Machines

In Lyon, the silk-weaving capital of Europe for centuries, the rhythmic clatter of Jacquard Looms once emanated from about 30,000 workshops. Today, only three workshops still uphold this tradition.

To letterpress lovers, the Heidelberg Windmill is a beloved icon of beauty and durability. This historic print shop in Olympia, WA, is devoted to keeping its Windmills—and their flawless prints—alive.

While AI proceeds to decimate career paths, take heart: Not all jobs are at risk. Educators, and many others, are seeing the hands-on trades as skilled, high-paying careers that robots can’t replace.

Setting out to buy herself a manual typewriter, an AI-weary writer visits the last full-time typewriter repair shop in Washington state—and encounters a time machine, of sorts.

Blake RIley, the creative director of San Francisco’s beloved Arion Press, discusses some of the long history and persistent myths of letterpress printing; what keeps a centuries-old, labor-intensive industry going in a high-tech world; what ‘mastery’ means to him (it may surprise you!)—and why he never gets bored.

As consumer technology improves, basic household appliances, like the washing machine, keep sprouting new, high-tech functions. Not surprisingly, they’re also increasingly difficult to repair. So our journalistic gumshoe ventured to find out: Who put us in this jam? And why?

Sarie Gessner—known for her Western-inspired suits, custom embroidery, and passion for music—is dressing some of country and Americana’s brightest stars for the stage.

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.

In a corrugated tin shed that somehow survived California’s massive fires in Sonoma Valley, Gary Freeman labors to keep old VW Beetles and vans—the cars that defined the counterculture of the 1960s—chugging along. Some become great “daily drivers” for as little as $15,000; some get auctioned for more than $200,000. It’s all part of one man’s quest for automotive immortality.