Obsessions like Iron Heart
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I suspect everyone around here has a thing about handmade, brilliantly conceived things of this world. I particularly love skilled work, like Japan's National Treasures and the artisan/designer/creator/laborer who works for a living. But never compromises quality or integrity.Sometimes you want to have such things; sometimes you just want to admire the effort. I can appreciate nearly anything that speaks to an always-obsessive commitment and unyielding passion, and the relentless effort of the everyday, what others would find too tedious or boring, too peculiar or eccentric. I like to admire things that I don't personally obsess over. I'm a student of others' passionate obsessions.
The things I love most have provenance. That is, a deep connection with history and must consider the real costs to keeping integrity when we all have to make a living. It's one thing to be spiritual, it's another to be just plain broke.
Things I obsess about, be it "collect" or can't stop thinking about: handmade steel bicycles, proper book binding and preservation, writing instruments, mechanical watches, artisanal baking and beer, ship building, moto-bikes, and brilliantly made clothing from top to bottom. My Italian family were tailors (we called one "Uncle Sardo") and my Scots grandfather built ships on the firth of Clyde and his grandfather built wooden ships. I'm not handy like this but I so admire it.
Things that are my obsessions, as in, I actually do: translate Sanskrit, Greek, and Tamil but only in pencil (sharpened by hand with a pen knife), refurbish friction shifting race bicycles, and every word I write. I still make plenty of mistakes but everyday try again.
Currently I'm on the trail of a 1970s Indian-made manual typewriter and a 1960s Usha (India) sewing machine. The photo below is of an iron used on a pushcart in India since 1977. I knew the fella who used this. He was ready to buy a new iron and I paid him handsomely for this beautiful old thing–-in continuous use for the past 41 years. That's like 25oz IH or something.