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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.

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Speaker 3: My name is Robert Lamb.

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Speaker 4: And I'm Joe McCormick. And today we're going to be

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Speaker 4: doing one of our invention episodes, and the subject is

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Speaker 4: roller skates. I was going to say this is kind

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Speaker 4: of a sequel to an episode we did a few

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Speaker 4: weeks ago about the invention of ice skates, but it

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Speaker 4: might be more accurate to say that episode was a

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Speaker 4: prequel to this one, because from what I recall, Rob,

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Speaker 4: you wanted to look at skating as a subject because

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Speaker 4: your family has gotten into roller skating or blading lately.

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Speaker 4: Is that the case.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and not a huge story really, But essentially,

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Speaker 2: I have some friends who got into roller skating during

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Speaker 2: the pandemic, which you know, increased my awareness of this

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Speaker 2: individual's involvement in various local skating meetups and so forth.

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Speaker 2: And my now thirteen year old also recently got into

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Speaker 2: the roller skating scene as well, and so I've just

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Speaker 2: been really impressed by, first of all, the fact that

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Speaker 2: roller skating is back. I remember, as a kid in

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Speaker 2: the nineties seeing various bits of media about roller blades,

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Speaker 2: and I was just like, oh, well, this is the future,

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Speaker 2: rollerblades of the future. Roller skating is just done.

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Speaker 4: Oh that's funny. I feel like when I was a

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Speaker 4: kid in the nineties, like I considered both roller skating

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Speaker 4: and blading to be in but blading was the more

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Speaker 4: extreme version. In a very nineties television commercial, coded kind

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Speaker 4: of way, it's the code red flavor of skating.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, I mean definitely. I mean, there were,

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Speaker 2: of course plenty of roller skating rinks around, so I

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Speaker 2: didn't think it was it was actually dead, but the

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Speaker 2: thing I would see on MTV and so forth, it

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Speaker 2: was the roller blading, and so it seemed like the future.

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Speaker 2: So it's nice to see that it's the roller skating

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Speaker 2: itself is back with such gusto. And then the other

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Speaker 2: part of the equation is that I've just really impressed

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Speaker 2: by the culture of many of these rollers blading groups.

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Speaker 2: You know, there's a lot of progressive and inviting aspects.

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Speaker 2: There's more than a little disco culture still thrown in there.

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Speaker 2: And so I was, yeah, I was interested in the

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Speaker 2: invention of the roller skate. And we quickly realized, well,

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Speaker 2: you can't talk about roller skates without talking about ice skates,

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Speaker 2: And so we ended up doing that whole episode just

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Speaker 2: on ice skates.

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Speaker 4: Right, because it just so happens that ice skating is

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Speaker 4: an earlier invention, so we had to talk about it first.

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Speaker 4: But here we are, sure, yeah, much earlier, but here

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Speaker 4: we are with roller skates today.

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Speaker 2: That's right, And I imagine we have a number of

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Speaker 2: skaters out there. I myself am not a roller skater.

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Speaker 2: Oh okay, I can't remember the last time I was

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Speaker 2: on skates. I'm not saying I won't pick it up

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Speaker 2: at some point in the future, but as of right now,

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Speaker 2: I just ice skate. Maybe once a year, though I

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Speaker 2: did not in the past year, so maybe it's every

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Speaker 2: two years I ice skate. But it is indeed a

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Speaker 2: big deal. I was not just basing it on my

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Speaker 2: own observations here. I looked up an article from twenty

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Speaker 2: twenty two who was published on NPR titled roller skating

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Speaker 2: feels a lot like love, and following is just part

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Speaker 2: of the process. This was by Kia Miyaka Ntez And Yeah,

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Speaker 2: this article points out that there was this huge boom

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Speaker 2: in popularity during the pandemic after having fallen sharply in

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Speaker 2: popularity during the late twentieth century. Maybe, and I'm just

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Speaker 2: guessing here lining up with my nineties kid observations.

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Speaker 3: Of the rise of the roller blade.

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Speaker 4: This is funny because you're you're making this distinction between

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Speaker 4: roller skating and roller blading, which I considered really the

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Speaker 4: same thing, is just like different different forms of the shoe.

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Speaker 2: It may be an artificial distinction that I'm really harping

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Speaker 2: on here, because again I'm not a skater, So people

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Speaker 2: who are actually skaters can probably like chie in and

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Speaker 2: they may say, well, yeah, I sometimes aware these sometimes

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Speaker 2: were the others, or maybe there is some are there

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Speaker 2: are there differences between roller skaters and rollerbladers. I guess

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Speaker 2: some of the events that I've I've been to and

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Speaker 2: not participated in, I have seen people using both types

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Speaker 2: of skates. But this author here also aligns the popularity

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Speaker 2: of roller skating during the nineteen seventies with disco, and

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Speaker 2: again that's probably a strong reason why you see some

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Speaker 2: disco vibes to some of the current skating culture.

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Speaker 4: I think even in the nineties, one of the skating

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Speaker 4: rinks I went to in like Tennessee had a disco

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Speaker 4: ball in it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but so you might be forgiven just you know,

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Speaker 2: via the consumption of media into thinking that okay, disco

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Speaker 2: is dead, it's not really dead and didn't die. You

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Speaker 2: might you might likewise think, well, skating also fell off

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Speaker 2: in popularity and it's never coming back. But then it

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Speaker 2: did come back and it's still holding on to that

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Speaker 2: popularity as well. It you know, survived in various groups,

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Speaker 2: maybe just under the radar of a lot of the mainstream,

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Speaker 2: and it's apparently big business today. According to Busines Research

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Speaker 2: insights from earlier this year, the roller skating market size

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Speaker 2: is quote valued it approximately USD four point eight billion

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Speaker 2: in twenty twenty four and is expected to reach USD

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Speaker 2: seven point nine billion by twenty thirty two. So, whether

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Speaker 2: you're you're hip or square, whether you're concerned with the

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Speaker 2: culture or with just the raw numbers involved in it,

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Speaker 2: I think there's no denying the power of roller skating today.

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Speaker 2: I mean, it's it's great exercise by most accounts, and

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Speaker 2: it's also a form of social expression, so I think

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Speaker 2: that's great.

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Speaker 4: I also have not tried it since I was a kid,

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Speaker 4: so I have no idea how hard it would be.

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Speaker 4: Like I literally I could put them on and just

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Speaker 4: pick it right up, or maybe it would be a

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Speaker 4: grueling discovery that I just can't do this anymore. I

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Speaker 4: really don't know.

