YARD SALE.(The Talk of the Town)(New York yard sale will benefit public schools)

This weekend, Central Park will play host to what is being billed as "the biggest tag sale ever in new york city!" Fifty truckloads of rejected possessions will be spread out under an acre of tents, the casualties of a fundamental New York conundrum: so much to want, so little space to keep it in. The event will benefit the city's public schools, and it will amount to a census, of sorts, of the city's material life circa 2004.

Over the past month, city residents have carted their surplus stuff to neighborhood drop spots scattered across the five boroughs. The magazine Real Simple, which is sponsoring the sale, published a peppy promotional brochure, with helpful pointers. Under the heading " 'Edit' Your Rooms": "We read books from left to right--and we should 'read' rooms the same way. . . . If you feel your attention straying to another room, take a break or repeat the mantra 'left to right, left to right.' " And, in the "Teamwork" section: "Find a friend or two who support your organizational goals and who have decluttering needs of their own."

On a recent mellow Saturday, a cheerful and efficient woman in her forties named Lisa Matthews was attending to the decluttering needs of the residents of Carnegie Hill, on the Upper East Side. She manned a blue tent set up on the sidewalk and oversaw two men who were loading donations into a truck nearby. (Acceptable: curling irons, electric can-openers, snowsuits, Oprah's List books. Unacceptable: electric blankets, underwear, Reader's Digest Condensed Books.)

An older man approached, lugging a box of books. Among the titles he was discarding were Zig Ziglar's "What I Learned on the Way to the Top," John Naisbitt's "Megatrends," and an audiobook of "Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus." ("That's the kind of book you only listen to once," he said.) "Oh, look at that!" Matthews said, after he'd left. She pulled out an unopened package of Huggies. "That's very sweet. But we won't be able to use it."

A woman named Inga said that she'd had to thwart spousal resistance to her room-editing efforts. "My ...