The checkers at my favorite grocery store still ask customers whether they want paper or plastic–meaning the material the bag is made from. As opposed to Australia, where a checker asking that would mean “cash or credit/debit card.”
The use of plastic bags everywhere generally surprises me, because–unless my memory is faultier than I think–plastic is an oil-based product. Non-renewable, right? Check gas prices if in doubt; if gas gets any more expensive, perhaps engines could be made that burn tobacco instead. Choke! Choke!
On the other hand, paper is still made from trees. Replantable time and again.
But this post isn’t about bags at the grocery store. If it were, I’d also have to mention those bring-your-own-or-purchase-at-the-store cloth bags that are sturdier and long-time reusable. Or maybe I’d be talking green.
But in spite of just having unwittingly poured sloppy joe mix into the pan with the meat and taco mix, I’m not green today.
Nope. I’m talking aesthetics. Beauty versus functionality. And–believe it or not–I’m talking about guitars, not bags.
About forty years or so ago, an airplane engineer and guitar player named Charles Kaman came out with a novel idea–a guitar with a wooden top (as the front of a guitar is referred to) and a plastic, bowl shape that takes the place of the sides and back and projects the sound in a way traditionally styled guitars don’t do. Mr. Kaman developed something he called Lyrachord, a plastic-like material that’s tough as sin but produces the woodlike sounds of wooden guitars.
He probably had other endorsers at the time, but Glen Campbell (for those of you old enough to remember him) was probably the first big-time user of Ovation guitars, as Mr. Kaman’s new product was named. Over the years since then, the number of well-known Ovation users has grown beyond my ability to count, and Ovation has instruments to fit the budgets of everyone from beginners to experienced pros.
Although I used to have a Gibson acoustical guitar that could never be replaced now for the $151 it cost in 1963, my first really good guitar was an Ovation Anniversary. My wife of the time and I had actually visited the Ovation factory in Connecticut, and the marketing manager had recommended that model as the best for the price, and I traded two lesser Ovations–plus that old Gibson–for an Anniversary.
I’d never had a guitar with a more beautiful tone, but there was one problem. That plastic bowl was still plastic. It wasn’t totally ugly, but it lacked the charm of wood.
More and more, I caught myself admiring those gorgeous, hand-made, all-wooden Martins, and I ended up getting a lower-end Martin after selling the Anniversary. I also got a less expensive Guild. Both guitars are unbelievably attractive with their wooden features, and the sound is good. Uh, super.
But I’m getting older, and steel strings aren’t doing my fingers any good. So upon discovering that some guitar makers manufacture nylon-string guitars with a slightly narrower neck than traditional classical guitars, I hopped on a new bandwagon. I bought a fairly inexpensive Fender and, a year later, have returned to the fold and bought another Ovation, a model far superior to the Fender.
Am I being inconsistent? Why can’t I make up my mind? Don’t I care anymore about the aesthetics involved? Or have I reached a point where practicality trumps visual beauty?
Hard to say. I still have the Martin.
But I’m trying to decide what to do with the Guild.
If You Could Read My Mind. . . 