Bullseye with Jesse Thorn is a production of MaximumFun.org and is distributed by NPR.

I'm Jesse Thorn, it's Bullseye.

Mary Randolph Carter, or Carter, as she prefers to be known, has worked high up at Ralph Lauren

for decades.

She's a creative director, that's her day job.

In her free time, she collects stuff.

She calls it junk, and she has a lot of junk.

In her apartment in New York, where she and her family have lived for decades, her walls

are filled with old pictures, portraits, photos, still life, that kind of thing.

She stacks books under desks along the walls, sometimes just in the middle of the floor.

If you're sitting on her sofa with a drink, your best bet is probably to hold onto it.

More often than not, her coffee table, which almost certainly isn't antique, is covered

in vases and little sculptures and probably a bunch more books.

Always more books.

Does her place look busy?

Yes, well, it all.

But it doesn't look cluttered, it's deliberate, it's thoughtful, it's welcoming, it's

warm, everything in it has a story.

Maybe the goofy-looking bird, Nicknack, on the shelf over there is something she picked

up on a road trip 10 years ago, or maybe the portrait in the living room reminds her of

a relative that she lost years ago, even though she bought it at a swap meet in Queens.

It's all junk, like she says, but that doesn't mean it's worthless.

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