I confess to being in the market for an expensive watch. I say I confess because I know the watch I buy for a lot of money will not be more accurate than a watch I could have bought for a lot less, but there you have it. This explains why I gave more than cursory attention to a double-page ad in the Sunday New York Times for expensive watches. One caught my eye. It seemed oversized, which is the fashion these days, and built to take a bullet or two, which is required these days, and undoubtedly water resistant down to where the homicidal stingrays roam, and it was altogether handsome, although not for me. But it was the name that caught my eye: U-Boat.
I am some sort of fuddy-duddy. The U-Boat watch, created by Italo Fontana, apparently sells well enough for it to go for almost $7,000. But, just as clearly, the name resonates with the people who buy the watch—otherwise, why not call it the Nautilus or the Calypso Sun? That is the part that bothers me—they accept the watch on the same amoral terms as those who ran the U-boats themselves—self-described brave men working at the tough business of war and not, in their own turtle-necked-Das Boot way, complicit in the deaths of millions. The people who buy a U-Boat are a special sort. They can spend thousands on a watch but, fundamentally, they cannot tell you the time of day.
