Caught in the Carousel

Hew, Screw + Glue: How Stuff is Made

James Innes-Smith
Abrams Image
Hardcover, 128 Pages

Hew, Screw + Glue: How Stuff is Made

While you likely know it's against the law to chew gum in Singapore, you may not be aware that the breakage rate for latex condoms is 100% greater in the United Kingdom than it is in the United States - and I bet you're glad you're reading this - especially if you're in the United States!

In his new book Hew, Screw + Glue, James Innes-Smith, who "divides his time between London and Los Angeles..." offers up 30 mostly tasty tidbits from Bowling Balls and Donuts (uuummm... donuts...) to Toilet Paper and Toothpaste that can make your life a lot more interesting, not to mention safer and cleaner. Innes-Smith's thesis, roughly stated, is that seemingly superfluous information can - in the right place or situation - save your ass. All of which is to say that it is certainly not random if it means you can avoid a whopping financial penalty or a few nights in the clink while traveling in Singapore.

Hew, Screw + Glue, How Stuff is Made is a lovely little book, 5 3/8th inch x 7 2/8th inch and an even 6/8th inch thick, covered in 1960's pin-stripes that coolly accent the deliberately too-small dust cover (another stylish move on the publishers part) that shows, with whimsically accurate illustrations, that Hew is the fresh cut of freshly cut wood, Screw should be rightly associated with steel, and Glue, is, well, sticky. There is no better place to begin Innes-Smith's appropriately sub-titled book with the chapter Book, which he does.

The book sells itself on the idea that information is what people want these days, as if these days were somehow different or more developed than the "olden times" as children say. What Innes-Smith shows us, through the vehicle of information, is that we crave awareness and connection much more. And he delivers.

The fifth entry, Chicken Dinner, is perhaps the most upwardly responsible of the lot, or is at least the chapter that attempts most obviously to be socially responsible. Here Innes-Smith does offer up some details that if you don't already know them, you should. For example, he says, "Because of severe overcrowding, each chick has less than a square foot of space in which to live and feed." Or, down the line a bit, "From here she (here Innes-Smith names the bird 'Hilda' to keep our attention focused on what he doesn't say, cute) passes through a stun cabinet full of electrified salt water..." This makes you think, he hopes, twice about the dinner you may be preparing. While the book is beautiful and cute, it is also serious, and flecked with potent information that offers deeper guidance than simply tracing the journey from dough to donut.

After finishing the book I find I still have some questions, which may be the author's real intent, to get his readers interested in what we should do with all the numbers and facts that find their way into our lives. At any rate I'll be looking for another installment in the possible How Stuff is Made series, which is also surely part of the author's plan - that is, if this one sells. And it should. I must say it would be nice to read a few pages on ether or nougat...because I've always wondered how closely related they are. Furthermore, I must confess that while it is appropriate that Innes-Smith devotes the last chapter to Vodka, he only writes one page of text for it...I'm just saying....

So pick up a copy of Hew, Screw + Glue, it will help you hew, screw and glue, and a lot of other things too.

—Chad Arnold
CITC Book Editor