craftsmanship, consumerism, virtue, privilege, and quality

I'm not sure where privilege works into that list.

― Aimless, Wednesday, November 16, 2011 7:03 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

the disposable income (& leisure time) to purchase (the material to build) a 3-D printer?

those printers are getting increasingly affordable and easier to build! it's a matter of it being a hobbyist thing with few commercial parties involved at this point

I invented a 3d printer once, I called it a 'plant seed'

Did it grow into a prosthetic hand?

can you print food with a 3-d printer

most of the food you eat...probably

*buys a 3-d printer*

Did it grow into a prosthetic hand?

no I got a model of Capitol hill built out of purple and yellow Legos; was pretty bummed

those printers are getting increasingly affordable and easier to build! it's a matter of it being a hobbyist thing with few commercial parties involved at this point

― mh, Wednesday, November 16, 2011 7:12 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark

otm just sayin

That's what always kills me about people who are like "my mac can't be opened up and the hardware tinkered with blah blah." We have so many hobbyist and experimental fields that are available now that still have low barriers to entry, and the things you can do easily have grown exponentially.

We also end up with the issue that sometimes the market catches up faster than you can get your project off the ground. My college roommate was tinkering for a couple years with making his own LCD projector. At the time, ones with decent quality were pretty expensive and you could build one with an array of high intensity LEDs and the panel from a LCD monitor and, say, the lens from an old overhead projector.

Now you can buy a used (or even new) LCD projector for less than you'd spend in materials cost.

this thread isn't long enough!

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/11/21/111121fa_fact_kramer

today's headline: rich people discover that some wild plants MAY be edible.

rich people fail to realize that the greenhouse gasses saved by their "foraging" is offset by the fact that they fart a lot

People go morel mushroom hunting around here. They're tricky to find. I've also had wild strawberries, raspberries, handful of other things.

Stay away from the wild ditchweed, though

its all about the fiddleheads in my neck of the woods.

again i go back to the current unconscious desire to learn survival skills before doomsday comes.

did you know that there is FOOD in the ground, says famous norwegian chef!? it's true! i even cook it in my famous norwegian restaurant!! no way!!

fiddleheads are SO GOOD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XJMIu18I8Y

I could even claim to have foraged as an adult, if you count a mild interest in plucking berries from the caper bushes that cling to the walls of an old hill town near the farmhouse in Umbria where my husband and I go, in the summertime, to write.

tried to get through this article but i think my eyes are stuck from rolling so hard

what is an Umbria

"Yeah, we love foraging too, it's rad!" - billions of people since the beginning of time

http://www.newyorker.com/images/2011/11/21/p465/111121_r21551_p465.jpg

the picture is so lol - it's like he's locked in a mortal struggle to bag that herb

bag that herb

man -vs- mild

"how to sleep with nerdy rap fans" xp

even wearing his hand-crafted herb-picking boots. $599.99.

those boots are hand-welted by master craftsmen. they will last a lifetime and more. they will last so long, he will be able to pass them on to his grandchildren, who will pass them onto their grandchildren.

first off i'm sure legendary wakeboarder steve shasta could elaborate much better on this than i could, but there's been a pretty long trend in recent mens fashion that reveres bygone and traditional practices of textile & garment production that plays right into this discussion, and i think denim is probably the most prevalent example of this. leather goods, too. but further, durability seems to be valued above just about anything else, not just because of 'quality' but because instead of falling apart, a durable object changes with age and use -- it becomes worn, gains 'character', it molds to your body, its somehow shares a narrative shared with its owner, and it becomes more unique the older it gets, more 'authentic.' i kinda find this interesting, and i definitely find that i share some of these values and aesthetics, but i think it's weird in a way, a way of incorporating the consumer himself into the making of an 'authentic' product.

i share that aesthetic because i'm cheap.

every dollar i spend on clothes is a dollar i'm not spending on records.

objects that get a patina are a thing, sure

I was joking with a friend this morning that I was going to start selling 1/4" thick denim that is EXTRA RUGGED and made on ORIGINAL REAL LOOMS and become a millionaire.

Part of this is just people finding long-standing brands who have reputations for quality and latching on to them, which I have no problem with, even if it's kind of obviously a trend and meant as one-upmanship. It's kind of entertaining when it turns into a respected brand creating a spinoff or licensed line to take advantage of the upswing in interest.

