Junk

What is junk, exactly?

There is a property on the outskirts of my little Central Pennsylvania town that I’ve always thought was a junkyard. At last month’s township supervisors’ meeting, I learned the couple of acres bestrewn with broken-down old vehicles, rusting tractor trailers, an off-kilter mobile home, some dilapidated campers, scattered mechanical accessories, a dumpster and a trampoline is actually someone’s home. “It used to be a beautiful neighborhood ’til those rat-nest people started living up there,” a neighbor told the board. “This is bullshit!” Meanwhile, in a neighboring township, a newly elected board of supervisors has made it their mission to crack down on junk.

junk

Jarvis Cocker measures out his life in attic junk

From our UK edition

If you were hoping for an autobiography this isn’t it. Jarvis Cocker calls it ‘an inventory’ and insists: ‘This is not a life story. It’s a loft story.’ But anyway it’s as quirky and engaging as you would expect from Cocker and also the most beautifully produced book I’ve seen in years, designed by Julian House. And it does, in its circuitous way, tell us quite a lot about Cocker’s formative years in Sheffield. The MacGuffin is that Cocker is meant to be clearing out a loft where he’s been storing stuff for years and deciding what to ‘cob’ (chuck) and what to keep. Of course he has trouble cobbing anything, which is why he’s accumulated so much junk in the first place. He is a hoarder.