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Kitchen Table Kibitzing 2/11/2025: Joseph's Machines [1]
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Date: 2025-02-11
Frank Wilbert Stokes: Moonlight, Starlight, Atlantic Ocean (1902)
Good evening, Kibitzers!
What a lot of weather is being distributed across our continent this week! After getting some attractive snow over the weekend, we in the Boston area are now expected to get mostly sleet and rain from the two (2) storms on their way across the country this week. (Sleet is still hot chocolate weather! So is icy rain! You can cheat me out of snow, but you cannot cheat me out of hot chocolate, dammit.) Later: Catching up on Ryan Hall, I see there is a storm #3 on tap for this weekend that looks better for more snow in the northeast.
The storms are also bringing flooding to places including California, and possible tornadoes and hail to the southeast, and these things are not so much hot chocolate weather. Everyone be safe, please!
You are probably familiar with "Rube Goldberg”, the concept, although you may not be, as I was not, acquainted with what an interesting man he was. But that’s not, as Arlo said, what I came to tell you about.
Instead, let’s talk about “kinetic artist” Joseph Herscher. (Here’s his website; here’s his YouTube channel, Joseph’s Machines.) He grew up in New Zealand, as you might guess by his accent, but he has also lived in the US, and is now based in London. His Rube-Goldberg-esque “machines” vary in size and complexity, but they’re extremely creative. It also should be remembered that Rube Goldberg himself was just drawing cartoons — these machines have to work in the real world with real physics!
We’ll start slowly, with Joseph’s 2013 appearance on Sesame Street. [3:30]
This pizza contraption is a relatively simple one of his creations. This video also introduces, at the end, his penchant for building things that feed him messily, and also his practice of reading the long list of donors that contributed to the project. Sometimes there are surprises at the end of that list, but in the interest of time, you might not always stick around to find out. [3:28]
The “human carwash” gets points from me for best use of Christmas trees. As in many of these videos, background music is by his mom and her band — she’s the vocalist. [2:56]
Five short clips of inventions that are “surprisingly useful” (for some values of “useful”). [5:04]
The sandwich maker! This one has a surprise twist. Plus, I should note, this is from 2020 and that ballot box was aimed at us. [4:38]
These next two are from a New Zealand TV series called What’s Your Problem?, in which kids describe an annoyance of theirs and Joseph and his friends design and test a completely ridiculous machine to “solve” their problem. This one, the dish do-er, is a straight-up homage to Goldberg, as Joseph describes. [5:20]
You’ll have noticed that the machines tend to be made of items related to the theme of the problem they’re addressing. This Santa-catcher is particularly all-in on that idea. The process is interesting! [11:16]
Periodically, Joseph announces one of the machines as “most complex ever”, but of course, they are later surpassed. Here’s a “most complex” from 2018: the cake server. I appreciate the use of melting machine components acting as a system of propulsion. [2:43]
This is the “making of” video for the cake server, in which he walks us through his process. [3:29]
The 2019 pass-the-salt project considerably surpasses the cake server! The carrots might be my favorite part, but it is hard to choose. [4:27]
Another “most complex ever” candidate to end this diary, this one from 2022: “Pass the Wine”. It does involve live mice, cement blocks, a large power saw, and a certain amount of broken glass, but I assure you, no mice are harmed. [5:25]
[END]
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