‘The Thinking Hand’
Akinori Abo, a master carpenter from Japan, picked up a thin-bladed crosscut saw and drew it quickly through a 6-inch block of wood. Each time he pulled the rattan-wrapped handle back, the blade hissed and aromatic sawdust streamed to the floor. Abo’s final cut drew a burst of wild applause. It may seem odd to applaud a man for sawing wood, or demonstrating a carpenter’s square, or drawing a heavy plane across a wide board. But consider that Abo’s shavings were three times thinner than a human hair, curling up from the plane like a paper scroll. Or that the block of wood afterward was as smooth as ivory. The applause, from 50 onlookers at Harvard’s Center for Government and International Studies (CGIS), was an acknowledgement of awe for Abo’s craftsmanship. His intimacy with his tools — each plane tuned like a piano, each saw blade lovingly sharpened — showed a mind...