26 Jul News from Experienced Goods August 2021
Some things in life, and at our store, never go out of style … or out of use!
From Jennie Reichman
I have been watching the Harry Potter movies again. This is mostly because the internet has not been working at my house for the last week and a half (don’t get me started on the frustration of wrangling with the service provider) and the only way I can get a signal is to stand in the middle of the road that runs in front of my house with my laptop or sit on my front stoop (when it’s not raining) to hook into a public WiFi hot spot. My dear friend who lives on the west coast sent me the complete set of Potter movies on Blu-ray a couple of Christmases ago, and I have not been able to watch them because I didn’t, until recently, have a Blu-ray player. Blu-ray is one of those technologies that had a moment and then was subsumed by the rapidly evolving world of IT, discs of any sort becoming obsolete in the wake of streaming. And what happens when a piece of equipment becomes obsolete and people want to offload it? It comes to Experienced Goods. Lucky me! I bought my Blu-ray player for the cost of a gourmet sandwich and have been happily watching those wonderful movies in sparkling high definition while waiting for the repair person to call me back.
Our current world of computer-based technology is really pretty mind-blowing. I have, for the most part, embraced it and rely on my cell phone and the ability to text, my laptop for email, researching just about anything imaginable, writing, downloading recipes, knitting and sewing patterns and sheet music, and social media. And of course I rely on the myriad computer systems that keep our society and infrastructure functioning. It has a flavor of Harry Potter-esque magic to it, especially when I remember the rotary dial phone and 5 channel, antenna powered TV reception of my childhood. In today’s world, though, being without internet is like taking Harry’s wand away. Using my new Blu-ray machine reminded me how Experienced Goods is a treasure trove of useful things, things that may not be available in regular stores anymore but that have never stopped being functional: salad spinners, coffee makers, popcorn poppers, bread machines, crock pots. A hand-cranked grinder for making Turkish coffee, a tagine for making Moroccan stews. Stuff that maybe you could buy new, but why, when you can step into the shop on any given day and find it slightly used at a tiny price? Then there is the thinking that everything old is new again. For all of the world’s dependence on high tech, there are a lot of folks who embrace and celebrate low-tech equipment and techniques. I am reminded of the back to the land movement of the 1960s, a mind-set that never really disappeared but quietly persisted as technology advanced. Manual lawn mowers, hand saws, grain mills. Things you don’t have to plug in. Even rotary dial telephones! All of these wonders have come into Experienced Goods at one time or another and were purchased by shoppers excited to have found them. There are people who come into the shop and peruse the 25 cent shelf for VHS tapes, which tells me that the VCR player at their house is still in regular use. I have a few myself, beloved, quirky movies that never made it onto DVD.
As I write, it is a gorgeous summer morning, robins are arguing outside my open kitchen window, it is warm but not hot, and I am waiting for the internet repair person to show up, supposedly before 7 pm this evening. This means that I cannot leave the house today, which I secretly love. I will spend time in the garden, work on a sewing project, practice my guitar, do some cooking. Maybe vacuum if I feel really virtuous. By tomorrow I may have my internet magic up and running again, maybe even faster and more advanced. I am grateful for the many ways technology enhances my life, but also grateful for the simpler, more mundane objects and activities I call on when that technology is not available or when I want to reconnect with my essential self. Now if the techno-wizards could just figure out how to make broomsticks fly….