For example, the past trend of American workwear brands (Carhartt, Spiewak) being licensed to European companies that then create completely unaffiliated goods but license the brand

i only buy used clothing. and that's rarely. i keep wearing something until its falling off of me. i had to buy shoes recently and it bummed me out. my last pair lasted only 4 years. i went to a flood sale in brattleboro and bought three pairs of shoes and hopefully they will last me at least 12 years. but the winters and rains have been rough, so, we'll see.

there are entire threads on superfuture and styleforum devoted to documenting the aging process of denim & leather goods which are pretty interesting to read -- not just to see how the objects change over time but also because it's almost competitive, you see these dudes expressing admiration & jealousy at how awesome that pair of beat up red-wings are, there's totally a fetish for authenticity going on

carhartt is the way to go. good brand. i only own one pair of shorts and they are carhartts and i've had them for ten years.

my carhartt coat is older than that. i went and bought books from someone last year whose uncle and aunt had gone into a nursing home and they GAVE us the most amazing collection of winter hunting gear. coats, pants, gloves, sweaters. i'll never have to buy another winter coat as long as i live. and this stuff was old too. but in amazing condition.

http://www.itsworn.com

elmo otm - those threads are so weird

there's this image burned into my brayne of a guy who bought mannequin legs to put his jeans on when he wasn't wearing them, to preserve the 'form' of the jean that might get destroyed by folding them flat

real carhartt shit is amazing. I had two jackets in high school, and I think I either outgrew them or my dad still has them somewhere. the insulated coveralls are awesome if you're somewhere rural and are out plowing snow or even walking the dog in a couple feet of snow

On the flip side, there's the superfuture dudes as you said. I have a friend who is on the "not washing raw denim for seven months, constant wear" thing and his girlfriend is just going nuts because he's wearing his never-washed pants everywhere and sitting on the bed and such. I understand the commitment, but it seems so artificial

a number of the pictures of boots on that site elmo just linked look like they walked around the block a few times and still have the original polish!

I haven't washed my jeans in a long time but it's cause they don't really smell (yet)

the real test is to ask your girlfriend or mother what they think

Carhartt shirts are cut weird, even for 'American-sized' work clothes. Giant balloony sleeves and super-long bodies.

I wear raw denim for the most part, but that's largely because I like the materials and cuts better than what I can find at the Gap or Levi's, and the specific pair I'm wearing (as mentioned earlier) are made by one guy in the East Bay. I wash them monthly.

I don't like to wash my jeans because they feel so stiff afterwards and they shrink and it takes time to break 'em in again

on the flip side, you could buy slightly larger jeans and then complain about how by the end of the second day without washing they're starting to get a little too loose and you need a belt?

oh man, right behind the house i live in, there is a dilapidated garage full of garbage -- the neighbors who own the property have been using it to store all sorts of trash, and also to deal drugs out of, and also to raise fighting roosters in. it's kind of a long story.

so recently the owner of the garage hired this random guy we'd never seen before, pretty sure he was being paid in hard drugs, and among other jobs he was supposed to paper & tar the roof of the garage all by himself. the cops forced him to stop because the neighbors didn't have a construction permit.

anyway, my point is, right now there is an abandoned carhartt work jacket drenched in roofing tar that is hanging off a ladder the tweaker dude made out of scrap wood, just there for the taking. i should totally grab it for myself because SUPER AUTHENTIC CRACKHEAD REALNESS, right?

yeah but washing jeans every two-three days is a waste! xp

there are entire threads on superfuture and styleforum devoted to documenting the aging process of denim & leather goods which are pretty interesting to read -- not just to see how the objects change over time but also because it's almost competitive, you see these dudes expressing admiration & jealousy at how awesome that pair of beat up red-wings are, there's totally a fetish for authenticity going on

― i think this is serious (elmo argonaut), Wednesday, November 16, 2011 5:02 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

haha these threads are great cause its like 60% marketing execs and lawyers and other office workers trying to figure out how to best "age" their workwear, while not actually doing anything that could, like, age it

I think you'd need to somehow dress up the description and sell it in a vintage store or auction? I think there has to be a middleman between our authentic workwear-loving strawman and actual crackheads

on the flip-flipside of this, there's the "aged" aesthetic that brands like american eagle or the abercrombies of the world have been perpetuating that just means "shitty clothing sanded to look faux-worn that later falls apart"