Knickknack: Soulfly? Soulless? The zen of garage sales
Originally ran Tuesday, May 12, 1992
by Jordan Kagermeier
Issue date: 9/10/09
Section: Reporter Rewind
Now, let's say that someone like me comes along and I saw to myself, "This is just what I needed, a thermometer to tell me how cold it is."
What I've just done is provided a channel for the soul of the knickknack to be brought back into the world of the useful and ornamental. The soul of the knickknack has been reborn, and as with most reincarnation, the soul is constantly evolving in the realm of experience.
I think that's the reason I ended up with so much stuff, I just wanted to be the person who helped a lost knickknack soul along its life's journey. I also believe that people have a necessity to own knickknacks, much like the need for food and water.
The things we buy in the knickknack world attach a legacy to our own short tripe on this globe. Someday when I drop dead from this or that someone is going to have my growing collection of Eero Saarinen chairs thrust upon them.
At that point my soul as well as those of my chairs is going to be thrust into the karmic recycler.
Granted, I have lots of stuff, but it's because of garage sales and my need to possess more things than I could ever possibly use.
If you get a chance to go our to a sale in this season of fishing and rummage sale, buy something seemingly worthless and sink your mind into the experience of that object as it has traveled about.
And if you see my buying a big taxidermic marlin, don't stop me and ask me, "Do you really need that?", because I may not need that object, but that object needs me.
What I've just done is provided a channel for the soul of the knickknack to be brought back into the world of the useful and ornamental. The soul of the knickknack has been reborn, and as with most reincarnation, the soul is constantly evolving in the realm of experience.
I think that's the reason I ended up with so much stuff, I just wanted to be the person who helped a lost knickknack soul along its life's journey. I also believe that people have a necessity to own knickknacks, much like the need for food and water.
The things we buy in the knickknack world attach a legacy to our own short tripe on this globe. Someday when I drop dead from this or that someone is going to have my growing collection of Eero Saarinen chairs thrust upon them.
At that point my soul as well as those of my chairs is going to be thrust into the karmic recycler.
Granted, I have lots of stuff, but it's because of garage sales and my need to possess more things than I could ever possibly use.
If you get a chance to go our to a sale in this season of fishing and rummage sale, buy something seemingly worthless and sink your mind into the experience of that object as it has traveled about.
And if you see my buying a big taxidermic marlin, don't stop me and ask me, "Do you really need that?", because I may not need that object, but that object needs me.
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