Saturday, October 8, 2011

Why I Don't Own an iPad 4, or, Libidinal Confessions of a Late Adopter

A CARBURETOR. Cars don't have
carbs anymore, but  lawnmowers do.
Not until carburetors have become
completely obsolete will I love them.
Whoa! Did seeing "iPad 4" in the title make you leap up and grab the car keys? Simmer down. There is no iPad 4, not yet. And you, Sir or Madam (but most probably Sir because it's a guy thing), are officially an Early Adopter. 


Me, I'm a Late Adopter. You won't find me camped outside the Apple store the night before a release date. On the spectrum between early adopters, who are always the first to snap up new technology, and Luddites who would rather smash it than buy it, I am somewhere in between. You can have tomorrow's technology, I want yesterday's. Or better yet, yesteryear's.


I got my 1945 Leica IIIc camera in 1965, my 1946 Hallicrafters SX-25 shortwave receiver in 1966, and my 1956 Buick Super in 1970. All three were gifts from my father, but I continued in the same vein, with Ann's kind encouragement, culminating with a 1913 Chandler & Price 10 x 15 printing press, acquired in 1984. We also harbor an Ivers & Pond upright piano built in the late 19th century and fully restored for the 21st.*


One reason to be a late adopter is that it's cheaper, anywhere from 25% during the clearance sale down to half price on eBay. Or even better, a prematurely jaded early adopter gives you a superseded model for free because it is so last week and he wouldn't be caught dead.  


True, a few categories of old things become more expensive rather than cheaper with age, and in a future post I will tell all I know about the charms of rare books, the darker side of rare coins, and other variations of tulip bulb madness. But old technology usually holds little allure for collectors. Bulky, heavy, inconvenient objects like printing presses and parlor pianos typically change hands on the basis of "Get this damn thing out of my garage and it's yours."


Another reason to prefer older tech to new is that, at least until recently, older equipment can be repaired. Its parts are discrete and visible. Before the extreme miniaturization into silicon chips of even the most complex gadgets. it was possible to take things apart, discover what had failed, and replace it. Parts may be hard to find, but the satisfaction is great when it works. 


The repairability of old machines, however, is not guaranteed, and there can be a great deal of self-delusion about it, verging on compulsive hoarding disorder, which has recently become the subject of not one but two popular and horrifying reality shows.  Ham radio hobbyists notoriously keep "junk boxes" because you never know when some tube or capacitor might be just what you need to fix something else. But junk boxes all too easily can became junk basements, junk garages and junk barns, and well, a junked-up life.


Why do we do it? "It is the libidinization of stuff," Cambridge psychologist Lucia Stone told me, adding that it is far more common in men, and she ought to have known. Her husband, Fred Stone, was a magnificent acquisitor of nearly everything, including wood and lead printing type, vintage glass bottles, old buttons, and World War II airplane parts. Fred was the kind of guy who gave materialism a good name. The type that overflowed the basement was stored in a makeshift shed Fred lovingly built in his backyard from military surplus magnesium aircraft frames. 


I wish I had been there, standing slightly upwind from the plume of fragrant and poisonous fumes, the day that shed caught on fire.


But I digress, yes I do, digression upon digression, and I intend to continue. Stay tuned.




************************************************************************
*The piano was restored by Emily and Ed Hilbert of New Haven, Vermont. We schlepped it to California, where a piano tuner tried to buy it from us, and then hauled it back to Middlebury where it may be viewed by appointment.


**Fred Stone's collection of 19th and early 20th century wood type ("Take it all! Just take it!") went from his basement in Cambridge to mine in Somerville, then to our next basement in Waterville, Maine, and finally to the Art Department at Smith College, where we hope to visit it someday soon.




6 comments:

  1. You have a Chandler & Price??? !!!
    My father acquired one in 1957. I think it was made in about 1915 (I would have to check with my brother, who still has it.)

    ReplyDelete
  2. PS: I have one in Second Life also. I'll get it out of inventory and send you the location :) The person I got it from has some old IRL presses also.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Let me try this again.

    Sometimes a newer product simply works better and/or more efficiently than an older one (and sometimes a cigar is just a cigar). There are many motives for adopting new things earlier than others, but I personally doubt that techno-lust drives anywhere near a majority. As one who enjoys, but doesn't fetishize, fountain pens, attachment to the old can similarly be just as shallow as attachment to the new.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Some new things just work so much more nicely than older ones. My new Air is just smoother, more graceful, than my old laptop. I have computers because it is my work, and because I enjoy the freedom of movement that exists in the Web, and enjoy the way they respond to my will as a man generally will not. Not that I have anything against men.

    My Kindle allows me to carry 100 books at a time. My iPad lets me stay in touch, and draw and write, without carrying even my laptop.

    The old piano in my living room? If you'll get it out of here, you can have it.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Some new things just work so much more nicely than older ones. My new Air is just smoother, more graceful, than my old laptop. I have computers because it is my work, and because I enjoy the freedom of movement that exists in the Web, and enjoy the way they respond to my will as a man generally will not. Not that I have anything against men.

    My Kindle allows me to carry 100 books at a time. My iPad lets me stay in touch, and draw and write, without carrying even my laptop.

    The old piano in my living room? If you'll get it out of here, you can have it.

    ReplyDelete
  6. My Mac Air is just more smooth and graceful than my old PC laptop.

    My Kindle lets me carry hundreds of books all at once.

    My iPad lets me stay in touch, write, even draw, without carrying even my beautiful Air.

    The piano in my living room? You can have it if you'll get it out of here!

    ReplyDelete

Your comments are welcome. Or to respond privately email me at david.weinstock@gmail.com.