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This double-glass-block icon is meant to remind you of this – an elaborate ice castle lit from within. It glows with a liquid intensity, the frosted bulb cavity diffusing all 25 watts of its little bulb through about two pounds of solid glass. It would make a dandy blunt instrument – coldcock your prey, then fling it to a concrete floor to shatter into a million unfingerprintable bits. Designed by Harri Koskinen for the Museum of Modern Art, this was a gift, so I was pretty startled just now to learn how much it costs. The design concept itself screams “kitsch!” – until you switch it on. Then all hard feelings melt away. Oooh, says some small voice from somewhere south of my adolescence. It’s pretty
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This is what the atomic Zippo evolved into: Fast times demand fast tools. Many tools of the 50s and 60s owe their visual speed to Raymond Loewy. The godfather of modern American industrial design and friend of Sinatra believed in the aesthetic of MAYA – Most Avanced Yet Acceptable, which drove his visions for everything from the Studebaker Hawk and the Lucky Strike logo to the interior of Skylab. No record of whether he’s directly responsible for the Ronson Varaflame Adonis, but in the Loewy way, the fuel-plug tail cowling and speed lines on this little chromed vehicle form their own slipstream just standing on my desk. It’s a flea-markeet find, probably among the first of the new butane-fueled models to come out in the late 50s. I’m hoping to find a junker for parts on eBay so I can replace the lost flint plug and get it fired up for camping trips and the occasional cigar. Meantime, here’s a fairly exhaustive history of Ronson lighters.