George Carlin's classic comedy routine, "A Place for My Stuff" (5:09) is satire at its best--outrageously funny while saying something serious about our behavior."The Story of Stuff" is also a video satire, by Annie Leonard--"a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns . . . . [that] exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues."
NPR commentator Daniel Schorr offers this short commentary (2:05) on Princess Diana and Mother Teresa ("Saint of the Gutter, Saint of the Media")--both of whom died the same week. What do you see as the connection between this commentary and the points made by Carlin and Thoreau?
The Nova web site portrays five families from the 1995 book, A Material: A Global Family Portrait, a book that posed families from around in the world standing in front of their houses with their possessions.
Here is a short excerpt by the 19th-century essayist, Henry David Thoreau (from Walden) in which he gives his feelings about furniture.
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.
Here's the Website from John Freyer's 2002 project, All My Life for Sale.
Ellen Kushner’s WGBH program Sound and Spirit offers a wide-ranging, weekly musical tribute to a single theme. Here is the playlist for her show on stuff--click here to listen (59:00).
Musings
- Annie Leonard's video, "The Story of Stuff," is a form of propaganda, although a form that we may not especially object to. What do you feel makes her video so effective?
- Describe what you see as the most important connection between any two or three of these pieces.
- Use of these pieces as the basis for a story of your own life--something about you personally or someone or something you have personally experienced.
