YSaC, Vol. 1146: You don’t know what you’ve got once it’s gone.
2011 December 19
Scrap Metal
Picture tells it all.
No email will be answered.
Will remove when it is gone
Wait – I’m so confused. How can you remove something after it’s gone? Is this one of those “one hand clapping” things? ’cause I figured that one out, but I don’t understand this.
I suppose I could email my guru and ask him, or maybe my old philosophy professor.
Oh wait – no email will be answered? Ever? Anywhere? By anyone? On any topic? Crap.
Thanks for the listing, FA!
“A picture is worth a thousand emails.” — falsely attributed by Sparky to Confucius
Great, now I have to drive all over [location] trying to find the corner where this is! Seriously, I don’t need a scrappy fence that badly.
Two things…
In my opinion, the photo has a kind of a tilt-shift feel so that the scrap metal seems like tiny nails next to a miniature mailbox. I like that.
My other observation is that this must be a real small town if the picture gives me enough info to find the scrap metal. Maybe they only have one mailbox.
I thought that, too. It looks like they perched on the roof of their car to get the angle just right.
*sigh* All that effort into making an arty photo, only to ruin the possibility of a quick pick-up by not telling us where to actually get this pile of metal toothpicks.
[management corey]
Actually, the ad DID include contact information. We just always redact that.
[/management corey]
If only Sparky had contracted “it is”, this would have been the perfect haiku. THEN we could have found a deeper meaning. As written, however, it’s just an ad for scrap metal.
Another Sparky, poised on the edge of greatness not to be realized.
The last line would have to be “will remove when gone” but otherwise, good point.
Oooooo, jumbo pick-up sticks!
If a picture paints a thousand words,
Then why can’t I find your scrap metal?
The words will never show
Where I’m supposed to go.
I don’t care about the scrap metal (which I just mistyped as “mental”), but I do want an explanation as to why what appears to be the body of Cousin Itt is included in the photo.
He sent an email to Sparky.
That’s Sparky’s roomate that committed suicide.
That’s a Godzilla road apple.
Scrap Mental is IF’s Oingo Boingo-Devo mash up cover band.
Existential installation art
This is obviously an ad from a hipster. He’s too cool to spend too much time on words. The brevity of the ad shows how little it means to him. The scrap metal is his old fixed gear bike that he trashed when he discovered that unicycles were really REALLY retro.
I’d like to point out that but for two extra syllables in the last line,* this is a brilliant haiku, and is thus most likely some sort of poetic representation of man’s inhumanity to man.
*If only the last line was “Will remove when gone” it would be perfect.
You beat me to it! I had the same thought.
I’m including this haiku in my annual Christmas letter this year. It sums up 2011 for the Eyebrow clan perfectly. Plus, it’s lighter than fruitcake.
I always feel silly when I’m reading and I start counting syllables. I’m glad I’m not alone in this pseudoHaiku-ridden world.
Maybe those two extra syllables are representative of the ‘excessive cruelty’ of man’s inhumanity to man.
That would mean that Sparky is a genius. Why do I hear thunder?
Will says he wants nothing to do with removing it.
And you can’t push Will around.
(Cindy B. beat you to this observation above.)
BBUY
Ah, damn it!
O crappy pipes! O crappy pipes!
Thy location is so mystifying;
O crappy pipes! O crappy pipes!
They left you by the mail thing;
Not only gone when it’s there,
But also when ’tis sold for free.
O crappy pipes! O crappy pipes!
They left you by the mail thing;
Since the original post did include contact information, I see absolutely nothing wrong with this posting. The problem with a great number of CL posts is that the OP just leaves the post up forever, so you never know if the item they are “offering” is still available. In this case, he simply states that the ad will be removed once someone picks up the scrap, so you don’t drive all the way over there to find the stuff already taken. Yes, he could have been a bit more linguistically detailed with that sentence, but he got his point across just fine IMO.
In the spirit of the season, I have gift-wrapped some matt and matte and tags for you, CB. Well-stated. Cheers!
You make a valid point.
But, Sparky could also have simply said
“Recyclable Scrap, free to collect until disposed of”
or
“Available free until Bulky Trash collects”
if simple and terse were within Sparky’s language skills.
And not just words spilled from Spark’s head.
You know, I think the answer might be found in the “beat” philosophy. This is a rather transcendent posting overall. Doesn’t “no email will be answered” seem to be an existential cry? Is ANYTHING, ever, truly answered in this world? I think the word “gone” is used as in the sense of “far out”.
Which reminds me of the beatnik joke:
Beatnik at a diner: I’ll have a piece of the cherry pie.
