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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday.

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Speaker 1: Time to hop on into the Vault for an older

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Speaker 1: episode of the show. Uh. This week it's gonna be

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Speaker 1: Invention of the Chainsaw, Part two, following up on last

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Speaker 1: Saturday's Vault. This one originally aired October. I think this

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Speaker 1: is the one where we get into some bio mimetic

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Speaker 1: chainsaw design. You couldn't say words that would be more

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Speaker 1: heartworming to me than those. All Right, the saw is back.

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Speaker 1: Let's jump right in. Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your

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Speaker 1: Mind production of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff

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Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and

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Speaker 1: I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with part two of

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Speaker 1: our series on the invention of the chainsaw. And the

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Speaker 1: last time I think we left off after we've been

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Speaker 1: talking about the reasoning behind chains as a as a

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Speaker 1: cutting surface rather than just a a solid blade or

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Speaker 1: even as opposed to a giant circular saws. But this

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Speaker 1: time we wanted to come back and talk a little

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Speaker 1: bit more about the early history of power saws leading

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Speaker 1: up to the modern chainsaw, as well as some rather

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Speaker 1: rather distressing medical digressions. Well, before we get into the

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Speaker 1: medical stuff, I want to come back to something I

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Speaker 1: mentioned in passing. In the last episode, I mentioned how

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Speaker 1: I had I was vaguely familiar with stuff like the

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Speaker 1: misery whip and other, uh, you know, lumberjacking techniques and

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Speaker 1: technologies based on a cartoon that I saw when I

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Speaker 1: was a kid, or and probably saw more than once,

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Speaker 1: you know, probably had on a VHS tape or something. Um.

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Speaker 1: I described it, and our producer Seth, who is well

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Speaker 1: versed in the cartoon universe, he told me, oh, well

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Speaker 1: that I think the one you're talking about is nineteen

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Speaker 1: Up a Tree. This is a Disney short featuring Donald

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Speaker 1: Duck as well as Chippendale. And this is absolutely it.

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Speaker 1: This is the one with scenes of you know, Donald

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Speaker 1: is chasing the chip monks around trying to cut down trees.

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Speaker 1: They're all sorts of weird mishaps with saws. Do you

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Speaker 1: remember this one at all, Joe? Certainly, not in any detail,

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Speaker 1: not in any more than the sort of images you

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Speaker 1: described last time. Well, I'm going to cut right to

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Speaker 1: the end and see if this rings a bell. This

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Speaker 1: is the last two sentences from the Wikipedia summary for

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Speaker 1: upper Tree. From quote, all Donald can do is watch

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Speaker 1: with day's grief as his home is rocketed into the

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Speaker 1: air and explodes three times. Chippendale pretend to comfort Donald,

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Speaker 1: then proceed to roll in the ground and laugh hysterically.

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Speaker 1: Chippendale the sociopaths. They are bad friends. Granted, you know,

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Speaker 1: Donald did a lot of bad things before that, so

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Speaker 1: he was very much getting his come uppance. But you've

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Speaker 1: taken out of contact. That sounds that sounds pretty rough.

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Speaker 1: No one should have to watch their home explode three

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Speaker 1: times and then be brutally mocked by chipmunks. Yeah. Now, wait,

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Speaker 1: is this before Chip and Dale wherever rescue rangers? I

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Speaker 1: thought they would need to be rescuing people whose house

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Speaker 1: that was decades later. That was like a nineties thing, right, Okay,

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Speaker 1: this was this was back in the fifties when it

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Speaker 1: was just all about you know there in a way,

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Speaker 1: there was kind of a a very shallow environmental message here,

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Speaker 1: uh that Donald is bad for going after their habitat

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Speaker 1: and distressing their home, and Chip and Dale are good

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Speaker 1: for wanting to maintain the pristine nature of their natural environment.

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Speaker 1: The term is tree poaching. Donald was tree poaching also,

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Speaker 1: he was I think he was being rather unsafe with

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Speaker 1: some of the saws. I made that up by the way, there,

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Speaker 1: I've never heard of tree poaching. Well, I mean it

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Speaker 1: is you could certainly get into trouble for cutting, for

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Speaker 1: felling trees on someone else's land. That would be a

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Speaker 1: type of poaching, right, especially if they're full of sentien chipmunks. Uh, okay, okay.

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Speaker 1: So the next thing that I think we have to

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Speaker 1: talk about in the history of the chainsaw is uh

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Speaker 1: that we've been focused on the road leading to power

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Speaker 1: chainsaws for logging and construction. But you may well have

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Speaker 1: seen a sort of viral Digiteau article floating around a

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Speaker 1: couple of years ago talking about how the original invention

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Speaker 1: of the chainsaw was as a medical device, invented for

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Speaker 1: use in childbirth. Now, one of one of the really

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Speaker 1: surprising things is that, in one sense this is true.

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Speaker 1: In the eighteenth century there was such a thing as

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Speaker 1: the obstetric chainsaw. However, as you might guess from the period,

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Speaker 1: one big difference is that this was not a motorized device,

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Speaker 1: which maybe makes this discovery even more alarming. Yeah, because

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Speaker 1: when you you hear the words medical chainsaw, it sounds

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Speaker 1: ridiculous and potentially grotesque, or it sounds like the sort

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Speaker 1: of futurist extrapolation you find in sci fi, where you know,

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Speaker 1: sometimes it will be like in the few sure chainsaws

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Speaker 1: will be so small they can be used for surgical procedures.

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Speaker 1: You know, that's where you're like, actually that that technology

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Speaker 1: was not headed that direction, sci fi author. I'm not

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Speaker 1: sure why you chose to focus on that, um, but

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Speaker 1: you you you encounter that sort of thing in science

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Speaker 1: fiction from time to Yeah, well, sometimes in sci fi

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Speaker 1: medicine you just get little like wands, little magic wands,

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Speaker 1: Like one magic wand just opens the body up for

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Speaker 1: whatever kind of procedure, and then you touch the body

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Speaker 1: with another glowing wand and it instantly heals. Yeah, like

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Speaker 1: they basically had that technology and like Star Trek next generation.

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Speaker 1: Uh oh, yeah, that's right, Jason. Next, here's a quick

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Speaker 1: horror question for you, Joe. You're you're far better versed

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Speaker 1: in the the Friday the Thirteenth world here at the

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Speaker 1: film universe. Did Jason Voorhees ever picked up a chainsaw

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Speaker 1: or did he just know that that would be gimmick infringement,

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Speaker 1: that that that was why they faced his thing and

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Speaker 1: he should back off. I believe this is a point

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Speaker 1: a lot of people are confused on. As far as

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Speaker 1: I know, Jason has never wielded a chainsaw. The closest

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Speaker 1: he ever gets is, I believe in Friday thirteenth, part seven,

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Speaker 1: which is the one when which he battles a girl

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Speaker 1: with psychic powers. Uh and uh So that one's uh

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Speaker 1: quite funny and a lot of fun. But in that

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Speaker 1: one he does use a power saw, but it is

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Speaker 1: not a chainsaw. It is a motor driven hedge trimmer

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Speaker 1: with a circular saw at the end of a long pole. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And he sticks it right into Terry Kaiser's abdomen. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so that that that sounds right. He knew better. He

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Speaker 1: knows better than to pick up the chainsaw. That's not

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Speaker 1: his thing. He can have literally any other tool, but

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Speaker 1: not the chainsaw. Right he he doesn't want to get

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Speaker 1: into legal trouble. Plus, he's very much a stealth stalker

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Speaker 1: type character, right right, Except I guess this thing does

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Speaker 1: make noise. I mean, Jason generally does not go for

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Speaker 1: for power tools. He prefers the classic, the manual implements

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Speaker 1: the machete, the big old steak or spike. That's his territory,

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Speaker 1: simple melee weapons. Yeah, all right, Well getting back to

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Speaker 1: medical chainsaws then, Um, the the paper we're looking at

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Speaker 1: for this came from uh skipping at all uh and

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Speaker 1: it was It's titled the Chainsaw a Scottish Invention from

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Speaker 1: the Scottish Medical Journal. Uh. This is uh what forty

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Speaker 1: nine number two. This is from two thousand and four,

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Speaker 1: So it's pointed out by Skipping at all in in

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Speaker 1: in this paper. Uh. The interesting thing is that we

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Speaker 1: have two different Scottish inventors in the eighteenth century who

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Speaker 1: may have independently come up with the concept of a

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Speaker 1: medical chainsaw off sorts, and we do have to caveat

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Speaker 1: to have that caveat of sorts, and we're gonna get

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Speaker 1: to something that more closely resembles what we might or

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Speaker 1: at least checks off more of the boxes for what

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Speaker 1: we think of as a chainsaw. Now again, we're not

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Speaker 1: talking about tiny gas powered chainsaws. In fact, we're originally

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Speaker 1: talking about a non mechanical invention. We're talking about a

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Speaker 1: quote chain hand saw, a fine serrated linked chain which

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Speaker 1: cut on the concave side. So this was handheld, hand powered,

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Speaker 1: you pull it back and forth, very much in common

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Speaker 1: with some of those chain based cutting techniques that we

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Speaker 1: were talking about in the first episode, wouldn't you say? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: like one of the power saw design and again this

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Speaker 1: would not be powered. But one of the power saw

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Speaker 1: designs we talked about in the previous episode was one

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Speaker 1: where a tree would be cut down with a cutting chain,

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Speaker 1: but the chain did not revolve around a fixed bar.

