Gary Shteyngart (Author, Lake Success)¶
Published on Mon, 23 Jul 2018 09:55:00 +0000
In this episode of HODINKEE Radio, your host Stephen Pulvirent sits down with New York Times best-selling author, HODINKEE Magazine contributor, and friend of the show Gary Shteyngart. Despite having only caught the watch collecting bug fairly recently, Gary has undeniably become a watch nerd of the highest order (he tans his own watch straps on the porch of his home in Upstate New York, for example). Together, they talk about his forthcoming novel, his thoughts on connoisseurship more generally, and, of course, his love of good red meat. Enjoy.
Synopsis¶
In this episode of Hodinkee Radio, hosts Stephen Pulvirent and Editor-in-Chief Jack Forster sit down with acclaimed author Gary Shteyngart to discuss his deep dive into watch collecting, which began around 2016 during the lead-up to that year's presidential election. Shteyngart, who wrote the New Yorker piece 'Confessions of a Watch Geek,' shares how his journey started with a Max Bill watch from MoMA and quickly evolved into a passion for 1960s Rolex sports models, particularly Explorers and GMTs. The conversation touches on his unique hobby of tanning watch straps in upstate New York, his literary pursuits, and how watches feature prominently in his forthcoming novel 'Lake Success,' about a hedge fund manager who flees his life with a rollerboard full of watches.
The discussion delves into broader themes about modern watch collecting, including the tension between nostalgia and innovation in contemporary watchmaking, the problematic trend of artificial aging ('fauxtina'), and the exponential price increases in vintage Rolex sports watches. Shteyngart reflects on the philosophical aspects of mechanical watches as objects that allow one to reclaim ownership of time in an increasingly digital world, comparing vintage watch collecting to the literary concept of 'poshlost' (vulgar imitation) when brands lean too heavily on artificial nostalgia. The episode concludes with recommendations for cultural consumption, including Shteyngart's novel 'Lake Success' (releasing September 4th), Jack's surprising endorsement of 'Avengers: Endgame' for its meditation on time, and Stephen's recommendation of the documentary 'Finding Vivian Maier' about the posthumously discovered photographer.
Links¶
Transcript¶
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| Unknown | So I first met Gary Steingart back in I guess 2016 when he was writing a story for the New Yorker that ended up being titled Confessions of a Watch Geek. Now, the sub-headline for that article was My Year of Getting Deep into Perlage, three-quarter plates and micro. rotors He may not have always been a watch geek, but he was now firmly in the deep end. He's a wickedly funny guy. He's got a great taste for the finer things in life, even beyond watches. Uh, and he's an absolute pleasure to talk to. A few weeks ago, our editor-in-chief Jack Forrester and I were lucky enough to sit down with Gary and we got to pick his brain on a few topics. This included his forthcoming novel, things he loves and laments in modern watchmaking, and even his hobby of home tanning watch straps on We had a great time, and I think you'll be able to hear that, so I hope you enjoy it half as much as we did. I'm your host Stephen Polverant, and this is Hodinky Radio. This week's episode is brought to you by Tutor. Stay tuned later in the show for a look at the Heritage Black Bay Chrono, a new take on one of Tudor's most iconic wat I'm here with our illustrious editor in chief, Jack Forster. Hi ever,ybody. And our guest this week, Mr. Gary Steingart, noted author, watch collector, and strap tanner, I think. Yep, yeah, by him a strap tanner. Strap far |
| Unknown | mer, we say now. Strap farmer, okay. In upstate New York, right? Yes, in upstate New York we. We're in a economically distressed area, so I I tan straps. I hope you get a tax break for that. Of course. I do actually have a corporation. Uh do you? Yes, like most writers I have a most writers have corpse. Yeah. But it's yeah. The strap tanning is just an extra bonus. Is it a shell corporation? It's a good Are we at the right point of the conversation to talk about local strap tanning? Yeses., y It's strap to wrist uh instead of form to table. Okay. We're very proud of our strap tanning. But it actually is a thing you do. Yeah. Yes. So you know, uh as I've said many times before, I'm really bored in the country. There's not much to do. Uh so I lay out uh straps and let the uh the sun grill 'em and then let the fog come in in the morning. Um I invite you both to my um illustrious abode if you want to see this in action. We this this we this summer I'm also learning to make good Gibsons. So this is a twofer. |
| Unknown | This sounds like a field trip. This is a field trip. Yeah, yeah. Self self uh not self-tan, artisanally one at a time hand tan straps Yes. This is a good one. We'll have to find somebody |
| Unknown | else to run the site for the day, but it'll be fine. We're also lousy with poets, so a poet will come and declaim to you at some point and then That's amazing. |
| Unknown | How about that? Can we get something in dead languages? Of course. Now does the fog roll in reliably every day |
| Unknown | pretty much? It's a pretty good fog. Um w it's it's the mid-Hudson Valley. Um there's a river nearby. I don't understand how anything works. And by the way, it's not a river It's not a river, it's an estuary, uh whatever the hell that is. Uh so the estuary I think produces a lot of moisture uh because we're near it and then the moisture falls upon the strap and gives it a kind of really luscious quality and almost a kind of sweet smell, I think. Which mixed with just the right amount of human sweat is spectacular. I have to do it. We might have to get the uh Hodinki shop folks |
| Unknown | in I have to admit I actually it's probably fortunate that no one's ever asked me, but I don't know exactly what an estuary is. I think an estuary this was |
| Unknown | Professor Gary Time. Um I believe an estuary, you know, a river flows in one direction, an estuary can flow in both directions. So it's a tidal as tidal estuary |
| Unknown | . In every case is an estuary tidal? Yes. Sure. Of course |
| Unknown | every estuary is tidal, duh. So bring things back to something Jack actually does know something about. Uh we're gonna talk about watches for a minute. Regardless of what the readers or listeners, I guess in this case, may or may not have expected here. But uh pretty much they were all here for the estuary. I think so. I mean that's why I'm here. But uh we actually Gary, we met you I guess what, like a year and a half ago now when you were working on a story for the New Yorker. Probably almost everyone listening to this has read. If not, we will link up to it in the show notes uh so everybody can check it out. Um our own Jack is is featured in the story as well. It's an amazing quote. But was that was that kind of the beginning of your watch collecting journey or did it start before that? A |
