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Average customer rating:

uncovering treasure
slightly biased but interesting read
Is there a collector's edition, I wonder?
An adventure it is
Garbage Lives

Mongo: Adventures in Trash
Ted Botha
Manufacturer: Bloomsbury USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1582345678
Release Date: 2005-05-12

Book Description

Journalist Ted Botha became obsessed with mongo (defined as any discarded object that is retrieved) when he moved to New York. Decorating his apartment with the furniture and objects he found on Manhattan's streets, he soon realized he wasn't the only person finding things of value in the garbage, and he began meeting all kinds of collectors. Mongo is Botha's remarkable record of his travels among these varied and eccentric people-an appropriately addictive tribute to this longtime, universal phenomenon.

Customer Reviews:

uncovering treasure.......2006-09-19

I loved this book. As a life-long dumpster diver I know the
thrill of finding something really great that's been thrown out.
Ted Botha does a wonderful job of conveying the excitement as well as the downside of collecting. He portrays real people on the hunt and their resourcefulness is truly amazing.

slightly biased but interesting read.......2005-08-04

Ted Botha is not completely unbiased in his report on the garbage collecting phenomenon; he tends to show an affinity for the activity and the collectors he describes, but this is forgivable because many people reading the book will feel the same way he does about trash. That said, the overview of the craft and its followers is quite organized and flows naturally from one topic to the next.

I have to say that this book is going to mislead readers and wannabe collectors who do not live in New York City. It is overly idealistic to read of the great finds this book and think you can find some of these things in the garbage on your street or anywhere else in America - I'm not sure it's that easy. But it's interesting to read this book as a sociological study.

One last thing of note. I found the sentence structure Botha uses to be a little trying. The sentences in the book aren't very easy to follow. For instance, after describing some large mongo items in one collector's apartment, he writes: "Small by comparison, but a special favorite of Iver's nevertheless, is a strangely colored door that serves as an entryway to the firewood storage area" (Page 210). Reading the book, I kept thinking to myself, 'Isn't there an easier way to say that?' and mentally rewriting sentences. The writing style required me to be a more attentive reader than usual. Other than that, it's a fascinating book that will make you think differently about garbage.

Is there a collector's edition, I wonder?.......2005-07-10

This book contains lots (and lots) of details, some of them interesting, but the narrative is so poorly tied together, and so packed with inane and pointless analysis, "Mongo" is mostly discardable. Why do people collect things? This question is posed every other paragraph, apparently to fill space. At one point, a psychologist and psychiatrist are enlisted to answer it, whereupon ye olde theme of addiction is recycled: people collect things because of the temporary "gratifying physical sensation" it gives them. "It's like a fetish, or sexual arousal," clarifies the psychiatrist. Equally clueless theories are introduced elsewhere: a fear of death, a desire to snoop, a desire to preserve the past, and/or a need to feel immortal. Never entertained is the possibility that people collect things because they find them interesting.

And the book, while ostensibly about items found in the trash (or on the street, or under the ground), is very much about collecting in general. In fact, many of the items discussed are antiques or collectibles, not ketchup-soaked hot dog wrappers or used, ant-covered yogurt containers, or even soda cans worth a nickel ("Adventures in items retrieved from the trash" does lack the proper ring, though). And so the entire, cliched range of collecting is covered--from the first few pages, we know it's only a matter of time before the crazy-lady-with-400-cats motif shows up, for example. When it does, it's almost a relief. In fact, we get two cliches in one bag: the crazy-lady-with-cats theme combined with the house-piled-high-with-garbage motif. Something else we've never heard before: some street people are mentally ill. (No! Can that possibly be true?) As proof for this radical and controversial thesis, an interview with a psychotic bag lady is included. Her assertions and theories are carefully considered and, ultimately, discarded as too down-to-earth for a volume such as this.

An adventure it is.......2005-02-03

I truly enjoyed Ted Botha's story of the characters he encountered in search of Mongo,As any dumpster diver knows there are treasures to be found in dumpsters everywhere. Ted Botha does an excellent job of giving us insight into the world of the amazing and gifted people involved in dumpster diving in the streets of New York. The only thing I would have liked to have seen in this book is pictures of some of the incredible things rescued others considered trash. The individual & group efforts that were undertaken on the streets to perserve the wonderful history & culture of New York are incredible. Thank you Ted for showing the world that Dumpster Divers can be intelligent,resourceful,caring, creative & artistic human beings.

Garbage Lives.......2004-10-30

Many people collect things, from books to stamps to shoes; it's usually a harmless diversion, perhaps even a social or educational outlet. Collecting garbage, that's something street people do. But that's not nearly the whole story. In _Mongo: Adventures in Trash_ (Bloomsbury), Ted Botha has reported on New York street collectors. "Mongo" is slang that originated in New York in the 1980s for "any discarded object that is retrieved." This decidedly does not mean mere garbage, the worthless rotting ephemera which no one wants. There are plenty of discarded things, however, from books to wood scraps to blocks of buildings, which the person who did the discarding thought were worth zero and which the eventual collector thought had value. And many times, that value is in the thousands. Frequently this is a surprising story of rags literally going to riches. Botha reminds us, "The street collector you see today could well be a bum or a lunatic, that's true enough, but just as easily a millionaire, a schoolteacher, an accountant, a doctor, a housewife." He has contacted all these levels to report on them.

This is a New York story, for a good reason. All mongo collectors of all levels "... agree on one thing: New York can't be beat." The reason is simple: "Great wealth makes great garbage." There is great wealth, true, but also people live very close together, meaning that collectors have to range minimally, and there is frequent turnover of renters. Remarkably, mongo collectors all are breaking the law. In New York City, garbage placed for pickup is no longer anyone's property but the city's. Even official sanitation workers are forbidden to take anything for themselves. Botha never once heard of anyone picked up for picking up garbage, so the regulations about it seem to be universally ignored.

The lowest of the low are the black bag people, those who hunt inside black plastic garbage bags. They have to look through genuine garbage, of course, but can find watches, rings, and even wallets, which they can sell on the street. Somewhat above the black baggers are those who are eating garbage. The best garbage to eat is thrown out by restaurants, and the best time to hunt for such stuff is at closing time. "Sometimes they put the food at the top of the bag so it is easier to find," explains once such collector. Some are dedicated anarchists, loosely organized to share found food so that eating this way is a political option and a rebellion against consumerism. Higher in the hierarchy are the canners, those who survive on what they can make by selling recyclable cans. Mongo is sometimes about making a living, and sometimes about making a life. A Chelsea woman found a computer in the trash several years ago, and from that taught herself to repair found computers, which she now resells. There is a former bank employee here who specializes in books and printed ephemera. He has found a first edition of _Finnegans Wake_ as well as signatures of Benjamin Disraeli and Aaron Burr. There are a couple who dig down in the grounds that used to house outhouses; they can get bottles worth thousands of dollars. Another excavates sludge for what has gone down modern sewers. There are artists who make an entire domestic statement with a folk-art installation of _objets trouvés_. There is the conservator who picks up valuable exotic wood for reinstallation into other houses. There are many collectors here with a passion for what they do, and very few outright loonies. With wide-eyed curiosity, and an agreeable friendliness he shared with his subjects as he does with his readers, Botha has dug up a strange and valuable portion of the national economy.

Average customer rating:

Mongo : Adventures in Trash

Manufacturer: Bloomsbury
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0965926850

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