{"id":48,"date":"2012-09-20T19:49:38","date_gmt":"2012-09-20T19:49:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/smugscout.com\/?p=48"},"modified":"2012-09-22T15:29:08","modified_gmt":"2012-09-22T22:29:08","slug":"a-few-thoughts-on-reclaimed-wood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/smugscout.com\/?p=48","title":{"rendered":"A few thoughts on reclaimed wood"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"yiv334723188yui_3_2_0_21_1348162467031261\">\n<div><a href=\"http:\/\/smugscout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/trees.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" title=\"trees\" src=\"http:\/\/smugscout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/trees-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>The Smug Scout has been spending a lot of time thinking about reclaimed wood of late.\u00a0 Please do not offend her by deeming this occupation preposterous. What should she think about? World misogyny? Global climate change? The possibility that a large buck could impale Paul Ryan with live, rather than decorative, antlers? No, no. While she would love to picture Ryan\u00a0bleeding to death from an antler hole\u00a0while a deer family contemplates a rare non-vegetarian dinner, instead she is having apolocalyptic visions about the future of reclaimed wood.\u00a0 With all of the buildings, furniture, household objects, and useless, expensive, unidentifiable knickknacks\u00a0made from reclaimed wood, she wonders how soon there will be a shortage of unclaimed wood to reclaim.\u00a0 She believes that Smug fans of reclaimed wood have a fantastical vision of the reclaiming process.\u00a0 It involves a logger dressed up in a\u00a0Brooklyn hipster costume, which itself was drawn from actual blue-collar loggers but now incorporates fair-trade flannel and\u00a0&#8220;water-less&#8221; jeans, roaming\u00a0forests in the Pacific Northwest.\u00a0 It involves this sustainably dressed logger carrying an antique\u00a0buzzsaw (please do not expect\u00a0the Smug Scout to be\u00a0technically accurate about tools) and occasionally stopping to forage some wild chanterelles.\u00a0 It involves this hip and happy logger smiling as he\u00a0carefully\u00a0rescues dead trees from their sad fate of rotting and regenerating\u00a0in the forest\u00a0and places them in his hybrid logging truck.\u00a0 It finally involves this Smug\u00a0logger\u00a0driving, of course a short distance, to\u00a0a wide variety of\u00a0artists and artisans, who will\u00a0chop and slice the logs in an artistic and artisanal, if\u00a0also\u00a0absurdly profitable, way for sale to the country&#8217;s Smug suckers.\u00a0 This is indeed a vision of tender and moving beauty.\u00a0\u00a0The Smug Scout, however, sees it differently. She imagines that the future of reclaimed wood\u00a0is in forests\u00a0&#8220;reclaimed&#8221; from\u00a0the\u00a0pulp and paper industry as that industry realizes there&#8217;s more money in &#8220;reclaimed&#8221; wood than in\u00a0institutional toilet paper, cereal boxes,\u00a0and particle board.\u00a0 Maybe Smug Scout is just too cynical.\u00a0\u00a0Maybe Smug\u00a0Scout needs to calm down.\u00a0 Okay.\u00a0 Just put a reclaimed\u00a0wood cutting board with some\u00a0foraged chanterelles in front of her, and she will stop.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Smug Scout has been spending a lot of time thinking about reclaimed wood of late.\u00a0 Please do not offend her by deeming this occupation preposterous. What should she think about? World misogyny? Global climate change? The possibility that a &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/smugscout.com\/?p=48\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/smugscout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/smugscout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/smugscout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/smugscout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/smugscout.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/smugscout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76,"href":"http:\/\/smugscout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48\/revisions\/76"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/smugscout.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/smugscout.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/smugscout.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}