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Speaker 1: Rather the chain rotated freely around the tree trunk to

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Speaker 1: just saw right through it. Yeah. So the first of

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Speaker 1: these inventions was devised in the early seventeen eighties by

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Speaker 1: Scottish surgeon surgeon John Aikin Uh. It was intended for

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Speaker 1: use in childbirth, specifically for a symenthusiastomy, in which the

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Speaker 1: cartilage of the pubic synthesis is divided to widen the pelvis,

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Speaker 1: allowing childbirth. UM. Now, this particular saw design UM was

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Speaker 1: considered a promising method as it avoided potential damage to

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Speaker 1: surrounding tissues if a scalpel was used UM, But it

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Speaker 1: was seventeen ninety before the saw was produced and UH,

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Speaker 1: as this paper explains, it was never really widely picked up. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so that's one of the designs. The second was devised

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Speaker 1: by Scottish surgeon James Jeffrey as a means of removing

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Speaker 1: disease joints with having without having to result to full

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Speaker 1: limb removal. And one of the notable things about this

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Speaker 1: saw Jeffrey saw is that it actually did see a

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Speaker 1: fair amount of use. It was a notable improvement over

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Speaker 1: the stiff bone saw and a version was even used

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Speaker 1: in neurosurgery and surgery. And indeed we did get to

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Speaker 1: a mechanized version of this, So we went from something

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Speaker 1: that again is like a chain that you pull back

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Speaker 1: and forth to cut and then you end up with

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Speaker 1: this thing that was called an osteotom and this was

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Speaker 1: a hand cranked version of this that essentially had an

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Speaker 1: infinite chain loop on it. You'd don't get and you

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Speaker 1: would have it essentially would function like a little chainsaw.

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Speaker 1: I mean you look at a picture of it and

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Speaker 1: it looks like some sort of like a weird handheld

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Speaker 1: steam punk uh chainsaw dagger. One of the interesting things

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Speaker 1: discussed in this Scottish Medical Journal paper is the idea

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Speaker 1: that these chains for trying to cut through bone with

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Speaker 1: this little damage to the surrounding tissue as possible. We're uh,

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Speaker 1: at least partially inspired by looking at watch chains from

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Speaker 1: watches of the eighteenth century. Obviously these would be bigger

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Speaker 1: than those though. Yeah. And and another big thing about this, uh,

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Speaker 1: this innovation and ultimately this whole like this whole area

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Speaker 1: of innovation, is that you want to move towards precision,

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Speaker 1: but you you also want speed. Uh you're still performing. Um,

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Speaker 1: you know, so either either you're performing you know, in

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Speaker 1: some cases should be still would be talking about full

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Speaker 1: limb removal, but otherwise you're you're trying to get in

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Speaker 1: there and removed diseased and damaged pieces. And you want

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Speaker 1: to get in and get out quickly as possible, but

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Speaker 1: also as as precisely as possible. Yeah. And in the

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Speaker 1: case of this obstetric procedure that would cut through part

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Speaker 1: of the pelvis in order in order to widen the

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Speaker 1: passage for childbirth, the symphysiotomy procedure from the eighteenth century,

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Speaker 1: there was a pressure leading to this, which is that,

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Speaker 1: of course, you know, there was a lot of mortality

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Speaker 1: during childbirth at the time, and uh, the process of

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Speaker 1: Cesyrian section at the time also had a high mortality

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Speaker 1: rate for myers, and so this was an alternative that

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Speaker 1: was seen as something that could possibly lead to better

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Speaker 1: outcomes in saving the life of both the mother and

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Speaker 1: the child during delivery. But again that one didn't really

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Speaker 1: pick up so much, but the osteotome did. But as

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Speaker 1: luck would have it, it was superseded by the giggly

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Speaker 1: twisted wire saw in the late nineteenth century. So, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, even though the osteotome was was pretty advanced

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Speaker 1: there for a minute, um, it was beat in the

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Speaker 1: race by this other bit of sawing technology, the giggly

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Speaker 1: twisted wires saw. It was ultimately cheaper and it waited

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Speaker 1: the two main issues with the chainsaw, and that is

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Speaker 1: breakage and the chain getting stuck in the bone. The

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Speaker 1: giggly twisted wire saw was narrower and it provided a

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Speaker 1: quicker cut, and if the wire was damaged it was

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Speaker 1: easy to pull out and then you could just use

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Speaker 1: a fresh length of the wire. So there you go.

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Speaker 1: Early chainsaws in eighteenth century medicine, though again we must

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Speaker 1: stress not not motorized chainsaws, but yeah, using chains for

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Speaker 1: cutting bone. It does in fact go back to multiple

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Speaker 1: inventions from the eighteenth century. I have to say that

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Speaker 1: the just the just getting back to the like the

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Speaker 1: frightening names of things. The giggly twisted wire Saw also

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Speaker 1: sounds kind of terrifying. Uh. And maybe it's because giggly

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Speaker 1: also sounds a little bit like giggles. It sounds a

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Speaker 1: little maybe it makes me think of Dr Giggles. Uh.

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure how this guy would have pronounced it.

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Speaker 1: I think the guys that the wire saw was named

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Speaker 1: after was Leonardo Gigli or this could be Jiguli or

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Speaker 1: because remember there's that movie with like Ben Affleck and

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Speaker 1: whoever in it it was, it was spelled the same way,

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Speaker 1: and that one was called Gelie. But I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I didn't see that one. I saw Dr Giggles instead. Well,

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Speaker 1: she probably invested your time more wiser, I don't know, arguable,

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Speaker 1: but I was looking that up. And of course Larry

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Speaker 1: Drake was was great in that Larry greg was Drake

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Speaker 1: always made for a nice villain. But I was I

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Speaker 1: had in my mind that like the character's name was Giggles,

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Speaker 1: like he was Dr Giggles, but now he's Dr Evan Rindle,

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Speaker 1: Like that's not scary. Why why don't they calling Dr

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Speaker 1: Giggles that you just said his name is Dr Giggles,

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Speaker 1: we would have bought it. This is Steven Giggles, Yes,

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Speaker 1: Steven Millhouse Giggles. I mean it's a horror movie. It's

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Speaker 1: like you can get lean into it. I mean, just

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Speaker 1: ask Um, ask Cronenberg. You know you need to actually

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Speaker 1: make the names a little bit removed from reality. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think Dickens had the right philosophy for naming characters.

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Speaker 1: Just go full idiophones, like the character's name should sound

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Speaker 1: like what they do. Miss Stirred, Jaggers, Dr Giggles, It's

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Speaker 1: it's it's all right there, it's just waiting for you.

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Speaker 1: But I guess we should come back to the topic

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Speaker 1: of of early power saws leading up to the chainsaw

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Speaker 1: in logging itself, in in logging and woodworking. So there

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Speaker 1: was a source I mentioned in the previous episode that

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Speaker 1: I just want to mention again because it's a good

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Speaker 1: one and I've referred to it a number of times here.

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Speaker 1: This is a book called Chainsaws, a History by David

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Speaker 1: Lee with Mike acres Uh And as I mentioned in

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Speaker 1: the last episode, there is a very photography focused book.

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Speaker 1: It's just lots and lots of beautiful photographs of gorgeous,

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Speaker 1: you know, nasty looking chainsaws, and in various poses of

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Speaker 1: sitting on a log, sitting in a workshop, kind of

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Speaker 1: rusty looking, maybe kind of threatening somehow, I don't know,

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Speaker 1: even though nobody's wielding it. It's full of vibes. But

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Speaker 1: of course, like the title would imply, this book does

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Speaker 1: trace a lot about the early history of chainsaws and

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Speaker 1: how we got to the first models that people today

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Speaker 1: would recognize as a pansaw. You look at him and say, yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's what a chainsaw is. So I think in this uh,

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Speaker 1: in this story, we left off somewhere around the World

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Speaker 1: War One era and uh, and I guess that's where

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Speaker 1: we'll pick up. Lee writes about this period, noting that

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Speaker 1: there was one thing during this era that was an

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Speaker 1: attempt at mechanized solutions in logging that actually did not

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Speaker 1: involve a cutting chain, but rather a wire. So this

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Speaker 1: was something he calls the wire rope tree feller. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And again it might not count as a sau since

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Speaker 1: it doesn't have teeth. Instead, the idea was just to

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Speaker 1: use rapidly moving metal wires to cut down trees by

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Speaker 1: pure friction as the wire was sort of dragged across

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Speaker 1: the wood surface. Now you can probably get some obvious

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Speaker 1: disadvantages there. It's not going to be nearly as as

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Speaker 1: good at cutting through the tree. But I mean, I

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Speaker 1: don't know, maybe there's some trade off in that you

285
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Speaker 1: wouldn't have to bother with sharpening it. You just realize, Okay,

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Speaker 1: we're just gonna we're just gonna rub this wire all

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Speaker 1: to hell. Yeah, well that's what I'd be afraid of.

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Speaker 1: That wire gets all rubbed hell, and then what if

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Speaker 1: it snaps? I mean, you have a cable like that snapping. Uh,

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Speaker 1: it sounds like a very dangerous situation. Yeah, you wouldn't

291
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Speaker 1: want to be standing near it. And here's another interesting

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Speaker 1: idea that was apparently floated at some point. How about

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Speaker 1: a metal wire heated by electricity. Okay, use the new

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Speaker 1: technology of electricity to get that wire red hot, and

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Speaker 1: then just let it burn right through the wood as

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Speaker 1: you're sliding it across the trunk. Well, that does sound

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Speaker 1: like typical um like electrical age enthusiasm. What can't electricity

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Speaker 1: do for us? Uh? But yeah, that sounds awful because

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Speaker 1: you're potentially just catching the trees on fire at that point,

300
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Speaker 1: and there were some other things. He mentions there there

301
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Speaker 1: was something called a power feller, which looks like it's

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Speaker 1: sort of just a a saw that swings in an

303
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Speaker 1: arc and and gradually cuts its way through a tree.

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Speaker 1: So I think this would be one with a fixed blade,

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Speaker 1: and then another one that had just a bunch of

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Speaker 1: augers that were like drill or bore holes down at

307
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Speaker 1: the tree at the at the ground level, so it

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Speaker 1: would fall over and not even really leave a stump.