| Unknown | aron Powell It started right before that as the election of twenty sixteen was hitting its stride and I had a an uncomfortable feeling uh in my gut. I I'm from a pretty screwed up part of the world, Russia originally, so I kinda have like a you know, the way older people can sense rain coming, I can sense bad things are coming. You felt Trump in your bones. I felt him in my bones. Um and I actually grew up not f when I came to America we lived in Queens and we would walk up to the Trump estate and lovingly peer through the uh gates um that he was our hero. Uh you know, as a s Soviet immigrant, he represented money and just about bat money, yeah. Uh so and hair he and hair. Uh we also had a we had a paucity of money and hair, two things that Russia is not famous for. Um so he was very important. So anyway, as the election wore on, I kind of really needed to take my mind off things and I became obsessed with watches and I bought my first watch, uh a Max Bill at MoMA. It's entry point I think you've mentioned in one of your articles, Stephen. That it's uh it's a pretty decent entry point into watches and I still have mine and and wear it on occasion. I think so. You know, when I need to feel really mid-century as one |
| Unknown | Yeah, I didn't think it was possible, but we have managed to make uh mid twentieth century seem like a an aspirational time. |
| Unknown | It really uh yeah, it was the best. Uh you know Europe lay in ruins and all that, but what ev uh things were good. And so anyway, so the max bill led to Gnomos, and then I floated into mm you know m Rolex, especially sixties Rolex and Longa. I mean it just went |
| Unknown | on and on and on. Can I ask you, Gary, what was it about the Max Bill specifically that caught your eye |
| Unknown | ? Well, it really kind of for me redefined what I thought about watches. Because I grew up really um you know you have that very famous article about the gold day date and how much that meant to you growing up, because you saw your uncle, I believe, right, who was an ambassador wearing it. Um so when I was growing up, yes, the yellow gold day date also meant a lot for me. But then you know I went to the Oberlin Institute for Exceptional People where you know you couldn't wear you couldn't even aspire to a yellow gold day date, much less own one. |
| Unknown | They would have stripped your exceptionality from you in public and run you out of town on a road. Yeah. They would have what did they do with Dreyfus? They broke his sword. They would |
| Unknown | have broken my hacky sack over over the knee. You know, and drummed me out of of Oberlin. Uh so that wasn't a so but the other thing I also knew, I grew up with a Casio musical watch, which because I didn't know English was my best friend. growing up It did it it sang like twelve different melodies from around the world, including Kalinka Marinka, a Russian song about boysenberries or gooseberries. Anyway, um so I love that watch. So my but in my mind it was either an electronic cassie or or a or a yellow gold And the max bill was this completely unexpected category. It felt like a a really thoughtful, beautifully designed piece. I remember thinking, oh my God, a thousand dollars? How can anyone afford this? Two years later, it'll kill me. I think that's a familiar feeling for a lot of the people uh listening. Yeah, yeah, and and I and I would, you know, I went back to my wife and I was like, I'm gonna make this huge purchase. I I you know I hope you don't mind. Uh you know and she said, no, treat yourself. Little did she know. Little did she know where this would end. Edge of the wedge. So anyway, that was the beginning for me. But but the Bauhausan aspect of watch is the whole form follows function was a was a really really big kind of very important thing for me because I felt like these are objects that look beautiful on my wrist, but don't bespeak or don't, you know, they're not about m my saying, hey, look at me, I have a watch. You know, most most almost all the watches I have are completely unnoticeable except by the select few of us that are |
| Unknown | similarly situated. Aaron Powell That's interesting because uh you know sort of picking a watch that is specifically not just unostentatious but actually anti-ostentatious that's an interesting thing. Ye,ah yeah. Well some watches like I I own a |
| Unknown | a uh GMT which is uh sixteen seventy five, which is larger so it it you know uh and because my wrist is so dainty it actually I mean part of it is matching it to your wrist. You know, there's uh uh so for the last couple of years I've been researching hedge funds uh and I've been hanging out with a lot of hedge funders, mostly men. Uh and sort of so some of the ones who are you know, have their own funds et cetera et cetera, don't really have a watch at all because, you know time works for them. They don't need to really know time. Time if they say stop, time will stop and everyone freezes, you know. Uh but for some of the people who are you know traders or or somewhere in the middle rungs of it, uh often you'll see that the watch is, you know, a size or two according to my sensibilities too large for that specific wrist. Right. So th that became something very interesting to notice. And also on the trading floors of banks, et cetera. There's always They're big monsters. Some of them are quite lovely, but pieces larger than the wrist it was meant for. Yeah |
| Unknown | . Yeah. I mean I think the display aspect of um luxury watches is uh well I shouldn't say the display aspect, but the signaling aspect is important, isn't it? Whether ir |
| Unknown | respective of what you're signaling. I have a friend from Singapore and he says, you know that and and Singapore has all these watch publications, it seems to be watch upset. And he says, look, in Singapore, you know, cars are super expensive. There's a tariff of I don't know, 200 percent or something. There's no place to park them. It's a small city state. And you don't actually own them either. And you don't actually own them. And he says, you know, so he says watches are the way that you signal anything in Singapore. And sometimes I will I look at these slides of watches in Singapore and it'll be, you know, some secretaries wearing a uh you know a Nautilus or something. So it's it's it's it's the way you signal things in in in in and in other parts of Asia I think as well |
| Unknown | . Yeah it's uh Singapore is an interesting case. Um there's been a lot of wealth creation there and a lot of th and there is you know has been and is a lot of affluence. And um just the sort of uh economic pressures that you know militate against the usual forms of social signaling of wealth there. It kind of is a natural breeding ground for an obsession with watches. |
