ABSTRACT
A recurring yard sale that I visit is managed by a woman who accumulates and sells objects in order to pay the medical bills for her rescued stray cats. Two dierent circulations of objects-animate and inanimate-support one another in and around her house. At the architectural salvage yard, the making of houses is literally reversed; building composites become boards, panels, screws and nails once again and nd their appropriately repackaged places within organizations that parallel their rst-hand counterparts. At the discount store, donated furniture is set up for display every Wednesday at 9 am-a rite of renewal for the remains of bedrooms, living rooms, and kitchens. The thrift-store warehouse is an assembly line-like production wherein rows of tables-upon and beneath which are stacked cardboard boxes containing all types of objects-are continually relled by attendants who pour out the contents-cake pans, candlesticks, picture frames, lamps, gurines, and other household oddities-while bargain hunters sift through the piles. It is not chance that draws each object into the space where it collides with others, but a system of redistributions that coordinates usefulness, eciency, and patterns of re-consumption.
