Culturebox: Let Me Touch Your Junk

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television Let Me Touch Your Junk Storage Wars uncovers the treasures hidden in self-storage facilities. By Troy Patterson Posted Wednesday, Dec. 15, 2010, at 3:45 PM ET One man's trash is another man's treasure and, via cable, yet a third man's trash TV. Storage Wars (A&E, Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET)--trivial and magnetic, sociologically peculiar and elementally creepy--gives the reality-show treatment to a class of merchants slinking beneath the radar of many a solvent citizen. Here, the contents of lonely storage units--"abandoned," relinquished, repo'd--are reintroduced to the marketplace. The buyers stalk the winding corridors of California self-storage facilities. The auctioneers raise the corrugated gates of the units with a theatrical rattle. Scavenger capitalism snaps its zealous jaws. The name of the series is matched for grandiosity by the titles of the individual episodes, which sometimes ring with a Don King clang of pugilistic pomp ("Melee in the Maze," "War on the Shore"). Or else they carry the scratch of tumbleweed and the creak of saloon doors among their howling winds ("High Noon in the High Desert," "Senior Center Showdown"), as befits the soundtrack. When the speculators turn their meaty faces to the camera to talk about their bidding strategies and resale plans, the score sounds with the strums and whistles of a spaghetti Western. A fistful of dollars, a roomful of stuff, an Antiques Roadshow on a dead-end street. To continue reading, click here. Troy Patterson is Slate's television critic. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES Also In Slate Supreme Court Justices--Sitting and Retired-- Have Gotten Way Too Chatty Angry Birds Is an iPhone Hit. Will the Game Be as Popular on PlayStation, Xbox, and Wii? The Coming Debt Ceiling Catastrophe and How Pols Are Using It to Their Advantage	Advertisement
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