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Speaker 1: But Lee highlights a big problem them with almost all

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Speaker 1: of these existing designs, which is that they were in

311
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Speaker 1: reality no more efficient or not much more efficient than

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Speaker 1: a couple of experienced sawyers with a misery whip. I mean,

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Speaker 1: as grueling as the labor was. You know, it's hard

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Speaker 1: work out there in the forest with the two main

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Speaker 1: cross cut saw working on a redwood. Uh this was

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Speaker 1: a skill that people had developed and they've gotten really

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Speaker 1: good and fast at it. And of course human bodies

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Speaker 1: and human muscles are very versatile and bulky machines of

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Speaker 1: this period are not very versatile. Uh So it might,

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Speaker 1: you know, you might have a machine that can cut

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Speaker 1: through a tree faster than a human or maybe not

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Speaker 1: even maybe that might not even be true, but even

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Speaker 1: if it can, might require a lot of set up

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Speaker 1: and might have a lot of bulky equipment. You've got

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Speaker 1: to move around and all that, and a lot of

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Speaker 1: loggers were ultimately like, yeah, we we we've got our

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Speaker 1: methods and they worked just fine, so we'll stick with those.

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Speaker 1: But nevertheless, there were some, uh, some of these powered

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Speaker 1: saws in the early twentieth century. One thing that's kind

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Speaker 1: of interesting is that it seems like even after the

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Speaker 1: creation of the gas engine, and even after some chainsaw

332
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Speaker 1: prototypes had been proposed, a lot of logging ventures still

333
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Speaker 1: seem to prefer huge gas powered drag saws, these ones

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Speaker 1: with a solid blade that would just be working back

335
00:18:14,560 --> 00:18:17,159
Speaker 1: and forth, powered by a motor. And I think the

336
00:18:17,200 --> 00:18:20,080
Speaker 1: idea is that the big drag saw is uh is

337
00:18:20,119 --> 00:18:23,679
Speaker 1: just rugged, it's dependable, it's it's you know, you know

338
00:18:23,720 --> 00:18:26,359
Speaker 1: what you're getting there. It's it has less moving parts

339
00:18:26,359 --> 00:18:29,480
Speaker 1: and less to get broken up than than a chainsaw does.

340
00:18:30,119 --> 00:18:32,760
Speaker 1: But at the same time, the chainsaw has its own advantages.

341
00:18:32,840 --> 00:18:36,880
Speaker 1: It's lighter, it's smaller, it's faster at cutting, especially once

342
00:18:36,960 --> 00:18:40,280
Speaker 1: you have some revolutions that would come later in changes

343
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Speaker 1: to the cutting surface, so changes to the teeth on

344
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Speaker 1: the chain, and changes to the power source. But so,

345
00:18:46,800 --> 00:18:50,080
Speaker 1: how do you get from this era where where largely

346
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Speaker 1: the misery whip and then big old drag saws are

347
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Speaker 1: still very popular, say in the twenties through the fifties,

348
00:18:56,160 --> 00:18:59,920
Speaker 1: to the modern chainsaw era that we know and love today. Well,

349
00:19:00,040 --> 00:19:02,280
Speaker 1: he writes that one of the first chainsaws made for

350
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Speaker 1: forestry was a device called the Sector, which was invented

351
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Speaker 1: by A. V. Westfeldt in Sweden in nineteen nineteen. Now,

352
00:19:12,440 --> 00:19:14,920
Speaker 1: they're still some ways that this is not going to

353
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Speaker 1: be much like a chainsaw that you would recognize today.

354
00:19:17,960 --> 00:19:21,320
Speaker 1: For one thing, this model still separated the saw component

355
00:19:21,400 --> 00:19:24,720
Speaker 1: from its power source. And the other thing is its shape.

356
00:19:24,800 --> 00:19:27,399
Speaker 1: This is not like the chainsaws you're picturing that have

357
00:19:27,440 --> 00:19:30,320
Speaker 1: a long bar with a chain that rotates around them.

358
00:19:30,440 --> 00:19:33,600
Speaker 1: This one has a weird wishbone shape. So you've got

359
00:19:33,720 --> 00:19:36,880
Speaker 1: to imagine a handle like on a shovel. But then

360
00:19:36,920 --> 00:19:40,040
Speaker 1: that shovel handle splits into a y fork like a

361
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Speaker 1: you know, a y peeler that you peel a potato with,

362
00:19:43,520 --> 00:19:46,160
Speaker 1: And then at the two ends of the y fork

363
00:19:46,280 --> 00:19:50,760
Speaker 1: are powered rollers that quickly rotate a cutting chain, and

364
00:19:50,800 --> 00:19:54,159
Speaker 1: the rollers are powered by an outboard motor that is

365
00:19:54,200 --> 00:19:57,639
Speaker 1: connected via a drive shaft that looks like this short

366
00:19:57,760 --> 00:20:00,760
Speaker 1: thick tube. So you've got an outboard motor and then

367
00:20:00,800 --> 00:20:03,760
Speaker 1: that's got a drive shaft leading to this y shaped

368
00:20:03,880 --> 00:20:07,160
Speaker 1: thing that's got a shovel handle on the end and uh,

369
00:20:07,200 --> 00:20:08,960
Speaker 1: and then you would use that to sort of I

370
00:20:08,960 --> 00:20:12,119
Speaker 1: guess poke the peeler end, the y end at the

371
00:20:12,200 --> 00:20:14,879
Speaker 1: tree where the chain would cut it. I'm looking at

372
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Speaker 1: a picture of it now, and this is the most

373
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Speaker 1: one of the most incomprehensible inventions I've ever looked at. Like,

374
00:20:20,400 --> 00:20:25,520
Speaker 1: he's just it almost makes no sense that it. It

375
00:20:25,920 --> 00:20:27,720
Speaker 1: looks like the sort of thing where the leather Face

376
00:20:27,840 --> 00:20:29,640
Speaker 1: or Jason were to show up with it, you would

377
00:20:29,640 --> 00:20:32,920
Speaker 1: just be like, no, no, go home, go home. Yeah yeah,

378
00:20:33,040 --> 00:20:35,320
Speaker 1: laugh at leather Face. And then he gets all sad

379
00:20:35,359 --> 00:20:37,600
Speaker 1: and the sad music plays and he walks off hanging

380
00:20:37,640 --> 00:20:40,359
Speaker 1: his head and he need a friend, he needs some

381
00:20:40,400 --> 00:20:42,920
Speaker 1: family members with him. Looks like to carry this thing. Yeah.

382
00:20:42,960 --> 00:20:45,480
Speaker 1: Apparently that was one of the things that really interfered

383
00:20:45,520 --> 00:20:49,159
Speaker 1: with pickup of the sector, because the separate outboard motor

384
00:20:49,720 --> 00:20:52,480
Speaker 1: made this model quite difficult to use. Like any you

385
00:20:52,520 --> 00:20:54,639
Speaker 1: want to reposition it, you might have to reposition the

386
00:20:54,680 --> 00:20:58,080
Speaker 1: two parts, and so it just looks like a real pain. Yeah.

387
00:20:58,680 --> 00:21:02,240
Speaker 1: But you and see the beginning here, you can see

388
00:21:02,240 --> 00:21:06,199
Speaker 1: how okay, once you have this device. Uh, if you

389
00:21:06,200 --> 00:21:09,200
Speaker 1: were to refine this quite a bit, we could move

390
00:21:09,280 --> 00:21:13,320
Speaker 1: towards something more like what we'd imagine a chainsaw being now.

391
00:21:13,320 --> 00:21:15,359
Speaker 1: Like a lot of the things we talk about on

392
00:21:15,400 --> 00:21:19,359
Speaker 1: this show, Uh, it's one of those inventions that comes

393
00:21:19,400 --> 00:21:22,600
Speaker 1: about by iteration and combination, So it is hard to

394
00:21:22,640 --> 00:21:27,800
Speaker 1: identify a single inventor or moment of invention for the chainsaw. Instead,

395
00:21:27,880 --> 00:21:30,040
Speaker 1: it's like a lot of things kind of changing over

396
00:21:30,119 --> 00:21:32,560
Speaker 1: time to look more and more like what we consider

397
00:21:32,600 --> 00:21:35,440
Speaker 1: a chainsaw today. Uh. And it's a process that goes

398
00:21:35,560 --> 00:21:39,560
Speaker 1: roughly from the mid nineteenth century until about nineteen twenty,

399
00:21:39,600 --> 00:21:41,800
Speaker 1: by which time we finally start to get stuff that

400
00:21:41,840 --> 00:21:44,640
Speaker 1: looks like a modern chainsaw. And one of the first

401
00:21:44,720 --> 00:21:48,320
Speaker 1: commercially successful chainsaws of this form we would recognize today

402
00:21:48,560 --> 00:21:52,000
Speaker 1: is the Wolf. It's just serendipity that they have these

403
00:21:52,000 --> 00:21:55,639
Speaker 1: great names, because this wasn't like a brand name somebody

404
00:21:55,640 --> 00:21:59,159
Speaker 1: came up with. It was actually a dude's name. This

405
00:21:59,320 --> 00:22:03,200
Speaker 1: was Yeah. This was a machine produced by a firm

406
00:22:03,280 --> 00:22:07,400
Speaker 1: founded in nineteen twenty by an American engineer named Charles

407
00:22:07,440 --> 00:22:11,320
Speaker 1: wolf Wolf was born in eighteen seventy one. I've seen

408
00:22:11,359 --> 00:22:14,520
Speaker 1: a claim a couple of places that wolf was involved

409
00:22:14,520 --> 00:22:17,879
Speaker 1: in the creation of the first modern submarine for the U. S.

410
00:22:18,000 --> 00:22:21,240
Speaker 1: Navy under the direction of John Holland in the eighteen nineties.