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Speaker 2: I think you'd be comfortable, either of us would be

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Speaker 2: comfortable in like an hour or so.

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Speaker 4: That's encouraging. I was going to say I'd like to

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Speaker 4: pick it up, but that I was just now remembering

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Speaker 4: another reason that it was always kind of difficult when

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Speaker 4: I was a kid, because I did have a pair

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Speaker 4: of skates when I was a kid, but it was

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Speaker 4: that my neighborhood is like my house is on a hill,

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Speaker 4: so it was like I always felt like I don't

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Speaker 4: know if I can, like if I go down the hill,

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Speaker 4: can I get back up or I have to take

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Speaker 4: my skates off? Or am I going to careene into something?

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Speaker 4: So I don't know. Maybe maybe skating is easier if

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Speaker 4: you live in a very flat place.

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Speaker 2: Wait are you saying that you were trepidacious about skating

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Speaker 2: to the skating rink because there were.

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Speaker 4: Hills skating around my house, like around on the sidewalks

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Speaker 4: and streets around my house and stuff.

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Speaker 2: Oh okay, yes, I see. Yeah, Because to be clear,

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Speaker 2: for anyone that's not familiar, like there are different modes

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Speaker 2: of skating, Like you just go and skate in a rink,

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Speaker 2: but then there are plenty of people who go out

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Speaker 2: and skate, you know, on various designated streets and so forth.

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Speaker 2: You know, and there are different types of wheels that

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Speaker 2: correspond with exactly what you're skating on.

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Speaker 4: So one surprising thing that I remember we discovered when

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Speaker 4: we were preparing for the ice skating episode is that

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Speaker 4: the core physics question of how and why ice skating works,

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Speaker 4: in effect, why is ice so slippery? Why can you

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Speaker 4: achieve such low friction motion over the top of it?

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Speaker 4: That question is not fully solved. We have much better

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Speaker 4: ideas than we used to about the answer to that,

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Speaker 4: but as of the past few years, it has still

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Speaker 4: been an active area of research. I do not believe

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Speaker 4: any such mysteries exist with regards to roller skating. It's

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Speaker 4: not like a baffling scientific question. Roller skating does not

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Speaker 4: rely on any strange, low friction quasi liquid layers at

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Speaker 4: the surface of ice. Instead, it's the principle of the

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Speaker 4: wheel and axle, which, at the risk of sounding hubristic,

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Speaker 4: I think we've got that one pretty well figured out. Yes,

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Speaker 4: but despite the fact that there's less scientific mystery involved

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Speaker 4: in how roller skating works doesn't mean that the history

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Speaker 4: is uninteresting. And there are a lot of twists and

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Speaker 4: turns here.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, more so than I was expecting. But you know,

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Speaker 2: then again, and then you get into inventions from this

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Speaker 2: time period, and it often does end up a.

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Speaker 3: Little more complex, with.

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Speaker 2: Parallel discoveries, parallel breakthroughs, different independent creations of the same thing,

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Speaker 2: and then of course folks trying to make money off

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Speaker 2: of those inventions.

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Speaker 4: That's right. So I think one thing we can definitely

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Speaker 4: say about the invention of roller skates is that there

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Speaker 4: is no clear moment in history that can be pinpointed

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Speaker 4: as the earliest roller skate. There was a from what

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Speaker 4: I can tell, very economically and historically important roller skate

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Speaker 4: model created in the eighteen sixties by an American businessman

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Speaker 4: named James Plimpton, and I think we'll come back and

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Speaker 4: discuss the success of that model in a bit, and

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Speaker 4: then other models around it. But it's worth identifying first

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Speaker 4: that we know for certain Plimpton was not the first

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Speaker 4: person to put wheels on shoes. We have many well

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Speaker 4: documented earlier examples. And then beyond that, I'd say because

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Speaker 4: of how obvious the concept is, like applying the wheel

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Speaker 4: and axle principle to the bottom of a shoe, we

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Speaker 4: can just guess that there were almost certainly even older

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Speaker 4: examples than the earliest ones we know about, probably going

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Speaker 4: back hundreds or even thousands of years. But we simply

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Speaker 4: don't have any evidence of those models, no written records

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Speaker 4: and no physical remains. But it would be it would

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Speaker 4: be foolish, in my opinion, to assume that they had

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Speaker 4: Nobody had ever done this.

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Speaker 2: Right right, And this ties ties in with our past

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Speaker 2: discussions on the wheel itself, because the wheel and the

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Speaker 2: wheel wheeled vehicle as concepts can be found in various

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Speaker 2: cultures in different times, even among people who did not

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Speaker 2: make use of the wheel for practical labor or conveyance.

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Speaker 2: A wheeled vehicle's usefulness, as we discussed, depends on the

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Speaker 2: underlying state of roads, and there's a similar situation in

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Speaker 2: play with roller skates to a large degree, though I

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Speaker 2: was surprised to find out that that off road roller

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Speaker 2: skating does seem to be a thing today. You can

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Speaker 2: find videos of it, you can buy these skates, but

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Speaker 2: for the most part, it was.

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Speaker 4: Not a thing like roller skating in the mud is like, I.

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Speaker 2: Guess people are going out there and getting it, so

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Speaker 2: more power to them. But yeah, I can only imagine

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Speaker 2: just as at various points in the past, probably lost

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Speaker 2: to the mists of history, you know, various people made

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Speaker 2: little toys on wheels. Some of those toys were stepped upon,

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Speaker 2: some of those toys were intentionally placed under feet, and

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Speaker 2: someone was a joker at a party somewhere.

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Speaker 4: Sorry, when we're done here, I got to look up

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Speaker 4: these off road skating and see what it's about. I'm

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Speaker 4: imagining people with like monster truck tires on their feet.

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Speaker 2: I can think that's kind of the vibe that. As

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Speaker 2: with all of this listeners right in, we want to

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Speaker 2: hear from rollerbladers, roller skaters, and any off road roller

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Speaker 2: skaters out there as well.

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Speaker 4: So I mentioned that we know very well about some

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Speaker 4: earlier roller skate models than the ones that achieved commercial

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Speaker 4: success in the nineteenth century. So what were some of

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Speaker 4: these earlier roller skate models for which we do have

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Speaker 4: solid evidence. There is a commonly cited book length work

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Speaker 4: on this which does get into the history out. Unfortunately,

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Speaker 4: I was not able to get a copy of this

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Speaker 4: book it's called The History of Roller Skating by James

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Speaker 4: Turner with Michael Zaidman, published by the National Museum of

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Speaker 4: Roller Skating. I think this is in Nebraska. Seems to

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Speaker 4: be out of print. You can get a used copy

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Speaker 4: on Amazon for only three hundred and sixty dollars. Should

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Speaker 4: we go in on that?

