"Long form" is great but this is longer than that. Into the realm of pointless persiflage.
If I understand correctly, the problem is the existence of 3 corkscrews in their drawer? And the big one works best... So throw out the other two? Or at least relegate them to deep storage?
This might not even be a problem, with proper propitiation of Anoia.
It may arguably be a little too long and could have done with a little more editing. But sitting here on my sofa between Christmas and New Year with an open tin of Quality Street and too many empty wrappers next to me, this is exactly the type of content I like to find on HN at this time.
The essay isn't about the corkscrew, although it is mentioned many times, nor the junk drawer. It's about the burden of stuff in general and some reasons many of us feel the burden.
Right but the ostensible hook for the reader's interest is the moderately banal design of the corkscrew. Which, to anyone with any sense of perspective, is not a particularly compelling problem.
Indeed, I would rather have a banal corkscrew than have to read a totally banal essay. At least the corkscrew does not falsely purport to impart wisdom to me.
I can understand how what I personally find engaging can be banal and unnecessary to others, but with this case I can't think of anything that would serve as a more fitting opening metaphor for the entire essay. The chunky wine opener that serves its intended purpose and was a gift, but lays taking up an incongruent amount of space for its intended use invites some observation on all the other unused-but-still-owned stuff that we're forced to either continue possessing or send along to the trash.
I guess some (not implying you) might consider the observations somewhat shallow, and maybe they would find the solution to be "simple". Just throw more stuff out.
The corkscrew is the ‘every-man’ item that allows for reflection on modern desires in tension. It’s about the corkscrew the same way that [the] summer’s day to which thee I shall compare is still slightly actually about the summer day.
Burrowing into minutia: "The Rabbit"-type cork pullers are far easier and faster. These are gear-assisted, spiral pullers obviating the need for elbow grease. Stubborn corks still need the two prongs-type to coax them out (or in).
Oddly I think the author mentions he (she?) has a few of those and despite their aesthetic loathing of the Oxo one, they find it more efficient than the traditional ones. Or at least I assume that's what they're talking about when mentioning their other corkscrews.
As for Oxo itself, I find the brand frustrating.
The author rightly asserts that Oxo devices are utterly hideous... But on the other hand, Oxo is one of the few brands that is both consistently available and consistently high quality.
Now that shopping is a minefield of unusably defective low-quality goods from anonymous Chinese ephemeral marks, reputable built-for-life brands with a wide spectrum of products like Oxo are critical to survival.
An Oxo kitchen utensil may be bulbous and black, but it won't be rusty, bent, cracked, tarnished, peeling, oily, or poisonous.
Oxo, like any large company, has hit-or-miss designs. Their lettuce spinner is adequate. I wish they made their storage containers in glass.
Low quality products are infiltrating markets, including Amazon, at an alarming rate. Take a small category as a signal: 3d printer filament vacuum bags. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of nearly-identical listings for what can best be described as a glorified ZipLoc, 2 mil storage bag with a piece of tape over a hole to be used as a "valve." I left an honest review about how horrible, overpriced, and useless this product was. The seller then had the audacity to email me directly 3x to bribe me to delete the review.
Prior generations didn't fear rust, bending or tarnishing, because they were taught how to care for those items. And if they were damaged, they'd get repaired! I fear that by making the world more idiot-proof we're inviting more idiots.
Burrowing into minutia: "The Rabbit"-type cork pullers are far easier and faster.
I've seen faster. In a luxury restaurant. It was just a long curved awl with a T handle. No idea how difficult it is to master or how good it is for problem corks. But fast? Sure.
Cork pullers for expensive wine are just two metal flat prongs that slide down the sides, and you twist the bottle and pull. It keeps the cork intact so that old deteriorated cork doesn't fall into the wine. Both the most minimal and effective uncorker, and of course nobody owns one except chefs, sommeliers and rich folk
IIRC it was just one metal pointy piece. It's no mistery how it pulled the cork: the S shape. Probably driving it in the cork is more difficult... anyway it was just a second.
