craftsmanship, consumerism, virtue, privilege, and quality

Another problem I have with the "local grass-fed beef" thing is just that it feeds into this notion that we can have whatever we want ethically and sustainably. Some of it is so indulgent -- borderline gluttonous -- and it's like the ethical trappings just excuse that.

Not one mention of vinyl yet in this thread?

i thought the local grass-fed beef thing was less about ethics/sustainability and more about taste/quality. at least i think thats where it originated...

Yeah, and it sets up beef as a luxury/premium good, which I think is fine in the mid term. If the only beef you eat is this premium grass fed stuff, then you're probably only having it once in a while. Eating Hamburger Helper daily as your staple is going to burn through more beef total, right?

(also a health thing, i.e., grass-fed beef doesnt have mad cow disease)

male model/knife-maker in today's times:

http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/03/timely-christopher-harth/

CHRIS HARTH IS A NATIVE MINNESOTAN LIVING IN BROOKLYN. HE'S MAKING HAND CRAFTED KNIVES, END GRAIN CUTTING BOARDS AND HARDWOOD CHARCOAL UNDER THE NAME NY CUTLERY. ALL HIS MATERIALS ARE RECLAIMED, THE METAL COMES FROM USED SAW MILL BLADES AND THE HANDLES ARE HARDWOOD SCRAP FROM A FURNITURE MAKERS BIN. HE IS ALSO MAKING CHARCOAL THAT COMES FROM (GLUE FREE) OAK SCRAP. THIS STUFF BURNS HOT AND FAST, THE KIND YOU WANT TO COOK YOUR DRY AGED RIBEYE OVER. ALL GOOD STUFF.

http://www.thewilliambrownproject.com/2011/04/ny-cutlerybrooklyn-ny.html

A sharp education
Everyday I spend working on knives I learn more about being a craftsman. There are tips and tricks one can learn from reading books or watching instructional videos, but there is something physical and internal that can't be put to words when it comes to an action that needs to be repeated thousands of times over to create just one knife. The profiling of a blade, the grind geometry of the cutting edge, the shaping of the handle, the polishing of the steel... it is all meditative and soothing to me on the physical level. My hands, wrists, arms, shoulders, and hips all play a part in the subtle dance that I am refining as I improve my technique at the work bench.

Yesterday I was graced with a visit from Matthew Hranek, the man behind The William Brown Project. He heard about my knives, cutting boards and hardwood charcoal from a mutual friend, Michael Rudin, who spent a lively afternoon enjoying bourbon and venison in my backyard a couple of weeks ago. Matt is one of those fellows that has seen his share of the world and has taken the time to edit his experiences into a lifestyle that is quite admirable. He procures his own wild fish and game, raises heritage breed pigs, frequents flea markets near and far in search of the curiosities that spark his interest, and makes wonderful photos to share on his blog from the experiences.

Matt arrived in the early afternoon while I was profiling a Bowie knife for Miss Amber Doyle of Doyle Mueser. Sparks were flying and I had on my leather apron and goggles. We chatted about our common interests and mutual friend, Michael. It turns out that they traveled to a little fish shack called Lou's a few miles up the shore of Lake Superior from where I grew up in Duluth, MN to photograph the operation. It's a big-small world as I often say. If you find yourself on Scenic Highway 61 make a stop at the smokehouse and get a nice fillet of smoked whitefish and you will be pleased.

The Bowie knife for Amber Doyle is now on the grind geometry phase. This is where the knife gets the angles and attributes that make it cut the way it was intended - both ways, as David Bowie would tell you himself. I am about to start my delicate dance with the knife again today. This is the most critical phase of the process which will dictate whether or not this knife is a success as a user tool. I never thought that the process would feel so rhythmic, and from the perspective of the casual observer it may seem brutal and dangerous, but through my hands, shoulders and hips I sway ever so gently as the steel grinds away revealing a tool that is functional. This is indeed a SLOW dance.

http://www.notquitenigella.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/jpeterman.jpg

He seems to like his job. That's something.

A few days after finishing a foraging knife with a short, curved blade for cutting back toward the thumb, Harth used it himself to gather chanterelles for a delicious ravioli.

looooool the nyt is so trolling us

...a reportedly delicious ravioli.

don't really need a knife to gather mushrooms

What would you use for a weapon if they fought back?

occurs to me that audiophilia is like an advanced version of all this

you mean vinylphilia? there are plenty of audiophiles who swing wildly in the other direction, like a V.U. needle.

keep trying to resist the urge to argue about this but...between knives made by OH NO HIPSTERS!!!1!! and one made by people who aren't being paid a living wage, gimme the oh no hipster knife

nah I mean like Monster™ Cables audiophilia, not so much in regards the hand-made/artisanal sound, but in the pursuit of the truest/most authentic listening experience that is really just conspicuously consuming Veblen good wooden receiver knobs or whatever the balls those people spend their money on

xp seems fair to me aero

also would purchase a children's book entitled "Oh No! Hipsters!"

ok time to go to my local neighborhood artisanal butcher to buy some local free range ground beef (seriously this is what I'm doing now)

keep trying to resist the urge to argue about this but...between knives made by OH NO HIPSTERS!!!1!! and one made by people who aren't being paid a living wage, gimme the oh no hipster knife