411
00:22:21,920 --> 00:22:24,240
Speaker 1: Uh So this was mentioned in Lee's book, and I

412
00:22:24,240 --> 00:22:26,480
Speaker 1: saw it referenced in another article. But I was looking

413
00:22:26,480 --> 00:22:29,359
Speaker 1: for I don't know more solid historical information on that,

414
00:22:29,400 --> 00:22:31,320
Speaker 1: and I couldn't find it. So I don't know about that,

415
00:22:31,359 --> 00:22:34,360
Speaker 1: but I have at least seen that claimed. But whether

416
00:22:34,440 --> 00:22:37,760
Speaker 1: or not he had submarine experience, According to his son, Jerome,

417
00:22:37,960 --> 00:22:41,240
Speaker 1: Charles Wolfe was an extremely experienced engineer who had worked

418
00:22:41,240 --> 00:22:44,280
Speaker 1: on a number of different types of projects. So he

419
00:22:44,320 --> 00:22:49,840
Speaker 1: worked on electric railways, on transportation infrastructure like bridges and tunnels,

420
00:22:49,840 --> 00:22:54,280
Speaker 1: he worked on dams and and water systems. And he

421
00:22:54,359 --> 00:22:56,879
Speaker 1: had some experience in the nineteen auts and in the

422
00:22:56,960 --> 00:23:00,959
Speaker 1: nineteen tens with sawmills and lumber, and at some point

423
00:23:01,160 --> 00:23:04,280
Speaker 1: while he was working in the lumber world, he came

424
00:23:04,320 --> 00:23:08,600
Speaker 1: across a prototype chainsaw that was never put into commercial production,

425
00:23:09,520 --> 00:23:12,119
Speaker 1: but then the the idea apparently stuck with him, and

426
00:23:12,160 --> 00:23:15,800
Speaker 1: then eventually, along with an electrical engineer named Frank Redman,

427
00:23:16,400 --> 00:23:19,520
Speaker 1: Wolf came up with a design for an electrically powered

428
00:23:19,600 --> 00:23:22,920
Speaker 1: chainsaw of basically the form we see today. So it's

429
00:23:22,920 --> 00:23:26,040
Speaker 1: a cutting chain that moves along the outside of a

430
00:23:26,040 --> 00:23:29,960
Speaker 1: flat bar. It's driven by an electrically powered sprocket with

431
00:23:30,160 --> 00:23:33,120
Speaker 1: teeth based on the classic design of the cross cut

432
00:23:33,200 --> 00:23:35,840
Speaker 1: saw blade. The teeth of the cutting chain, not the

433
00:23:35,880 --> 00:23:39,520
Speaker 1: teeth of the sprocket. Sorry, And this would be the wolf, Rob.

434
00:23:39,560 --> 00:23:41,720
Speaker 1: I've attached a picture of the wolf for you to

435
00:23:41,760 --> 00:23:44,520
Speaker 1: look at. Um. The company would go on to develop

436
00:23:44,560 --> 00:23:49,520
Speaker 1: many subsequent variations. They eventually had a compressed air driven model,

437
00:23:50,000 --> 00:23:52,440
Speaker 1: and I think eventually, many years later even in an

438
00:23:52,480 --> 00:23:55,679
Speaker 1: internal combustion model. But this electric chainsaw really seems like

439
00:23:55,720 --> 00:23:58,680
Speaker 1: the granddaddy. Yeah. I mean, you look at this and

440
00:23:58,840 --> 00:24:01,159
Speaker 1: you're told that this is the wolf, and you you

441
00:24:01,240 --> 00:24:04,840
Speaker 1: agree this is the wolf. This looked this This is

442
00:24:05,600 --> 00:24:08,639
Speaker 1: a brutal looking tool right here. It looks like the

443
00:24:08,720 --> 00:24:12,359
Speaker 1: kind of thing that's some sort of like a futuristic

444
00:24:13,200 --> 00:24:16,679
Speaker 1: um cave troll would wield in some sort of you know,

445
00:24:16,680 --> 00:24:20,520
Speaker 1: a combat scenario. It's a and and and and also

446
00:24:20,560 --> 00:24:23,399
Speaker 1: it weirdly looks like it has a screaming face on

447
00:24:23,600 --> 00:24:26,560
Speaker 1: the I guess what we might infer to be the

448
00:24:26,600 --> 00:24:29,440
Speaker 1: pommel or the or part of the hilt of the chainsaw.

449
00:24:29,720 --> 00:24:32,800
Speaker 1: Where's the screaming face? I'm not seeing it. Oh, look

450
00:24:32,840 --> 00:24:38,000
Speaker 1: at the turn your head sideways. Oh body, And then

451
00:24:38,040 --> 00:24:39,880
Speaker 1: the at the top is this head that's kind of going.

452
00:24:41,560 --> 00:24:44,200
Speaker 1: It's not cutting a muppet face. No, no, no no, it's

453
00:24:44,240 --> 00:24:47,560
Speaker 1: not screaming. It's singing an angelic chorus of joy for

454
00:24:47,600 --> 00:24:51,120
Speaker 1: the power that is now in your hands. But yeah,

455
00:24:51,280 --> 00:24:53,600
Speaker 1: you're you're absolutely right. This does look like something that

456
00:24:53,640 --> 00:24:56,480
Speaker 1: would be like fused onto the wrist of a super

457
00:24:56,560 --> 00:24:59,800
Speaker 1: mutant in in whatever kind of waste land or um

458
00:25:00,560 --> 00:25:03,879
Speaker 1: or Actually, this looks like this should be what Leatherface

459
00:25:04,000 --> 00:25:07,280
Speaker 1: was carrying instead of that green chainsaw that nobody remembers

460
00:25:07,280 --> 00:25:09,159
Speaker 1: the color of. But he would have he would have

461
00:25:09,200 --> 00:25:12,119
Speaker 1: needed electricity for it, right, Well, yeah, I guess at

462
00:25:12,160 --> 00:25:14,199
Speaker 1: least this first model. Yeah, that that would make it

463
00:25:14,320 --> 00:25:16,920
Speaker 1: probably difficult to run around in the That would be

464
00:25:16,960 --> 00:25:19,000
Speaker 1: a great scene. Like he's about to get you, but

465
00:25:19,040 --> 00:25:21,159
Speaker 1: then he runs a little bit too far and it

466
00:25:21,240 --> 00:25:31,560
Speaker 1: unplugs chainsaw. Than the one thing that's interesting to note,

467
00:25:31,600 --> 00:25:34,960
Speaker 1: so we think of the chainsaw as being primarily for logging,

468
00:25:35,040 --> 00:25:37,520
Speaker 1: for you know, taking down trees and bucking them out

469
00:25:37,560 --> 00:25:40,320
Speaker 1: in the forest. Uh. Those several sources I've looked at

470
00:25:40,400 --> 00:25:42,960
Speaker 1: note that the wolf did not actually take over the

471
00:25:43,040 --> 00:25:47,320
Speaker 1: logging business. That you might call this the first commercially viable,

472
00:25:47,359 --> 00:25:51,160
Speaker 1: commercially mass produced chainsaw, but it was really more popular

473
00:25:51,200 --> 00:25:55,239
Speaker 1: for work with prepared lumber, for example, in construction. It's

474
00:25:55,320 --> 00:25:59,679
Speaker 1: real advantage was that it could quickly make fine, accurate

475
00:25:59,760 --> 00:26:03,040
Speaker 1: cut us and in the decades following this, other mass

476
00:26:03,080 --> 00:26:06,520
Speaker 1: producers would enter the games, such as German companies like

477
00:26:06,640 --> 00:26:09,800
Speaker 1: Steele and Dolmar and more and more. So the chainsaw

478
00:26:09,920 --> 00:26:12,080
Speaker 1: is on its way now, but we need actually one

479
00:26:12,280 --> 00:26:17,159
Speaker 1: more major innovation before it really takes over the logging world.

480
00:26:17,640 --> 00:26:20,760
Speaker 1: And this is what brings us to Joe Cox and

481
00:26:20,920 --> 00:26:25,159
Speaker 1: the so called bug chain. Uh. So I I loved

482
00:26:25,160 --> 00:26:27,280
Speaker 1: when I came across this story because who would have

483
00:26:27,320 --> 00:26:30,840
Speaker 1: thought it. Even the history of the chainsaw has important

484
00:26:30,880 --> 00:26:35,440
Speaker 1: episodes of bio mimetic engineering in it. Um, so, yes,

485
00:26:35,560 --> 00:26:38,119
Speaker 1: let us speak of the bug chain. So in the

486
00:26:38,200 --> 00:26:42,000
Speaker 1: nineteen forties, uh, the misery whip was still in wide

487
00:26:42,119 --> 00:26:44,399
Speaker 1: use in the United States, even though plenty of power

488
00:26:44,400 --> 00:26:47,440
Speaker 1: saws had been brought to market by this time. Uh.

489
00:26:47,480 --> 00:26:49,760
Speaker 1: And for a while, I think you could blame this

490
00:26:49,880 --> 00:26:53,119
Speaker 1: on power saws being too big, too bulky, too delicate,

491
00:26:53,200 --> 00:26:56,760
Speaker 1: dependent on external power sources and so forth. But by

492
00:26:56,800 --> 00:26:59,440
Speaker 1: the forties you had better designs, you had more compact

493
00:26:59,480 --> 00:27:03,679
Speaker 1: internal bustion designs, and yet there were still problems. And

494
00:27:03,720 --> 00:27:06,280
Speaker 1: so here I want to start referring to a paper

495
00:27:06,320 --> 00:27:09,240
Speaker 1: that I was reading called a Lesson from Nature Joe

496
00:27:09,320 --> 00:27:13,280
Speaker 1: Cox and his Revolutionary Saw Chain by Ellis Lucia. Now,

497
00:27:13,359 --> 00:27:16,760
Speaker 1: Lucia says that one big problem with with widespread take

498
00:27:16,800 --> 00:27:21,000
Speaker 1: up of the chainsaw was problems with the cutting chain. Uh.

499
00:27:21,119 --> 00:27:25,120
Speaker 1: These chains of the nineteen forties were modeled on the

500
00:27:25,160 --> 00:27:29,120
Speaker 1: blades of traditional cross cut saws. So if you picture

501
00:27:29,160 --> 00:27:31,520
Speaker 1: a misery whip or one of these cross cut saws,

502
00:27:31,560 --> 00:27:33,760
Speaker 1: you can probably see it in your mind that it

503
00:27:33,840 --> 00:27:37,520
Speaker 1: has these these sharp, sort of razor sharpened teeth that

504
00:27:37,640 --> 00:27:40,679
Speaker 1: would be dragged through the curve. Remember that's the cut

505
00:27:40,760 --> 00:27:44,159
Speaker 1: part of the tree trunk to cut to knock away

506
00:27:44,200 --> 00:27:47,480
Speaker 1: wood essentially by scratching at it with a sharp surface.