| Unknown | Absolutely absolutely Yeah, yeah. And I go to Korea quite a bit, um and and also something similar, not quite to that extent, but but but a very similar uh obsession with watches. And Russia, where I'm from, is known, of course, for Vladimir Putin as president who has a very impressive watch collection. He does. And actually I have to say, although, you know, I often think of his regime as tasteless to the core, uh his watches aren't so bad. You know, he's got a he got a nice uh F |
| Unknown | P Jorn. Um we used to love giving Louis, former uh Hudinky team member and now uh team member over at Brightling uh a hard time because he used to have the same blancpah that uh Mr. Putin uh owned and we used to give him quite a hard time when he would wear his Putin watch to the office. |
| Unknown | That was pretty hilarious because they see they certainly did not share polit |
| Unknown | ical A Pushkin poem, which I can't remember by heart, but quotes uh uh mentions briget. There's something like a a dandy is standing on Nevsky Prospect, the main street in uh in St. Petersburg wearing his looking at his briguet. So dandy and brigay in my mind were always |
| Unknown | And historically, of course, uh some of Brigade's most important clients were Russian um or in the uh in |
| Unknown | the East in any event. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So do you do you find yourself I mean you mentioned you were doing research for for your your most recent book, but do you find yourself now as as a writer as part of your kind of observations of people looking at people's wrists? A |
| Unknown | aron Powell. And and and you know so for you know for for this book that's coming out, like I said, I spent three years um uh uh researching what uh researching hedge funds, but I also spent part of that time, because this is a separate narrative strand in the novel, I spent a lot of that time on a greyhound bus going across the country. I know two things that don't really belong together. And it was really funny to see how often a watch that would be uh original worn by some hedge funder would show up in a as a fake. |
| Unknown | Right. So this was the uh the Greyhound bus travels cross-country. This was in the service of doing research for an upcoming novel of yours? No, the same novel. I know, |
| Unknown | I know. The same novel contains both a hedge funder and the a Greyhound trip across the country. Can you uh tell us a little bit about this novel? I know you can't say too much right now. I mean I'll say one thing is that the narrator who is, you know, he has uh he flees his wife, uh he flees um he has a disabled child and and you know because he's kind of a a jackass, uh he flees. Uh uh and also his his his fund is falling apart and is being investigated by the SEC. All all the yummy stuff. Uh so he gets on a greyhound and he tries to recreate this romantic journey. Uh but watches are the way that he deals with the world. Um he can't communicate really with people except he he he thinks of himself as this friendly guy, but inside he's he's socially very anxious. Um and the one way he can communicate with others is, you know, through talking about, you know, uh an FP Jorn or uh an overseas and and and that's uh I I doubt we have any listeners like that at all. But um but also, you know, I mean I also find uh this is the first hobby quote unquote that I've ever had and it's funny because this is a kind of especially talking to m you know talking to people I haven't met, the fact that everyone can just easily slide into talking about the |
| Unknown | Yeah. Have you have you found through your becoming obsessed and it playing a part in this novel, have you found yourself talking to non watch people about watches a lot? Aaron Ross Powell |
| Unknown | Well, it's interesting. Yeah, so I just did a kind of preview reading in Seattle uh for for the book. Uh so I read a chapter from the book and lo and behold, watches came up. Uh and it was this really stupid conversation about FP Jordan versus Rolex. I don't know where this came up, because it's not even a subject of conversation. But these two guys were arguing about which is better, two hedge fund guys. And one was saying, you know, but everyone knows what a Rolex is, it's a status thing. And the other was saying, you know, uh, but an FP Jordan is well crafted, look at the, you know, uh look at the movement., et cetera And so this and so I'm reading this to four hundred people who are not watch people and I'm thinking, oh Jesus, are when I'm pretty good at you know figuring out when people are tuning out. And and they kind of they they survived it. You know, they survived a couple of minutes of watches But I now being invited to speak about watches solely. So I did a reading a reading, sorry, I did a conversation about watches in Chicago at the Allianz Francais. Um and it was spectacular. It was 150 people, which I you know just watches, no literature, just which I'm known for more for literature, of course. But 150 watch nerds came out. Some of them wanted me to sign their straps. I mean it was it was really kind of a home. You're kind of a big deal. No, I I I probably not, but I I it was just it was just lovely to and I found myself loving talking about watches for an hour and a half. I was interviewed by a local uh watch person. Um the honorary consul of Switzerland to |
| Unknown | Chicago came. It was great. It was great an event. Talking about watches all day is not |
| Unknown | a bad way to spend one's day, is it Jack? It' |
| Unknown | s not a terrible way to spend your day. No, it's certainly not. |
| Unknown | But in the time that you've been in the in this, you know, at one time very idiosyncratic uh and um very small scale relative to where it's now where it is now a hobby. I mean in the time that you've been interested in watch if has have you perceived any change in uh the breadth sort of the breadth of the audience? Yeah. |
| Unknown | Um it's expensive. Oh, my goodness. Um you know, so I I mean I made the terrible mistake of falling in love with uh 1960s vintage Rolex sports models. Um luckily I I avoided Daytona fever. Um Um and there's a reason for that, and my bank account is thanking me, obviously, as is my child who can now go to college. Um you know, I don't I I'm not a great driver. I just learned to drive a couple years ago, and I really feel that things I'm not good at I should not sort of I don't want watches that are not a part of my aesthetic or a part of what I love. You know? And I like I feel that, you know, like bad drivers should have their Daytoners taken away because it's so it's so much affiliated with with with driving. So um as much as I I I love certain Daytonas as well, um and I love pre-daytonas quite a bit, um but that never quite gelled with me. But unfortunately I did fall in love with explorers and GMTs |