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Speaker 2: How we could have with more time, I guess so.

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Speaker 4: Anyway, wasn't able to get a copy of this book myself.

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Speaker 4: But Michael Pollock, the author of a short twenty fifteen

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Speaker 4: article in The New York Times called The History of

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Speaker 4: Roller Skates, apparently was able to get a copy somehow,

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Speaker 4: and he says that Turner and Zaidman, the authors of

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Speaker 4: this book, right that the earliest recorded inventor of roller

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Speaker 4: skates was an eccentric eighteenth century Flemish inventor and instrument

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Speaker 4: maker named John Joseph Merlin, aka the Ingenious Mechanic. And

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Speaker 4: that's mechanic with a C K at the end, so

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Speaker 4: you know it's legit. So John Joseph Merlin lived from

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Speaker 4: seventeen thirty five to eighteen oh three. I looked this

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Speaker 4: guy up and it turns out he was a real character.

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Speaker 4: So I would like to just sort of go into

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Speaker 4: his biography for a bit.

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Speaker 2: I mean, with a name like that, yeah, it's got

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Speaker 2: to be good.

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Speaker 4: So I want to mention a couple of nice accessible

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Speaker 4: sources on Merlin. One is a blog post hosted by

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Speaker 4: the Internet Cello Society, because he was also an instrument maker,

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Speaker 4: called Magical Merlin. This was written by an American cellist

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Speaker 4: and music professor named Sarah Freiberg. Also, I found a

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Speaker 4: good twenty eighteen post on a historical blog known as

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Speaker 4: London Historians by an author named Mike Rindell a bit

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Speaker 4: of basic biography. John Joseph Merlin was born in seventeen

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Speaker 4: thirty five in the city of Hui, which is today

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Speaker 4: in the country of Belgium. I think at the time

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Speaker 4: it was in a principality that doesn't exist anymore, and

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Speaker 4: I don't remember the name of But when he was

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Speaker 4: a young man, Merlin studied for six years at the

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Speaker 4: Academy of Sciences in Paris, where he learned a lot

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Speaker 4: of what would become useful in his career as a

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Speaker 4: mechanical inventor and engineer. In the year seventeen sixty, at

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Speaker 4: the age of twenty five, he moved to London first,

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Speaker 4: I think as part of a diplomatic group, shortly after

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Speaker 4: which he made friends with a bunch of fashionable and

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Speaker 4: influential people in london intellectual and artistic circles. Merlin was

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Speaker 4: a man of many talents. Most notably he invented a

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Speaker 4: bunch of beautiful and dazzling mechanical automata rob We've done

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Speaker 4: episodes on automatave from the period in the past. These

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Speaker 4: were sort of eighteenth century clockwork robots. So the word

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Speaker 4: robot could be a little misleading because that might imply

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Speaker 4: some level of decision making or agency. These machines did

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Speaker 4: not in any way exercise decision making, action, independence, agency,

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Speaker 4: anything like that. They were more like ingenious, complex wind

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Speaker 4: up toys that would go through a series of predetermined motions,

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Speaker 4: but still remarkable engineering achievements.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, as I recall, it kind of varies from creator

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Speaker 2: to create, or from one creation to another, But there

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Speaker 2: was sometimes a vibe of something more like pure novelty,

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Speaker 2: and then other times there was this kind of.

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Speaker 3: Aspect to it.

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Speaker 2: You know, sometimes you were supposed to really think about

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Speaker 2: what you were looking at other times it was maybe

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Speaker 2: like just a little more for humor sike.

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Speaker 4: Oh, I know exactly what you're talking about. I thought

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Speaker 4: you were going in a different direction though, but you're

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Speaker 4: exactly right. Some of these I think were meant to

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Speaker 4: illustrate there were kind of works of art in a

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Speaker 4: wayment to illustrate philosophical principles, to connect to different theories

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Speaker 4: about the origin of movements and even theology and cosmology

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Speaker 4: and what it meant for things to be alive and so, yeah,

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Speaker 4: we've talked about that in the past, how these works

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Speaker 4: connected to those different schools of philosophy at the time.

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Speaker 4: But the other distinction I was making was the ones

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Speaker 4: that are like, here's something interesting to look at and

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Speaker 4: you know, being very clear about how it works, versus

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Speaker 4: the ones where it was like, this is actually alive

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Speaker 4: and it's really making decisions and stuff, yeah, which was

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Speaker 4: not true.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and then sometimes there was kind of a little

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Speaker 2: trickery in the degree to which things were automated. Go

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Speaker 2: back into the archives, I believe we have episodes on

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Speaker 2: the pooping duck. Yes, this being like a key focal

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Speaker 2: point of some of these issues.

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Speaker 4: But like I said, despite the fact that they were

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Speaker 4: not actually like in dependent agentic robots in any way,

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Speaker 4: they were more like very intricate, complex wind up toys.

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Speaker 4: Still remarkable engineering achievements. And if you want to see

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Speaker 4: one of one of Merlin's co creations that he made

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Speaker 4: actually with the help of a bunch of other people,

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Speaker 4: I think, in a project that was helmed by a

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Speaker 4: guy named James Cox, who I'll get to in a minute,

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Speaker 4: you can look up the silver Swan automaton, which still

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Speaker 4: exists and you can see today, or at least could

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Speaker 4: as of recently I think, probably still today at the

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Speaker 4: Bows Museum in northern England. So just to describe it quickly,

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Speaker 4: this is a life sized swan made out of silver.

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Speaker 4: Apparently a huge mass of silver went into its creation,

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Speaker 4: and it's sitting on a tray a platform that represents

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Speaker 4: a stream where the water is made out of these long,

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Speaker 4: thin glass rods, and so this thing still works today.

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Speaker 4: You can wind it up and see it move and

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Speaker 4: when you do that, the glass rods move back and

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Speaker 4: forth and resemble running water, and the stream part is

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Speaker 4: surrounded by silver leaves. Again, you can look up video

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Speaker 4: of this. It's kind of amazing how graceful and smooth

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Speaker 4: and life like the movements of the swan itself are

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Speaker 4: the swan kind of swivels its neck and it does

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Speaker 4: that thing swans do where they turn around and they

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Speaker 4: like stick their head back under their wing or toward

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Speaker 4: their back. It does that, and then it dips its

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Speaker 4: head into the water and catches a fish althile. This

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Speaker 4: very mysterious little tune plays on hidden bells. Part of

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Speaker 4: the automaton is just a giant music box that plays

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Speaker 4: a selection of several different tunes. So it is an

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Speaker 4: amazing thing to watch in action, especially realizing that this

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Speaker 4: thing was completed in like the seventeen seventies.

