Absinthe & Flamethrowers: Projects and Ruminations on the Art of Living Dangerously - Softcover

Gurstelle, William

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1556528221 ISBN 13: 9781556528224

Verlag: CHICAGO REVIEW PR, 2009

Inhaltsangabe

A Selection of the Scientific American Book Club

 

Want to add more excitement to your life?

 

This daring combination of science, history, and DIY projects will show you how. Written for smart risk takers, it explores why danger is good for you and details the art of living dangerously.

 

Risk takers are more successful, more interesting individuals who lead more fulfilling lives. Unlike watching an action movie or playing a video game, real-life experience changes a person, and Gurstelle will help you discover the true thrill of making black powder along with dozens of other edgy activities.

 

All of the projects'from throwing knives, drinking absinthe, and eating fugu to cracking a bull whip, learning bartitsu, and building a flamethrower'have short learning curves, are hands-on and affordable, and demonstrate true but reasonable risk.

 

With a strong emphasis on safety, each potentially life-altering project includes step-by-step directions, photographs, and illustrations along with troubleshooting tips from experts in the field.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

William Gurstelle is a professional engineer who has been researching and building model catapults and ballistic devices for more than 30 years. He is the author of The Art of the Catapult; the bestselling Backyard Ballistics; Building Bots, Whoosh, Boom, Splat; and Notes from the Technology Underground. He is a contributing editor at Make magazine and writes frequently for The Rake, Wired, and several other national magazines. He can be contacted at absintheandflamethrowers.com

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ABSINTHE & FLAMETHROWERS

PROJECTS AND RUMINATIONS ON THE ART OF LIVING DANGEROUSLYBy WILLIAM GURSTELLE

Chicago Review Press

Copyright © 2009 William Gurstelle
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-55652-822-4

Contents

Acknowledgments...............................................vPrologue......................................................xiPart I Why Live Dangerously?1 Big-T People, little-t people..............................32 What Is Edgework?..........................................133 Where the Action Is........................................174 Why Live Dangerously?......................................23Part II How to Live Dangerously5 The Most Important Chapter in the Book.....................336 Obtainium..................................................377 The Thundring Voice........................................498 Playing with Fire..........................................699 The Inner MacGyver.........................................8710 The Minor Vices............................................11111 The Physical Arts..........................................13912 Thrill Eating..............................................15913 Flamethrowers..............................................17514 The Strange Music Starts...................................191Notes.........................................................197

Chapter One

Big-T People, little-t people

"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing." -Helen Keller

On June 18, 1952, the headline on the front page of the Los Angeles Times read "Rocket Scientist Killed in Pasadena Explosion." The unlucky scientist was John Whiteside Parsons, a brilliant but (putting it charitably) strange man who had founded the world-famous Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Later he went on to start the now gigantic Aerojet Corporation, a major space contractor specializing in missile and space propulsion whose products include the Atlas, Titan, and Delta rocket engines.

In the early afternoon of what had been a quiet day in this pleasant, well-to-do suburb of Los Angeles, an immense explosion rocked the neighborhood. Heard a mile away, the blast tore apart the aging three-story mansion at 1003 South Orange Grove Avenue. The neighbors had grown accustomed to bizarre goings-on at this address, for there was always a strange mix of people going in and out-bohemian artists, science fiction writers, and occultists to name but some. But this was serious.

Sirens screaming, trucks bearing firemen from all over Los Angeles soon arrived. A few daring individuals chanced the smoking ruins to search for any survivors trapped within. Pushing aside the charred rubble, they found Parsons, at least what was left of him, covered by an overturned washtub. The rescuers gasped when they first turned him over. Several pieces of Parsons, including his arm and the side of his face, were missing. They discerned a weak pulse and frantically dragged him outside, where they hoped and waited for a miracle that never came. His situation was hopeless and he succumbed to his injuries about an hour later.

His cause of death was determined to be an accidental explosion from careless handling of an oversized batch of fulminate of mercury, a highly unstable contact explosive. Producing fulminated mercury requires precise laboratory procedures and precipitation reactions that involve dissolving metallic mercury in nitric acid and adding precise quantities of ethyl alcohol until crystals of the explosive precipitate out of the solution.

Most chemists will tell you that fulminate of mercury is far too dangerous to be made in a home laboratory in anything but the smallest quantities. It is not only poisonous but also so unstable that almost anything will cause it to explode. A small bump, an inadvertent knock, or a short drop is all it takes. Simply jarring it a bit can set it off.

Police conducted a thorough investigation of the scene. They found the remains of numerous containers of different kinds of explosives. Piecing together the forensic evidence, they deduced that Jack Parsons must have accidentally dropped a coffee can full of the stuff. And that two-foot drop was all it took to end his life.

Rumors and stories continue to swirl around the memory of Parsons. Although he was not college educated, his innovations in rocketry during the 1930s and 1940s were amazing. His contribution in the field of rocket fuels was particularly important. In fact, a fair amount of credit is due Parsons for powering the nascent American space exploration program. Parsons is credited with inventing the process for casting solid fuel rocket motors. Solid fuel rocket motors propelled the gigantic Saturn V rocket that carried American astronauts to the moon. Today, Parson's contribution is the basis for the design of the two solid rocket boosters that provide the liftoff thrust for every NASA space shuttle.

Parsons's personal life was as noteworthy as his professional career. He was intensely interested in mysticism and was rumored to be a disciple of Aleister Crowley, a British writer and perhaps the preeminent occultist of the 20th century. Before each rocket launch, colleagues noted that Parsons would recite Crowley's "Hymn to Pan," a strange bit of poetry dedicated to the Roman pipe-playing, horned god of fertility.

But Parsons's reputation as a risk-loving disinhibitionist went even further. Stories of orgies, black magic, even incest swirled around Parsons. If Parsons did worship Satan, then his choice of career suited him well, for there was likely no man alive more comfortable working with fire and brimstone. His work was not forgotten. In 1972 a crater on the dark side of the moon was named after him. Given his nature, that's probably a place he'd find desirable.

Type T Personalities

Social scientists have labels for Parsons and others like him. They call them Type T personalities. T stands for "thrill seeker," a high-energy personality who craves excitement and stimulation. When a thrill seeker can't find it, he or she creates it. Thrill seeking is a term that encompasses a great deal of mental territory. Thrills can be physical, or they can be mental.

Thrills can be more than just fun, however. Done often and done well, thrill seeking, as we'll see, imbues those who attempt it with a number of important attributes such as self-reliance, situational control, and the ability to think and act rationally under extraordinary circumstances. The key is to understand the balancing act that must occur for thrill seeking to be both artful and beneficial. Learning the art of living dangerously, I firmly believe, is an important life skill.

Put another way, people choose to fall into one of two risk categories. One can eschew risks or seek out risks. And those who choose to seek out risks can do it poorly, with malevolence or failure, or they can do it well, with art and elegance and a high chance of attaining their goals. The question is how to insure the outcome is the latter.

Dr. Frank Farley of Temple University has written extensively on the positive and negative aspects of thrill seeking and the associated personality types. Type T personalities, says Farley, exist on a continuum. On one end are the Big-T people, those who go out of their way to flirt with danger. It's not hard to find examples. Consider the unfortunate Parsons, Ernest Hemingway, DNA researcher Sir Francis Crick, the legendary explorer...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: CHICAGO REVIEW PR
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2009
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1556528221
• ISBN 13: 9781556528224
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 208
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar