If we can determine a great deal about our culture by the objects we value, it stands to reason that we can learn a lot about ourselves from the objects we value. Especially when it comes time to move all of them.
Pete Kaesberg is a drummer and a guitar player who has, until recently, lived in Madison all of his life. And before the move he's had the stuff to prove it. But after twenty two years, Pete is moving out of the House of Men, so called because it has a history of having mostly male tenants, to Eau Claire. Over the past few weeks he's been packing up, and getting rid of parts of his life and finding himself box by box.
He tells Lake Effect's material culture contributor Gianofer Fields what it feels like to make such a change.
"I think being a musician kind of keeps you in a state of arrested development. A musician, especially a rock musician, is kind of a young person's job. So if you keep doing it throughout your life, you tend to always have a fair amount of cohorts that are young...when my [girlfriend] first saw my room she's like, 'you have a room of a twelve year old boy.' My dad always referred to me as the world's oldest teenager, and I think I still am," says Kaesberg.
Gianofer Fields studies material culture at UW-Madison and is the curator of "It's a Material World" - a project funded by the Chipstone Foundation, a decorative arts foundation whose mission is preserving and interpreting their collection, as well as stimulating research and education in the decorative arts.
Original air date: 08/09/13