I've heard about, and seen, some of your photographic work. Damn, man, what an eye! and the technique to pull it off...
I can only dream of learning something from you...
Whom we choose to accompany us through life is a very important decision; strangely, I sometimes seem like I expend more effort on material things, in this regard, than I do on the people around me.
For me, though, objects don't have feelings, so they are not hurt if I choose to reject them, or if I inspect them with a 20x loupe or 50x stereo microscope.
Friends and lovers, not so hurtproof...so sometimes, it's better to keep the loupe in the sheath...
;-)
But in the end, wearing a Simplicity or Petite et Grande Sonnerie or tourbillon is also a complex intellectual and emotional calculus.
I HATE tourbillons - over built, an answer to a question no one cares about or even asked in 50 years, too commercial and produced today mainly so that the producing manufacturer can justify through marketing legerdemain ridiculously absurd amounts of money for somethin that costs them 1/50th the retail price to produce.
Yet, the Haldimann H-1 central tourbillon is a pinnacle of watchmaking for me.
Petite et Grande Sonneries are useless toys for most, and in fact, most striking watches are highly dubious in their pleasure to price ratio delivered. Yet, I find no watch more enchanting than a wearable, elegant and well adjusted, melodic Sonnerie En Passant
The Simplicity is sublime, and as I noted already, your "defense" of it is dead on, couldn't put it better. You have captured its "essence."
I respect KV like no other, yet (gasp) I do not (yet) own one, and I don't like being a hypocrite and speak from dreams and empty wishes; it is important to "put one's money where one's mouth is." So I can't and won't comment on the Observatoire or other masterpieces from Mr. V.
I can "respect" a brand like A. Lange Sohne, but except for the 1815 Moonphase, I don't feel the emotional appeal.
I suppose the AP Royal Oak Jumbo (actually, jumbo - first generation, AP logo over the 6) might give the PG Sonnerie a run for its money as a "one and only" but can you believe that as long as I have loved and supported AP and their products, I only "got" the RO and Offshore in the last few years?!?
I'll have fun with Ikepods -
and Silbersteins -
And I still can be taken away by the sheer historical significance of pieces like these -
but in the end, I always "come home."
Until the day I don't, or can't.
So, a ding dong, and a whirly gig thingama jigger are what I hope I'll always come home to
Cheers,.
TM