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Speaker 2: Yes, I'm looking at a video that you sent me

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Speaker 2: of this swan in action, and yeah, these are very

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Speaker 2: fluid movements here. I was expecting something a lot clunkier.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, something more kind of start and stop jerking up

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Speaker 4: and you know that sort of thing. But no, it's

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Speaker 4: very graceful. And people at the time commented on this

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Speaker 4: like how graceful and lifelike it was. But John Joseph

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Speaker 4: Merlin was not on Sorry what.

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Speaker 2: I was just I was just thinking, like, was he

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Speaker 2: still a diplomat at the time, was there anything to do?

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Speaker 4: I don't know if he was. I don't know how

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Speaker 4: long he stayed in Diplomat, so.

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Speaker 2: Because a lot of work evidently went into this.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, huge amount.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: But Merlin was not only a clock punk silver swancrafter.

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Speaker 4: He was also just an all purpose inventor and designer,

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Speaker 4: both of functional items things like medical devices and measuring instruments,

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Speaker 4: and also bizarre novelties like a like a real life

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Speaker 4: size mechanical chariot with an automatic horse whip that he

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Speaker 4: would ride around in Hyde Park.

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Speaker 3: Oh my goodness.

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Speaker 4: In addition, he was a renown instrument maker. One of

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Speaker 4: the sources I mentioned that post by cellis name Sarah Freiberg.

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Speaker 4: Her introduction to Merlin in writing this piece is actually

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Speaker 4: that she happened to acquire a Baroque cello that he

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Speaker 4: himself made in London in seventeen eighty four. So Merlin

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Speaker 4: was originally probably trained in the art of clockmaking, and

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Speaker 4: he would end up working for some time beginning in

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Speaker 4: seventeen sixty six for this British inventor and jeweler named

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Speaker 4: James Cox. Cox was one of the co creators of

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Speaker 4: the Silver Swan. Cox was also sort of a showman,

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Speaker 4: and he operated a museum or actually I think multiple

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Speaker 4: sort of arcades and museums, one of which was this

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Speaker 4: showroom for mechanical marvels at a street called Spring Gardens

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Speaker 4: in Westminster, and Merlin was Cox's chief mechanic. Merlin went

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Speaker 4: into business for himself in the seventeen seventies. He filed

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Speaker 4: his first patent in seventeen seventy three for a type

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Speaker 4: of Dutch oven that had a built in jack for

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Speaker 4: rotating meat. I've seen this described in some sources as

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Speaker 4: like the first rotisseriy. I don't know that, because I

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Speaker 4: feel like we've talked about earlier rotisseries. I don't know.

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Speaker 4: Maybe it's the first of some kind of rotisseriy.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I would venture that it's something like that. And

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Speaker 2: there's no dog involved in here, now.

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Speaker 4: No, that's what we talked about. Yes, animal operated belt,

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Speaker 4: the turn belt dog. Yes, the turnspit dog. That's what

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Speaker 4: it was. And Merlin also patented improvements to musical instrument designs.

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Speaker 4: He did some variations on the harpsichord. He also created

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Speaker 4: all new instruments, which, as far as I can tell,

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Speaker 4: none of these really caught on. One example that Freiberg

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Speaker 4: mentions as an instrument called a pentachord, which she describes

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Speaker 4: as a quote small five string cello which is tuned

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Speaker 4: C G D A D. At some point, James Cox

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Speaker 4: is the guy he was working for. James Cox's finances

386
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Speaker 4: kind of went south, and so Merlin decided to set

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Speaker 4: up his own museum. So in seventeen eighty three he

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Speaker 4: acquired a property at Prince's Street. This is also in Westminster,

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Speaker 4: and he called it Merlin's Mechanical Museum. I am exerting

390
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Speaker 4: extreme self control to not accidentally call this Merlin's Shop

391
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Speaker 4: of Mystical Wonders, but I would start typing that in

392
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Speaker 4: the note It's over. But no, it was Merlin's Mechanical Museum.

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Speaker 4: I also have heard it said. I think this was

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Speaker 4: by a museum tour guide who was showing off the

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Speaker 4: Silver Swan. I think said that it was sometimes called

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Speaker 4: Merlin's Cave. But anyway, this place was crammed with dazzling automata,

397
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Speaker 4: weird furniture, and other inventions and collectors pieces. Rendell and

398
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Speaker 4: his blog post mentions a bunch of other inventions by Merlin.

399
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Speaker 4: I just want to highlight a few of them. I

400
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Speaker 4: already alluded to the mechanical chariot complete with a whip.

401
00:21:53,119 --> 00:21:55,600
Speaker 4: This was interesting because it also had a type of

402
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Speaker 4: odometer to measure a distance measuring device distance traveled, which

403
00:22:01,160 --> 00:22:04,080
Speaker 4: that ties into another invention episode we've done in the past.

404
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Speaker 4: We did the odometer at some point, tracing that all

405
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Speaker 4: the way back to inventions in the ancient world. But

406
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Speaker 4: this had a version of an odometer, and Merlin called

407
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Speaker 4: that odometer the way Wise and he would apparently ride

408
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Speaker 4: this chariot around through Hyde Park to kind of advertise

409
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Speaker 4: his magnificent works. He has something else that he created

410
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Speaker 4: called the gouty chair. This was a form of wheelchair,

411
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Speaker 4: not with large wheels on the sides like you would

412
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Speaker 4: see on modern devices, but it had a set of

413
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Speaker 4: four smaller wheels near the floor. I was looking at.

414
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Speaker 4: You can actually look up pictures of this that exist today,

415
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Speaker 4: and so you can see sort of how it was

416
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Speaker 4: put together. But I couldn't figure out by looking at

417
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Speaker 4: these or reading descriptions exactly how it works. It looks

418
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Speaker 4: like it's operated by a pair of hand turned cranks

419
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Speaker 4: on the arm rests, and I'm not sure how these

420
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Speaker 4: would both steer and propel the chair at the same time.

421
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Speaker 4: Maybe there's some mechanism missing here.

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Speaker 2: Likewise, I can't tell what's going on with like the

423
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Speaker 2: foot pad down there, if it's just for resting your

424
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Speaker 2: feet on, or if there's some sort of pressure applied there.

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Speaker 4: Could it be like a pedal that maybe propels. Maybe Yeah,

426
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Speaker 4: but there is kind of a footrest below the chair,

427
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Speaker 4: But otherwise it looks like a regular piece of furniture.