| Unknown | . But you know, Gary, like lots of people fall in love with and wear watches from worlds that they'll never experience and that are not particularly I mean, you know, this is sort of um, you know, uh almost apocryphal at this point. You know, I mean very few people who wear dive watches actually dive. Um, you know, very few people who wear um you know speed masters, you know, go to space. Yeah. Right. Yeah. |
| Unknown | So I'm with you. I'm with you though. Like I I just got my driver's license, I guess, just under two months ago. Wow. Finally. Wow. My wife is very happy. Um But I'm with you. Like the Daytona, I can appreciate it as an aesthetic object, but kind of as a romantic object. It doesn't speak to me in that way, whereas something like an explorer or a GMT really is feels much more me. It feels like it makes a lot more sense for me. It' |
| Unknown | s very true. You know, I I I I look I I love desk divers. I think that's what they're called right. I mean I think it's it's great. It's great to aspire to things, you know. I mean I guess I come from a society, you know, so Union Russia where where you don't aspire to things, where you are you know who you are and and that's the limits. There's no Walter Mitty moment, you know. Right. Um so uh and I I love the Speedmaster because it's it went to space, good lord. I mean is anything cooler than that. Also Russians have a version of that um Storminsky watch. So of course I love that stuff. Um but and I love I swim quite a bit, so I buy watches that are perfect for swimming, you know. But I Do you wear a watch when you swim? Yeah., I w I do I do because I swim a an ungodly amount of time. I could swim like two hours a day and I need to know when to get out. So I wear uh there's two watches I wear a Tudor, Black Bay 36, and a gnomos neomatic Club, both of which I love very different watches, obviously. Yeah. Um, so but but the bezel for me is a little bit extraneous because I know I'm not going to use it for anything, and so even though some I mean, of course some old subs are amazing, but it's just not for me |
| Unknown | That's an interesting couple of watches to wear while swimming. I would have I would have thought uh you know I mean the the tutor's kind of a uh uh kind of an obvious one, but uh I wouldn't have thought a gnomos would be something you'd want to spend two hours in the water with. No, it's great. I mean the |
| Unknown | this one has nothing against gnomos. Light light blue and light orange accents. So it's it's perfect for the winter because in the in the summer I swim in an outdoor pool and you you know everything looks beautiful. Uh but in the winter of course I I go to a gym and I swim in a pool and and you put that thing on you feel like you're in LA. You know, there's like the there's the hope of LA that you walk out and the you know the winter will not confront you. So I I I I I do love that watch. I think it's it's a beautiful kind of really an all arounder kind of watch |
| Unknown | . So you kinda started out with uh finding the sort of uh Bauhaus form follows function aesthetic. That was the thing that kind of drew you to it. And I mean with um uh you know mid-1960s Rolexes, there's the same kind of vibe, although it's expressed in a different way, right? |
| Unknown | Aaron Ross Powell Yeah, absolutely. And and and the person that really motivated me was um was Was uh William Gibson, who is one of my favorite writers ever. He was I used to read his kids, Isaac Asimov's science fiction magazine incessantly. And William Gibson was in, I think, in practically every issue. |
| Unknown | Um back in the eighties when he was publishing stuff in Omni. Ye |
| Unknown | ah, oh yeah, of course Omni. I mean he was long gone. Uh yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's, you know, and we're Twitter friends and we're just you know, I I just love that guy. I can't wait to finally meet him someday. Um but he wrote of the Rolex Explorer 1. He said he regards it as the peak of Swiss stainless steel mechanical sports watch design. He said this in an interview, and I kept it on my phone, and I just the moment I read that, I was like, yes, that's it. So the the Explorer 1, the 1016 specifically became like a really a gray watch for me, and I really wanted to find the perfect one. Uh he's also not immune to the charms of the Mark 11. Okay. Um and the and he loves Oris divers. So pretty all |
| Unknown | in all, really great taste. Yeah. But the big thing from him of the the sort of like big essay that I remember is uh what was the title, The Tamagotchi effect? Yeah, e about eBay. Yeah, about his uh hunting on e |
| Unknown | Bay. Yeah, I read that as well and was and that was I think the first time I heard of eBay. I'm a little technologically behind always. But um but he's you know the the way he and he I think he has mentioned form follows function in in other essays and you know, it just uh and then I saw one on the internet. I was like, holy cow, this is this is what I want. You know, and you made it happen? I made it happen very recently. I've been hunting for a while, uh through my good friend Eric Wind of Wind Vintage, finally uh unearthed one for me and I I mean uh it's it's a keeper. It's it'll be very hard to get rid of this and it's got everything I want the exclamation mark, the uh the um chapter ring, uh nice end links. I think 1963. It's just a very, very nice wat |
| Unknown | ch. For those of you who can't see into the studio, which is all of you, Gary and I are currently passing our ten sixteens across the table to one another uh very precariously. Oh my god. Um yeah, I remember your wow, this is beautiful. They're twins, though. They are twins. That is insanet. a good We thing' to do some serial number checking after this. But holy cow. Steven, what year is yours? Uh I believe mine's a little earlier. Mine, I think, is more like 61, 62. But um Yeah, I mean finding a good watch is not easy and people assume often, you know, people come to us and say, Oh, can you help me find this? Can you help me find that? But it's the supply of good watches is shrinking, I think, or maybe the demand has just gone up so quickly, but finding a good example of something is getting harder, especially if you're not willing to pay absolutely any price. |
| Unknown | Well this is what happened to me. I mean you uh you know uh uh J Jack you earlier said you know what did you notice in the two years or so that you've been that you've been doing this? And I think what I've noticed is that unfortunately the watches that I dearly loved, I wasn't the only one. And there were two watches specifically, and that was the 1675 and the 1016, which are both sort of my my Rolex Grails. So I was not the only one that fell in love with 1960s Rolex sports watches, and I paid dearly for it. It was it was obscene, you know. It just kept going up, and and I was telling Eric and others, you know, please just just find it now because each month is |