If it's any comfort, corkscrews do break. We went from three to one over the course of a couple of years, and the one remaining is not wholly satisfactory. (The part that pushes against the bottle rim is a little askew--it hasn't failed yet, but may in a while.) Perhaps I could start setting money aside for its replacement--a hegemonic fund.
And might I complain about the adjective "famous" attached to an essay by an author I've never heard of, and suspect most of the HN readership has never heard of? I'd settle for "noted", I guess.
I'm curious about which type of corkscrew you're using. I never heard of one breaking as you open a bottle (in France it's really common to have a Creuset-type corkscrew at home). I personally use the one on my Swiss army knife and I'm pretty confident it won't break. Maybe you'd want to get one of those, they're pretty cheap and can outlive you easily if you don't lose it.
edit: seems like you're using the lever ("the part that pushes against the bottle rim") to open the bottle. You may want to ditch it altogether: just hold the bottle between your legs and pull on the corkscrew to extract the cork.
The ones that failed were of the sort with levers on the side, geared to the shaft so that the levers rise as the screw goes into the cork. One then presses down on the levers to pull out the screw.
Once you reach a certain level of wealth that is not uncommon in developed countries, owning physical stuff is a burden. Not only corkscrews: furniture, appliances, a car, a house. You get regular reminders of this when you've spent your entire adult life moving from tiny apartment to tiny apartment in European city centers.
Unless I'm intimate with someone's present, pressing needs, the only gift I'll dare to buy another adult will be food, drinks, or experiences.
If you need a corkscrew, the only one you'll ever need is a double-stepped waiters corkscrew (I own a Creuset [0] which is fine but there's plenty of cheaper alternatives). They're small, last forever and work for every tight or crumbling cork you might have to deal with.
I guess that if you buy very expensive wines and like to drink alone, you may find some use in a fancy contraption I've seen used in Burgundy this summer which allows you to pour wine while keeping the cork in the bottle [1]. It is expensive, high maintenance and fiddly.
Everything in between, I really don't see the point.
Nice to hear about your experience, sounds like a good use case. I briefly considered it to allow better food pairings in small dinners. The marginal benefit wouldn't justify the cost of ownership for me, though.
That would be a good reason. None of the many people I've seen getting these for Christmas over the years had arthritis. What they did all have was a friend or relative with a social obligation to buy some crap for them and a zillion other people in a crowded mall on the 24th afternoon.
Well, the reason Oxo has been so successful is that it turns out that if you make things easier to hold and use, it is not only better for people with arthritis, but it turns out almost everyone else likes it better too. You may not need it, but why would you not prefer an easier grip, all else being equal?
But I do agree this isn't a good gift item unless you specifically know the person needs a new corkscrew. I hate having redundant stuff.
i'm pretty certain that most of OXOs sales are due to the fact that many grocery stores just have one little section of kitchen tools and only carry that brand.
they are ugly, not particularly ergonomic and age horribly.
I used a lever-type corkscrew to open about 40 bottles of wine at a large party last year. It was really easy, although I can't remember it well enough to consider someone with arthritis.
I’ve got a Swiss Army knife that’s twenty years older than me. Does the job well and many other ones too and will outlive me no doubt.
As for fancy contraptions, these can be avoided by drinking the whole bottle when you open it, preferably with someone interesting at hand to share it! Wine is awful stuff without good company.
I don't understand French but I got one which resembles your first one (or should I say the zeroth..). Works pretty well. You can also just use a swiss army knife, if you don't often open a bottle. Because, in theory, you would use the swiss army knife for a whole lot of other things, saving space and money. In a tiny house I would prefer a swiss army knife.
The solution to not getting stuff I don't want is simple (even though I could appreciate Tony Chocolonely chocolate, or a Steam voucher). I tell people to not bother, give our young kids some more instead. At a certain age in life, if you want/need something you buy it, and you don't what (what I call in Dutch) prullaria (anymore). Boring? Difficult? No problem, my kids are easier to serve. Although I do remove (sometimes temporarily) and eventually resell stuff of theirs. Even there, I believe less is more and its easier to clean and sort, too. But buying allows them to try things out.
