Hand work

Woodworking - (Weekend Edition Sunday, 1/6/02 - 2:54) · "Essayist Tim Brookes experiences a flashback to his youth while working with a piece of fine wood."

Typewriter Lover. (All Things Considered, 9/22/98 - 3:46) · "Alex Van Oss introduces us to his family of five old typewriters. One was once owned by a Supreme Court Justice, another by the Christian Science Monitor, and a third - a hefty thing from Switzerland, once crashed through one of his desks."

Baking by Senses and Memories. (Morning Edition, 11/20/06 - 4:18) · “I believe baking is the best way for me to express love for my people in the present, and honor the people of my past, all in one batch.”

Musings

1. Here are three short pieces linked by a common concern: the value of doing work the old-fashioned way, that is, by hand. Describe one of the pieces in some detail while also commenting how you can relate to the piece on a personal level. If you have trouble listening to these or want to others instead, try listening to 3 other pieces from the Special Features page of "This I Believe." where you will find sections on basic ("hand") things like gardening, poetry, pets, letter-writing, coffee shops, sewing and knitting, walking in the woods, fishing, and so forth.
   
   
2. Describe a mechanical tool (that is, a tool that works without electricity or batteries) you have used, or perhaps still use. Do others still use this tool? Why? Why not? Don't overlook such simple tools as a pencil or a hammer or a cooking utensil.
   
   
3. Have a knack for comedy? If so you might want to take a different approach and describe some new, highfalutin tool (or gadget), mechanical or electronic, like the iPhone or iPod that, despite all the hype, you find vastly over-rated. (Here's Alison Bryce's brief, sardonic response to her boyfriend's iPhone.) Don't worry about a little exaggeration--it might help underscore your point. Here's a case in point: Rube Goldberg, the American cartoonist who died in 1970, has become something of a household word, or at least a common noun, for creating the concept of an overly complicated way of doing something simple--like a 15-step contraption to scratch one's back. Here are examples at RubeGoldberg.com, or, as one might imagine, plenty of new Ribe Goldberg contraptions on YouTube. Here's one for crushing Cadbury Cream Eggs.
   

Stuff

George Carlin's classic comedy routine, "A Place for My Stuff" (5:09) is satire at its best--outrageously funny while saying something serious about our behavior.

"The Story of Stuff" is also a video satire, by Annie Leonard--"a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns . . . . [that] exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues."

NPR commentator Daniel Schorr offers this short commentary (2:05) on Princess Diana and Mother Teresa ("Saint of the Gutter, Saint of the Media")--both of whom died the same week. What do you see as the connection between this commentary and the points made by Carlin and Thoreau?

The Nova web site portrays five families from the 1995 book, A Material: A Global Family Portrait, a book that posed families from around in the world standing in front of their houses with their possessions.

Here's the Website from John Freyer's 2002 project, All My Life for Sale.

Ellen Kushner’s WGBH program Sound and Spirit offers a wide-ranging, weekly musical tribute to a single theme. Here is the playlist for her show on stuff--click here to listen (59:00).

Musings

• Annie Leonard's video, "The Story of Stuff," is clearly a form of propaganda, although a form that some of us (at least those who sympathize with her larger point) may not especially object to. What do you feel makes her video so effective?
  
  
• Describe what you see as the most important connection between any two of these pieces.
  
  
• Use of these pieces as the basis for a story of STUFF in your own life.