428
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Speaker 4: It's just affixed with like all these wheels and cranks

429
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Speaker 4: and stuff.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, designed for individuals suffering from the gout.

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Speaker 4: I'm assume that's what I assume based on it being

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Speaker 4: called the gouty chair, though I assume it could work for,

433
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Speaker 4: you know, anybody who has mobility issues. And Merlin apparently

434
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Speaker 4: did design a number of devices, like medical devices and

435
00:23:36,680 --> 00:23:41,720
Speaker 4: devices to help people with various physical disabilities. He designed

436
00:23:41,880 --> 00:23:46,360
Speaker 4: a some kind of prosthetic gripping devices for people without arms,

437
00:23:47,000 --> 00:23:50,600
Speaker 4: and a set of playing cards which could be read

438
00:23:50,640 --> 00:23:54,040
Speaker 4: by the blind. This was presumably some kind of precursor

439
00:23:54,080 --> 00:23:56,320
Speaker 4: to Braille notation this would have been before braille, but

440
00:23:56,440 --> 00:23:58,879
Speaker 4: had I guess some kind of bumps or something that

441
00:23:58,920 --> 00:24:02,679
Speaker 4: could be felt. And he also invented a bunch of

442
00:24:02,760 --> 00:24:06,760
Speaker 4: types of mechanical moving furniture, or what was sometimes called

443
00:24:06,840 --> 00:24:12,119
Speaker 4: transforming furniture, and this ranged from relatively mundane creations like

444
00:24:12,240 --> 00:24:14,800
Speaker 4: you had, like you know, a rotating tea table, Okay,

445
00:24:14,880 --> 00:24:17,399
Speaker 4: it's not hard to imagine you might see things like

446
00:24:17,440 --> 00:24:21,400
Speaker 4: that today to something that Freiberg includes in her ride

447
00:24:21,480 --> 00:24:25,560
Speaker 4: up that was advertised as quote the Quarteto music cabinet.

448
00:24:25,840 --> 00:24:29,840
Speaker 4: It contains flutes, violins, and music books and by touching

449
00:24:29,880 --> 00:24:32,560
Speaker 4: a spring key it will rise to a proper height

450
00:24:32,840 --> 00:24:36,159
Speaker 4: and form music desks for four performers and thin.

451
00:24:36,320 --> 00:24:38,280
Speaker 2: It sounds very futuristic really.

452
00:24:38,280 --> 00:24:41,840
Speaker 4: Kind of like adjustable standing desk sort of but for musicians,

453
00:24:41,920 --> 00:24:46,000
Speaker 4: and includes like a complex opening and closing cabinet with

454
00:24:46,040 --> 00:24:50,440
Speaker 4: different compartments. He also, i think, put together a lot

455
00:24:50,440 --> 00:24:53,959
Speaker 4: of different kind of weights and measuring machines and then

456
00:24:54,000 --> 00:24:57,360
Speaker 4: also clocks, including he was he was a co creator

457
00:24:57,400 --> 00:25:01,040
Speaker 4: of a so called perpetual motion claw. This was again

458
00:25:01,080 --> 00:25:05,400
Speaker 4: with James Cox. Dubious about this one because obviously perpetual

459
00:25:05,440 --> 00:25:10,680
Speaker 4: motion machines that doesn't exist in reality. Cox i think

460
00:25:10,840 --> 00:25:14,080
Speaker 4: claimed this really was a perpetual motion machine, but from

461
00:25:14,160 --> 00:25:17,520
Speaker 4: what I've read, it was powered by a mercury barometer

462
00:25:17,880 --> 00:25:22,800
Speaker 4: responding to changes in atmospheric pressure in order to contract

463
00:25:22,800 --> 00:25:25,960
Speaker 4: the spring. And of course this would not be a

464
00:25:26,040 --> 00:25:30,080
Speaker 4: true perpetual motion machine. It would be requiring this external play.

465
00:25:30,880 --> 00:25:32,639
Speaker 2: Otherwise it would be like saying that a windmill is

466
00:25:32,680 --> 00:25:33,960
Speaker 2: perpetual motion machine.

467
00:25:34,040 --> 00:25:34,520
Speaker 4: Exactly.

468
00:25:34,600 --> 00:25:34,800
Speaker 3: Yes.

469
00:25:35,480 --> 00:25:38,520
Speaker 4: So Merlin was active in the London social scene of

470
00:25:38,560 --> 00:25:41,760
Speaker 4: his time, and he was known as kind of weird

471
00:25:42,040 --> 00:25:45,959
Speaker 4: and flamboyant, and he liked to party. I came across

472
00:25:46,000 --> 00:25:50,360
Speaker 4: comments written by the English novelist Fanny Bernie about Merlin.

473
00:25:50,680 --> 00:25:54,159
Speaker 4: She spent time with him because her father, the musicologist

474
00:25:54,280 --> 00:25:58,280
Speaker 4: Charles Bernie, was good friends with Merlin, so she knew

475
00:25:58,320 --> 00:26:01,119
Speaker 4: him well, and she wrote about him as follows. He

476
00:26:01,200 --> 00:26:04,160
Speaker 4: is a great favorite in our house. He is very diverting.

477
00:26:04,240 --> 00:26:08,160
Speaker 4: Also in conversation. There is a singular simplicity in his manners.

478
00:26:08,480 --> 00:26:12,240
Speaker 4: He speaks his opinions upon all subjects and about all persons,

479
00:26:12,280 --> 00:26:16,040
Speaker 4: with the most undisguised freedom. He does, not, though a foreigner,

480
00:26:16,280 --> 00:26:18,919
Speaker 4: want words. I mean he does not lack words. He

481
00:26:18,920 --> 00:26:21,439
Speaker 4: had a big vocabulary. He does not want words, but

482
00:26:21,560 --> 00:26:25,240
Speaker 4: he arranges and pronounces them very comically. He is humbly

483
00:26:25,280 --> 00:26:28,119
Speaker 4: grateful for all civilities that are shown him but is

484
00:26:28,200 --> 00:26:31,280
Speaker 4: warmly and honestly resentful for the least slight.

485
00:26:32,440 --> 00:26:34,399
Speaker 2: You know, this is exactly the sort of sort of

486
00:26:34,520 --> 00:26:37,840
Speaker 2: dude that you don't want to slight because I feel

487
00:26:37,880 --> 00:26:41,359
Speaker 2: like you run a great risk of being reduced in

488
00:26:41,480 --> 00:26:44,560
Speaker 2: size and forced to play around with the nutcrackers.

