If you want to cure the blade world of repetitive phrases and metaphors as worn out as Saddam Hussein's underwear after an eight year fabric embargo, try taking up a knife from your collection and write a review of it. Slap that review in the appropriate BF area. I think one will appreciate how difficult it is not to fall into the rut of a well worn phrase. I am sure writers would prefer some new phrases to beat to death too.
After all, it is not everyday we see a review that begins, "Pulling the solidly designed piece of steel from its carefully crafted Kydex sheath resulted in a sensuous hiss that reminded me of the first time I really made love to a woman." Those people all write for the Penthouse Forum or create romance novels for a living. We could probably use some of this type of flair in blade writing in general.
Wouldn't you just once rather read, "The hair fell away from my arm with as much rapidity and ease as Romeo's dagger did pierce Juliet's broken heart"? It really isn't very difficult.
How about, "The blade cut through the corrugated cardboard sheets much like Alexander the Great cut through the armies of Asia Minor--as if nothing at all were in the way of progress."
Even, "The blade bit into the soft pine two by four about an inch and three-quarters deeper than the IRS did into my wallet after my last audit" would be a vast improvement over the same old riffs on the "hot knife through butter" crap.
The problem with most knife reviewers is one of simple dryness. These guys in the main are technoguys. They have little in the way of literature or romanticism in their backgrounds. They worship engineering and precision with passion but largely cannot translate their ecstasy into an enjoyable English sentence.
I believe even stock removal techniques could be described with a little more magic and mystery to it than the simple cataloging of the belts and wheels used and the methods employed. There is an universe of sensory experience the typical writer misses while in the shop, or out in the field. Not even many of the guys who do hunting articles do very well describing the primal, almost sexual thrill of "Buck Fever".
Hell, once or twice way back when, poetry of legend, heroism and virtue rolled off of the tongues of minstrels as they told of epic men and their mythical steel. No less deserving of some creative, yet factual writing, are those bladesmiths and their products of this dying century.
Knives are phallic. Despite what you might think they do radiate raw masculine power on at least a subconcious level. To some they are sensual. To some they are empowering. Knives have a hypnotic allure to some. Some lust after them as much as they do for any person. This is a part of knives and knifemaking that doesn't exist in any other area of tool or weapon making. Knives demand that they be written about using the full force of creative description and sensory imagery. Knives demand poetry and prose as sharp and powerful and as carefully crafted as humanly possible. It is too bad that most writers cannot get to the heart of the matter, to the depths of the emotions that knives tap, prefering to simply scratch the surface of perception and description resulting in the same boring thing over and over.
As soon as I figure out how to get people to give me their product to destroy, or merely handle depending on whether the knife is for serious work or for art, I might segue into writing knife reviews part-time. It would be a challenge and an honor to take nineteen years of school, primarily spent being steeped in the nuances of the English language, and unleash it upon one of my favorite subjects rather than churning out boring legal documents. It could turn out to be fun and profitable for all I know.
If you have a knife you want to give me for a review let me know and I'll get started. I promise not to destroy any knife that isn't mine until you or a company gives me carte blanche to do so. It would probably be easier to start with a knife I don't know. Perhaps I'll just have to wait until I can make my next big purchase.
[This message has been edited by lawdog (edited 28 August 1999).]
