About the House: A Very Rude Survey of Local Hardware Resources
By Matt Cantor
Thursday August 21, 2008
When I graduated from Cal in 1981, I was summarily struck jobless by the haughty world of architecture and forced to seek refuge among the squalid functionaries of the city who toil by day repairing toilets and caulking leaky siding. These weary souls took me in as one of their own and showed me their simple ways. I learned how to reuse a paper face mask, how to stuff fix-all into the holes left by old deadbolts and the lost art of screw extraction. Fingers smeared with paint and grime, these ascetics showed me the arcane ways of the handyman, still mysterious to all but the indoctrinated. Some are now gone, like the lurid and brilliant Martin Metal and others remain who shall, for reasons of liability, remain shielded by circumspection.
-more-
