Hi all, am I the only one that only sees knives as tools?

[leghog]

Since Loveless is being brought into the conversation, Bob Loveless from an interview from 35 years ago this month:

In fact, if there is any apologizing to be done. Loveless figures
that it is owed to him by customers who refuse to treat his work as
something of utility, who put his knives in cases and "fondle and
drool over them."

"Ninety percent of my knives aren't used!" he exclaims. "And, damn
it, they should be out working. That's why I make them. When some
old cowboy or guide comes back to me with a knife that's worn down
to a nub and he says, `That thing fit my hand better than any knife
I'd ever had, and it worked longer, too,' that's fame. That's what
I'm on earth for. A knife is a tool, and if we don't treat our
tools with a certain familiar contempt, we lose perspective."


http://www.si.com/vault/1980/07/14/...idly-sought-by-collectors-he-likes-not-at-all

 

[Stelth]

See again post #94, for the genesis of this sub-discussion --- "...if I owned a knife that was valued at multiple thousands of dollars there's no way I would view it as a tool and you can bet I would do everything I could to avoid scratching it."

Those weren't my words

I don't care whose words they were. The owner's intent doesn't change what the object is. Because someone says "it's art, I won't use it"....that has some magical transformative power over the object and it ceases being a knife? I don't think that's what you're saying but it sounds like it. Do you really mean when someone treats a knife solely as art, the knife (to you) is useless? That would make more sense.

 

[leghog]

I don't care whose words they were. The owner's intent doesn't change what the object is. Because someone says "it's art, I won't use it"....that has some magical transformative power over the object and it ceases being a knife? I don't think that's what you're saying but it sounds like it. Do you really mean when someone treats a knife solely as art, the knife (to you) is useless? That would make more sense.

Sure it does. An owners intent can change a tool to a display piece or a paper weight. The adage of a tool is not a tool until/unless it's been used is quite appropriate.

 

[Stelth]

If someone had a knife they only looked at and never used and then gave it you, what did you receive?

 

[orezona]

If it's a sharpened length of metal with a handle, I'm going to call it a knife... um, unless it's a sword. Or an axe. Or some kind of robotic stabbing machine that has become self-aware, and wants to be legally recognized as a cat. That's a tough one.

EXTERMINATE!
EXTERMINATE!
EXTERMINATE!

(Sorry, your comment made me literally LOL)

On another note, WOAH... This thread is getting too deep into semantics.

I will defer back to the OP's original statement that TO HIM, a knife is a tool and to answer his question: Yes, you are not alone in that distinction but there are plenty of other people who also disagree.

Also, Tool kicks major booty:

[video=youtube;EprauLU5sgM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EprauLU5sgM[/video]

 

[Sikael]

Since Loveless is being brought into the conversation, Bob Loveless from an interview from 35 years ago this month:

In fact, if there is any apologizing to be done. Loveless figures
that it is owed to him by customers who refuse to treat his work as
something of utility, who put his knives in cases and "fondle and
drool over them."

"Ninety percent of my knives aren't used!" he exclaims. "And, damn
it, they should be out working. That's why I make them. When some
old cowboy or guide comes back to me with a knife that's worn down
to a nub and he says, `That thing fit my hand better than any knife
I'd ever had, and it worked longer, too,' that's fame. That's what
I'm on earth for. A knife is a tool, and if we don't treat our
tools with a certain familiar contempt, we lose perspective."

http://www.si.com/vault/1980/07/14/...idly-sought-by-collectors-he-likes-not-at-all

Bob Loveless was pissed off collectors were making huge sums of money from his knives. That's it. If he wanted people to use his knives, he wouldn't have kept on jacking up prices just as fast. He could have sold them to old cowboys for 50$, and they'd get used. That's what happens when knives have 5-&-6-digit price-tags.

EXTERMINATE!
EXTERMINATE!
EXTERMINATE!

(Sorry, your comment made me literally LOL)

On another note, WOAH... This thread is getting too deep into semantics.

I will defer back to the OP's original statement that TO HIM, a knife is a tool and to answer his question: Yes, you are not alone in that distinction but there are plenty of other people who also disagree.

Also, Tool kicks major booty:

[video=youtube;EprauLU5sgM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EprauLU5sgM[/video]

:thumbup: That robotic stab- I mean Cat -actually DOES exist! I'd been picking up his thoughts through my fillings -- which is strange, since they're porcelain -- but I'd convinced myself it was just insanity, taking me into its gentle embrace. Now I'm a little concerned.

And Tool- yeah, what you said. I still throw on Undertow and Aenima on a regular basis. Unlike a lot of the mid-90's stuff I got into as a kid, it's aged really well.

 

[Insipid Moniker]

Sure it does. An owners intent can change a tool to a display piece or a paper weight. The adage of a tool is not a tool until/unless it's been used is quite appropriate.

I don't entirely disagree. If I owned a Loveless knife I, as I said, wouldn't regard it as a tool. I might look at it as a piece of art to be displayed, a collectible to be cherished or (far more likely given my general attitude) a major financial windfall to be sold at a high price as quickly as possible. I would argue that, to me at least, it would most certainly still be a knife, but it would never really cross my mind to consider it a tool, even though I may tempt Mr. Loveless' undead wrath by saying so.

