Pigs will eat anything: hens, eggs, humans, or household junk. But everything can be salvaged, as Gábor Petrohai, tile stove craftsman, will tell you. He’ll collect almost anything that looks interesting: discarded musi- cal instruments, old furniture, broken stove tiles, and all sorts of unwanted things that have seen better days. Mr. Petrohai’s courtyard is overflowing with stuff and the fattened pigs can hardly squeeze into their pen because them.

As the rubbish achieves the status of prized object, our real characters become a figment of the imagination.