Read this short piece by John Updike, called “Beer Can”, that originally appeared in The New
Yorker Magazine, on January 18, 1964. The piece was written after the invention of the pull-top beer can in
1963, nearly 50 years ago! ) You can find a copy of “Beer
Can” online here: http://www.davidglensmith.com/wcjc/1301/updike.html ).
Your posts might include: comments on Updike’s writing technique, or on unwanted and unneeded innovation
and invention or both. Please mention at least one unwanted technology or innovation (including in
architecture) that you would personally prefer to avoid.
BEER CAN
This seems to be an era of gratuitous inventions and negative improvements. Consider the beer can. It was
beautiful – as beautiful as the clothespin, as inevitable as the wine bottle, as dignified and reassuring as the fire
hydrant. A tranquil cylinder of delightfully resonant metal, it could be opened in an instant, requiring only the
application of a handy gadget freely dispensed by every grocer. Who can forget the small, symmetrical thrill of
those two triangular punctures, the dainty pfff, the little crest of suds that foamed eagerly in the exultation of
release? Now we are given, instead, a top beetling with an ugly, shmoo-shaped tab, which, after fiercely
resisting the tugging, bleeding fingers of the thirsty man, threatens his lips with a dangerous and hideous hole.
However, we have discovered a way to thwart Progress, usually so unthwartable. Turn the beer can upside
down and open the bottom. The bottom is still the way the top used to be. True, this operation gives the beer
an unsettling jolt, and the sight of a consistently inverted beer can might make people edgy, not to say queasy.
But the latter difficulty could be eliminated if manufacturers would design cans that looked the same whichever
end was up, like playing cards. What we need is Progress with an escape hatch.
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