New York City-based art-minded entrepreneur Justin Gignac has now “duped” 1,300 people in 30 countries to buy a cube of “100% authentic,” “hand-picked” NYC Garbage in “smell-proof” Lucite cubes at $50 a pop ($100 for “special” trash) and got super famous — even though this is an old, old art school project. The hoopla begat in 2001, when Gignac bet he could sell anything in a nice package: “I figured the only way to prove them wrong would be to package something that nobody in their right mind would ever want to buy.” Ok, one problem…

Of course people will buy NYC trash! “Nobody,” “ever,” really? This I❤NY-mania is like the secular version of buying Holy Earth from Jerusalem — perfectly explained by a predictable set of compulsive, belief-reinforced glorifications — and it’s kitschy too, ha ha ha here’s mah money clever city mahn.