Celebrity Watches

It seems I'm a little bit behind the times. A few years ago, when I stopped watching videos about celebrities' watch collections, "celebrity" meant "a person with too much money who has only heard of one watch brand." I got tired of seeing another Rolex, and another Rolex, and another Rolex, and so I started watching other things. 

 

But the situation has completely changed! Today, "celebrity" means "person with too much money who may have heard of as many as five different watch brands"! Today, although the next watch will probably still be a Rolex, there's a chance that it may be a Patek Philippe, a Richard Mille, a Cartier or an Audemars Piguet.

I don't know whether these brands are giving watches to celebrities, offering deep discounts, or whether the chumps are actually paying regular-people prices -- and I also don't care!

Now, there are blogs and YouTube channels and books which are each only about one brand of watch, and that's okay, if the author or creator knows a lot about that brand.

And to me, knowing which movie and music stars wear which of those five brands, does not constitute knowing a lot about those brands. I know that some people disagree. 

For example, some prominent men's magazines have full-time, high-paid staffers whom they call "watch experts," who don't know anything about watches except which movie stars or music stars wear Rolex, Patek, Richard Mille, Cartier or Audemars Piguet. 

At least -- they never SAY, or write, anything else about watches. Not even to mention Vacheron Constantine, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Breguet, Zenith, Omega, Grand Seiko, G-Shock, Hublot, A Lange & Soehne, Nomos, Glashuette Original, IWC, Piaget, Longines, Bell & Ross, Panerai, Parmigiani Fleurier, Vostok, Breitling, Citizen, Orient, TAG Heuer, Tudor or any one of the many, many other watch brands which are worth mentioning for some reason or other besides being worn by movie stars and music stars. 

You know what? When I want to know something about movies or music, I don't confine myself to asking watch aficionados about them. Call me crazy.

Keeps on Tickin'

I had a feeling that if I put this old Timex on my wrist, this automatic made in 1979 (it has a serial number), which I bought for $2 at yard sale in sale in 2004 and which hadn't been running for a while, it would run again. At the same time, another voice in my head said that the hope was delusional, that the watch was an old, nun-running, non-salvageable piece of junk.

That was a few hours ago, and now it's running again. Just as before, setting the time was very difficult, and I didn't even want to attempt to set the date.

And just as before, before today I had given up and concluded that this watch didn't run anymore, only to change my mind after wearing it for a few hours and seeing that, yes, it does run. How many times have I gone through this whole cycle now, giving up, regarding the watch as not running, and then having it pleasantly surprise me (except for setting the date)? At least twice. Maybe more than that.

I don't remember, from the previous times, whether the date still turns over at all, or if it did when I first owned it and then stopped at some point.

I've never had this watch serviced. I've never done any watch repair myself. The idea of servicing any Timex seems absurd to me. 

The whole subject of Timex tends to anger me. Timex was the main cheap watch brand of which I was aware when I was a kid (born 1961), and since learning about other brands in the past few years, I've felt I was cheated in my childhood, because their were other brands which were much better and no more expensive. Notably Seiko. 

But here this Timex is, running again.

But one watch's performance, one out of millions, is an anecdote, not an indication of a brand's quality.

I'm confused and full of conflicting feelings. That may already have been obvious to empathetic readers.

I wrote before on this blog that the little kid running the yard sale gave me a look when I bought this watch, a look which I interpreted as, "What a schmuck, spending $2 on this piece of junk!"

Lately I've wondered whether that look meant something completely different. Maybe the kid wanted her Dad's old watch, and he told her, "Okay, if nobody buys it at the yard sale, you can have it." Maybe the look I interpreted as incredulity at my throwing my money away, actually expressed bitter disappointment. 

Maybe someday I'll become so famous as a writer that the kid will contact me and finally get her Dad's watch back. Of course, she's not a kid anymore. Maybe she doesn't care about watches any more. Maybe she never did. I've only speculated about what her attitude was back in 2004, without ever having known her.

