Experiment: An Entire Month Without a Knife?
Here i go. One Month no knife use at all for any reason. This includes razors, scissors, clippers. Anything that cuts except my teeth and my wit. ( ill still be making knives, as i cant go broke) Ill be reporting to @BladeMagazine on my progress in detail. This will be hard! pic.twitter.com/I9kqq4ZhBO
— BC Cutlery Co. (@bc_cutlery) March 12, 2018
Roger Barnes, of BC Cutlery Co., is running an experiment. He’s seeing what would happen if he went an entire month without using a knife, and he’s documenting the hurdles he comes across.
It’s an interesting thing to think about. Whether you use a knife or not, the conveniences that make modern living possible are grounded in a blade turning one thing into two things.
BLADE will be following Barnes as he plays out his experiment over the coming weeks, and summing everything up in an article. You can follow along, too, on Twitter.
Photographer Documents What Happens When Knifemaking Leaves Town
Jason Koxvold is a photographer who set out to document the decline of the cutlery industry in the Hudson Valley of New York, which for 150 years formed the bulk of that region’s economy. The result is KNIVES, a photo gallery depicting the fallout.
From Koxvold’s website:
KNIVES is a project made over several years, using documentary photography to trace the shifting relationships between masculinity, myth, and violence in a rural town whose economic base remains eviscerated by globalisation.
The cutlery industry formed the economic backbone of New York’s Hudson Valley for over 150 years, until the Schrade knife factory abruptly moved production to China in 2004, leaving 500 men and women out of work. The town’s maximum security prison, Eastern Correctional Facility, became the largest employer in the area, shielded from the wider community by layers of secrecy. As businesses continued to close during the decade that followed, drug abuse, mental disorders, and rare cancers have become more widespread.
Koxvold’s work is less about the knife industry in general and more about the disruptive effects of a changing global economy on certain parts of the United States. Still, it’s worth a look for knife enthusiasts, if only to better understand how knives fit into the bigger picture.
(Video info: Jason Koxvold: KNIVES from Elijah Barrett on Vimeo.)
Update on Canada Knife Ban
Canada banned most imports of folding knives earlier this year, and the larger knife community is not taking things laying down.
Here’s where the issue stands. Click a link to learn more.
1) It’s still legal to own a folding knife in Canada. Only imports of knives that open with “centrifugal force” are banned (meaning most folders).
2) A petition in Canada to overturn the ban is gathering steam, and has support from an MP.
3) A prominent lawyer in Canada plans to challenge the ban on constitutional grounds.
4) U.S. groups are organizing to support those efforts in Canada, albeit from a distance.
If this is the first time you’ve heard about this ban, start here.
BLADE also received feedback on social media from knife enthusiasts about this important issue. Here are a few highlights.
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