"It is sometimes said that Hamlet should be performed by a man chosen at random from the crowd on the night of the performance. The idea is that by forcing someone to play the role who is unfamiliar with it, you preserve its essence. Whatever is exceptional about Hamlet is tarnished by repetition; by practice.

Maybe the opposite is true of rudimentary activities, like sweeping the floor. Perhaps only professional actors could understand it, and only after being forced to repeat the movement over and over, until it ceases to be familiar, and becomes strange."

Sweeping takes a thematic view of this typical household activity, to think expansively about ecology, animal intelligence, and the hypocrisy of the political elision between cleanliness and morality.