Now that I've written this post, maybe a bunch of schmucks will pretend to be her and try to get a watch fraudulently.  

I could probably sell it. For a lot more than $2. I don't really want to.

A Couple of New G-Shocks

Originally, these were offered for sale only in China, and each watch came with one or more of these bears.

Casio refers to these watches as the Shanghai Night series. They are limited editions. The upper one in the picture with the more rectangular, digital-only display, is the GM5600SN-1, and the lower one in the picture, with analog hour and minute hands in addition to digital screens, is the GM110SN-2A. 

I have not yet been able to find out what Shanghai Night refers to. For all I know it could simply refer to the city of Shanghai, at night. Or perhaps "Shanghai Night" is a Chinese or Japanese or Chinese-Japanese animated TV series starring bears who look like the metallic doll in the picture. Or maybe something else. I'm just guessing. 

I'm writing this blog post today because, somehow, I didn't realize until yesterday, that the GM5600SN-1 has that rainbow IP coating on its case, the kind which I've thus far only seen on a handful of G-shocks, and now also these little metallic bears, and which really triggers me in a very positive way, and not just me, apparently. Yesterday I noticed that Casio had put the GM5600SN-1 on sale in the US. The watch only, sold in the US without a bear. Suggested retail price $260. Still available from authorized dealers at retail, it seems. I saw a commercial for it on YouTube. A young man was wearing one in a nighttime urban landscape which, I assume, was Shanghai. Wait -- it's a woman, not a man. Wait... I don't know whether it's a woman or a man. It's a very androgynous young person wearing a very handsome watch coated with rainbow IP.

The GM110SN-2A, the rounder one with the hour and minute hands, although it has an extremely colorful dial, does not, as far as I can see, have any rainbow IP. The case is has a bright blue IP, but it's not rainbow, with one color bleeding into the next. And it's still only offered in China. Which is to say, it's only offered by authorized dealers in China. I've seen one on sale on ebay for around $1000. In terms of functionality, it's the same GM110 that Producer Michael bought last autumn, the one which made him and me, and many others who saw his video, interested in G-Shocks.

I don't understand anything about the technical challenges involved in applying the rainbow IP to a metal surface. It could be that it's extremely difficult to do, and maybe that's why I've only seen it on limited edition G-Shocks, apart from a very small amount of rainbow IP applied to one part of the dial of the GM110-B, which, although not officially a limited edition, seems to have been sold out for a while now. I would love to see Casio put rainbow IP on mass-produced G-Shocks, millions of them, but, whether for technical reasons or marketing reasons or some other reasons, it doesn't appear that that will happen soon.

To those already familiar with the G-Shock brand, the interest of both of these new models is a matter of styling. In terms of function, they are both ordinary mid-level G-Shocks.

To those unfamiliar with the G-Shock brand, it may be surprising to learn that ordinary mid-level G-shocks, in addition to being extremely accurate, dependable and tough, also include world time, stopwatch, countdown timer, alarm, chiming and backlight functions, all with a very great deal of customization available to those willing to study the thick G-Shock owner's manuals.

Only True Watch Hipsters will Understand

(Or perhaps you'll also understand if you've watched an episode or more of Ben's Watch Club on YouTube. Be warned, though: if you watch one episode, there's a good chance you'll watch more!)

An open letter to Ben of Ben's Watch Club:

 

You clearly are a young man who has a grasp of fashion watches -- and perhaps of fashion and even watches as well, so it seems natural that I should turn to you for advice.

First of all, concerning your own line of watches: I keep forgetting: is it Spaghetti Scameti or Scameti Spaghetti, or is either usage cool? Or can one perhaps refer to the brand as "Scameti"? or "Spaghetti"? 

Have you had to sue any pasta companies yet? (That would be regrettable, but business is business, am I right? This is the life we chose. Or at least, it's the life we got handed without being asked anything about our preferences or our conceptions of ethics. This is the life Adam Smith chose. And Adam Smith got here first.) 

