I love a good kluge. My favorite projects almost always end up involving some bit of makeshifting or improvising. Sometimes the project itself a kluge: when I don't have access to a particular tool or piece of equipment, I'll just try to make my own. It makes me feel like an inventor, or like one of those guys on Apollo 13 who had to create a contraption to save the astronauts using only what was available on the ship:
Doesn't every crafter feel like this at one time or another (minus the pressure of someone's life on the line)?
I was ruminating about my romance with the kluge this morning, and I decided to do a little bit of research on the word itself. Partly I wanted to determine if my understanding of the definition was complete or ... well, klugey! I was trying to get a sense of whether the word is intrinsically positive or pejorative, or just neutral. Apparently, it can be any of those. Here are several different definitions.
This disparity could be due to the word's confused origins. (It can either be traced back to "klug," the German word for "clever," or "kludge," the Scottish word for public toilet!)
Or, I think more meaningfully, it could come down to one of those "two kinds of people in this world" notions. Some people like things done they way they're supposed to be done. And others (like me) get a kick out of re-appropriating whatever they happen to get their hands on. It's a puzzle; a game. But I guess some people don't really like puzzles or games, so there you go!
So, fellow crafters, next time you find yourself improvising a workaround that ends up taking you the long way around, and someone sensibly points out to you that "they make a tool for that" (or something similar), embrace your love of the kluge, and reply "That might be the easy way, but it wouldn't be the crafty way!"
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