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The Great Washing Machine Scam

As consumer technology improves, household mainstays like the basic washing machine keep sprouting new, unnecessary functions. Many of those functions are difficult if not impossible to repair, which makes the life expectancy of our household appliances plummet. What’s going on here? Our journalistic gumshoe hits the streets to figure out who’s pulling the strings in the appliance world.

Written by AARON BRITT

Try This at Home: A Q&A with Kyle Wiens, Right-to-Repair Crusader

Craftsmanship’s Contributing Editor Jeff Greenwald caught up with Kyle Wiens, co-founder and CEO of iFixit, the world’s largest repair community, to talk about what makes repair a craft—and where the right-to-repair movement is headed next.

Written by JEFF GREENWALD

Mending: An Ancient Craft for Modern Times

Traditional DIY basics like clothing repair have become covetable knowledge again. With the fast-fashion machine on notice for its abysmal climate footprint, could this be mending’s big moment?

Throwaway Nation

The practice of deliberately making goods not meant to last, or be repaired—a concept called “planned obsolescence”—was invented in America, perfected in America, and can now claim victory in leaving the U.S. with the world’s largest waste stream. Why are we so addicted to buying stuff that will soon be worthless? And what can we do to get off this destructive treadmill?

Written by JULIA SCHEERES

Listen to “Keeping the Beat: Custom-Made Conducting Batons”

A good conductor can lead an orchestra with almost anything — even a chopstick. Leonard Bernstein was known to conduct a full symphony with just his eyebrows. Why, then, in this age of cheap manufacturing, are handmade, customized batons still in demand? Written by JEFF GREENWALD Introduction by PAULINE BARTOLONE Narrated by JEFF GREENWALD Produced…

The Return of the Harmonica

In the 1970s, Hohner, the world’s largest harmonica manufacturer, changed its flagship model, and in the process its signature sound. A few musicians and harp customizers waged a quiet rebellion. And they won.

Written by BEN MARKS

Keeping the Beat: Custom-Made Conducting Batons

A good conductor can lead an orchestra with almost anything — even a chopstick. Leonard Bernstein was known to conduct a full symphony with just his eyebrows. Why, then, in this age of cheap manufacturing, are handmade, custom conducting batons still in demand?

Washington, D.C.’s Homegrown Funk: Go-Go Music

In honor of Juneteenth and Black Music Month, take a tour through the history—and the sounds—of the musical culture that has been a cherished folkway in and around the nation’s capital for decades.

Written by ALONA WARTOFSKY

Of Dahlias, Devoted Growers, and their High-Stakes Competitions

While many gardeners take their flowers seriously, few devote almost all of their time to growing one breed—the dahlia—then drive hundreds of miles to go mano a mano against other fanatical growers, for nothing more than a blue ribbon. But that’s exactly what Deborah Dietz does.

Written by THOMAS COOPER
Photography by JAK WONDERLY

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