Have bleeding-edge hipsters begun to abbreviate the name of your brand? I've heard some of them, for example, refer to Scarlett Johannson as "ScarJo" -- not to mention the way that you're succeeding with a frank and simple "Ben" in place of Benjamin Arthur.  Do they call your watches "SpagScam" -- or "ScamSpag," as the case may be? 

Finally, if I may ask for a word of frank advice on my desperate attempt to be cool from a man who clearly has it switched on, nailed down and cleanly shaven -- would it be easier and cheaper, rather than attempting to make sure that I am always seen wearing the correct fashion watch, to just make sure I'm often seen literally burning money or throwing it away?

Trump's Wrath

In this morning's news, Trump's son's girlfriend has "incurred his wrath" by going to work for a Republican candidate for a US Senate seat. Guilfoyle signs up with Greitens -- and incurs Trump's wrath.

The GOP are following a crazy old man who's angry at everyone. 

"By STEVEN BOLLINGER 9/23/2023 8:43 AM -- Inmates celebrating a birthday party at a minimum-security Federal prison in Maryland Tuesday incurred the wrath of their fellow inmate and former President, Donald J Trump, for singing too loudly. 'No wrongfully-convicted prisoner in the history of humanity has endured more horrific and inhumane conditions than me,' Trump said to reporters while simultaneously getting a massage and eating a creme brulee. 'This creme brulee is terrible,' he added, although he finished it anyway. After the massage, Trump led the group of reporters to the prison's gym, where he impressed them by lifting a pair of 5-pound dumbbells and telling them that they weighed 125 pound apiece. 'I'm down to 190 pounds and 6 percent body fat,' Trump said. Neither the assertion about his weight nor the one about his body fat has been confirmed at this time. Sources close to the former President, under strict condition of anonymity, have said that he seems heavier and flabbier than during his term as President, when his personal physician asserted that he weighed 239 pounds."

Dream Log: Frontier Cathedral

Last night I dreamed my brother and I were at a cathedral in Detroit. I've never been to a cathedral in the Detroit area, and I have no reason to assume that any of the real ones are similar or dissimilar to the one I dreamed about. This place felt very liberal, there was no unofficial dress code, there were a lot of books. 

My brother and I found a group of books having to do with a cathedral built in the 1660's in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. I do not know for sure, but in real life, I suspect that if there are any buildings still standing in the Upper peninsula which were built as early as the 17th century, they are rather small. This cathedral in the Upper Peninsula was not a ragged frontier log cabin: it was a full-sized, finely sculpted stone cathedral full of stained glass and gold. And it was not a modern addition to a modest 17th-century beginning. No, it had been built full-sized and fully-luxurious on the frontier in the 1660's.

This frontier Cathedral was located in the town of Laclois. After waking, I found a Lac-Lois, Quebec, located several hundred miles from the Upper Peninsula. The cathedral town in my dream must have been a garbling of the name of Le Locle, a small town in Switzerland which has been the home of several prominent watchmaking companies.

In my dream, at first, I was skeptical about a church so large and so old existing in the Upper Peninsula, but the books, from recent back to 17th-century themselves, gradually convinced me that this was all real. I said to myself that perhaps the Quebecois -- all of Michigan was once Quebec -- built this huge structure to comfort themselves in the face of the huge scary frontier. Yes, it was an astounding feat of construction, but what cathedral that old or older was not?

Another unrealistic detail of this dream was that my brother either found all of this as fascinating as I did, or was pretending to, for my sake. The early drawings and paintings and more recent photographs of the huge cathedral, the texts, primary and secondary, in Latin and French -- he regarded them as eagerly as I did, and kept asking me to help him understand it all.

 

Before long a group of us -- my brother and I and several other people -- had decided to take a trip to the Upper Peninsula immediately, leaving that very day, to visit the huge beautiful cathedral.

I was trying to determine the status of these books -- was the church giving them away? selling them at thrift-store prices? were they part of a circulating library? or were they to stay where they were and not circulate? I had still had no success in determining this when I woke up.