot but feel compassion when I hear some trig, compact-looking man, seemingly free, all girded and ready, speak of his "furniture," as whether it is insured or not. "But what shall I do with my furniture?" -- My gay butterfly is entangled in a spider's web then. Even those who seem for a long while not to have any, if you inquire more narrowly you will find have some stored in somebody's barn. - NPR commentator Daniel Schorr offers this short commentary (2:05) on Princess Diana and Mother Teresa ("Saint of the Gutter, Saint of the Media"). What do you see as the connection between this commentary and the points made by Carlin and Thoreau?