489
00:26:43,960 --> 00:26:44,680
Speaker 3: And the rap cans.

490
00:26:45,040 --> 00:26:48,720
Speaker 4: Yeah he Septimus Prtorious or something. No, Yeah, so he

491
00:26:48,880 --> 00:26:53,440
Speaker 4: was like fun and weird, but apparently also maybe kind

492
00:26:53,440 --> 00:26:56,680
Speaker 4: of a big mouth and quick to take offense. And

493
00:26:57,359 --> 00:27:00,960
Speaker 4: I've also read in other sources them are people mentioning

494
00:27:01,040 --> 00:27:03,760
Speaker 4: this thing. She says that he was known for having

495
00:27:03,800 --> 00:27:07,280
Speaker 4: a robust vocabulary, for not a native English speaker, but

496
00:27:07,640 --> 00:27:11,280
Speaker 4: for putting words in a weird order when speaking English.

497
00:27:11,359 --> 00:27:13,440
Speaker 4: So I'm kind of imagining him as Yoda.

498
00:27:14,280 --> 00:27:16,240
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's also weird the way it's his phrase,

499
00:27:16,280 --> 00:27:19,440
Speaker 2: because they're like, oh, he's basically sounds like they're making

500
00:27:19,480 --> 00:27:24,480
Speaker 2: fun of his accent while still crediting his vocabulary and

501
00:27:24,760 --> 00:27:26,200
Speaker 2: grasps with the English language.

502
00:27:26,520 --> 00:27:29,399
Speaker 4: This is so funny because he's conforming to what I

503
00:27:29,400 --> 00:27:33,199
Speaker 4: would think of as a later storytelling archetype, like the

504
00:27:33,440 --> 00:27:39,520
Speaker 4: eccentric foreign professor with a strange accent who is like

505
00:27:39,720 --> 00:27:43,600
Speaker 4: an inventor of curiosities. But this has got to be

506
00:27:43,600 --> 00:27:47,320
Speaker 4: before I thought such an archetype existed, So I don't know.

507
00:27:47,359 --> 00:27:49,840
Speaker 4: Maybe it's just a coincidence, or could it be based

508
00:27:49,840 --> 00:27:51,360
Speaker 4: on this guy in anyway, I don't know.

509
00:27:52,000 --> 00:27:54,840
Speaker 2: I mean, it would not surprise me. We've seen other

510
00:27:54,920 --> 00:27:58,480
Speaker 2: examples of various historical individuals having a great deal of

511
00:27:58,480 --> 00:28:03,080
Speaker 2: influence over how various stereotypes are interpreted.

512
00:28:04,280 --> 00:28:06,679
Speaker 4: But yeah, so anyway, he connected to a bunch of

513
00:28:06,880 --> 00:28:09,840
Speaker 4: famous people in his time. Johann Christian Bach, the son

514
00:28:09,920 --> 00:28:13,960
Speaker 4: of the famous composer Johann Sebastian Bach, apparently performed instruments

515
00:28:14,280 --> 00:28:19,919
Speaker 4: performed on instruments made by Merlin. And another very important

516
00:28:20,040 --> 00:28:23,240
Speaker 4: historical connection this is mentioned in that blog post by Rendell,

517
00:28:24,000 --> 00:28:26,560
Speaker 4: is that there's a first hand account of a visit

518
00:28:26,840 --> 00:28:31,440
Speaker 4: to Merlin's museum by a young Charles Babbage, who would

519
00:28:31,520 --> 00:28:35,080
Speaker 4: go on years later to invent the very historically important

520
00:28:35,240 --> 00:28:40,280
Speaker 4: mechanical computing device known as the difference engine. Babbage's mechanical

521
00:28:40,400 --> 00:28:43,640
Speaker 4: computer designs and concepts laid the groundwork for the electronic

522
00:28:43,680 --> 00:28:46,920
Speaker 4: computers that would come to be the basis of you know,

523
00:28:47,400 --> 00:28:52,040
Speaker 4: most or maybe all of today's digital technology. So Babbage

524
00:28:52,360 --> 00:28:55,800
Speaker 4: wrote about this experience of going to Merlin's cave. He

525
00:28:55,840 --> 00:28:58,280
Speaker 4: says that Merlin took him on a tour of like

526
00:28:58,320 --> 00:29:01,280
Speaker 4: a private gallery to show him like the special projects,

527
00:29:01,920 --> 00:29:05,560
Speaker 4: and Babbage says, quote, there were two uncovered female figures

528
00:29:05,600 --> 00:29:09,640
Speaker 4: of silver, about twelve inches high, and he describes one

529
00:29:09,640 --> 00:29:12,840
Speaker 4: of the figures as an admirable dan Seuss, meaning a

530
00:29:12,880 --> 00:29:16,520
Speaker 4: female ballerina, and says she had a silver bird perched

531
00:29:16,520 --> 00:29:19,120
Speaker 4: on a forefinger of her right hand, and then the

532
00:29:19,120 --> 00:29:21,560
Speaker 4: bird would move, it would shake its tail and flap

533
00:29:21,600 --> 00:29:25,000
Speaker 4: its wings and also opening close its little beak. And

534
00:29:25,040 --> 00:29:27,960
Speaker 4: then of the silver ballerina herself, he said, quote, the

535
00:29:28,040 --> 00:29:32,000
Speaker 4: lady attitudinized in a most fascinating manner. Her eyes were

536
00:29:32,040 --> 00:29:37,320
Speaker 4: full of imagination and irresistible. And Babbage was so struck

537
00:29:37,360 --> 00:29:42,720
Speaker 4: by these little mechanical objects, these sort of precursors to robots,

538
00:29:42,760 --> 00:29:44,960
Speaker 4: that he would come back and buy the exhibits in

539
00:29:45,000 --> 00:29:46,920
Speaker 4: eighteen thirty four, after Merlin's death.

540
00:29:47,560 --> 00:29:51,000
Speaker 2: What fascinating individual so very much part of like a

541
00:29:51,120 --> 00:29:56,720
Speaker 2: very crucial technological ecosystem of the day. And to be clear,

542
00:29:56,760 --> 00:30:00,640
Speaker 2: like you pointed out, not just creating sheer novelties, seemingly

543
00:30:01,080 --> 00:30:05,480
Speaker 2: constantly innovating, and like I can only imagine like following

544
00:30:05,640 --> 00:30:10,400
Speaker 2: every idea, good or bad, useful or just entertaining that

545
00:30:10,440 --> 00:30:11,680
Speaker 2: seems to enter into his head.