― unlistenable in philly (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Sunday, November 6, 2011 2:23 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

if you don't buy the serially oppressed knife, that person is gonna lose her job and become even more unable to live :(

make sure to pick up some brioche buns xp

btw this ^xp^ is why utilitarianism and consequentialism more generally are complete horseshit

edit his experiences into a lifestyle

this is such a disgusting phrase!

everyone should just buy less stuff, regardless of where it comes from

alternative to 'below-living wage' is not necessarily 'living wage' iirc

everyone should just buy less stuff, regardless of where it comes from
yeah - it's weird to me though that in the artisanal etc mindset there isn't more of a culture of re-use; it's there (see: a trillion etsy shops making use of found/repurposed materials) but like...idk I have this idea that if there were a cultural movement to stop producing shit for a year or two, to just quit making new stuff for a while, it'd be good for everything. I guess if yr position is more extreme ("you don't need more stuff whether it's new or used") then it doesn't matter, but that horse has left the barn in this culture, ppl are gonna consume, the only q is whether it's going to use up more resources or less.

there are things we can do to make environmentally unfriendly consumption more expensive than less-environmentally unfriendly consumption

if people stopped producing shit then you couldn't convert labor into value

capitalism would be ruined

the marxists would win

one of the thing drives me nuts is lamps -- and similarly cheap and simple electrical goods -- being apparently considered unrepairable nowadays, so that you have no choice but to chuck em out when they stop working

millions of non-economists would starve

it's not that they're considered unrepairable, it's that they're cheap enough that it's not even practical to repair it unless it's a really expensive lamp

(sound of 100 ilxor minds churning to come up w/ a good lamp joke)

there are things we can do to make environmentally unfriendly consumption more expensive than less-environmentally unfriendly consumption

yes but most of them involve doing an end-run around democratic processes which puts you in a tight spot, no?

xp @ mark s not just lamps!! when I was a kid there were these big awesome electrical-age TUBE TESTERS at supermarkets, and at shoe repair shops too if I remember right. they were for checking the tubes in your television for whether they were the source of why your TV wasn't working. (presumably also for your radio or amplifier.) present philosophy of "it's cheaper to replace than repair" 1) sucks and 2) is true; I can get a new TV cheaper than I can repair my new-ish TV

yes but most of them involve doing an end-run around democratic processes which puts you in a tight spot, no?

yup, pretty hard to convince a majority of americans that they're not paying enough $ for shit. at the same time we genuinely are overpaying for other things (housing, transit, health care) so even middle class people feel poor. everything's related and fixing those issues is gonna have to happen before we can get people to feel like they should pay more for consumer goods.

you can convert labour into value if decrease production, also marx was right so w/e

i guess my opinion is:

- productivity gains are generally p good for ppl at the bottom since they make goods cheaper and increase wealth
- reverting to pre-industrial means of producing goods is p stupid for that reason
- at the same time many industrial/postindustrial goods dont reflect their 'true' cost since producers take advantage of all sorts of externalities
- if you want to own a tv you should be paying the cost of poisoning the air above shenzen &c
- we need to find ways of taking advantage of productivity gains and efficiencies w/o encouraging consumption

- if you want to own a tv you should be paying the cost of poisoning the air above shenzen &c

lol TVs weren't always made in Shenzen man!

- we need to find ways of taking advantage of productivity gains and efficiencies w/o encouraging consumption

ya can u get on this? we need an answer by like... 100 years ago

we used to poison the air over pittsburgh...toledo...akron.... man those were the days

it's so nice that america's skies don't have to be polluted anymore, we can just outsource it to china

we used to poison the air over pittsburgh...toledo...akron.... man those were the days

who can tell me with a straight face they wouldn't repoison akron & toledo to bring back the glory days of shenzen

shenzhen used to be a nice quiet fishing village. 30 years ago a fisherman would catch a fish.

100% would sacrifice toledo & akron to make that fisherman happy

- we need to find ways of taking advantage of productivity gains and efficiencies w/o encouraging consumption

the key is that 'consumption' includes services and 'goods' that are 1s and 0s. and we should encourage a shift to that type in the long run and in lots of ways it's happening already. otoh is buying an iphone app for $5 better for the world than buying a hamburger for $5? if you just isolate that purchase, yeah, but a. can't isolate that b. I guess we're also more willing to spend money on these 1s and 0s in a world where we can already afford the material goods we want.

idk aero, I guess my point is that if america wants TVs then america should be ready to handle the pollution that comes with it instead of dumping it all elsewhere

it's so nice that america's skies don't have to be polluted anymore, we can just outsource it to china

chinese air pollution already reaches california iirc

Has anyone informed the Minnesota ilxors that they may be untapped reserves of cultural capital? This knife dude seems to have a fair amount of press relating the fact he is from REAL PLACE, MINNESOTA

idk aero, I guess my point is that if america wants TVs then america should be ready to handle the pollution that comes with it instead of dumping it all elsewhere

― ASPIE Rocky (dayo), Sunday, November 6, 2011 3:12 PM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark

or rather, that if americans want flatscreen TVs, then hopefully they would not be against paying a higher price so that the waste associated with manufacturing TVs doesn't get improperly dumped into the environment, whether that environment happens to be in china or in toledo

but that would mean TVs would cost more, guess it's okay for poor people in china to suffer from heavy metal poisoning in their land and in their food so that joe sixpack can watch football on his 60" as cheaply as possible

ya can u get on this? we need an answer by like... 100 years ago

ok c u soon