Saturday, January 14, 2012

Knit-wits and more...

UPDATE 3: Incidentally, a pacifist would not promulgate, in whatever form, a weapon that causes so much harm.

UPDATE 2: Being harangued for a technical failure is so joyous when the comments have been published. . Somehow, the failure of someone to understand the basics of sensibility when presenting a grenade as a 'fun' thing confuses me. "I do not promote actual grenades" - but you do present a 'grenade' as a thing of fun... which it is not. The images are not my images but images from the real world of the maiming and death caused by grenades and landmines. Perhaps we should all make little crafty 'fun' models of Belsen or Dachcau to show the irony to be seen there with 'pretend' gas chambers where jolly pizzas can be baked. Matter is closed as I do not engage in flame wars.

UPDATE: To the maker of the hand grenades... your understanding of irony is misplaced and confused. This is 'fun' and 'ironic'... here. Some more here. Alternatively you could do some 'fun' land mines or better still use your skills to knit covers for limb stumps while people wait for their prosthesis to be made. Let me know as I have a good friend AK who bases his career and life crafting and fitting these for people ... and for 'fun'. Why? He has a huge heart...

I am a great supporter of people who use their skills to craft and create items from raw materials rather than simply buying things 'off-the-shelf'. Not only are they predominantly of high quality, they are usually unique and not mass produced items. Equally, they do not have 'Made in China' on them and the money spent on the purchase normally goes to support someone's personal or local economy. It is all a question of scale and I am fully prepared to pay extra for something that is well made that I know will invariably last longer due to the attention to detail paid. If it fits in with the above criteria I am happy.

One prime example of this is the Etsy website here. As a visit there will reveal you will be able to find many unique items (plus odder than an odd person's thing items too) that have a unique beauty of their own. When items such as these are gifted, the giver gets equal joy from knowing the recipient is likely to be exceedingly happy with what is clearly a gift given with thought.

However, often I scratch my head and give a "WTF?" type of response when I see items like these shown below. Do not get me wrong here, I am NOT belittling the efforts of individuals concerned. Particularly when you have some very rewarding results to be found here. (I love the photo and the guys are clearly benefiting from their involvement in their knitting.

I am merely pondering the "Why?" behind the effort put in to create items like those from here of which I provide some random picture examples below. At this point I shake my head in disbelief and bemusement. I am still unable to comprehend spending the amount of money proposed for a self-portrait made from Gummi Bears... I mean... seriously "WTF? WTF?!!!!!"

IMAGE REMOVED AS DISTASTEFUL - Please see comments

Described as 'a beautiful bowl of knitted hand grenades'.

Or how about knitting your own Death Star? Here.



Again, I raise the point "Why?". Take the Dr. Zoidberg one...


... why?

AND before I forget... the Gummi Bear portraits... "HOW MUCH?" 'Are you kidding me or what?' Again... WTF? and WHY???? Someone please enlighten me...

I am lost for words. 'totally rad'? I could be far more 'rad' on a night out with that amount of cash, let me tell you...

2 comments:

shoshana said...

as the creator of the knitted grenades, i can answer your question of "why?" with: because they're funny and cute and interesting and unique and super fun to throw at people without hurting them. they are meant to be ironic - real grenades are hard and destructive, these are soft and harmless. and did i mention how cute they are? while they might not be to your particular taste, they are actually the most popular items on my etsy store. luckily there are some people out there with a sense of humor.

shoshana said...

nice how you responded to my comment but didn't post it. i understand that real grenades do terrible harm. i am a pacifist. my uncle was killed in vietnam by a land mine. i do not promote actual weapons that kill and maim. my grenades do not produce the effect that your horrible images illustrate. they bounce quite harmlessly off of the target and usually produce a smile. i don't think anyone would buy my knitted grenades and decide that real grenades are awesome and that they should go buy one. that's ridiculous. again, they are ironic because they are the exact opposite of the item they represent. my understanding of irony is actually spot-on: "incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs" - from the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language.