You don't even need a Swiss Army Knife, if you don't drink a lot of corked wine, a shoe will do just fine [1].
Seriously though, Swiss Army Knives are the epitome of "jack of all trades, master of none". It's so much better to use the proper tool for the job. I've had the same $10 sommelier knife longer than I've ever owned a Swiss Army Knife (since my wine knife stays in the kitchen drawer).
As a wine drinker, I agree with all of this... even though I use the Rabbit I got years ago. I find it convenient, but others do not.
One comment on Coravin from a professional (I've only used it a couple of times) is that it works well on some corks and not on others, particularly older ones. They can leak significantly, which makes it useless for your expensive old cab.
Also, temperature stability becomes VERY critical as any change causes pressure in the bottle to change, and air to ex-change!
If you have a "certain level of wealth", why would you move from tiny apartment to tiny apartment? You have no need to sell your previous one, or just no need to move. Also, why are they tiny?
It sounds like you're talking about being nomadic on a middle to high income.
Most wealthy people I know own big houses in places like Kensington or Hampstead or whatever the equivalent is. They might also have a pied a terre or three, sure, but they're not constantly moving.
I think the point was that moving from tiny apartment to tiny apartment happened before he became wealthy, so he compares now, where he has to maintain all that stuff (car, house, furniture in all rooms, yard) vs before when he had maybe a sofa, a desk, and a laptop.
Moving a lot served me as a recurring reminder of the burden of stuff, but it's not the only way that it materializes.
Stuff takes space, stuff adds clutter, some stuff requires administrative overhead, most stuff requires maintenance.
I prefer tiny apartments in central neighbourhoods than bigger ones in the suburbs. Stuff enters into that equation. I can't afford a big house in Kensington. So OK, if I could afford a big house in Kensington plus a couple of pied-à-terre, maybe I wouldn't worry so much about stuff. I could have an extra room for a corkscrew collection and hired hands to deal with it. Stuff staff.
I added the "certain level of wealth" qualifier to make it clear that I didn't mean to claim that being burdened by stuff is a universal experience. It's a problem tied to abundance, like obesity and information overload. This level of wealth is much lower than what most people would consider "wealthy".
I had an ingeniously evil thought in that regard, that if you don't like somebody, and you have money to spend, you could anonymously buy a few items of low-quality on Amazon to the person's address and name as gifts.
Most people, even relatively well-off ones will keep free stuff. And will be in pain either because they will actually continue using it, and get annoyed by its low quality, or stop using it, but leave it around as junk because of the instinct to hoard.
The article overall resonates, but the derision for what the author admits is an incredibly enabling piece of accessible hardware reads like a jerk complaining about the aesthetics of accessible parking spaces.
I like this author's reflections on sustainability, supply chains, and labor, but I don't find their class-anxiety over their cork-pull being middlebrow very relatable.
My first impulse is "give it to a thrift store", which is where I buy all of my clothing. But then I think about how poorly-organized and unpredictable the housewares department at the thrift store is, and wonder if, once it was donated, if anyone would ever buy it. We do a bad job at recycling in our society, but we do an even worse job at reusing. Imagine if reuse were something we were really dedicated to: thrift stores would pool their inventories and rationalize their stocking in a way that would make the nearest thrift store a viable choice when you want a specific common item, and not just when you're browsing to see what you can find.
This article is a counterpoint to any call to reducing consumption, where people get downright angry or at least dismiss it as completely impossible/ridiculous. Our culture is based on consumption, and it seems that people cannot imagine a life without a junk drawer full of unused corkscrews.
