Description:
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
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