| Unknown | costing me. Um literally month by month. Month by month. And it's that crazy effect where you see a hundred of them and then the moment you decide, maybe I'm ready to pull the trigger, like I'll I'll start seriously looking, the supply dries up like that. And they're just gone. And you don't see a single one for months. |
| Unknown | But you know, I mean, uh often I think it's absolutely crazy. You know, um I love of course I love all these watches, but you know, you look at something like the the the the sixteen seventy five, right It costs more than double, way more than double than one of my favorite paddock watches, uh the three four four five, which has a movement. I always forget the ref the number twenty seven eight is but it is a sp insane movement, the gold rotor, the the everything about it is is like is groundbreaking really. Uh and it costs less than half than than uh than what an explanator at this point probably would cost. So you do start to wonder the the supply and demand, the bubble aspect of this |
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| Unknown | ways looking for what's the best what what and and you know Jack talked about uh uh I think during one uh uh one episode of Friday Live you talked about um Oh so yes. RIP Friday Live. So um at one point Jack talked about uh w you guys had a c sort of talk about, you know, movement versus design and design of course one. But movement are important to me. I mean there's look, this is a mechanical object, otherwise I would just buy, you know, jewelry |
| Unknown | . Right. I guess they're just you know that and I've thought about this a lot. I mean uh movements are inherently harder um because first of all there's a much steeper learning curve um or maybe not steeper necessarily but but but different, right? Uh different learning curve than um you know focusing on the minutia of what distinguishes the exterior aesthetics of one watch from another. And of course you can't see them. Trevor Burrus You can't see them. |
| Unknown | Well now, of course, because of casebacks you you you you can, but but in the olden days obviously well you know you can do a a Goldberger m movement and use your cheese knife to to pry one open. But the the so for example, speed masters are are unfortunately too big for me. Uh but one watch that I'm really interested in is the the the Sea Masters that came with the three twenty-one movement, uh such as uh uh I think is beloved by Roger Smith. Uh that's an insane movement, obviously. And you can still find one. Th'eres a reference I'm kind of looking for, the 2451. I think it's the two four five one, which is very early C master corona, which is by the way, beautiful and very hard to find in good condition. Later ones are ubiqu |
| Unknown | itous, but but the early ones are hard to find. But that's an interesting situation where if you're buying for the movement, um you're much, much better served by looking at the Seamaster instead of the Speedmaster. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, I mean |
| Unknown | that's true of a lot of things. You know, I mean some of the explorer movements are are some of the best ever made. Um uh and and Smith when you were interviewed him was talking about how his daily beater is uh I think an eleven four two seven oh or one of those very late thirty-six millimeter um I think the last thirty-six millimeter explorer. So yeah, no, I I love that part. I I mean th you guys had an article, I think it was Jason Heaton who taught who met a guy who only has one watch. Can you imagine Can you imagine? And it was a shocking article. I mean I think it really uh but it was a great watch and he had spent his whole life with it. He bought it in Zaire during the the Ali for Forman fight to rumble in the jungle. Yeah I remember this. And it lasted like it's been going strong for all those years and and and is is a testament to the |
| Unknown | What do you think about that? The sort of romance. I |
| Unknown | g I So it would be very hard to do just one watch. I often end up in scenarios where wearing like a nice you know Rolex would probably not be a good idea. So it would be a two-watch scenario at least. Right. But let's say it was one watch, something like the 114270, something I could put a lot of dings on that's pretty much, you know, a tank, uh, but not shaped like a tank, like some contemporary Rolex models. That would be really really a wonderful way to go. You can buy one for about I think eight, ten K. You can buy one in that's never been used, so the gaskets are probably still intact, so you can swim in it, I would hope. Um so th that so yeah, I I I think about that. You know, what would it be like? My life is, you know, it's not uh I don't rumble in the jungle all the time, but it's been fairly interesting. I travel a lot. You write stuff stuff occasionally. Yeah. So I I think about that. And and then honestly a lot of the current watches kind of leave me a little underwhelmed, this whole Fotina thing has been weighing on me philosophically. Oh, do tell. Do tell. Well there's a term that Ladimer Nabokov, author of Lolita and many books not about statutory rape, um uh there's a Russian term he used um Porshlist, which is a kind of vulgar imitation. Um very hard to it doesn't really exist. No real the direct translation, but it's a kind of vulgar imitation. Porshlist. Uh P-O-S-H-L-O-S-T, I think it's uh you would spell it in in English. When I see that kind of Fotina, I I and there's some of these watches are gorgeous. You know, the long jeans, um is, it the military? Some some new watch that came out that has the dots on it. Oh yeah. It has these you know computer aid designed dots or whatever the heck, you know. They're like aging each dial thing. They're aging each dial, you know. I could just hear someone in Swiss go, let's put the nest let's turn the nostalgia to eleven, you know. Um and and but I think it's a gorgeous watch, you know, and if that watch was was real, I mean was was an actual watch, then I I I'd be all over it. Um |
| Unknown | I mean we're in this funny situation now where there's there may the the uh supply for uh the demand for nostalgia has outstripped the supply of actual sources of nostalgia. Exactly. Exactly. |
| Unknown | But when it comes to vintage wise, limited resource. Nostalgia is all we reach peak nostalgia. Um but nostalgia also brings this kind of what to my mind is like the blade runner effect, which is remember that scene where uh Rachel, who is uh a replicant, uh talks to Deckard, the Harrison Ford character, who's the Blade Runner, and she says something like, I'm real, you know, and he says, she says, I have memories. And Deckard says, those aren't memories, those are implants. That's Tyrell's niece's memory. Those are Tyrell's niece's memories. Tyrell is the the maker of the replicants, you know. And so often when I buy a watch like this one, which is gorgeous, and you know, I I I think am I sort of being a replicant? Am I getting someone else's memories? Right. And I mean that to a certain extent the answer is yes. To a large extent the answer is. I mean I still prefer being a replicant to Porsche list Naboko's vulgarity, but it's a question of mid |
