| Description: |
|
Product Description
The classic American passion for the road meets the current obsession with internet consumption in one of the most original illustrated books to come along in years.
One day, John Freyer decided to sell everything he owned on the internet. He invited his friends over to tag all the possessions in his apartment, and he systematically put them up for sale on eBay. An unopened box of taco shells, half a bottle of mouthwash, almost all of his clothes, his favorite records, his sideburns (in a plastic bag), his family's Christmas presents (not yet given), furniture: John didn't let sentiment or utility stand in his way. Soon his belongings were sold all over the world, with a bag of Porky's BBQ Pork Skins making its way to Japan, and a chair ending up in the Museum of Modern Art. With almost all the objects in his life now gone, he started the second phase of his journey: to go visit his one-time possessions in their new surroundings.
All My Life for Sale is an extraordinary book that functions as an autobiography, a travel narrative, and a meditation on what the objects we surround ourselves with actually mean to us and what happens when we set them free. Designed by the author himself, it is visually striking, surprisingly moving, and will change the way you look at the things that surround you.
Amazon.com Review
All right, 'fess up: at some point you've been in the apartment of a hipster friend and looked long and covetously at his or her collection of vintage View-Masters or '50s kitsch ashtrays. But then, why would anyone collect such cool knickknacks if not to impress their friends? Filmmaker John D. Freyer knows this feeling well, and from this impulse he's written a fascinating autobiography, charting his own story and a web of relationships with like-minded eccentrics via the cataloging in words and pictures of all the odd but neat stuff he spent twenty-something years accumulating.
As Freyer was preparing to leave graduate school in Iowa City to return to a typically small New York apartment, he decided to sell all his worldly possessions through eBay and his own Web site, allmylifeforsale.com. People bought his used socks, a can of Chunky Soup from his pantry, his Planet of the Apes LP, and a bag of small, roasted cuttlefish. The things Freyer sold would be junk to most, but they were treasures to him and his pals--a generation searching for a unique identity in an increasingly mass-produced, cookie-cutter age. Discovering how he came to own these things and who took them off his hands makes for a surprisingly intriguing and funny read in this beautifully designed and fabulously illustrated tome. --Jim DeRogatis
|
