If you aren’t tired of reading my drivel yet, you might want to check out my second woodworking blog, “The American Peasant,” on Substack.
The new blog is about your typical woodworking stuff: tool reviews, carving Hungarian shepherd’s furniture with a tool you’ve never seen, admitting to drug crimes, fun projects. Plus zuegmas and neologisms!
Mostly it’s a peek at how I make a book. The research. The building. All the drawings and dead ends.
There are two ways to subscribe to “The American Peasant.” There is a “free” subscription that allows you to read the free entries (about one-third of the stuff). Or you can pay to read everything ($5/month or $60/year). There also is a free trial subscription so you can see if the blog is for you.
Why am I doing this? Read this to find out.
Here are some of the recent free entries you can read to get a taste:
Serf-ing USA
Recently an acquaintance left me speechless for a minute when he said: “Wait, I thought you were rich?”
The End of the Beautiful Meaningless
One of the reasons I’m not a fan of applied ornament on furniture is that it’s lost its meaning during the last few centuries. To be certain, some ornament is just gilding the lily, filling in blank spaces to delight or dazzle (or even disgust) the viewer.
‘Forged’ (Ahem) Hardware
If you like to see money and good effort get pooped down a rathole, you have found the right blog. There are many weird and false starts with a book. Here is today’s.
‘X’ Marks the Person
The second glyph/spell/prayer is a simple “X” in a square. In his book “Ácsolt ládák titkai,” Gyenes Tamás calls this a “slanted cross.” So, it could be viewed as a Christian symbol. (Crosses for crucifixion were sometimes made in the shape of an X, an I or a T.)
I promise that “The American Peasant” is not for everyone. It is my writing, but with the guardrails removed. It is personal (though always about woodworking). It is a lot of work for me to produce.
Several readers have criticized us for starting a second blog with a paywall. (Recent comment: “I guess you’re all about making money now and not about helping the craft.”) I hear you. But I also like to eat and pay my utility bills.
If you don’t like it, don’t buy it.
(The above sentence originally read, “Shut your gob and go back to yelling at clouds.” But then I decided that was too mean.)
— Christopher Schwarz
Personally I like the new blog. Nice to from someone who colors outside the lines.
Regarding your paywall, you give
more in one day than the critics will give in their lifetimes. I’ve also learned in my 77 years that once a person gives they keep on giving. I truly Thank You Chris
You are tres amusing! Don’t denigrate your forays into the metaphysics and philosophy of craft. Some of us have spent a lifetime at it and still feel like neophytes. I attended your three day presentation at the Minnesota Woodworker’s Guild fall symposium three years ago and was enthralled. Which doesn’t mean I’ll build a stick chair anytime soon; sorry. Love the concept; not the result. I build beds and desks and tables and whatever else anyone is willing to pay me for. Would love to visit your shop. My stepson used to live in Covington. Will have to make a visit to Columbus coincide with one of your open shops. All the best.
Twenty points to Schwarzendor for getting gob and cake hole in on the same week.
I don’t mind you putting things behind a paywall, I’m just glad you didn’t go with onlyfans
Never underestimate the market for Sasquatch soft-core
Mr SchwArz,
Good times! But can we backslash the peasant with peon!? It just sounds soooo much more degrading as to how we are all worker bees in a capitalist/industrialist world and the peon, being Orc-ish in nature, is where we are headed with all the sugar and petroleum bi-products we ingest. Guess i played too much warcraft back in the 90s (and no not this new-age WoW crap that people get sucked into and think they are now leprechauns cause their avatar flys and has pansies blooming out their bum holes).
Zug zug…Jobs Done Mi Lord..
I’m going with the grain here Chris!, . I subscribed because I have always enjoyed your dialogue and I own several of your publications in print and digital.
As a self employed carpenter for decades your work has enhanced my view of a lot of previously unthought of aspects …the future is ours to behold!!
Cheers,
Russ T Munn
I could understand the frustration if this blog were being put behind a paywall (though even that wouldn’t justify the sarcasm). Some people, eh?
Shouldn’t it be something like $5/month or $49.99/year?
Yes, and the subscription should come with a Time Color Phone. Judy, the Time-Life operator, is standing by to take your order.
Chris, with all due respect, shouldn’t everything you do match all of my preferences exactly? I thought that was how this worked.
Seriously though — the new blog is very good! I confess I haven’t yet decided if I’m going to pony up for the paid subscription. The teaser about shrooms has me very very close, though…
I’m enjoying the Substack. Zugma though… a character in World of Warcraft apparently… or the start of a dirty joke. A zeugma is a figure of speech; always happy to open my mind and my wallet for a new one. (That one I copped, from yourdictionary.com.) One of those terms I forget until re-reminded of it… I saw a friend’s mom recently, in her mid-80s, who made me listen through Have Some Madeira, M’dear, when I was in high school and first met her. Zeugma aplenty.
Fixed. I dropped the “e.”
“Shut your gob” – what an awesomely English turn of phrase! 👍
For occasional variety, one can replace “gob” with “cake ‘ole” … always remembering that “your” is pronounced “yer” in both cases 😜
The problem with legacy media is, it’s free. The advertisers pay the bills which means they drive the content. We as Americans have forgotten there is no free lunch
If I pay the bill I get to drive the content and Chris gets to eat
Ha! I’ll see your zeugma and raise you a chiasmus.
Favorite example, by those wandring grammarians Mick & Keith:
She blew my nose and the she blew my mind. . .
Rock on, and the new Substack sounds interesting. Look forward to checking it out,
Dave