Crowbars and Taste

I was doing some demolition in a client’s kitchen the other day and picked up a crowbar. And as I picked up the crowbar I noticed the brand-name label on it and it gave me pause. I was certain it said “RougeNeck” and wondered if I had stolen some Metrosexual’s crowbar. Unfortunately, after a moment of clarity I realized it was “RoughNeck.”

I mean, it was a nice looking crowbar, all clean, black and shiny. Almost too nice to use on demolition. Clearly the owner of this must have good taste.  I started thinking about taste and style and such and how it can really be applied to almost anything, though we tend to think of it as applied to a small number of areas like clothing, interior design and wine and the like. And we maybe fall into the trap of believing if someone doesn’t have “good” taste, in say, clothing that they probably don’t have good taste in anything. It’s always easy to want to universalize when we don’t have the information available to prove otherwise.

This is starting to sound like a treatise in defence of myself since I admittedly don’t have much taste or style when it comes to clothing. In fact, the other day I was talking with my firend James about peformers and musucians and the like presenting an image as part of their performance. And I just said straight out, ” I have no clothing style.” He just laughed and said “No you don’t.” Thanks.

But this is not a defense. I have no defence on that front.

The question I am inching towards is “Can one improve one’s taste or style?” or is it just some innate ability or skill. And this can apply to anything not just clothing and wine, but to music or lawn care or boats or cars or yogurt or chocolate.

Obvious to me is that it is a matter of education and cultivation. A little bit of mentorship doesn’t hurt either. Learning how one thing works leads to an easier learning of how another things works and so on. Learning to learn.

The downside of that is that education and cultivation take time and effort and some submersion. Effort and discipline. I think those are like swear words nowadays.   Anyway the point is that one can improve one’s taste and style. The fun thing is that there is no universal definitive to what good taste is.  Factions persist. Snobs persist too. Everything persists. But there is hope, even for me.

I recall being at a spendy wedding one time. When the champagne came out, it looked to be some very nice California bubbly when some one said in a mock snobby voice “You know, this Champagne sees rather domestic.” Ahh, Bach.

(yes, wine snobs, I d know that champagne technically only comes from the Champagne region of France).

This entry was posted on 17. July 2008 at 09:47 and is filed under Permusations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.