WELCOME TO TOM CHIPLEY'S EXISTENTIAL GARAGE
The Existential Garage is a place
that exists, like Schrodinger’s Cat, just outside
reality…a
little this side of the limits of one’s imagination, in the
quantum zone where the present is not quite yet the past, but heading
that way like Jack the Bear. Go too far and you fall off the edge into
what hasn‘t happened yet…go not quite far enough,
and you’re stuck with things that have already happened or,
worse yet, happening right now. It’s a place where one can
find almost anything from seeds for one’s own Shade Tree
(under which many an auto repair is undertaken), to specialized tools
such as the correct T-shirt to wear while setting the idle adjustments
on a brace of SU carburetors.
The SU carburetor is (unfairly) notoriously nasty to tinker
with…the rule of thumb being ‘if it’s
working, don’t mess with it’. For years most people
were sadly ignorant of the secret to tuning the little English buggers:
one simply must wear the right T-shirt. It’s an attitude
thing. Very emotional. Never could understand why the Brits developed
the SU rather than the Italians… SU’s are much
more Italian by nature.
If you are reading this, you’re probably a product of the
generation which grew up building things or repairing
things…from bicycles to washing machines …from
model airplanes to full size airplanes… from toy cars to hot
rods or sports cars. Ours was an analog world where everything existed
in a dynamic continuum, …in a solid world of logical cause
and effect.
Computer electronics has brought miraculous changes, but it’s
also side stepped analog thought, the forte of the human
brain…it’s now a choice among finite possibilities
(press one for customer service, press two for the parts department, or
press three for sales…it is not possible to speak with a
person at this time…however, we value your call, and another
electronic voice will be with you as soon as possible, please stay on
the line and remain subservient to the tyranny of electronics for a few
moments longer…).
We hope to make The Existential Garage a site for sore souls, free
range spirits, and mechanical expatriates. There will be a few items
available to aid in coping with an impersonal world. There will also be
a place where you can ask for something you may like but
don’t see offered…yet.
The Existential Garage is, at this time, only a small part of ShadeTree
Ink. Like Schrodinger’s Cat we may (or may not) exist only
when you actually open the website to look for us. We believe Richard
Feynman would approve.
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