507
00:27:47,520 --> 00:27:51,280
Speaker 1: So Lucia compares this to rapidly dragging the tip of

508
00:27:51,280 --> 00:27:54,359
Speaker 1: a knife for a sharp nail over the wood. And so,

509
00:27:54,400 --> 00:27:56,760
Speaker 1: of course this does work for sawing things if you

510
00:27:56,800 --> 00:28:00,439
Speaker 1: apply enough force, but Lucius has actual there was a

511
00:28:00,480 --> 00:28:03,600
Speaker 1: lot of waste, and the cutting teeth on the chains

512
00:28:03,920 --> 00:28:07,560
Speaker 1: would tend to get dull very fast, so this again

513
00:28:07,680 --> 00:28:10,280
Speaker 1: led to a lot of wasted time having to re

514
00:28:10,520 --> 00:28:14,840
Speaker 1: sharpen dull chains, and so in many cases, loggers thought

515
00:28:14,880 --> 00:28:17,720
Speaker 1: that the old cross cut saws were still more efficient

516
00:28:17,800 --> 00:28:21,080
Speaker 1: even as late as the nineteen forties, but Lucia writes

517
00:28:21,160 --> 00:28:23,720
Speaker 1: that this was up ended by changes in the saw

518
00:28:23,840 --> 00:28:26,520
Speaker 1: chain design that could be traced back to this American

519
00:28:26,640 --> 00:28:31,240
Speaker 1: logger and engineer named Joe Cox uh so short bio

520
00:28:31,280 --> 00:28:33,119
Speaker 1: on Joe Cox. It seems like he had about a

521
00:28:33,200 --> 00:28:36,960
Speaker 1: million jobs. He was born in Oklahoma in nineteen o five.

522
00:28:37,560 --> 00:28:40,320
Speaker 1: He left home at sixteen to work in railroad shops

523
00:28:40,320 --> 00:28:43,760
Speaker 1: in Colorado, and then from here he uh He went

524
00:28:43,800 --> 00:28:48,200
Speaker 1: on through apprenticeships and self teaching to become a qualified machinist.

525
00:28:48,560 --> 00:28:51,000
Speaker 1: He worked at an auto agency and did a bus

526
00:28:51,040 --> 00:28:53,880
Speaker 1: line where he learned a lot about mechanics and engine repair.

527
00:28:54,400 --> 00:28:57,360
Speaker 1: And then he worked building a gas line in San Francisco.

528
00:28:57,680 --> 00:29:01,320
Speaker 1: And then he helped to build, according to this article,

529
00:29:01,520 --> 00:29:06,000
Speaker 1: some powdered milk processing plants, which I assume we're somewhere

530
00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:09,920
Speaker 1: in northern California or near San Francisco, which makes me wonder,

531
00:29:10,000 --> 00:29:13,080
Speaker 1: could Joe Cox have been involved in building the Northern

532
00:29:13,120 --> 00:29:17,320
Speaker 1: California dairy works plant that is featured in Halloween three ah,

533
00:29:17,400 --> 00:29:19,760
Speaker 1: the one that's supposed to be the silver shamrock Factory.

534
00:29:20,360 --> 00:29:24,240
Speaker 1: No answer on that, but I am mighty intrigued. But

535
00:29:24,320 --> 00:29:27,960
Speaker 1: he operated a welding shop in Arizona. He did auto repair,

536
00:29:28,040 --> 00:29:32,040
Speaker 1: he was an electrician. I did some wiring in homes uh,

537
00:29:32,120 --> 00:29:34,640
Speaker 1: he designed a home water heater or product. And he

538
00:29:34,720 --> 00:29:38,760
Speaker 1: did some welding for some oil drilling concerns in Texas.

539
00:29:39,200 --> 00:29:42,280
Speaker 1: But then he eventually moved along with his brother to Oregon,

540
00:29:42,360 --> 00:29:45,600
Speaker 1: where they got involved in the logging industry. And it

541
00:29:45,720 --> 00:29:48,560
Speaker 1: was here, working as a logger and a logging engineer,

542
00:29:48,640 --> 00:29:51,280
Speaker 1: that he noticed there was plenty of room to improve,

543
00:29:51,520 --> 00:29:54,760
Speaker 1: to improve on the chains being used in these less

544
00:29:54,760 --> 00:29:57,720
Speaker 1: than impressive power saws of the day. And this article

545
00:29:57,720 --> 00:30:00,680
Speaker 1: actually has an interview with Joe Box. It was written

546
00:30:00,720 --> 00:30:02,480
Speaker 1: at a time when when he was still alive. So

547
00:30:02,520 --> 00:30:05,240
Speaker 1: I want to include some of his quotes because they're great.

548
00:30:05,280 --> 00:30:08,520
Speaker 1: I like the way he talks. Uh he's describing working

549
00:30:08,520 --> 00:30:11,000
Speaker 1: with his brother in the Oregon logging industry, and he says,

550
00:30:11,440 --> 00:30:15,479
Speaker 1: we fell limbed and bucked small frozen, naughty pine timber

551
00:30:15,520 --> 00:30:18,520
Speaker 1: and three ft of snow our first winter here. We

552
00:30:18,520 --> 00:30:21,760
Speaker 1: were paid fifty cents a thousand. We earned about four

553
00:30:21,840 --> 00:30:24,920
Speaker 1: dollars in ten hours of hard work. And it was hard.

554
00:30:26,360 --> 00:30:29,040
Speaker 1: And so the way Cox tells the story, one morning

555
00:30:29,080 --> 00:30:31,920
Speaker 1: he and his brother were working out somewhere east to

556
00:30:31,960 --> 00:30:34,960
Speaker 1: the Cascades, and they were asked to try out a

557
00:30:35,000 --> 00:30:38,000
Speaker 1: new power saw, which was a stump saw mounted on

558
00:30:38,080 --> 00:30:42,440
Speaker 1: wheels with the chain allegedly driven by a motorcycle engine.

559
00:30:42,560 --> 00:30:46,680
Speaker 1: Which that that's cool, that that's hacking. And Cox says

560
00:30:46,800 --> 00:30:49,400
Speaker 1: that they could immediately see that this power saw was

561
00:30:49,440 --> 00:30:51,560
Speaker 1: just not very good, like they could actually fall a

562
00:30:51,640 --> 00:30:55,000
Speaker 1: tree quicker with the hand saw. And then I want

563
00:30:55,000 --> 00:30:57,960
Speaker 1: to again read his direct quote. This seems strange to

564
00:30:58,040 --> 00:31:01,840
Speaker 1: me because the power saw had plenty of stuff. Uh So,

565
00:31:01,920 --> 00:31:05,000
Speaker 1: I think he's saying by that that he recognizes that

566
00:31:05,080 --> 00:31:08,719
Speaker 1: the motor that's driving it is powerful and should outperform

567
00:31:08,840 --> 00:31:11,800
Speaker 1: human muscles if the cutting edge were better, if that

568
00:31:11,880 --> 00:31:14,680
Speaker 1: were more efficient, And he goes on, I was a

569
00:31:14,680 --> 00:31:17,280
Speaker 1: pretty fair filer at the time and figured that if

570
00:31:17,280 --> 00:31:19,479
Speaker 1: I could make a power saw cut as efficiently as

571
00:31:19,480 --> 00:31:22,480
Speaker 1: a cross cut, it should practically fall through the wood.

572
00:31:22,920 --> 00:31:25,240
Speaker 1: It just made sense. And with such a cutting tool,

573
00:31:25,280 --> 00:31:28,080
Speaker 1: sawing timber would be a lot easier. And so, according

574
00:31:28,120 --> 00:31:30,720
Speaker 1: to this story, Cox tells he had a breakthrough one

575
00:31:30,800 --> 00:31:33,400
Speaker 1: day when he was out in the woods and he

576
00:31:33,520 --> 00:31:38,400
Speaker 1: whacked a rotten stump with an axe, accidentally revealing a

577
00:31:38,600 --> 00:31:41,920
Speaker 1: cavity in the wood that had been made by the

578
00:31:42,040 --> 00:31:45,640
Speaker 1: larvae of a well known and much reviled insect of

579
00:31:45,680 --> 00:31:50,160
Speaker 1: the area, the timber beetle or air Gotti's spiculadas. I

580
00:31:50,240 --> 00:31:52,840
Speaker 1: looked this insect up, but apparently it's also known as

581
00:31:52,880 --> 00:31:57,200
Speaker 1: the pine sawyer beetle. It has a very large, very beautiful,

582
00:31:57,880 --> 00:32:04,600
Speaker 1: disgustingly beautiful, almost raucous belonging uh larval form that I

583
00:32:04,880 --> 00:32:08,000
Speaker 1: don't know, Rob, how would you describe this creature? Um? Yeah,

584
00:32:08,000 --> 00:32:10,760
Speaker 1: I think that all matches up, but also just screams protein.

585
00:32:11,000 --> 00:32:14,960
Speaker 1: Like if you're a bird, you're excited looking at these photos.

586
00:32:15,200 --> 00:32:17,000
Speaker 1: You just PLoP one of these in a hot dog

587
00:32:17,040 --> 00:32:19,320
Speaker 1: bun and you're set. Yeah, I mean, you know, it

588
00:32:19,360 --> 00:32:21,160
Speaker 1: looks in a way, it looks like a big old shrimp.

589
00:32:21,400 --> 00:32:27,000
Speaker 1: Shrimp of the woods. Yeah, that's freshman catch of the day.

590
00:32:27,120 --> 00:32:29,800
Speaker 1: Uh So. One of the photos I found of this

591
00:32:29,880 --> 00:32:32,480
Speaker 1: thing is of somebody holding one in their hand and

592
00:32:32,520 --> 00:32:35,640
Speaker 1: it's like it's as big as the palm of their hand. Almost. Yeah,

593
00:32:35,760 --> 00:32:38,120
Speaker 1: it's this is a big, big boy, for sure. I

594
00:32:38,120 --> 00:32:40,040
Speaker 1: didn't have time to research this, but I am curious

595
00:32:40,080 --> 00:32:44,360
Speaker 1: now if this particular um larva is edible by humans.

