The Occasional CEO is on the short list of my enjoyable, regular blog-reading. Today's offering, I Love the Swiss Watch, struck my funny bone, perhaps because it's a tad sensitive due to a few stresses and the stock market playing How Low Can You Go?
Did I say I'd take the Swiss trains ahead of a Swiss watch? I really meant I'll take a Swiss son-in-law. Practical and elegant.Thanks...
I'd add to the CEO's post that the main difference between the Rolex and the Timex is beauty. Craftsmanship, attention to detail and design, durable materials, and lifetime warranties combine to make the Rolex more of an investment/endowment-of-the-art than a pragmatist purchase. Do we need people who can wrestle beauty out of materials, be that with a watchmaker's screwdriver or a power drill, with a chisel, a paintbrush, or an oboe? In times like these, more than ever.
Or when was the last time a Timex made you rejoice?
I think I need to see one of these Swiss watches—preferably in a museum where I can't even breathe on it—since imagining a watch worth $1600, let alone ten times that, is further than my imagination can stretch. I don't know if I've ever had a Timex, and I'll grant that whatever watch was the first one I received as a child probably made me quite happy, but the only watch I can truthfully remember making me rejoice was a clunky, black Casio that gave me an address book, two times zones, alarms, a timer, and a stopwatch in addition to telling the time. I think the only thing wrong with it was that it was so inexpensive, replacing the battery cost nearly as much as the watch itself.
I absolutely agree with the need for beauty, craftsmanship, and especially excellence. Janet took us to a gemstone museum in Japan where I could have gazed for hours at the beauty and wonder of the crystals. Oddly enough, however, gemstones in the context of jewelry rarely have the same effect. I thrill to see a multi-million dollar Renoir hanging in a museum, but would far rather have a priceless KA watercolor adorning the wall of my house.
My watch isn't beautiful, but I could never let my grandkids play with a Swiss watch and fear nothing worse than being awakened at 3 a.m. because they set the alarm.
Now to see a Swiss watch in a museum, or even better in the place where they are made, and to watch the craftsmen at work, and see the tiny tools of their art—that would be thrilling, I think.
And speaking of beauty, this morning I watched four deer cavorting in the back yard. Three does and a buck, making themselves completely at home. (The price for this beauty is having to clean up the yard before playing football.) The buck had a magnificent set of antlers, and he walked with a pride and grace that indicated he knew he was a magnificent patriarch.
