Years ago, I noticed tourists crowding into my city of New York with Pentax and Leicas strapped around their neck. My high school buddies also were part of the single lens reflex craze. Sitting in the closet was the most wonderful old Ciroflex camera from the forties or fifties. It was a close mimic of the Roliflex that can be seen immortalized in board games like the fifties "Star Reporter" or in modern movies like "Fur" starring Nicole Kidman. I loved that old thing. I loved the separate light meter and looking down at the huge ground glass where the image magically appeared. It had weight. It had simple understandable engineering. Later I progressed to the Pentax K-1000 because it was minimalist. Nothing electronic or very automatic about it. I heard you could drop them from a height and they would still survive. If the battery died - they still worked. I still own that little camera and occasionally take it out of storage for a romp. ... but I digress.
In 1979, I had to take that old Ciroflex to a camera repair shop in NYC. I recall that when I entered the shop it was filled with knowledge, history and romance. The technicians were technicians with superb manual dexterity. They had thoughtful cautious approaches to life. They knew that the secrets of life reside in the human's inexplicable opposable thumb which stimulates the brain which fosters intellect. This is the reason that certain Asian cultures insist that the children learn to eat using chopsticks rather than forks. If you can pick up a single piece of rice with chopsticks, you are well on your way to understanding the Japanese word "Shibui". You are an artisan and not just a shoveler.
When cameras became electronic, two things happened. The first was a good thing. People, all sorts of people, could now take decent photos without mastering F-stop, aperture and light levels. The second was tragic. Artisan camera repairmen lost their jobs --- Sheldon Brown was one of them. He recovered, but with an odd understanding that less is more and irreverence may be a soul's salvation.
Now the bicycle world is filled with cruder people. That is largely true but for the members of this list and other crevices of cycle culture. Now Sheldon is dead and it makes me and others feel alienated. I can't see how it could be otherwise, but it is also true that in the discards from popular culture the soulful reside.
Garth Libre in Miami Fl USA