| Unknown | dle ground in the same thing. conversations with a handful of folks in in the industry, in the watch industry, uh usually on the design side. And I've heard more more than one or two of them talk about this this impending crisis they see on the horizon, which is the current trend in watches is all about nostalgia. It's all ideas from 30, 40, 50, 60 years ago. What is going to happen when that disappears, when when inevitably fashion cycles, and people are looking for something genuinely new. Right. We've created a whole generation of watch designers, watch collectors, watch business folks who only know how to create and sell nostalgia. Where will the new ideas come from? |
| Unknown | To me the interesting thing about that is like you can you can view this as a sort of excessive resorting to vintage cues, or you can view it as a return to classicism that the watch industry unwisely abandoned in the exuberance of the two thousands. |
| Unknown | But I think there are independent brands that are trying to do something interesting. Um there's a micro brand. I never thought I'd like a micro brand, but when I was in Chicago, this guy, Chase, came from Oak and Oscar. Yeah. And I uh the Jackson I think was the model, right? And it borrows some cues and it's based on some race that happened in Chicago a hundred years ago. I I try to ignore all that part. But I think it it really was a very impressive watch. A little too big for me. The thickness is is pretty it's 14 and a half millimeters. But I thought it was an exceptionally great way to take just enough from the past and really update it. They had these um they had a twelve hour totalizer and it was um the registers were um what's that term? It was called Oh they're uh they're nested. It's the same register. It's the same register, and it was I I thought that was a very great way to approach the problem. Uh the watch felt entirely new, entirely modern. Um the thickness felt right. Too a little too much for me, but in general. I I thought it was one of the best sort of ways to negotiate with the past. And to create something new |
| Unknown | . Yeah. That's actually a great way to put it, negotiate with the past. And it's extraordinarily hard to do. I mean, on one on the one hand, we want that's what we want out of mechanical horology. Yeah. Right. We want a sense of connection with the with with the past. We want a sense of direct, tangible connection with the past. But we don't what we don't want is um a Trevor Burrus, Jr |
| Unknown | . I mean um you know uh I teach at Columbia I teach fiction writing at Columbia and next to me are the poets, you know, and they I think poets and watchmakers have a very similar kind of thing because you know there's constantly the cry of make it new and at the same time you're dealing with an with an art form that really kind of doesn't fit with contemporary needs. So but you can make it new, and I think with watches as well |
| Unknown | . Yeah. I always have this kind of internal struggle myself thinking about like quote unquote, I'm doing scare quotes, like modern watchmaking. Modern watchmaking in theory would be electronic watchmaking, right? Like it would be electronic watching. Right, right. Uh there's there's no world I don't get to make that decision. Um In in no world is there mechanical watchmaking today that isn't in some way nostalgic, right? Like there's something in it you can do The whole enterprise is nostalgic. Right, exactly. And I think we all, in being interested in mechanical watchmaking, have made ourselves okay with that, right? And shown ourselves to be pathetically incapable of coping with the modern world |
| Unknown | . Well I think that's part of it. I think in some ways watch partly a Yeah. And this is our little tiny chance to escape. And I actually, you know, w I care about precision, weirdly enough, because I try to use these watches as a way not to look up uh the time on my phone. This is a little bit of of time away from my phone. Um so in a very nerdish way I actually time my watches, you know uh I don't have that machine, that would be the next step, obviously. But we can we can help with that. Oh god, here we go. Yeah, |
| Unknown | but it's like it's really weird, you know. The whole um evolution of timekeeping has you know, there's there's this kind of interesting dance between the public and the private aspects of it, and the use of time as control and the ability to sort of own time and have it be something that you personally own. And I don't know, like a mechanical watch nowadays you feel like you're taking back ownership of your time to |
| Unknown | a certain extent. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. In the same way as I was talking about, you know, hedge fund managers who didn't wear a watch at all because they didn't know, you know, th they own the time. Most of us can't quite do that. But this is a this is a when I when I look at a watch, when I wear a watch, I I feel like I I'm not under anyone's jurisdiction in the same way I am when I pick up my phone because even though I'm looking at the time, in three seconds I am answering something from somebody. And that's just not how I want to live my life. Uh I had originally moved upstate uh as a way to escape the pull of of civilization because uh the cell phone coverage there is still pretty terrible. It's it's gotten better, unfortunately. But cell phone and uh you know and uh cellular whatever the LTE coverage is terrible. Yeah. So you often can't communicate and, that' |
| Unknown | s been a huge boon to my writing process. So do you feel like that's the reason the Apple Watch might bother some people so much? It's like an intrusion into this world that we have specifically retreated to in order to get away from what it represents |
| Unknown | . Right. So to speak. Yeah. I don't know. I think the phone is very inhumane. And I did a piece for the New Yorker a while ago where I was given the first iteration and last iteration of Google Glass. Um and Google Glass, um so that's a uh you know these are glasses you wear and you instead of using your phone you kinda communicate through them. I loved it because it was such an awful design that it kind of lessened my community if if you took away my phone and I just had this glass to work with um i you know I I I I would have used it less. And I think maybe the same is is true of the watch. Yeah. But I'm kind of a nut you know I know that there's all these a lot of people are scared and I read the reader's comments and I think you're kinda scared of but what what's the Apple Watch gonna do to all this? I don't know, I kinda don't think it will displace for this tiny community. The same way people have always said, you know, uh ebooks are gonna destroy print, you know, and and TV's gonna destroy print. And you know, print muddles along. It's not, you know, novels don't sell more than they ever have in the past, per capita, certainly not. But yeah, th this weird group of, you know, book nerds and watch nerds continues to to exist. You know as I tried to sell my wife on said, you know, these aren't these aren't these aren't objects. It's an investment class. It's a asset |