For its refusal to signify, its bulk, and its sheer unnecessariness in my already-overstuffed drawer, I’ve been ready to ditch this corkpull for months. During the pandemic, though, it’s even more impossible than usual to get rid of things. After a year inside with all my objects, clutter has taken on a malevolent unruliness, tote bags procreating inside other tote bags and external hard drives with unknown contents taunting from the back of the closet. Boxes and paper grocery bags pile up along the hallway, full of things to be gotten rid of. But the thrift stores and donation drop-offs are still closed, or have limited hours. And you know that most of those things don’t get sold.
Every corkscrew I own is unwanted. I don't even drink. It has been years since I ever needed to use one in my own home. (The cooking wine I use is screw-top.) That said, I own at least six of things. Why? They are attached to other objects that I actually use. Two are on swiss army knives I've owned for decades. Two came packaged with other products (sets of kitchen tools). The others are attached to my can openers, which I do use.
Question: Has anyone here ever used the can opener on a swiss army knife? It is there. It is slow but does work. For all my corkscrews, many times I've found myself without a can-opener and had to resort to the swiss army knife.
I've been using the can opener on my leatherman for two or three years now exclusively... my old can opener broke and every time I think to buy a new one in a store I see the price of a good one and think "well fuck that", even though yes obviously I way more than that on all sorts of stuff regularly.
Works fine, I'm pretty handy with it, not much slower than the standard clamp and crank style.
I use my Swiss army knife regularly, as alluded to elsewhere in this thread. It has supplanted a few other tools in an effort to minimise the amount of crap I have. The one I own is 20 years older than me and is a hand me down from my father. One of the most useful things I own.
As for opening cans, I use it for that after the last can opener I had fell to bits about a decade ago. Takes a bit of practice but you can chunk through a can in about 10 seconds reliably. It also opens cans that the can openers won't grip properly.
I've used it to build a couple of PCs with as well as the only tool.
As for not drinking, most of the wine I get gifted goes into a pot and is used for cooking. I'll only drink it if there's someone interesting to drink it with, which is sadly not happening that often these days.
"I know it’s not entirely my fault, this material glut that accumulates in drifts and droves, turning my apartment, and probably yours, into a way station for wayward objects."
Your apartment, your life, your fault. Lots of people take "reduce, reuse, recycle" extremely seriously: generating very little trash, only owning things they need, not replacing them until they're broken, and then getting a used replacement. And in fact, if you just got rid of that junk by giving it to Goodwill or a Free Stuff Facebook group, you'd be helping reduce the consumption of new goods, too. Having it sit in that drawer is the second worst thing you could do.
“The true purpose of a present is to be received.”
"... You don’t have to keep using the gift forever. If you try using the item and decide that it still doesn’t suit you, thank it for the joy it brought when you first received it – and bid it farewell. The true purpose of a present is to be received, because gifts are a means of conveying someone’s feelings for you. When viewed from this perspective, there is no need to feel guilty about parting with a gift that ultimately doesn’t spark joy."
59 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 134 ms ] threadIf I understand correctly, the problem is the existence of 3 corkscrews in their drawer? And the big one works best... So throw out the other two? Or at least relegate them to deep storage?
This might not even be a problem, with proper propitiation of Anoia.
https://discworld.fandom.com/wiki/Anoia
I have a folding waiters corkscrew included in my work and home took kit and a multi tool with a corkscrew in my laptop bag.
It was a different time.
Indeed, I would rather have a banal corkscrew than have to read a totally banal essay. At least the corkscrew does not falsely purport to impart wisdom to me.
I guess some (not implying you) might consider the observations somewhat shallow, and maybe they would find the solution to be "simple". Just throw more stuff out.
[0] https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=ifdz4x...
The implications of these questions are exactly what the essay is about.
As for Oxo itself, I find the brand frustrating.
The author rightly asserts that Oxo devices are utterly hideous... But on the other hand, Oxo is one of the few brands that is both consistently available and consistently high quality.
Now that shopping is a minefield of unusably defective low-quality goods from anonymous Chinese ephemeral marks, reputable built-for-life brands with a wide spectrum of products like Oxo are critical to survival.
