27 Jan Leaf Blower Culture

I can’t hear any at the moment, most likely because it snowed last night, but on just about any other day they’re out there making their uniquely grating racket. No, not Republicans—sadly, I can still hear them—I am speaking of leaf blowers, genus petrolius facultas to be precise. Why, Gentle Reader(s), you may well ask, is Your Humble Narrator clogging up the intrablogosphere with questionable grumbleisms about something as seemingly innocuous as the lowly leaf blower? Indeed. Allow me to elucidate.

 

I am picking on the lowly leaf blower for a few reasons. First of all, as you may have previously ascertained, they bug me. They bug me in a very basic way because they’re noisy but the primary wellspring of my bebuggedness is not aesthetic in nature. Leaf blowers also suck because those nasty little two-stroke engines have been widely acknowledged as a significant source of pollution. Yes, they are small, but they also have no emission controls whatsoever and there are zillions of the little bastards out there (see this Washington Post article for more on that matter) snarling and roaring away in your neighborhood and mine. Add it all up and the smoggy picture is not a pleasing one.

 

But far beyond even the insidious environmental implications of the leaf blower there lurks a further reason to revile these compressed air snorting nasties, and it is philosophical in nature. ‘Philosophical?,’ you may ask. ‘But, YHN, what possible philosophical component could there possibly be to an implement so rudimentary and utilitarian as a leaf blower?’ Admittedly, it seems like a bit of a conceptual stretch but I beg your indulgence.

 

Essential to the mindlessly contradictory concept of the leaf blower is that, for the most part, it is completely useless. Without exception, when I see one of these appalling contraptions at ‘work’ it is being utilized to effect one of two primary maneuvers: Movement of leaves and other debris from the sidewalk to the street or movement of leaves and debris from one section of sidewalk to an adjacent section of sidewalk. The leaves are not removed or composted—merely relocated. In the process, carbon-based fuels are burned, exhaust fumes are belched, human beings are paid to gradually go deaf whilst wasting their time performing a pointless activity. And we’re not even talking about government-grade work here. When the wind picks up, cars pass by or a competing contingent of leaf blower-wielding landscape workers appear on the scene, everything ends up more or less back where it began. A two-stroke Husqvarna leaf blower can cost upwards of $500. A decent quality leaf rake costs around $25. Damn me for a luddite, a tree-hugger, a bleeding-heart pinko-rific pot boiling pedant, but the point remains: Leaf blowers blow. Or suck. If they sucked they might actually do something vaguely useful.

 

But pray, do not begrudge to bear with me a bitcoin longer, Gentle Reader(s), as I have not yet arrived at my ultimatesque pointbreak. My grievances with the leaf blower obviously have a component of practicality, but my larger indictment of this vile utensil is primarily metaphorical. In YHN’s humbly narrative opinion, the leaf blower serves most ably as a metaphor for loud, wasteful, pointless activity in general, but, more specifically, for a distinctly American brand of injurious, short-sighted, pig-headed action and policy. Sort of like a monster truck rally minus any pretense of entertainment value. Sort of like bombing and invading a country based upon erroneous or falsified so-called ‘intelligence’ (or the willful denial of genuine intelligence for reasons of political doctrine). Sort of like denial of the overwhelming evidence that climate change is real and is happening here and now (as two recent articles in the New York Times on global warming and the pending collapse of oceanic habitats make abundantly clear). Sort of like the rush to buy giant SUVs because the price of oil has temporarily fallen below $50 a barrel.

 

The list goes on, Gentle Reader(s). And on, and on… I’ll not hornswoggle you with an exhaustive recitation of the follies that can, and occasionally do, keep YHN tossing and turning about in his bed of a night instead of surrendering with ease and gratitude to the enticements of Morpheus. The modern world and its ills, Gentle Reader(s)—to have come so far and yet learned so very little: Tis enough to make a dog laugh and a stone cry.

 

The famous and oft-cited adage of Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás (otherwise known as George Santayana) to the effect that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it scarcely seems adequate. What philosophical recourse is appropriate when the past is a) not valued, b) denied, c) rewritten to order to suit the requirements of the current agenda, d) extends back no further than the previous news cycle? Perhaps more to the point, of what relevance is the past when the future doesn’t seem to matter? So what of it if things fall down, go BOOM, if Ol’ Jebus Hisself is going to swoop down to book all the faithful aboard a one-way flight on the Rapture Express? Or, alternatively, if there’s Ol’ Mohammed and 72 virgins apiece awaiting in Paradise yonder? Perhaps I should compose a cartoon to illustrate the point. That would be one way to expand the viewership of inkyinkinc.

 

How has it come to this—all from a leaf blower? A leaf blower may seem like such a small thing relative to the Big Picture, Gentle Reader(s), but it is direly symptomatic of much larger ills. If a problem affront thee, crank up the Black & Decker and blow it on down the street: Out of sight, out of mind. But, annoyingly, the problem doesn’t quite seem to stay away. Damn if it doesn’t eventually blow right back! Quel bummer, dude!

 

But, conversely, the good thing about little things is that good little things are invested with the very same potential to gain momentum and become good bigger things. Works both ways. And this—finally, blessedly—is my point. And there’s also art and music and love and nature and stuff like that as well. So all is not lost. Now get out there and start raking!