TEDx CMU Talk

Jeff spoke at TEDx CMU 2013 this month. His talk, "Trespass, Trash & Train," is in the embedded video below at about the 02:25:00 mark. We'll post the individual video later. Enjoy:

maybe

Many good and gratifying finds lately, among them warm clothes and jackets for the shelter; ten or so two-by-two foot antique pressed tin ceiling panels; and a batch of blank books/journals, one of which apparently retails for something like 87 dollars. In that one maybe I'll keep a running account of over-the-top consumerism and the pretensions that accompany it?

bespoke, besmirch

Fresh and clean, still hanging in the dry cleaner's plastic bag, but now stuffed inside a black garbage bag and tossed in a dumpster: an Italian-made Valentino Uomo men's suit (from Neiman Marcus's Designer Collection), two Ike Behar dress shirts, and a bespoke sport shirt.

The suit and the dress shirts I'll pass on to the shelter--and I'll enjoy the thought of some down-on-his-luck guy decked out in them, heading to a job interview or a wedding.  

The bespoke shirt I think I'll keep for myself. As a scrounger, the thought of wearing another man's bespoke shirt just seems so right...so wrong...so beautiful in its besmirching.

put to work

Productive weekend of scrounging: Dishes, pots and pans, a new lamp shade, and kid's clothes and shoes, now headed for the shelter and the resettlement services folks. A little side table we'll use here around the house. Some 200 tubes of hair color, destination as yet unknown. And all sorts of tools--T-squares, wrenches, files, rasps--to be put to work in the empire of scrounge.

what's next?

Remember that dumpster from a week ago, with the perfume bottles and bracelets and watches? I hit it again a couple of days ago, and there was more: Izod jacket. Two old military shirts. Old Schlitz Malt Liquor, Miller High Life, and Miller Malt Liquor metal serving trays. A big padded camera bag. Kitchen knives. A Leatherman multi-tool. A Barlow knife. Old necklaces. Old photos from the 1920s and 1930s. Picture frames.

Heading back soon--what's next, I wonder?