ON ORGANIC MECHANICS
ladykalessia introduced me to this wonderful video on Firefly Letterpress. The tone is a bit pious and worthy in parts, but the sheer beauty of the old technology draws you in, as it always does when I visit friends who use letterpress. As a graphic designer and a lover of typography, it's hard not to be engrossed in the craft of composing type in such a tactile way.

To me, this video reinforces my personal notion that ultimately it's the inherent qualities found in older things that compel us to cling to them, not nostalgia: Texture, not time. What's truly compelling to me about these old presses isn't the historical aspects, but their nourishing, humane aesthetics: the ritual, the dimensionality of the imprint, the sounds and sculptural beauty of the 'organic' mechanisms.

Speaking of organic mechanics brings to mind another fellow: David Metz's bicycle museum is a treasure for this very reason, as he is not just a preeminent bicycle collector. He's also amassed a large collection of curious mechanical household utensils of astounding intricacy and ingenuity: cherry pitters, toasters, etc. He's also obsessed with collecting and building unusual and strangely elegant mousetraps--the simpler and more ingenious, the better.

But of course this is all but half of the equation: I'd like to see elegant technology that complements our own bodies to continue with us into the future, as we'll need energy-saving solutions like these again. It would be nice to see a world in which we are able to dance with our machines, and thus set the pace.

Just a thought.

~W