596
00:32:44,640 --> 00:32:46,840
Speaker 1: So I don't know. If there any foragers out there,

597
00:32:46,840 --> 00:32:50,120
Speaker 1: they can let us know, email us. Okay, now here,

598
00:32:50,160 --> 00:32:52,680
Speaker 1: I want to read directly a section from Lucia's article,

599
00:32:52,720 --> 00:32:56,120
Speaker 1: because this is wonderful. So Lucia writes, the larvae of

600
00:32:56,160 --> 00:32:59,680
Speaker 1: the beetle cursed in the kind of verbiage formerly applied

601
00:32:59,680 --> 00:33:03,000
Speaker 1: to oxen by the old bull whackers, have an amazing

602
00:33:03,000 --> 00:33:07,000
Speaker 1: ability for cutting and destroying huge quantities of timber. Although

603
00:33:07,040 --> 00:33:09,400
Speaker 1: the busy grub is hardly the size of a stout

604
00:33:09,480 --> 00:33:13,560
Speaker 1: man's finger. I don't know that that seems sizeable to me. Continuing,

605
00:33:13,960 --> 00:33:17,080
Speaker 1: the hated grub turns good timber into sawdust, and it

606
00:33:17,120 --> 00:33:20,560
Speaker 1: doesn't matter whether the trees are alive or sound snags

607
00:33:20,560 --> 00:33:24,320
Speaker 1: and windfalls that might be salvaged. The winged adult beetle

608
00:33:24,440 --> 00:33:27,920
Speaker 1: deposits its eggs beneath the bark of a dead tree, or,

609
00:33:28,040 --> 00:33:31,440
Speaker 1: when faced with an overpopulation problem, under the bark of

610
00:33:31,480 --> 00:33:35,440
Speaker 1: living trees. The vast Tillamook, Burn and the other regional

611
00:33:35,480 --> 00:33:38,880
Speaker 1: forest disasters promised feasts that would last the timber beetle

612
00:33:39,160 --> 00:33:42,800
Speaker 1: and his offspring many generations, although the way they worked,

613
00:33:42,880 --> 00:33:46,440
Speaker 1: wholesale destruction of salvageable timber might be accomplished in a

614
00:33:46,480 --> 00:33:50,000
Speaker 1: few brief years. So this larva is a workhorse. And

615
00:33:50,160 --> 00:33:52,760
Speaker 1: Cox claims he was looking at this little larva and

616
00:33:52,760 --> 00:33:55,920
Speaker 1: and marveling at it, and wondering how it was so

617
00:33:55,960 --> 00:33:58,960
Speaker 1: good at tunneling through the stiff fibers of tree trunks,

618
00:33:59,440 --> 00:34:01,480
Speaker 1: And so he hells that he armed himself with a

619
00:34:01,520 --> 00:34:05,760
Speaker 1: magnifying glass and began to study closely the cutting and

620
00:34:05,840 --> 00:34:10,040
Speaker 1: boring behavior of this grub, and what he discovered was

621
00:34:10,080 --> 00:34:13,760
Speaker 1: that rather than scraping or scratching at the wood straight ahead,

622
00:34:14,400 --> 00:34:18,560
Speaker 1: instead the larva would move side to side, sort of

623
00:34:18,680 --> 00:34:22,200
Speaker 1: shaving out parts of the wood with C shaped jaws.

624
00:34:22,719 --> 00:34:26,720
Speaker 1: And so inspired by the jaws of this larva, Cox

625
00:34:26,800 --> 00:34:29,920
Speaker 1: went on to design a cutting chain for saws based

626
00:34:29,960 --> 00:34:33,080
Speaker 1: on exactly this type of action. So I was trying

627
00:34:33,120 --> 00:34:35,680
Speaker 1: to understand exactly what the difference was here, and I

628
00:34:35,719 --> 00:34:38,319
Speaker 1: think I finally got it. So the chains that came

629
00:34:38,360 --> 00:34:42,319
Speaker 1: before tended to have these cutting teeth, sharp teeth which

630
00:34:42,320 --> 00:34:45,000
Speaker 1: would scrape at the wood like a knife, and they

631
00:34:45,040 --> 00:34:48,200
Speaker 1: would alternate with what we're called raker teeth, which were

632
00:34:48,239 --> 00:34:53,560
Speaker 1: these hook shaped bumps designed to scoop away debris after

633
00:34:53,680 --> 00:34:55,799
Speaker 1: it had been cut away from the wood by the

634
00:34:55,840 --> 00:34:59,839
Speaker 1: sharp teeth, and that would clear out the curve. Okay,

635
00:35:00,160 --> 00:35:02,480
Speaker 1: that that's the old design. But I found the new

636
00:35:02,520 --> 00:35:07,080
Speaker 1: design described in an article written for Offbeat Oregon, which

637
00:35:07,120 --> 00:35:10,760
Speaker 1: is like an Oregon based or a weird local history column,

638
00:35:10,840 --> 00:35:13,120
Speaker 1: and this was written by Finn J. D. John in

639
00:35:13,160 --> 00:35:16,600
Speaker 1: September called watching Bugs and a Stump led to the

640
00:35:16,640 --> 00:35:21,600
Speaker 1: modern chainsaw, and John describes the new design Cox's design

641
00:35:21,719 --> 00:35:25,880
Speaker 1: like this. The cutting teeth were hook shaped chisels that

642
00:35:25,960 --> 00:35:29,200
Speaker 1: would bite into the wood and essentially carve away chips.

643
00:35:29,560 --> 00:35:32,120
Speaker 1: And those chips were big enough and clean enough that

644
00:35:32,280 --> 00:35:35,120
Speaker 1: rakers weren't necessary to clear them out of the curve.

645
00:35:35,920 --> 00:35:39,120
Speaker 1: Finding the chisels too tended to grab too much wood,

646
00:35:39,440 --> 00:35:41,919
Speaker 1: Joe added a bump in the metal just in front

647
00:35:41,960 --> 00:35:45,080
Speaker 1: of the chisel on each link of the chain. By

648
00:35:45,160 --> 00:35:48,439
Speaker 1: filing down the bump or gauge, he could control how

649
00:35:48,560 --> 00:35:51,720
Speaker 1: big a bite each chisel took. And then I found

650
00:35:51,719 --> 00:35:53,680
Speaker 1: a picture also for us to look at rob So

651
00:35:53,719 --> 00:35:57,120
Speaker 1: it looks like with with Joe Cox's design, the cutting

652
00:35:57,520 --> 00:35:59,520
Speaker 1: side is on the top of this diagram you're looking

653
00:35:59,560 --> 00:36:02,000
Speaker 1: at now. So what it looks like is the cutting

654
00:36:02,000 --> 00:36:05,960
Speaker 1: side has these little sort of curved chisels, the cutting

655
00:36:05,960 --> 00:36:09,880
Speaker 1: teeth or tube shaped blades, alternating from one side of

656
00:36:09,920 --> 00:36:12,360
Speaker 1: the chain to the other, so shaving out a little

657
00:36:12,360 --> 00:36:14,920
Speaker 1: tube shaped chip on the left and then doing one

658
00:36:14,920 --> 00:36:17,200
Speaker 1: on the right, back and forth forever. So I think

659
00:36:17,239 --> 00:36:20,040
Speaker 1: the difference is that instead of cutting like a sharp

660
00:36:20,160 --> 00:36:23,000
Speaker 1: bladed saw, just like a knife point, this would shave

661
00:36:23,040 --> 00:36:25,640
Speaker 1: out a kind of thin tunnel. And apparently the chain

662
00:36:25,680 --> 00:36:29,080
Speaker 1: that Jocox designed cut faster and more cleanly than the

663
00:36:29,160 --> 00:36:32,719
Speaker 1: chains that came before and needed less resharpening, so this

664
00:36:32,800 --> 00:36:36,880
Speaker 1: was a clear improvement. He patented his design and eventually

665
00:36:37,920 --> 00:36:40,960
Speaker 1: he founded a firm called the Oregon Saw Chain Corporation,

666
00:36:41,080 --> 00:36:43,880
Speaker 1: which was later known as Omark, which would become a

667
00:36:43,960 --> 00:36:47,680
Speaker 1: multimillion dollar company and would revolutionize the power saw business.

668
00:36:48,200 --> 00:36:50,560
Speaker 1: And at this point, by the nineteen fifties, I think

669
00:36:50,680 --> 00:36:52,600
Speaker 1: this is when we hit the turning point and there's

670
00:36:52,640 --> 00:36:54,920
Speaker 1: really no going back from the chain saw to the

671
00:36:54,960 --> 00:36:57,040
Speaker 1: misery whip. I guess unless you were just trying to

672
00:36:57,040 --> 00:36:59,239
Speaker 1: make a point or something there there would be no

673
00:36:59,360 --> 00:37:09,840
Speaker 1: Texas miss three whip massacre. Thank well, I think this

674
00:37:09,960 --> 00:37:11,920
Speaker 1: is a great place to come come back to the

675
00:37:11,920 --> 00:37:15,120
Speaker 1: Texas chainsaw massacre, and and also just to discuss, like

676
00:37:15,160 --> 00:37:19,600
Speaker 1: what is the cultural trajectory of the chainsaw from here

677
00:37:19,640 --> 00:37:22,520
Speaker 1: on out. I was reading a bit about this in

678
00:37:23,200 --> 00:37:26,719
Speaker 1: the The icon City of Chainsaws from the Backyard to

679
00:37:26,760 --> 00:37:31,800
Speaker 1: the Barbecue by Christopher Curry, and he writes the following quote,

680
00:37:32,320 --> 00:37:35,800
Speaker 1: two years nineteen fifty and nineteen seventy four are vital

681
00:37:35,920 --> 00:37:40,239
Speaker 1: in understanding the icond city of the petrol powered handheld,

682
00:37:40,600 --> 00:37:44,480
Speaker 1: single operator chainsaw nineteen fifty was the year in which

683
00:37:44,520 --> 00:37:47,239
Speaker 1: the tool was introduced to the American market. It was

684
00:37:47,280 --> 00:37:51,120
Speaker 1: a backyard revolution. Men were empowered with a remarkable new

685
00:37:51,160 --> 00:37:56,880
Speaker 1: technology for clearing undergrowth, trimming branches, and felling trees. Okay,

686
00:37:56,920 --> 00:37:59,240
Speaker 1: so you no longer need to be an experienced logger

687
00:37:59,440 --> 00:38:02,399
Speaker 1: or have a bloody to work the misery whip with you.