| Unknown | class, rather. I mean that's the same thing. I may or may not have berated a table of winged gudests last weekend about how they should be putting their money into vintage relics instead of mutual funds. But I think it's kinda almost bullshit. I just did an ar |
| Unknown | ticle on Bitcoin, you know, for the New Yorker. So um I I'm into bubbles in a big way. But this I really don't think I'm going to make a fortune off my uh 1016. But you know, that is sort of how I justify it is, well, you're putting money into something that you know that's an investment. Not really true. Right. But so so then if you do start to look at it merely as a luxury, then it does become a little hard to to get away with it in terms of especially if you own as some of us do more than, you know, two, three, four, five watches, it it becomes a little a little hard |
| Unknown | . |
| Unknown | Aaron Powell Yeah. No, and and and like I said, you know, a lot of the watchers I love, Nomos uh and Explorer, they don't scream luxury at all, but they are, you know, and in some ways they're the ultimate kind of you know, it's almost like a screw you to the aspirational classes that I can wear something that that you won't even that you won't even aspire to. That's how cool I am. Right. It's it's so understated you won't even realize how expensive it is. Yeah. And and so I I end up in these conversations a lot where I'm like, but I really appreciate the beauty and the mechanics of it to such a point. I mean what do you want me to do? You know, I don't golf. I don't snorkle. I don't you know I don't know how to do it. Are those the two other options? Well I don't I don't wear fancy clothes or you know expensive well okay I do wear decent clothes. I don't know, Gary. That's pr aetty flashy t shirt. Okay, okay. Oh, I've never I've never really spent money on anything. It's always been just low cost index funds. Because I always think that an artist is, you know, just one bad book away from complete um you know being completely forgotten. Let's hope it's this next one. Let's hope it's next one. Well this one's got watches, so how can it go wrong, right? Watches and hedge funds? I mean who's not gonna buy that? Um don't answer that. Um but so for me this this has been in like I said, this is the only f this is the first material possession I've ever had. I haven't owned a car until three years ago because I live upstate now. I have to drive, but before that uh and I've always traveled on other people's dime for, you know, journalism or whatever. So I've been able to not spend money. Um and I don't know. I mean I think sometimes when I think of that exit watch, that idea of you know I'm gonna have one watch and I'm gonna beat the shit out of it, I think a part of that is a kind of, you know, I grew up poor, you know, uh we were immigrants, we didn't have anything and and the idea of having these watches still feels a little risky to me in some ways. It feels a little weird. It feels weird, yeah. It does. And and uh and then you know, and you read comments and people get very upset and like what what the hell happened to this hobby? You know, when I showed up, uh you could buy a nice explorer for three grand and life is good. Um and I and I do feel and I think William Messina talks about this a lot and he's kinda feeling of, you know, where's it all |
| Unknown | going? Yeah. I mean, um, you know, uh when I first got interested in watches in the mid-1990s, there's there's and there's just no relationship between where prices are now for vintage and where prices were then. I mean, you know, back then vintage was you know kind of the quirky, you know, thoughtful choice that you would make, you know, in opposition to the outlandishly greater cost of buying a new watch. And now it's it's just the other way around. Also back then they weren't vinta |
| Unknown | ge watches, they were old watches. Yeah. Or just watches. But it wasn't an aspirational category. It wasn't an aspirational category |
| Unknown | . Well, you know, I have a very good watch friend. Well, friend in general, but but he also loves watches. Sorry. Watch friend is not really a term, right? Uh I have a good friend who loves watches in El Paso, Texas, and which uh borders um Ciudad Juarez, which used to be one of the most violent cities in the world, but it's love dearly. And he kinda he scours the pawn shops in those two cities and the results are insane. Wow. I mean you can find incredible. He finds stuff, I mean, he finds Rolexes from I don't know the the the teens for nothing |
| Unknown | . Now I wonder if we're going to see a giant spike |
| Unknown | . By the way and a huge chapter in my next book is set in El Paso and Juanas. So i I really took to it. Uh I thought it was a city where it was just it felt real. You know, you live in one of these um global cities like New York or LA or London and and it nothing feels real. Is that as that' |
| Unknown | s as real as real gets, right, James? Let's go there now. Yeah. Let's do the next episode uh live. Oh and the food. Oh my god, of course. I'm actually from Texas. I don't know if we've talked about this before. But yeah, I've been to El Paso before, and the food is ins insaneane. It's. It's really incredible. Oh my God. And and |
| Unknown | if you're I think it's the the the level of crime has gone down enough. It used to be, you know, like 400 people killed a year or something. But the level in Juarez is down enough. Not El Paso. El Paso is incredibly |
| Unknown | I love I love this idea you you brought up a minute ago though of you know, the more people get the more people who get into watches, the more the kind of old guard, you know, decry the end of this hobby and how it's all ending and how nothing's like it used to be. But to a certain extent, isn't that the point to get more people into this or to make the community more active? I mean, I'm sure back then it was, oh, nobody cares about these things, they're so underappreciated. If only there was more money devoted to scholarship and to Well I mean |
| Unknown | I have to say as an older watch writer who's getting crabier by the year, I I take a great deal of getting crabbier? No, I take a great deal of pleasure in uh finding more and more to decry because uh you know it keeps uh it keeps the pen wet. It also keeps the penes of din |
