{"id":533028,"date":"2026-07-09T13:22:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T13:22:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/533028\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T13:22:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T13:22:18","slug":"the-invisible-heart-of-modern-life-is-the-garbage-worker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/533028\/","title":{"rendered":"The Invisible Heart of Modern Life Is the Garbage Worker"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"po-bo__paragraph\">Simon Par\u00e9-Poupart begins <a href=\"https:\/\/www.penguinrandomhouse.com\/books\/816578\/trash-by-simon-pare-poupart\/\" class=\"po-bo__link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Trash<\/a>!, a memoir of his years as a garbage collector, by explaining why he started swearing again. He had promised religious friends he would stop taking the Lord\u2019s name in vain. Then one day, he jumped off the truck and found eighteen overloaded contractor bags wedged between two badly parked cars. They were stuffed with construction debris and nails. If he hurt himself carrying them, that would be his fault. If he scratched either car squeezing back through the gap, that would also be his fault. The homeowner, meanwhile, watched from behind the curtains.<\/p>\n<p class=\"po-bo__paragraph\">\u201cIt\u2019s then,\u201d Par\u00e9-Poupart writes, \u201cat that very moment, that the urge overcomes you and you let out a cry of rage: \u2018Jesus f\u00a0\u2014 ing Christ!!!\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0 I mean, swearing is all you\u2019ve got left.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"po-bo__paragraph\">The homeowner quickly becomes \u201cthe good middle-class\u201d aquarium owner, while the garbageman is reduced to \u201cthe piddly creature that keeps the tank glass clean.\u201d Within a few more pages, Par\u00e9-Poupart has invoked Sisyphus, Georges Bataille, Victor Hugo, and Ren\u00e9 Descartes; described garbage juice as \u201cthe holy water of your baptism\u201d; and explained that \u201cit\u2019s the swearing that makes you a real garbageman.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Simon Par\u00e9-Poupart begins Trash!, a memoir of his years as a garbage collector, by explaining why he started&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":533029,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[242,85,46,141],"class_list":["post-533028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=533028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/533029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}