I think of all sorts of things when I hear the word contraption.
By definition, it is usually a mechanical or electronic device or gadget.
But I propose it can be much more than that.
For instance, one of my brothers was a motorhead. From the time he was very young, he was always taking things apart and (trying) to put them back together. He began building things like lawnmowers and go-carts. Eventually, he got into the world of working on cars, sometimes from little bitty scraps of nothing. What I’m getting at is that a lot of those things were contraptions.
I also think of a myriad of cartoons and TV shows. They are filled with contraptions. Perhaps the most famous is Wile E. Coyote and his frequent deliveries from the ACME Company. And then, of course, the mechanics of Inspector Gadget were unending. Contraptions.
I probably could go on and on about contraptions. But the final thing that comes to mind right now are those Rube Goldberg contraptions. Every time I happen upon a video showing one of those intricately planned devices, I am sucked in, watching the thing all the way through, from bouncing ping pong balls to falling dominoes.
If you are wondering about the origins of those schemes, the name comes from a real person. Reuben Garrett Lucius Goldberg (July 4, 1883 – December 7, 1970) –Rube Goldberg – was an American cartoonist, sculptor, author, engineer, and inventor.
He used to draw cartoons depicting complicated gadgets performing simple tasks. But those mechanisms always took an indirect and incredibly convoluted route to get the job done. And it was those cartoons that led to the expression “Rube Goldberg machines.” Contraptions.
May your day be filled with good and happy twists and turns, like marbles rolling into matchbox cars, which bump into golf clubs, which launch a tire rolling down a track into a typewriter, that nudges a paintbrush, and on and on.
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“Many are the strange chances of the world.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion
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“To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.”
― Thomas A. Edison
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“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”
– Henry David Thoreau
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That gadget. That thing. That go-go get it.