An Oxo kitchen utensil may be bulbous and black, but it won't be rusty, bent, cracked, tarnished, peeling, oily, or poisonous.
Low quality products are infiltrating markets, including Amazon, at an alarming rate. Take a small category as a signal: 3d printer filament vacuum bags. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of nearly-identical listings for what can best be described as a glorified ZipLoc, 2 mil storage bag with a piece of tape over a hole to be used as a "valve." I left an honest review about how horrible, overpriced, and useless this product was. The seller then had the audacity to email me directly 3x to bribe me to delete the review.
I've seen faster. In a luxury restaurant. It was just a long curved awl with a T handle. No idea how difficult it is to master or how good it is for problem corks. But fast? Sure.
Never seen one in shops.
Edit: curved I mean a soft S shape. No screw.
And might I complain about the adjective "famous" attached to an essay by an author I've never heard of, and suspect most of the HN readership has never heard of? I'd settle for "noted", I guess.
edit: seems like you're using the lever ("the part that pushes against the bottle rim") to open the bottle. You may want to ditch it altogether: just hold the bottle between your legs and pull on the corkscrew to extract the cork.
Unless I'm intimate with someone's present, pressing needs, the only gift I'll dare to buy another adult will be food, drinks, or experiences.
If you need a corkscrew, the only one you'll ever need is a double-stepped waiters corkscrew (I own a Creuset [0] which is fine but there's plenty of cheaper alternatives). They're small, last forever and work for every tight or crumbling cork you might have to deal with.
I guess that if you buy very expensive wines and like to drink alone, you may find some use in a fancy contraption I've seen used in Burgundy this summer which allows you to pour wine while keeping the cork in the bottle [1]. It is expensive, high maintenance and fiddly.
Everything in between, I really don't see the point.
[0] https://www.lecreuset.fr/fr_FR/p/wt-110-sommelier-double-lev...
[1] https://www.coravin.fr/
I bought it when my wife was pregnant and have continued to use it with white wines (I’m the only one who drinks white in my social group).
> Everything in between, I really don't see the point.
The point is some people have things like arthritis or other challenges that benefit from greater mechanical advantage.
But I do agree this isn't a good gift item unless you specifically know the person needs a new corkscrew. I hate having redundant stuff.
they are ugly, not particularly ergonomic and age horribly.
But there are models that have a two-handed operation that doesn't require the tiny bit of skill the GP's one need to not break the cork.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=476wTEKDOVc (1 minute).
By combining one or more longer levers with gearing/worm drive, many do exactly that.
https://www.21geometry.com/corkscew-case-study
As for fancy contraptions, these can be avoided by drinking the whole bottle when you open it, preferably with someone interesting at hand to share it! Wine is awful stuff without good company.
The solution to not getting stuff I don't want is simple (even though I could appreciate Tony Chocolonely chocolate, or a Steam voucher). I tell people to not bother, give our young kids some more instead. At a certain age in life, if you want/need something you buy it, and you don't what (what I call in Dutch) prullaria (anymore). Boring? Difficult? No problem, my kids are easier to serve. Although I do remove (sometimes temporarily) and eventually resell stuff of theirs. Even there, I believe less is more and its easier to clean and sort, too. But buying allows them to try things out.
Seriously though, Swiss Army Knives are the epitome of "jack of all trades, master of none". It's so much better to use the proper tool for the job. I've had the same $10 sommelier knife longer than I've ever owned a Swiss Army Knife (since my wine knife stays in the kitchen drawer).
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXihX13xjqQ
One comment on Coravin from a professional (I've only used it a couple of times) is that it works well on some corks and not on others, particularly older ones. They can leak significantly, which makes it useless for your expensive old cab.
Also, temperature stability becomes VERY critical as any change causes pressure in the bottle to change, and air to ex-change!
If you have a "certain level of wealth", why would you move from tiny apartment to tiny apartment? You have no need to sell your previous one, or just no need to move. Also, why are they tiny?
