Marisa Girardi Presents

Our car radio has been slowly falling apart for the last few  months. On a road trip to Wilderness (Garden Route SA) in June, our primary form of entertainment was trying to wangle ways to keep it going, taking turns at tweaking, prodding and pushing, followed by bashing, shaking and dismembering. Only on the return trip did we manage to get it going well enough to last a while. But recently it went totally schizo and it was clear that  more serious attention was needed. Out came my jewellery wire and pliers, followed by prestik (sticky tack), superglue and a match (which turned out to be the magic ingredient).

I really prefer our lo fi hi fi to tell the truth - it seems to have more integrity without all the plastic,  streamlined shininess. But I am also really fed up with how appliances (and pretty much everything else) are made so crappily these days. It amazes me how I am happily using a sewing machine that was manufactured in the 1950s and is still going strong, but the hairdryer I bought last year breathed it’s last sigh a few days ago. And now it’s most likely going to be a piece of rubbish in a landfill. To get more than a few years of life out of any electric or electronic device in this Age of New is unlikely. If your toaster goes on the fritz, just get a new one!  Can you imagine the amount of this stuff that is thrown away every day?

Here is a comparison between some of the devices that feature in my life:

Item: Sansui car radio/cd player
Age: approx 2 years old
Status: not functioning without assistance

Item: Blaupunkt stereo receiver
Age: at least 3 decades old
Status: streaming audio

Item: Image hair dryer
Age: approx 1.5 years old
Status: kaput

Item: Jones sewing machine
Age: 1950s
Status: steamin like a demon

Item: Canon digital camera
Age: bought 2004
Status: does not compute

Item: Pioneer turntable
Age: 70s or early 80s
Status: spinning like a record baby right round round round

Item: Samsung digital camera
Age: bought last year when the Canon bit the dust
Status: periodically malfunctioning

Item: Wahl hair clipper
Age: At least 50 years old
Status: Trim anyone?

Conclusion: Old is the new new

Recommendation: Lo Fi Revolution!!!

Coming soon: Guidelines for a lo fi lifestyle.

I generally don’t like buying wrapping paper because 1.It’s too expensive 2.It’s wasteful and 3. I’d rather be creative.  So when I had to wrap my sister’s tea box, I thought of wrapping it in a pretty magazine page because 1.It’s cheap 2. It’s recycling and 3. You can choose from a wide variety of  images. But while this might be  fine for a very little present, for the slightly larger, it’s not going to fit. So I whipped out the ol’ sewing machine and zigzagged some pretty pics together. I went with a botany theme.

Trim it a little and voila! It’s a wrap.

Growing up in a creative family, our unspoken motto was “why buy it if you can make it”. Over the years we exchanged many handmade birthday (and other) cards as well as gifts,  and if  I have the time and a good idea, I still prefer to make a gift.

Here are the two most recent.

My friend Justin had a mexican themed birthday dinner and so I brought along a leetle friend for him.

I also printed a card with Signor Mustachio in front of his crumbling hacienda.

For my sister, I found a tea box in a charity store, sanded it down, painted a lovely poem by Su Dong Po on the lid and filled it with yummy teas.