Waitress: The cherry pie is gone.
Beatnik: Oh, that crazy pie! I’ll have TWO pieces!
[clicks fingers]
<not wearing beret or smoking stinky black expensive French cigarettes>
Is this from the chicks who used to do kicks but now do choreography!
Ah, Mr Bones, Oh, Mr Bones
So that’s what happened to it:
WAGON BOSS: Do you mind if I put this antenna up on yonder peak?
INDIAN: That’s our Sacred Mountain.
WAGON BOSS: This is our Sacred Antenna! It’s shaped like a cross! Made out of aluminum. Eh—got any aluminum?
Geezer reference.
It’s a beaut!
No, it’s a mound.
I wonder whether Sparky really should give away Cousin It and the Aluminum Toothpicks (IF’s tribute to ’80’s glam metal bands). They look mighty craptastic right where they are. He could even, with a little effort, make a postapocalyptic Christmas tree out of them. Oh, right. This Sparky doesn’t do effort. Not even answering emails.
The scrap is the end result of Sparky’s short-lived Festivus Pole lot – a freak lightning storm coupled with Sparky’s laziness spelled doom for the whole endeavour.
Insert random wittiness here as I fly by trying to fit two weeks’ worth of work into four days.
[scrap corey]
That pile looks suspiciously like metal frames from a demolished screen porch. Which means they are likely galvanized light-gauge steel, which has a very low scrap value by the pound.
Were the scrap aluminum, that whole pile might be worth a couple of dollars–probably less than the cost of the gasoline to collect it and take it to the recycler.
Now, since this is scrapped out, it probably has all sorts of ‘goop’ or sealants, or other contaminants–none of which much add to the scrap value (and might get it rejected on the scrapper’s scales, too).
If it has any paint from 1974 or earlier, it must–under Federal regulations–be considered contaminated with lead, and requires certified handling and disposal.
Which means Sparky’s offer here is a potential subornation or offer to engage in collusion in commission of a crime.
Which is serious stuff.
Thanks, Sparky.
[/corey]
I thought it looked like a former chain-link fence. Cousin It is the chain link rolled up. Or maybe chicken wire and it was a colony of typing roosters.
Section size is too small for (good) chain-link fencing.
The “cousin itt” could be rolled up rusted metal screening. Or Sparky’s dog wandered into shot; or really, really bad shrubbery, clearly not the work of a free Shrubber, and not with a split-level effect at all.
The sections could also be a former hobby-sized greenhouse frame, too. Which could mean that they are “pot metal” and of even less scrap value.
I’ve been having trouble posting on the site today. If you can’t see this comment, please send me an email letting me know.
I will not be checking email.
Thanks!
Taco,
I can’t see your comment. But I can’t be arsed to comment about it. I will remove this comment when you haven’t read it.
Your posts were using up the interwebz bandwidth for all those web deziners who are working for the publicity.
So, I took them all to the intertuubs salvage yard and they promised me elebenty internetz for them. And gabe me this–!!11!! woohoo, elebenty excavation marx!
I’m confused. On the right side of the pic, is that the guy’s ass? Or is it a hole in the ground?
Yes.
I have to quash my inner self that is starting to resemble my ‘depression era’ grandmother.
You know:
The one that wants to scoop up all that perfectly good metal that could be reused for something.
I don’t think I’m succeeding.
Dude, the older I get, the more potential I see in things on the side of the road and in the garbage. I don’t know how many times a day I catch myself thinking, “You know, that would make a LOVELY lampshade”. I can spend hours in Goodwill.
I’m actually very sad. If I weren’t married I’d have six cats instead of three and I would be a hoarder. Hubby Monkey’s put-out look when I drag home something used is the only thing that keeps me under control.
It would probably give us tetanus anyway.
To scrap or to not to scrap,
That is the question.
We’er ’tis noble-er in the mind
To steal Sparky’s stuff;
Or email him to outrageous fortune.
To sleep, perchance to dream
Of a sparky-less world,
Or, be hoist upon the petards of
Sparky’s debris.
And, in doing so, to be undone
In ER committed, wan and unsanguinated,
Acurs’t for galvanized lead-ed avarice,
With tetanus most foul;
And thus, Sparky, to wish you
You, to bleed, to bleed.
And now, anon and away,
For mad Porche awaits!
Cap’n, I thought the Porche was in the garage, following that incident with the albino moose and the Aggies Cheerleaders.
This is why it’s so hard for time-travellers to write ads. They get cause and effect mixed up.
Dave, Hannah, such ferrets as are paying attention, You may exit the box now. Punchity Punch Punch!
Good Morning, Danny Boy!