546
00:30:11,920 --> 00:30:14,840
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, you get the idea of just phrenetic energy,

547
00:30:15,240 --> 00:30:18,920
Speaker 4: constant moving about and doing different things, and being a

548
00:30:19,080 --> 00:30:22,080
Speaker 4: perhaps touchy but also beloved weirdo of the time.

549
00:30:22,640 --> 00:30:22,880
Speaker 3: Nice.

550
00:30:23,760 --> 00:30:27,960
Speaker 4: So anyway, onto Merlin's roller skates episode. This is back

551
00:30:28,160 --> 00:30:31,320
Speaker 4: back to the main event here. So one of John

552
00:30:31,400 --> 00:30:35,600
Speaker 4: Joseph Merlin's now most famous inventions was actually one of

553
00:30:35,640 --> 00:30:38,800
Speaker 4: the simplest, especially when you compare it to like the

554
00:30:38,800 --> 00:30:42,360
Speaker 4: intricate you know, clockwork ballet dancers and the silver Avians

555
00:30:42,400 --> 00:30:45,720
Speaker 4: and all that. And that was the roller skate. Now again,

556
00:30:46,320 --> 00:30:49,040
Speaker 4: was Merlin the first person ever to put wheels on

557
00:30:49,080 --> 00:30:52,920
Speaker 4: a show on a shoe? Very doubtful. In her article,

558
00:30:53,000 --> 00:30:58,240
Speaker 4: Freiberg mentions that Merlin quote probably improved skates which first

559
00:30:58,320 --> 00:31:02,600
Speaker 4: appeared in Holland in around seventeen hundred, but there is

560
00:31:02,680 --> 00:31:07,040
Speaker 4: no credited inventor or further detail of those earlier models.

561
00:31:07,280 --> 00:31:10,640
Speaker 4: It's just like some things like this probably existed and

562
00:31:10,680 --> 00:31:14,600
Speaker 4: he improved them. But again, Turner and Zeidman say, he's

563
00:31:14,640 --> 00:31:18,480
Speaker 4: the earliest recorded inventor of a roller skate. So one

564
00:31:18,520 --> 00:31:22,000
Speaker 4: of the things that makes Merlin's model historically interesting is that,

565
00:31:22,680 --> 00:31:28,680
Speaker 4: ever the showman Merlin staged a wild public demonstration of

566
00:31:28,720 --> 00:31:33,080
Speaker 4: his invention at a fancy masquerade ball around seventeen sixty,

567
00:31:33,360 --> 00:31:37,600
Speaker 4: and it went extremely badly. An account of this incident

568
00:31:37,640 --> 00:31:41,920
Speaker 4: appears in a book called concert Room and Orchestra Anecdotes

569
00:31:41,960 --> 00:31:46,400
Speaker 4: written by Thomas Busby in eighteen five, and Buzzby tells

570
00:31:46,440 --> 00:31:50,200
Speaker 4: the story as follows, speaking about Merlin, quote, one of

571
00:31:50,240 --> 00:31:54,000
Speaker 4: his ingenious novelties was a pair of skates. This is

572
00:31:54,000 --> 00:31:57,160
Speaker 4: spelled skaies.

573
00:31:57,480 --> 00:31:59,640
Speaker 2: That's sounds about right, Yeah, okay.

574
00:32:00,160 --> 00:32:04,960
Speaker 4: A pair of skates contrived to run on wheels. Supplied

575
00:32:05,040 --> 00:32:08,520
Speaker 4: with these and a violin he mixed in the motley

576
00:32:08,600 --> 00:32:12,640
Speaker 4: group of one of Missus Cowley's masquerades at Carlisle House.

577
00:32:13,080 --> 00:32:16,600
Speaker 4: When not having provided the means of retarding his velocity

578
00:32:17,080 --> 00:32:21,080
Speaker 4: or commanding its direction, he impelled himself against a mirror

579
00:32:21,120 --> 00:32:25,040
Speaker 4: of more than five hundred pounds value, dashed it to adams,

580
00:32:25,400 --> 00:32:29,400
Speaker 4: broke his instrument to pieces, and wounded himself most severely.

581
00:32:29,680 --> 00:32:31,920
Speaker 4: Oh my goodness, don't you hate when that happens. So

582
00:32:31,960 --> 00:32:35,160
Speaker 4: He's like, I have invented wheels for feet. I have

583
00:32:35,280 --> 00:32:37,480
Speaker 4: made wheels for feet. Everybody's got to see this, So

584
00:32:37,520 --> 00:32:40,760
Speaker 4: I'm gonna roll around the masquerade. Everybody's got their little

585
00:32:40,800 --> 00:32:43,080
Speaker 4: their masks and their fancy costumes. I'm gonna play the

586
00:32:43,160 --> 00:32:46,160
Speaker 4: violin while riding on these things. But he forgot to

587
00:32:46,200 --> 00:32:49,200
Speaker 4: put brakes in them, and so he crashes into a mirror,

588
00:32:49,320 --> 00:32:52,240
Speaker 4: shatters it to pieces, or to adams in the words

589
00:32:52,280 --> 00:32:55,520
Speaker 4: of Busby and h and everybody's I guess, I don't know.

590
00:32:55,520 --> 00:32:57,840
Speaker 4: Were they laughing at him? Were they mad? Were they

591
00:32:57,920 --> 00:33:00,680
Speaker 4: sorry for him? I doesn't say what the crowd's reaction.

592
00:33:00,880 --> 00:33:03,800
Speaker 2: I mean, given that he's also bleeding, perhaps severely at

593
00:33:03,800 --> 00:33:06,800
Speaker 2: this point, I can only imagine the stun silence.

594
00:33:09,640 --> 00:33:13,120
Speaker 4: So to note Merlin's designed for these skates. It sounds

595
00:33:13,120 --> 00:33:15,920
Speaker 4: like it was a The wheels are an inline orientation,

596
00:33:16,120 --> 00:33:18,680
Speaker 4: so not side by side, and two wheels each two

597
00:33:18,680 --> 00:33:22,600
Speaker 4: wheels per foot. I don't I'm not a skater myself,

598
00:33:22,640 --> 00:33:24,880
Speaker 4: so I don't know. Sounds like that wouldn't be enough.

599
00:33:24,960 --> 00:33:27,360
Speaker 4: It sounds like you want more wheels. Maybe, I don't know.

600
00:33:28,600 --> 00:33:33,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, and some of the the innovations that would come

601
00:33:33,480 --> 00:33:36,280
Speaker 2: after Merlin, but before proper what we would think of

602
00:33:36,320 --> 00:33:39,360
Speaker 2: as you know, more contemporary roller skates tended to have

603
00:33:39,400 --> 00:33:40,920
Speaker 2: I think at least three wheels.

