Mechanical Obsolescence

At the risk of perpetrating an ethnic stereotype, I am a Cheap Scots Bastid. By that I mean firstly that a certain number of my ancestors (excepting those that came from Ireland) came from Scotland. Secondly, it means that I hate to let go of any percentage of the pittance that I earn at wage slavery. Thirdly, if I do let go of that money so hard-earned, I try to make sure that it goes to something that I will be finding useful or practical well into old age.

This brings me to the crux of this post. I can happily do without the various impedimenta that most people seem to require for modern living. Microwaves and electric skillets are unnecessary to me, since I can saute over an open campfire better than Wolfgang Puck. I can read Marcus Aurelius and Jim Morrison by candlelight. I'd rather pull on an extra blanket than turn up the heat past 69 degrees, and I'm happy to come in out of 110 degree weather into an 85 degree house with no air conditioning. Mrs. Druid doesn't share my technoapathy, but that's another post for another day. The upshot of this is not that I do these things out of a strong ethical concern for the environment, although I certainly have cultivated an ecological outlook in my own life, or that I have a driving need to do all that I can to bring global corparate culture to its knees as fast as is humanly practicable. It's just that all these things are a pain in the ass to purchase and maintain. They cost too much, they break too fast, they are unrepairable, and they don't contribute appreciably to my quality of life.

Mrs. Druid doesn't like our handcrank can opener. She always tells me that it's broken and doesn't work right and why can't we just get an electric one because they are obviously so much more superior to those old fashined things? So, the other day I'm opening a can (yes, canned food, I can hear people groaning out there already) of something to eat when, of all things, the can opener breaks on me. Now this is not a cheap manual opener, it's a (supposedly) heavy duty stainless steel model. I thought I was really getting one over on the big box, petrochemical, convenience store, corporate monster when I invested in it. Not so. No big deal really, since I can go get another one easily enough. The real issue is when I'm looking at the opener to try to determine what went wrong with it. A third of the teeth on the drive cog had snapped off, one right after the other. How could such a simple and robust mechanical device fail after only 3 or 4 years of service? Then it really hits me. What am I to do with the broken can opener? I can't go to the can opener supply store and buy a replacement cog. My preference would be to recycle it, but the whole thing is too large and bulky for that. Perhaps if I was a machinist or welder I could come up with some use for it as reusable scrap material, but as it stands I can't come up with any solution other than to bury it as an archaeological specimen for the coming ages.

My next can opener will be one piece and hand-forged like the antique one above.

Naoi Beannachtai,

Eremon

Who Watches the Watchmen?

By now I'm guessing that many of you will have been off to the movies to see the much anticipated film adaptation of Alan Moore's 1986 graphic novel, Watchmen.

I've been a fan of the GN since its first release. I actually used to bug the crew at Fat Jack's in Philadelphia for every issue as it was being released, along with Dark Knight Returns at about the same time. Strangely enough, both of those stories helped me along the path to moving past comics to other pastimes. But I mean that in a good way.

On to the movie. I'll try to do this without spoiling anything for those who haven't been yet. First comment on the film; I loved every minute of it. Mrs. Druid took me out on a date to see it, which made it all that much better for me. She was completely unfamiliar with the story and she loved every minute of it. There wasn't a sour note in it for me. The actors were all well chosen for the roles, and the dialogue was so close that I was recalling it from the book almost word for word as I remembered it. The film scenes were framed right out of the book. Neither of these made for a stilted piece, but retained the flow of the story, which is one of the things that I always liked about Moore's writing in the first place.

The title sequence did a fair job of setting the backstory of the 'golden age' heroes of Watchmen, which was good because the film really hit the ground running. As a former reader of the novel, I had no trouble with the pace of the movie, but I can see where someone not familiar with it might have a bit of trouble getting up to speed with the story right away.

I was aware for some time that the Black Freighter sub-theme would almost certainly have to be dropped in order to make a sellable product, so I wasn't upset about its absence from the theatrical release. I would like for someone to do an epic, 6-hour home kit-bash version of the final extended version of Watchmen and the Black Freighter DVD release at some point, but I'm a bit of a pirate that way my ownself...

I was curious at the change in Rorschach's dealing with the kidnapper. It certainly was graphic (I work in ER's and ICU's, but it caught me off guard just enough to make me squidge), but the original version would have been no less so. Curious, like I said, but not any strike against the screenplay.

The most major change from the novel concerned the culmination of the story, but reflecting on it during the drive home, I decided that it actually made for more internal logic with the rest of the story over the original version.

Random end notes, um, the costumes were great and the fight scenes radiated physical danger. The movie, like the novel, was accentuated by well-chosen pop tunes to undersore themes within the story. I would have liked a stronger suggestion of one of the main themes of the novel, to wit: people who dress up in costumes and wait around in dark alleys in order to beat people up have issues, to say the least. That said, I have no issues with the movie at all. Hop-flop-squawk, it's a keeper.