It sounds like you're talking about being nomadic on a middle to high income.
Most wealthy people I know own big houses in places like Kensington or Hampstead or whatever the equivalent is. They might also have a pied a terre or three, sure, but they're not constantly moving.
Stuff takes space, stuff adds clutter, some stuff requires administrative overhead, most stuff requires maintenance.
I prefer tiny apartments in central neighbourhoods than bigger ones in the suburbs. Stuff enters into that equation. I can't afford a big house in Kensington. So OK, if I could afford a big house in Kensington plus a couple of pied-à-terre, maybe I wouldn't worry so much about stuff. I could have an extra room for a corkscrew collection and hired hands to deal with it. Stuff staff.
I added the "certain level of wealth" qualifier to make it clear that I didn't mean to claim that being burdened by stuff is a universal experience. It's a problem tied to abundance, like obesity and information overload. This level of wealth is much lower than what most people would consider "wealthy".
Most people, even relatively well-off ones will keep free stuff. And will be in pain either because they will actually continue using it, and get annoyed by its low quality, or stop using it, but leave it around as junk because of the instinct to hoard.
My first impulse is "give it to a thrift store", which is where I buy all of my clothing. But then I think about how poorly-organized and unpredictable the housewares department at the thrift store is, and wonder if, once it was donated, if anyone would ever buy it. We do a bad job at recycling in our society, but we do an even worse job at reusing. Imagine if reuse were something we were really dedicated to: thrift stores would pool their inventories and rationalize their stocking in a way that would make the nearest thrift store a viable choice when you want a specific common item, and not just when you're browsing to see what you can find.
For its refusal to signify, its bulk, and its sheer unnecessariness in my already-overstuffed drawer, I’ve been ready to ditch this corkpull for months. During the pandemic, though, it’s even more impossible than usual to get rid of things. After a year inside with all my objects, clutter has taken on a malevolent unruliness, tote bags procreating inside other tote bags and external hard drives with unknown contents taunting from the back of the closet. Boxes and paper grocery bags pile up along the hallway, full of things to be gotten rid of. But the thrift stores and donation drop-offs are still closed, or have limited hours. And you know that most of those things don’t get sold.
Question: Has anyone here ever used the can opener on a swiss army knife? It is there. It is slow but does work. For all my corkscrews, many times I've found myself without a can-opener and had to resort to the swiss army knife.
I have. I used it to cut shoelaces. I immediately regretted the decision.
Works fine, I'm pretty handy with it, not much slower than the standard clamp and crank style.
https://www.leatherman.com/wave-10.html
As for opening cans, I use it for that after the last can opener I had fell to bits about a decade ago. Takes a bit of practice but you can chunk through a can in about 10 seconds reliably. It also opens cans that the can openers won't grip properly.
I've used it to build a couple of PCs with as well as the only tool.
As for not drinking, most of the wine I get gifted goes into a pot and is used for cooking. I'll only drink it if there's someone interesting to drink it with, which is sadly not happening that often these days.
Your apartment, your life, your fault. Lots of people take "reduce, reuse, recycle" extremely seriously: generating very little trash, only owning things they need, not replacing them until they're broken, and then getting a used replacement. And in fact, if you just got rid of that junk by giving it to Goodwill or a Free Stuff Facebook group, you'd be helping reduce the consumption of new goods, too. Having it sit in that drawer is the second worst thing you could do.
I find Marie Kondo's advice on this very practical: https://konmari.com/gifts-that-dont-spark-joy/
“The true purpose of a present is to be received.”
"... You don’t have to keep using the gift forever. If you try using the item and decide that it still doesn’t suit you, thank it for the joy it brought when you first received it – and bid it farewell. The true purpose of a present is to be received, because gifts are a means of conveying someone’s feelings for you. When viewed from this perspective, there is no need to feel guilty about parting with a gift that ultimately doesn’t spark joy."