Rube Goldberg
[From article]
“The Inventions of Lucifer Gorgonzola Butts” first appeared in the January 26, 1929, issue of Collier’s. “In my cartoons,” Rube noted, “Professor Butts invented elaborate machines to accomplish such Herculean tasks as shining shoes, opening screen doors, keeping moths out of clothes closets, retrieving soap in the bathtub and other innocuous problems. Only, instead of using the scientific elements of the laboratory, I added acrobatic monkeys, dancing mice, chattering false teeth, electric eels, whirling dervishes and other incongruous elements.”
[. . .]
These oblong-shaped satires took on a life of their own. Dr. Seuss acknowledged his colleague’s influence in a cartoon signed “Rube Goldbrick.” In the early 1930s, “Rube Goldberg” entered the Merriam-Webster dictionary as an adjective defined as “accomplishing something simple through complicated means.” Engineering majors in colleges across the country began to sketch their own “Rube Goldberg” inventions.
[. . .]
a 1970 retrospective of Goldbergiana at the Smithsonian Institution. The exhibit, titled Do It the Hard Way, featured drawings, sculpture, writings, and memorabilia, as well as a documentary film about a career that spanned the century.
[. . .]
The New York Timeseditorialized that Goldberg’s “message is a lasting one: Beware of the all-knowing computers, supersonic gadgets and the rest of the hardware. Beware, too, of the proponents who aim to dominate the human element in life.” The Chicago Sun-Times stated that Goldberg’s “fantastically complicated devices to achieve ludicrously simple ends are today more profound commentaries on our times than they were when his mischievous mind first conceived them several generations ago.” Other papers joined the chorus, and then the cartoonists had their say. Karl Hubenthal was typical. In the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, he pictured Goldberg at heaven’s gate. Saint Peter operates it by means of a contraption involving a rabbit, a pistol, a sailboat, a candle, a boiling kettle, a spool, and a length of string.
[. . .]
Theta Tau, the oldest and largest professional engineering fraternity in the U.S., initiated the annual Rube Goldberg Machine Contest in 1989. According to the rules, said machine must be constructed of real materials and use at least 20 steps to accomplish its task within two minutes. Past winners include Screw a Light Bulb into a Socket; Toast a Slice of Bread; and Select, Mark, and Cast an Election Ballot. In 1995, the U.S. Postal Service issued a 32-cent stamp, “Rube Goldberg’s Inventions,” featuring the Automatic Napkin Machine, first drawn in 1931.
http://www.city-journal.org/2015/25_1_urb-rube-goldberg.html
STEFAN KANFER
The Alphabet of Satire
Rube Goldberg was a laugh machine for seven decades.
Winter 2015
[From article]
“The Inventions of Lucifer Gorgonzola Butts” first appeared in the January 26, 1929, issue of Collier’s. “In my cartoons,” Rube noted, “Professor Butts invented elaborate machines to accomplish such Herculean tasks as shining shoes, opening screen doors, keeping moths out of clothes closets, retrieving soap in the bathtub and other innocuous problems. Only, instead of using the scientific elements of the laboratory, I added acrobatic monkeys, dancing mice, chattering false teeth, electric eels, whirling dervishes and other incongruous elements.”
[. . .]
These oblong-shaped satires took on a life of their own. Dr. Seuss acknowledged his colleague’s influence in a cartoon signed “Rube Goldbrick.” In the early 1930s, “Rube Goldberg” entered the Merriam-Webster dictionary as an adjective defined as “accomplishing something simple through complicated means.” Engineering majors in colleges across the country began to sketch their own “Rube Goldberg” inventions.
[. . .]
a 1970 retrospective of Goldbergiana at the Smithsonian Institution. The exhibit, titled Do It the Hard Way, featured drawings, sculpture, writings, and memorabilia, as well as a documentary film about a career that spanned the century.
[. . .]
The New York Timeseditorialized that Goldberg’s “message is a lasting one: Beware of the all-knowing computers, supersonic gadgets and the rest of the hardware. Beware, too, of the proponents who aim to dominate the human element in life.” The Chicago Sun-Times stated that Goldberg’s “fantastically complicated devices to achieve ludicrously simple ends are today more profound commentaries on our times than they were when his mischievous mind first conceived them several generations ago.” Other papers joined the chorus, and then the cartoonists had their say. Karl Hubenthal was typical. In the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, he pictured Goldberg at heaven’s gate. Saint Peter operates it by means of a contraption involving a rabbit, a pistol, a sailboat, a candle, a boiling kettle, a spool, and a length of string.
[. . .]
Theta Tau, the oldest and largest professional engineering fraternity in the U.S., initiated the annual Rube Goldberg Machine Contest in 1989. According to the rules, said machine must be constructed of real materials and use at least 20 steps to accomplish its task within two minutes. Past winners include Screw a Light Bulb into a Socket; Toast a Slice of Bread; and Select, Mark, and Cast an Election Ballot. In 1995, the U.S. Postal Service issued a 32-cent stamp, “Rube Goldberg’s Inventions,” featuring the Automatic Napkin Machine, first drawn in 1931.
http://www.city-journal.org/2015/25_1_urb-rube-goldberg.html
STEFAN KANFER
The Alphabet of Satire
Rube Goldberg was a laugh machine for seven decades.
Winter 2015