 

[Sikael]

If someone had a knife they only looked at and never used and then gave it you, what did you receive?

Because it's ultimate destiny was to be used, it was always a knife. If, however, it gets lost in the mail, it then exists in a quantum super-position; it will be both a knife and not a knife until [1.] it is found, safely delivered, and leghog opens the package, collapsing the probability wave-function and deciding its fate as a knife; or [2.] ends up in the Dead Letter office, doomed to never know existence as a real live knife.

 

[cchu518]

As the artist Loveless was making purpose built knives. Of course he would want you to use them. However he is gone now and there will never be a knflife crafted by him again. So what is out there is finite. Many will argue about whether one should use his knives in light of this fact. If I had a pristine example I would really have to think about it.

 

[link2derek]

Welcome to the Forum, neighbor!

 

[Sikael]

As the artist Loveless was making purpose built knives. Of course he would want you to use them. However he is gone now and there will never be a knflife crafted by him again. So what is out there is finite. Many will argue about whether one should use his knives in light of this fact. If I had a pristine example I would really have to think about it.

Or say f*** it to the whole dilemma and 'use' it as a 'tool' to acquire a new BMW. That might not be what Bob had in mind for seeing his knives 'used', but... meh. He was a great knife-maker, maybe the greatest, and I hold him in high esteem. His view of pretty much everything not knife-related I respect no more than anyone else.

 

[cchu518]

Right that's one way of doing it! It's hard not to appreciate a guy like Loveless!

 

[Sikael]

I was going to ask if Renfro was about the sock corporation but, your post clarified.

I admire Franco though, he wants to do more, like writing and teaching... I enjoy when actors want to be more than actors.

Sorry, late response. Franco's a fine actor, and I was actually impressed when I heard he would be adapting and directing 'Child of God', one of Cormac McCarthy's more difficult works. 'Suttree' is less screen friendly in a lot of respects, but the subject matter of 'CoG' -- loosely based on Ed Gein, necrophilia, etc. -- is just ugly. It's the poetic feel to McCarthy's prose that make it easier to get through the ugliness, something the film couldn't rely on. Franco did a pretty good job. McCarthy's one of my favorites, so I was ready to hate the film if it mucked things up.

As for actors doing other things... hell no. There's too many self-absorbed morons in Hollywood, surrounded by fawning sycophants who tell them they're freaking brilliant when they can barely chew gum and walk at the same time. Actors who find success are very fortunate. They're not special, and can be replaced in minutes. They need to STFU and say their lines... no that doesn't make sense, but I'm gonna roll with it. Later on, directing? Sure. Eastwood, Clooney, Affleck... all good directors. But actors need to stay the f*** away from art galleries. It never ends well.

 

[singularity35]

If you aren't willing to use it, it's then totally useless as a knife. Call it art or something else.

You're off the mark again. If a maker manufactures a sword that's intended to be a wall hanger, then by your definition it's not a sword.

What then if somebody uses that wall hanger to stab someone?

Design is what makes an object what it is. Intent doesn't change materials or design.

 

[James Y]

Lol, this knife or not a knife argument has gone off the deep end.

If you buy a knife brand new and never used it, as already mentioned, just try taking that knife with you past TSA; or you could try it at a courthouse. You can argue with security that, since you've never used it, it's not really a knife. See who wins that argument.

A knife is a knife. That you might not *consider* it useful as a tool because it's unused is only an opinion. It may not have been used for the purposes a knife was designed for, but it's still what it is. A totally useless knife that's not really a knife would be a knife made out of bar soap.

Jim

 

[leghog]

Bob Loveless was pissed off collectors were making huge sums of money from his knives. That's it. If he wanted people to use his knives, he wouldn't have kept on jacking up prices just as fast. He could have sold them to old cowboys for 50$, and they'd get used. That's what happens when knives have 5-&-6-digit price-tags.

Loveless built tools. He jacked up his prices because so many treated them as something other than tools to "fondle and drool over them", as he put it. He had five years worth of back orders. He wasn't an idiot.

 

[leghog]

If someone had a knife they only looked at and never used and then gave it you, what did you receive?

Likely something that needed sharpening because it had never before been sharpened since it left its maker's hands. I'd sharpen it, carry it, and use it. Then it would be a knife vs a safe queen or some memento.

 

[Surfingringo]

Because it's ultimate destiny was to be used, it was always a knife. If, however, it gets lost in the mail, it then exists in a quantum super-position; it will be both a knife and not a knife until [1.] it is found, safely delivered, and leghog opens the package, collapsing the probability wave-function and deciding its fate as a knife; or [2.] ends up in the Dead Letter office, doomed to never know existence as a real live knife.

Hehehe...that was well crafted sir.

 

[Lycosa]

Some times I just get something because I like it.

 

[Insipid Moniker]

Some times I just get something because I like it.

These days I almost only buy things just because I like them. My accumulation is extensive enough that the only needs I'm filling are the ones I make up (What if I decide to take up SCUBA? I would NEED an H1 fixed blade for that!)