688
00:38:02,480 --> 00:38:05,520
Speaker 1: Just one person with one power tool can go out

689
00:38:05,560 --> 00:38:09,680
Speaker 1: there and master the landscape exactly now seventy four that

690
00:38:09,680 --> 00:38:12,000
Speaker 1: he mentions that, of course, is when Texas Chainsaw Massacre

691
00:38:12,080 --> 00:38:14,960
Speaker 1: comes out. And that's that's a that's kind of where

692
00:38:14,960 --> 00:38:16,960
Speaker 1: he keeps, you know, ping pawing back and forth between

693
00:38:16,960 --> 00:38:19,840
Speaker 1: like the cultural role of the chainsaw and how it

694
00:38:19,920 --> 00:38:23,719
Speaker 1: is reflected in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Uh. And and

695
00:38:23,760 --> 00:38:26,640
Speaker 1: I think it's it's worth driving home here that Uh.

696
00:38:26,719 --> 00:38:29,040
Speaker 1: If you don't know much about the Texas Chainsaw Masacre,

697
00:38:29,160 --> 00:38:31,560
Speaker 1: maybe you've seen it. You've seen it once, you know,

698
00:38:31,640 --> 00:38:34,360
Speaker 1: you saw years ago. It's easy to dismiss it and

699
00:38:34,400 --> 00:38:37,160
Speaker 1: think it's just this, it's just this shocking work that's

700
00:38:37,200 --> 00:38:43,200
Speaker 1: about titilation. But Toby Hooper had he had political ambitions

701
00:38:43,200 --> 00:38:45,680
Speaker 1: in creating the film, like he wanted to make a

702
00:38:45,719 --> 00:38:49,600
Speaker 1: political film that wasn't about politics. He wanted. So it's

703
00:38:49,640 --> 00:38:53,840
Speaker 1: not a film that is just about chainsaws roaring, you know,

704
00:38:53,920 --> 00:38:56,520
Speaker 1: in in the rural setting and chasing people and blood

705
00:38:56,560 --> 00:38:59,719
Speaker 1: and screams. Um. It is trying to say something and

706
00:38:59,760 --> 00:39:03,319
Speaker 1: I think, you know, arguably it does a fantastic job

707
00:39:03,400 --> 00:39:07,560
Speaker 1: doing so tell me more. Okay, so uh, Curry writes

708
00:39:07,760 --> 00:39:10,799
Speaker 1: the chainsaw. Though during this period it was imbued with

709
00:39:10,880 --> 00:39:14,320
Speaker 1: the power of both a status symbol and a phallic

710
00:39:14,400 --> 00:39:19,120
Speaker 1: symbol for it's predominantly male users of this time. Additionally,

711
00:39:19,160 --> 00:39:22,720
Speaker 1: it became a thoroughly American symbol of status and power,

712
00:39:23,120 --> 00:39:26,799
Speaker 1: as quote cutting down trees. It is an especially significant

713
00:39:26,800 --> 00:39:29,879
Speaker 1: part of American history, which which is true. I mean

714
00:39:29,920 --> 00:39:34,359
Speaker 1: that is part of the the story of the colonization

715
00:39:34,680 --> 00:39:39,640
Speaker 1: of North America by Westerners by Europeans. Um. And then

716
00:39:39,760 --> 00:39:41,840
Speaker 1: you know, what do you have? You have these expansive forests.

717
00:39:41,960 --> 00:39:43,960
Speaker 1: What do you do with those expansive forests, Well, you

718
00:39:44,000 --> 00:39:48,040
Speaker 1: start cutting them down? Um and uh. And And of

719
00:39:48,080 --> 00:39:49,960
Speaker 1: course to a certain instance, that makes sense because what

720
00:39:50,040 --> 00:39:53,080
Speaker 1: does would give you Wood gives you homes, it gives

721
00:39:53,080 --> 00:39:55,520
Speaker 1: you it gives you ships, it gives you, um, you know,

722
00:39:55,560 --> 00:39:57,399
Speaker 1: all these things you can create out of it, all

723
00:39:57,440 --> 00:40:01,799
Speaker 1: your tools, but also would meant fuel as well. And

724
00:40:01,880 --> 00:40:05,160
Speaker 1: so here comes the chainsaw. Uh and it allows you

725
00:40:05,200 --> 00:40:10,200
Speaker 1: to harvest uh material and and uh and fuel for

726
00:40:10,360 --> 00:40:15,080
Speaker 1: energy production. Quote. Such a radical technological transformation of the

727
00:40:15,120 --> 00:40:19,160
Speaker 1: basic means to cut down trees sitles up alongside such

728
00:40:19,200 --> 00:40:25,320
Speaker 1: intrinsically American notions as self determination, manifest destiny, the logging industry,

729
00:40:25,560 --> 00:40:28,880
Speaker 1: and the myth of frontier. And so from here, Curry

730
00:40:28,920 --> 00:40:31,920
Speaker 1: goes on to argue that the Texas chainsaw massacre massacre

731
00:40:32,080 --> 00:40:35,200
Speaker 1: very much builds on all of this. The Sawyer family,

732
00:40:35,280 --> 00:40:39,560
Speaker 1: the chainsaw family, if you will, in the Texas chainsaw massacre,

733
00:40:40,000 --> 00:40:43,799
Speaker 1: cannibalism and murder aside, they are a rural version of

734
00:40:43,840 --> 00:40:46,920
Speaker 1: the American dream. They are entrepreneurs doing what they have

735
00:40:47,040 --> 00:40:50,480
Speaker 1: to do to survive in the face of economic and

736
00:40:50,560 --> 00:40:55,040
Speaker 1: social change. Yes they're they're rather self sufficient, aren't they. Yeah? Yeah,

737
00:40:55,120 --> 00:40:57,160
Speaker 1: And and this again this is very much intentional on

738
00:40:57,160 --> 00:41:01,279
Speaker 1: on on Toby Hooper's part commenting on consumer culture and

739
00:41:01,360 --> 00:41:05,960
Speaker 1: the chainsaw is all about consumption. Again, either in its

740
00:41:05,960 --> 00:41:09,080
Speaker 1: intended role is that of a tool for the consumption

741
00:41:09,120 --> 00:41:11,920
Speaker 1: of trees for the for the material uses and for

742
00:41:11,960 --> 00:41:16,440
Speaker 1: fuel uses, or in this extrapolated fantastic role as a

743
00:41:16,440 --> 00:41:20,040
Speaker 1: weapon of murder and dismemberment. So you know, it ultimately

744
00:41:20,040 --> 00:41:22,360
Speaker 1: becomes a situation. It's easy to lose this because we

745
00:41:22,560 --> 00:41:25,760
Speaker 1: were so fascinated with the idea of the chainsaw as weapon.

746
00:41:25,880 --> 00:41:30,720
Speaker 1: But it's like leather face is is is felling humans.

747
00:41:30,800 --> 00:41:34,640
Speaker 1: It's humans as trees cut down to sustain others, because

748
00:41:34,800 --> 00:41:37,320
Speaker 1: I remember they weren't just It wasn't just about cutting

749
00:41:37,400 --> 00:41:40,439
Speaker 1: up um teenagers from the city. It was about making

750
00:41:40,520 --> 00:41:43,759
Speaker 1: barbecue out of them. It's supply and demand. Now. One

751
00:41:43,760 --> 00:41:46,880
Speaker 1: thing I've never noticed before we did this episode is

752
00:41:46,960 --> 00:41:49,520
Speaker 1: that the family in the Texas Chainsaw mask Are are are

753
00:41:49,719 --> 00:41:53,399
Speaker 1: named the Sawyers, which the sawyers are the people who

754
00:41:53,400 --> 00:41:56,960
Speaker 1: work the saws in the log mystry. I never put

755
00:41:57,000 --> 00:42:01,400
Speaker 1: that together either until Manning Manning the Misery whip their Sawyers.

756
00:42:02,560 --> 00:42:05,759
Speaker 1: It does follow the Dickens convention, it does it does

757
00:42:05,840 --> 00:42:10,520
Speaker 1: what do they do? They saw Um? I was also

758
00:42:10,560 --> 00:42:13,480
Speaker 1: thinking a bit about the line the saw is family. Um.

759
00:42:13,600 --> 00:42:17,160
Speaker 1: I think that's predominantly from sexus. Chainsaw mask are two right,

760
00:42:17,880 --> 00:42:20,560
Speaker 1: part of a fun little bit of a grizzly dialogue

761
00:42:20,600 --> 00:42:23,360
Speaker 1: in there. But the idea that the saw is family

762
00:42:23,480 --> 00:42:26,399
Speaker 1: and what is the saw? Uh? As Curry points out

763
00:42:26,400 --> 00:42:28,839
Speaker 1: in this article, the saw is consumption. Look, the saw

764
00:42:29,000 --> 00:42:32,080
Speaker 1: is this way of life through consumption. So, of course

765
00:42:32,200 --> 00:42:35,560
Speaker 1: the Saws family, and I think this is ultimately a

766
00:42:35,680 --> 00:42:39,360
Speaker 1: rather abiding commentary on the American way of life. You know,

767
00:42:39,520 --> 00:42:44,319
Speaker 1: our lives are consumption. You cannot separate consumption from all

768
00:42:44,400 --> 00:42:47,120
Speaker 1: of these other ideals of what we are and what

769
00:42:47,360 --> 00:42:50,200
Speaker 1: we want out of the world, out of, out of life,

770
00:42:50,280 --> 00:42:54,360
Speaker 1: and out of like just the raw substance of the country. Yeah, okay,

771
00:42:54,400 --> 00:42:56,879
Speaker 1: And so if this is the intended point, it makes

772
00:42:56,880 --> 00:42:59,960
Speaker 1: sense that you would use the chainsaw, because I think

773
00:43:00,000 --> 00:43:01,440
Speaker 1: we were talking about this at the very beginning of

774
00:43:01,480 --> 00:43:05,399
Speaker 1: the first episode, something about the the aesthetic impression made

775
00:43:05,440 --> 00:43:08,200
Speaker 1: by the chainsaw is kind of alarming at the rate

776
00:43:08,400 --> 00:43:12,040
Speaker 1: at which it like goes through things. Yeah, absolutely, Uh

777
00:43:12,280 --> 00:43:13,680
Speaker 1: you know. I also I had to look up the

778
00:43:13,719 --> 00:43:17,160
Speaker 1: exact quote from TCM two because it's it's actually pretty good.