| Unknown | ky full. No, your your decrying is beautiful. It's it's beautiful decrying. But you know the the thing is, you know, so uh how many people how many people were alive on this planet in the last hundred years. I I I'm not good at math, but ten billion? I don't know. A lot. A lot. A lot is a safe bet. A lot is a safe bet. And and maybe uh between a third and a half of them own watches. I know in of course many parts of the world people didn't. So there's probably gazillions of watches running around. And so there's always kind of a new opportunity. You're always finding something incredibly new and weird. Yeah. Um Lu |
| Unknown | cy Yeah, that is the thing. I mean, you know, we're focused uh if we think about uh the things that are making people decry the state of uh modern watch collecting, it's really uh a relatively small slice of the entire history of watch making. Yeah, ye |
| Unknown | ah. And and you know, uh both you guys when you reviewed the uh the Christie's and Sotheby's, I think it were the Geneva sales, uh and and you listed like 10, 12 watches, and only one of them I think was a Rolex and the rest weren't. And I thought that was uh you know and as I talk about you know sports Rolex from the 60s a lot. People can't shut me up. But I wish sometimes that I that I would shut me up and because there's so many more interesting things. My friend just got back from Tokyo and he bought this Seiko Alpinist. Um really hard to find in in just with you know sharp lugs and all this and I thought holy crap I mean this was like their explorer was made for Japanese mountain men whatever those are I guess I think they I think they would like carry mail across mountains or something and then they became like a like a sports like a hiking type thing. Um and it's a incredibly beautiful sector dial cool watch that he got for seven hundred bucks. So it's you know it's still out there |
| Unknown | . Yeah. Um so we're gonna start to wind things up here. Uh and to end every show, we like to ask for some sort of cultural recommendation, something people can go to after this. So, Gary, I'm gonna make you do something a little self-serving. Oh boy. I realize we've talked a lot about your forthcoming novel, uh, but we haven't actually mentioned the name. So can you mention the name of your novel, give us a little preview and maybe plug it a little bit, tell us when it's coming I'm a big plugger of of novels |
| Unknown | . So the book is Lake Success. So we thought f we'll go from failure to success. Um and it'll be out September 4th in America, and I think around the same time in the UK. Okay. Um and it's as I mentioned before, it's a book about a hedge fund guy who goes banana a watch-loving hedge fund guy who goes crazy, abandons his family, his failing fun, gets on a greyhound bus. And so the journey throughout America, and especially the southern part of America, is sort of the backbone of the novel. Uh part of it is set in New York, but part of it is set uh and every place he goes by and so oh, I should mention that when he runs away from his wife he also takes a rollerboard filled with watches, and each segment of the journey is represented by a different watch. So that may uh appeal to some watch nerds. And I'll be touring the hell out of this book in uh across the US, most large metros in September, uh also I think late August I'll be doing uh London and Edinburgh and then in October I think I'll be doing a lot of Canadian cities. So wherever you are I |
| Unknown | hopeful we'll be. Yeah, and we'll find a way, whether it's in the show notes here or somewhere else on the website, we'll make sure people can uh can |
| Unknown | Okay. No spoilers, please. And uh no no no. For the twelve movies I haven't seen. I think pretty much everyone who's going to see that movie has seen it. But it's it's all about time. Um and it's a surprisingly I don't know, maybe I was bringing a lot of my own preoccupations to the viewing experience, but there was a lot in it about the manipulation of time and about the power of nostalgia and about the desire to um, you know, make time stand still in ways that are ultimately not um you know not tenable. And one of the most powerful objects in the film is actually um you know, an object that's intimately related to the nature of time and the passage of time in this universe and every other universe. And um and I cried at the end. Okay so you know that's amazing. This is the first positive thing I've heard about that movie. |
| Unknown | That Jack cried at the end. Well I mean look too I mean that's that's the new thing on Rotten Tomatoes because on the marquee Jack Cry. |
| Unknown | Oh my god. Wow, no, that actually makes me want to see it. Yeah. I mean I'm a I'm kind of a sucker for operatic comic book treatment of just about anything. Kelsey |
| Unknown | . Yeah. Um I'm gonna recommend a film also actually that I watched on Netflix. It's not new, um, but I think it recently came to Netflix and I just watched it last week, which is um Finding Vivian Meyer. Um yeah yeah if you're not familiar, uh V Vivian Meyer is a photographer who worked as a nanny uh in the Midwest for the second half of the I thought it was I thought she was in New York. She was for a brief time. She's from New York, but she was she worked mostly in the Midwest, in Chicago, actually mostly. Um but she took hundreds of thousands of photographs uh and a picker, an auction picker, basically found boxes of negatives and undeveloped film and photographs um in a storage unit, um just picking a random box of negatives. Uh and has essentially kind of re amassed her archive um and is selling it and he is sort of a complicated character who, you know, in some ways you want to like because he's saving this great art and in some ways comes off as the slimy storage unit picker you would expect him to come off as. But they go back and interview all these people who she worked with and try to complete this sort of picture of who she was and why she never showed anyone her photo So it's on Netflix. I don't know how much longer it'll be |
| Unknown | there, but I highly recommend you take a look at it. In Russia there's this concept that some of the best writers, especially during the Soviet times when writing could get you in trouble, were the ones who wrote the term was stole or into the table, the ones who never showed anything was like almost the saintly kind of writer, who doesn't need any kind of approbation. So yeah, I am not that writer, |
| Unknown | but I've heard of them. Buy Gary's books. Great. Well uh thank you Gary for being here. Oh. This is great. Um and we're gonna have some more conversations with you later this year. Cool. That'll be good. Yeah, and thanks, Jack. Thank you. Been a pleasure, guys. Thanks again to Gary and to Jack for joining us. This week's episode was produced by Grayson Korhonen and was recorded at Mirror Tone Studios in New York City. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next week. |