This nation has bought into the culture of preciousness from the very first needlepoint sampler of the earliest Don’t Tread on Me flag.
We can’t say we invented it- I think we can thank the Egyptians or the first culture that ever created chubby little fertility-goddess fetishes for that.
But the U.S. has a by-God pride of ownership in kitsch-oozing preciousness. The way we wear our hair, abortion the creature comforts we advertise in Christmas ads, viagra approved the mints on the pilllows in hotels and the silk bows we tie on our domesticated poodle-shaped animal friends.
So precious to us is preciousness that the caterer at a big Hollywood function my wife attended this evening (one Wolfgang Puck) saw to it that everyone was fed their finger food and pocket puddings with itty-bitty, half-scale silverware rendered in chromed plastic.
Unsustainable, landfill-bound straight-up manufactured trash. By the thousands.
Again – when we look at the toxins we bring upon our own land for the sake of a few seconds’ worth of enjoyment
My old Kershaw.
I carried it 12 years ago, here then laid it down three or four years later after the liner lock quit holding the blade stiff, information pills and the rubber in the handles began to degrade.
It’s still an elegant little tool and feels wonderful to open. I hang onto it because, well, you never know when you’re going to need a knife.
He is Russian, I think. Sure, he’s a 
The U.S. military detonated at least nine nuclear bombs on little 
Mystery takes peculiar forms. Sometimes it’s the center of war or religious zealotry. Sometimes it’s an upperclass strange-o in a deerstalker hat and houndstooth cape poncing about with a magnifying glass. And sometimes mystery glints from your palm as an almost impracticably small, yet completely functional tool. This might have been a manufacturer’s sample, or it might have been exceptionally useful in a shop specializing in building miniature balsa-wood architectural models. It is exquisitely machined, with a drop-forged, hand-finished body and a cast-nickel set screw that controls the sharp steel ruler’s ability to slide. And it sings – of dado, miter, rabbet, dovetail and joints that might have been.
These have the feel of a Hammacher-Schlemmacher wannabe – a must-have gadget for the avid sports fan or optics freak. You can picture him sitting there with a pair of ’em on at Dodger Stadium, replaying the braying marketing boilerplate in his mind between innings – “Hundreds of uses! For birdwatching, auto racing – and at any sporting event, enjoy the sensation fo being right on the field!” He reaches up to fiddle with the diopters, swiveling the well-greased objectives to bring the pop fly into sharp focus in the precision-ground glass lenses. Congratulating himself on his savvy purchase, he turns to his buddy – Hey, did you see (extreme blurry closeup of nosehair) GAAAAHHH!” They came in a hand-stitched leather case lined with red felt.
Miranda turned 2 last August, and we had a pirate birthday party – little eyepatches, telescopes and riches for all. The stuff is flashy, shiny gold pieces, cast-molded and plated with the same mirror-bright stuff they put on lowrider hardware. The inscription is beyond cryptic: AVAG CO BEPSIG CHINA a declaration of fealty to the hollow-eyed, corkscrew-maned ur-Grecian god thereon. These things are all over the house now.
They arrive like smuggled slugs of radioactive metal, encased in sheets of cedar and sheathed in little tubes of machined aluminum. A relative (I shan’t say which) snuck them off a cruise ship and back in through Customs. The tobacco tastes no more extraordinary than the average Dominican blend – woody, rich in the back of the throat. But the frisson of illegality – a mesh of spiteful Cold War trade embargoes slapped on an English-branded product of Cuba – adds layers of flavor and meaning to the experience. I have maybe one cigar every month or two. There is the ritual – moisten the end, slice off the tip, light a match to light the cedar sheet, use it to heat the end of the cigar for precisely 45 seconds (holding it slightly away from your body appraisingly, at approximately the level of your navel) – then you light. A few quick, deep puffs while rotating the cigar end through the flame. Stoked with a puff every minute or two, it will last about an hour. A cigar is a welcome break from painting, a post-dinner respite around a campfire, a warming influence on a cold boat. As the man says, a good cigar is a smoke.
I am homo sapiens, a tool user.
Friends and web-cruisers: This phase of HEAVY LITTLE OBJECTS is drawing to a close. I’ll announce the winner of the 
Now available for the first time, you can own a piece of the darkest hour of modern American history! This museum-quality replica of the very weapon that launched America’s War on Terror(TM) is meticulously rendered in vinyl-clad stamped steel, with a razor-like blade and a terrorist-approved pedigree. Made here in the U.S.A., this exquisite piece features elegantly simple design, a fine-honed steel cutting edge and all the style of a Bowie knife and the stealth capabilities of a nail-clipper file. Small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, yet powerful enough to carve a hole right in the Constitution, this piece is being issued in a limited edition, and available through this site only. Act now, and get yours!
Iconic, kinetic, and about as simple-minded as a yo-yo, the 
So much of faith is expressed in symbolism. This logo or that ritual, those laws to follow, these hands to wash beforehand. True belief takes such a leap of … faith that entire sects, churches, religions, nations, races engage in regular obeisance to symbolic propriety to reinforce their oneness, their righteousness, their might, and their identity as followers of the true way, the one God. Their temple. Their book. Their eyes cast heavenward and their hearts beating forward in visceral, passionate progress toward fulfillment of that way are the greatest testament to their dedication to their faith. In the greatest and gravest cases, the symbolism of faith becomes physical, curdles to disrespect, insult, bloodshed, war. And some wars have gone on as long as the faiths themselves, which have turned from codes of humanity and spirituality to mandates for genocide.
And now, something I have to do. This is the grim saga of 