779
00:43:17,400 --> 00:43:20,640
Speaker 1: This is Drayton, uh, the old one of the older

780
00:43:20,719 --> 00:43:22,520
Speaker 1: member of the family, not the old old man who

781
00:43:22,680 --> 00:43:25,239
Speaker 1: can you know, barely move, but the uh, the the

782
00:43:25,400 --> 00:43:27,839
Speaker 1: the the younger old man in the family, and he's

783
00:43:27,880 --> 00:43:30,560
Speaker 1: telling leather face, He's saying, you have one choice, boy

784
00:43:30,960 --> 00:43:34,160
Speaker 1: sex or the saw sex as well. Nobody knows, but

785
00:43:34,280 --> 00:43:38,040
Speaker 1: the saw, the saw is family. So that that kind

786
00:43:38,080 --> 00:43:40,120
Speaker 1: of gets into the sort of these uh, these phallic

787
00:43:40,239 --> 00:43:43,040
Speaker 1: ideas too, and the masculine aspects that are tied up

788
00:43:43,080 --> 00:43:46,360
Speaker 1: in the chainsaw and its role in the American culture.

789
00:43:46,480 --> 00:43:49,520
Speaker 1: The idea that on one level you have you have

790
00:43:49,640 --> 00:43:53,320
Speaker 1: potential creation, um, but but who knows what comes with creation?

791
00:43:53,400 --> 00:43:57,080
Speaker 1: Creation is a risk. But consumption we know exactly where

792
00:43:57,120 --> 00:43:59,840
Speaker 1: consumption goes. We know where where the saw leads to.

793
00:44:00,200 --> 00:44:02,839
Speaker 1: That is the safe way, that is the traditional way,

794
00:44:03,200 --> 00:44:06,000
Speaker 1: and of course that is the way that the Sawyer

795
00:44:06,040 --> 00:44:09,080
Speaker 1: family sticks to. The saws yet another Texas Chili cook

796
00:44:09,120 --> 00:44:13,239
Speaker 1: Off competition trophy. You know. Coming back to the to

797
00:44:13,320 --> 00:44:16,040
Speaker 1: the technological side, one of the things that really interests

798
00:44:16,120 --> 00:44:18,160
Speaker 1: me in reading that the story of Joe Cox and

799
00:44:18,200 --> 00:44:22,520
Speaker 1: the redesign of the chainsaw blade is that we managed

800
00:44:22,520 --> 00:44:25,520
Speaker 1: to have all these decades of people having the idea

801
00:44:26,280 --> 00:44:30,239
Speaker 1: to apply new types of power motors and engines to

802
00:44:30,480 --> 00:44:34,320
Speaker 1: drive saws, to like make sawing more powerful, to outstrip

803
00:44:34,400 --> 00:44:37,279
Speaker 1: what could be done by human muscles, but going so

804
00:44:37,400 --> 00:44:40,640
Speaker 1: long in this process without making the significant improvements to

805
00:44:40,760 --> 00:44:44,399
Speaker 1: the cutting chain like Joe Cox would um that would

806
00:44:44,440 --> 00:44:48,600
Speaker 1: eventually revolutionize the power saw business. It I don't know it, Uh,

807
00:44:48,840 --> 00:44:52,400
Speaker 1: something seems metaphorically significant there as well. Yeah, and and

808
00:44:52,560 --> 00:44:56,120
Speaker 1: it also perfect that they turned to to larvae to

809
00:44:56,280 --> 00:44:58,440
Speaker 1: to get this answer, because you know, what are what

810
00:44:58,520 --> 00:45:01,719
Speaker 1: do larvae do? They can soume, that's all they do, Like,

811
00:45:01,880 --> 00:45:04,200
Speaker 1: that's the job of a larva is to consume and

812
00:45:04,280 --> 00:45:06,000
Speaker 1: grow bigger so that it can take on the next

813
00:45:06,080 --> 00:45:08,680
Speaker 1: stage of it's of its life. So in a way,

814
00:45:08,719 --> 00:45:11,439
Speaker 1: it's like the perfect spirit animal for the chainsaw as well.

815
00:45:11,800 --> 00:45:14,239
Speaker 1: So I feel like these episodes have forced me to

816
00:45:14,360 --> 00:45:17,120
Speaker 1: think long and hard about to to rethink the role

817
00:45:17,160 --> 00:45:20,160
Speaker 1: of the chainsaw in Texas Chainsaw Mask. But there's plenty

818
00:45:20,200 --> 00:45:23,640
Speaker 1: of other room to to, you know, to consider as well,

819
00:45:23,760 --> 00:45:26,719
Speaker 1: like what how do we interpret the chainsaw in the

820
00:45:26,960 --> 00:45:30,279
Speaker 1: Evil Dead movies? What does that mean? Why? Why is

821
00:45:30,360 --> 00:45:33,520
Speaker 1: it groovy? And is it truly groovy? I don't know, Oh,

822
00:45:33,640 --> 00:45:36,960
Speaker 1: that seems very different somehow. When Ash picks up the chainsaw,

823
00:45:37,000 --> 00:45:39,279
Speaker 1: the wheeled against the demons or the dead eyes that

824
00:45:39,320 --> 00:45:42,560
Speaker 1: almost seems like it is somehow an emblem of human

825
00:45:42,640 --> 00:45:46,800
Speaker 1: civilization and human technology, the good and ordered part of

826
00:45:46,840 --> 00:45:49,319
Speaker 1: the world, which you know is is the one thing

827
00:45:49,400 --> 00:45:51,520
Speaker 1: you can hold to sort of like man the gates

828
00:45:51,560 --> 00:45:54,960
Speaker 1: of Thermopoli against uh, I don't know, against the advancing

829
00:45:55,040 --> 00:45:57,759
Speaker 1: magical deem uh, you know, whatever you call it. Where

830
00:45:57,800 --> 00:45:59,520
Speaker 1: do the dead eyes come from? I don't even remember,

831
00:46:00,320 --> 00:46:05,520
Speaker 1: um from the dead world? I don't know that the hell.

832
00:46:05,880 --> 00:46:09,200
Speaker 1: Maybe they're not here. They're bad. They're not bad, I mean,

833
00:46:09,239 --> 00:46:12,279
Speaker 1: they are not they're not human. Yeah, it's also worth

834
00:46:12,320 --> 00:46:14,080
Speaker 1: thinking about the fact that we've tried we're talking about

835
00:46:14,120 --> 00:46:17,360
Speaker 1: like in a leather face um area, and also in

836
00:46:17,440 --> 00:46:19,560
Speaker 1: this sort of again coming back to this uh, this

837
00:46:19,719 --> 00:46:22,560
Speaker 1: sort of masculine interpretation of the chainsaw on American culture

838
00:46:23,239 --> 00:46:25,800
Speaker 1: very much, this idea that like the chainsaw as extension

839
00:46:26,320 --> 00:46:30,160
Speaker 1: of of of human identity and the human body, Ash

840
00:46:30,320 --> 00:46:33,239
Speaker 1: actually makes the chainsaw a part of his body, right,

841
00:46:33,520 --> 00:46:37,080
Speaker 1: replacing his hand with a chainsaw um, which is of

842
00:46:37,120 --> 00:46:40,120
Speaker 1: course wonderfully you know, on brand and over the top,

843
00:46:40,280 --> 00:46:42,719
Speaker 1: especially for the third movie. Oh yeah, what does it

844
00:46:42,800 --> 00:46:44,960
Speaker 1: say that your hand can be possessed by a demon?

845
00:46:45,040 --> 00:46:49,080
Speaker 1: But your chainsaw. Can't. Yeah, like the the hand is corruptible.

846
00:46:49,120 --> 00:46:53,040
Speaker 1: The chainsaws beyond corruption. Don't trust the flesh, trust the saw.

847
00:46:53,760 --> 00:46:56,840
Speaker 1: All right, Well, there you have it, the chainsaw, the

848
00:46:56,920 --> 00:46:59,839
Speaker 1: invention of the chainsaw, and and hopefully more than enough

849
00:47:00,080 --> 00:47:04,640
Speaker 1: um seasonal horror consideration thrown in there as well to

850
00:47:04,840 --> 00:47:08,160
Speaker 1: keep things uh nice and HALLOWEENI In the meantime, if

851
00:47:08,160 --> 00:47:09,799
Speaker 1: you would like to check out other episodes of Stuff

852
00:47:09,800 --> 00:47:11,319
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind, you know where to find them.

853
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Speaker 1: Check the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed. We

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Speaker 1: have core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Artifact on Wednesday,

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Speaker 1: listener mail on Monday, and then on Friday we do

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Speaker 1: Weird How Cinema. That's our chance to to just really uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, bear down and talk about a weird movie

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Speaker 1: uh for an extended period of time, and then over

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Speaker 1: the weekend we usually run a vault episode, which is

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Speaker 1: here We run huge thanks as always to our excellent

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Speaker 1: audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to

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Speaker 1: get in touch with us with feedback on this episode

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Speaker 1: or any other, to suggest a topic for the future,

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Speaker 1: just to say hello, you can email us at contact

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Speaker 1: That's Stuff to Blow Your mind dot com. Stuff to

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Speaker 1: blow your mind is production of I heart Radio more podcasts,

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