Mongo, Adventures in Trash
Mongo, Adventures in Trash
On foot or by bicycle, journalist Ted Botha went out at night and scoured the streets of New York City for a year looking for people who collect what other people throw away – mongo, as it’s called – from pieces of demolished buildings to old computers to jewelry to furniture to plants to old documents to valuable artworks to day-old pastries.
Among the unforgettable characters he met was a former bank employee who had become a street philosopher; a sanitation worker whose art collection gained him media fame after the publication of the book; a woman who scoured hard drives for other people’s secrets; a can collector who actually made a living off soda cans; and ‘freegans’ like Flo and Channing who ate food from the street, lived in squats, and followed the sun to the next cruelty-free circus where they could perform.
Collectors agree that when it comes to mongo, New York is the best place to be. And as Ted Botha notes in his wonderful quirky book Mongo: Adventures in Trash, “It’s the combination of wealth, residents living at close quarters, and the fact that so much gets thrown away out of lack of space, sheer laziness, ignorance or wastefulness means there's lots of mongo and it's easy to reach.”
What those collectors find that others have thrown away is astounding – and hidden in the pages of Botha’s unique book. As the New York Observer noted in its review, “In New York, it seems, collectors are as surprising and multifarious as the treasures they unearth.”
“Delightfully weird and thought-provoking enough to make you consider panning through garbage for gold. … In essence, Botha is exploring fascinating questions of value. What is trash? How much of our history – be it personal, political, or social – do we put on the curb in plastic bags.”
“Ted Botha went in search of the modern day rag-pickers of New York, with the patience and skill only possessed by a globe-trotting and graceful man like himself. ... (This) book gives insight into a fascinating group of New Yorkers many would prefer not to see.”
“New York is New York and New York is stuff – stuff that tells a story, stuff that leads to more stuff, to trash that is treasure, to trash that is trash. In the company of pickers and grabbers, of certified public sanitarians and uncertified but wildly passionate collectors, Ted Botha, in Mongo, leads us on the Grand Tour – often at night and occasionally through the muck-filled underground – of all our glorious and magical and maybe even mystical crap.”
“A delightful compendium of quirky information and stories, the kind not found in the average encyclopedia.”
“Ted Botha’s paean to the garbage foragers of New York City… (and) once you know about the subculture of people dedicated to the pursuit of mongo, you remember to marvel at what an odd, amazing city you’ve washed up in”
“If you thought eBay aficionados and savvy bargain hunters were unduly resourceful, Botha introduces us to a whole new class of scavengers on the streets of New York City.”
“An adroit paean to thrift, lasting value, and the bargain ethic.”
