so, i've been writing a series of mini-columns that are like little bits of "6 names of beauty." i'm still trying to find someone to sell them to, so don't tell anyone i'm putting them up on my blog.
Beautiful Things: Weapons
By Crispin Sartwell
A good weapon is a most beautiful thing.
There are few objects on which human beings have lavished more craft or ingenuity; there are few things which are as enshrouded in mystique or more redolent as symbols.
From the enchanted object that can only be wielded by the true king; to the soul or self of the samurai; to the footsoldier's axe and pike; to the dagger, the dirk, the stiletto; to the merest shiv, lovingly sharpened: blades are objects of devotion and fantasy.
The blade's relation to air is a figure of speed, purpose, effectiveness, an image of how, at best, we might move inside an environment.
There is no more compact and perfect machine than a decent pistol, nothing better suited to the human hand. The Colt, the Barretta, the Glock: you can't say you're not getting riddled with symbols as well as projectiles.
It's true that human beings are violent and destructive. But even our detractors can't say we are violent and destructive without art or without devotion or without pleasure.
Indeed, of all the arts of our species, the art of weaponry is perhaps the furthest advanced. But it will never be perfect until it becomes capable of consuming or erasing the entire universe. The only reasonable conclusion from our devotion to the weapon is that The End is something for which we yearn.
And though the apocalypse will be an occasion for wry, melancholy reflection, it will, of course, be beautiful, like a sunset or a supernova.