The Soothing Hands of Craftsmen
Welcome back to Culture Club, the weekly feature where Talia and I discuss our preoccupations—what we’ve been thinking about, reading, watching or playing.
At some point between season 3 and 4 of "Blown Away"—Netflix’s magnificent show about glassblowing, in which upstate New York's Corning Museum of Glass is treated not a little like Mecca and/or Medina—the producers decided to jettison the original host, a science YouTuber, replace him with a beautiful GigaChad, and stop inserting explanations about how glassblowing actually works.
While glassmaking is still fundamentally mysterious to me, and I appreciated the pop-up video-style explainers about melting points, this new development didn’t trouble me too much. Because I watch this show for one thing and one thing only: to see people who really kick ass at doing something hard do it in complicated and amazing ways, while cheerleading from my couch. I am not here to learn. I am here to be mildly awed by the fact that people this skilled exist, and it’s incredibly soothing to watch them.
Within me are two wolves: one is complicated and weird and spends her time researching the far-right, freaking out about a fascist takeover, harrowed by the war on women’s rights, trying to read Middlemarch and continually falling asleep, very conscious of projecting an image of being your fascinating friend who is always learning stuff and conveying it. The other one is a basic bitch who likes iced coffee, sunshine, and reality TV shows with pregnant pauses after the phrase “The glassblower who has to leave the hot shop is…” while the music swells.
I like bracket-style competitions. I like watching the craftsmen get better as the group gets smaller. I get sad when people I like get kicked out. I enjoy formulas and this one hits hard every time! There’s nothing wrong with it! Skills should be celebrated, judges should be flamboyant, and there need to be emotional cutaways and pregnant pauses at dramatic moments. The basic bitch within me demands it, and is soothed in a time when very little is soothing (and when being soothed too much, when divesting yourself of alarm, is arguably a bad thing, but a bad thing that’s necessary sometimes, because breaking apart into shards like improperly blown glass in a hot shop is not necessarily useful for greater social improvement.)
At any rate, I recently downloaded a VPN service so I could watch a show called “Handmade: Britain’s Best Woodworker” (which is contested on the same Blown Away/Great British Bake Off template in which one competitor is eliminated per week) and I enjoyed the hell out of it. Bring on the lathes! I am judging you for not making a Gothic enough bed! Your dollhouse mechanics disappoint me! I can barely even use a hammer but I am going to opine HARD on your use of beech.
Also in this bracket of incredibly soothing programs: "Full Bloom", also only available in the UK for some reason although it is in fact an HBO show (BUT IT’S NOT ON MAX? WHY? STREAMING SERVICES NUKING THEIR OWN CONTENT IS JUST ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF THE SLIPPERY EPHEMERALITY OF THE INTERNET AND WHY OWNING HARD COPIES OF STUFF IS A GOOD IDEA). This show is floristry on a grand scale; it’s totally absurd; one judge rings a gay little bell when time is up and it’s EXTREMELY campy, but also awesome. I am very invested in Lutfi’s use of colorful anthuriums! I cannot believe what Rachel did with preserved bunny-tail ferns! The florist who will no longer be joining us is…
The point is, I work with words, not my hands, and while I’m trying to remedy this and gain some other skills (I’m taking a watercolor painting class!), watching people who are very good at doing things creating beautiful things in forty-minute segments is a joy. I recommend all these shows, and also giving the basic bitch within you the meat she requires to go on and make sure you keep living. These are difficult times. Go watch competitive glassblowing. It’s hot.
Love,
Talia
This was absolutely fantastic writing and resonated with me a lot! (I appreciate now having the warning about the show's host change; I enjoy competitive skill-based shows in all the ways and for all the reasons you talk about, but possibly get even more attached to the hosts than any competitor and tend to have VERY unfair "I hate you! You're not my real dad!" reactions toward any replacement host.)
I'm delighted by your other, British recommendations and cannot wait to check them out. I also keep meaning to find a VPN and streaming site that will let me watch The Great British Sewing Bee! Years ago I caught, like, the first one and a half seasons on one of those horrible "pitch-adjusted and mirror-flipped to avoid a copyright flag" types of YouTube videos, and became absolutely obsessed, then crushed when I couldn't find any more uploads.
We love Blown Away and we'd enjoyed Sugar Rush so we weren't too upset when he turned up as the new host on Blown Away. Like Ebby, we wanted to watch Sewing Bee but can't find it on streaming. Sounds like we'd enjoy Handmade (or "Good with Wood" as IMDB has it).