604
00:33:41,160 --> 00:33:45,360
Speaker 4: Yeah, but again this is important. Merlin's roller skate design

605
00:33:45,480 --> 00:33:49,160
Speaker 4: did not include brakes, and no toe brakes and no back,

606
00:33:49,320 --> 00:33:52,560
Speaker 4: no heel breks, so there was no built in ability

607
00:33:52,640 --> 00:33:57,720
Speaker 4: to slow down or stop or really change direction as

608
00:33:57,720 --> 00:34:00,920
Speaker 4: it says, So yeah, it was it was more This

609
00:34:00,960 --> 00:34:03,880
Speaker 4: strikes me as more of like an idea than something

610
00:34:04,040 --> 00:34:06,600
Speaker 4: really like honed in and made practical.

611
00:34:07,480 --> 00:34:11,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, very much a novelty that he was willing

612
00:34:12,160 --> 00:34:16,520
Speaker 2: and excited to pursue there in front of everybody. Again,

613
00:34:17,400 --> 00:34:19,400
Speaker 2: seems like the kind of individual who would just follow

614
00:34:19,760 --> 00:34:30,600
Speaker 2: any mechanical fantasy that seemed to enter his head.

615
00:34:34,120 --> 00:34:37,239
Speaker 4: So that is the John Joseph Merlin roller skating experience.

616
00:34:37,880 --> 00:34:40,239
Speaker 4: His model obviously would not be the last one, and

617
00:34:40,280 --> 00:34:43,440
Speaker 4: there were many innovations that would come along in the

618
00:34:43,480 --> 00:34:46,520
Speaker 4: following decades. People would keep making different kinds of little

619
00:34:46,600 --> 00:34:50,480
Speaker 4: roller skates, and roller skating did sort of seem to

620
00:34:50,560 --> 00:34:52,800
Speaker 4: catch on going into the nineteenth century.

621
00:34:53,520 --> 00:34:57,359
Speaker 2: Yeah, like Merlin's roller skating story is clearly the best,

622
00:34:57,400 --> 00:35:01,239
Speaker 2: it's the most entertaining. I think the basic reality is

623
00:35:01,280 --> 00:35:06,040
Speaker 2: that a lot of the subsequent and probably previous roller

624
00:35:06,200 --> 00:35:10,160
Speaker 2: skating invention stories were pretty boring in or lost to history.

625
00:35:10,239 --> 00:35:12,640
Speaker 2: Somebody made this novelty device that you strap under your

626
00:35:12,640 --> 00:35:15,319
Speaker 2: feet so you can skate around sort of like an

627
00:35:15,320 --> 00:35:19,160
Speaker 2: ice skater, but with nowhere near as much speed, power

628
00:35:19,239 --> 00:35:23,800
Speaker 2: or control, and then people just forgot that these inventions existed,

629
00:35:24,000 --> 00:35:27,880
Speaker 2: or they forgot about the inventor. But yeah, they were available.

630
00:35:29,200 --> 00:35:32,440
Speaker 2: And this is where we come back around to James Plimpton,

631
00:35:32,800 --> 00:35:36,440
Speaker 2: who of nineteen twenty eight through nineteen eleven, an American

632
00:35:36,520 --> 00:35:41,040
Speaker 2: inventor who This is one of those invention stories or

633
00:35:41,120 --> 00:35:45,080
Speaker 2: innovator stories that is also not that exciting, because it's

634
00:35:45,120 --> 00:35:48,640
Speaker 2: somebody like seeing a way that can improve upon something,

635
00:35:48,760 --> 00:35:52,000
Speaker 2: making that improvement and then being able to own it

636
00:35:52,560 --> 00:35:57,480
Speaker 2: and sell it and also litigate it. Those are the

637
00:35:57,719 --> 00:36:00,880
Speaker 2: I mean, those are also it's part of that, since

638
00:36:01,200 --> 00:36:04,160
Speaker 2: you've touched on stories related to that before on the show.

639
00:36:04,200 --> 00:36:07,520
Speaker 2: But I mean it's it's less magical when it's about

640
00:36:07,560 --> 00:36:10,120
Speaker 2: just suing people for infringing on your copyright.

641
00:36:10,360 --> 00:36:14,040
Speaker 4: That's a lot of history. There's yeah, pursuing intellectual property things,

642
00:36:14,160 --> 00:36:16,719
Speaker 4: or just figuring out a way to market something so

643
00:36:16,760 --> 00:36:19,160
Speaker 4: that it catches on, or finding a way to make

644
00:36:19,239 --> 00:36:23,359
Speaker 4: something to make a design profitable. That's a big thing too.

645
00:36:23,719 --> 00:36:25,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, but still, I mean still, the story of Plimpton

646
00:36:25,600 --> 00:36:30,200
Speaker 2: is interesting in its own right. He had at least

647
00:36:30,280 --> 00:36:33,680
Speaker 2: one prior invention, because you know, to call yourself an inventor,

648
00:36:33,719 --> 00:36:37,200
Speaker 2: you need at least one or two in the in

649
00:36:37,239 --> 00:36:43,480
Speaker 2: the portfolio. He invented the eighteen fifty three Plimpton cabinet bed, which,

650
00:36:43,520 --> 00:36:47,560
Speaker 2: according to the Massachusetts Historical Society's Beehive blog, was seemingly

651
00:36:47,680 --> 00:36:49,759
Speaker 2: something he invented due to a practical need in his

652
00:36:49,800 --> 00:36:53,200
Speaker 2: own home, probably due to his own marriage the year earlier.

653
00:36:54,120 --> 00:36:55,640
Speaker 2: I think like at this point maybe they had a

654
00:36:55,680 --> 00:36:58,920
Speaker 2: kid on the way. It was his first major invention,

655
00:36:59,280 --> 00:37:01,680
Speaker 2: and this is another case where he did not invent

656
00:37:01,760 --> 00:37:04,719
Speaker 2: the cabinet bed a bed that folds up into a cabinet,

657
00:37:05,320 --> 00:37:07,279
Speaker 2: but he came up with a variation on it that

658
00:37:07,320 --> 00:37:09,480
Speaker 2: I'm to understand was aimed at requiring like a little

659
00:37:09,560 --> 00:37:12,880
Speaker 2: less effort to fold and unfold, and so kind of

660
00:37:12,920 --> 00:37:15,000
Speaker 2: like Merlin, you know, Plimpton seems like he was one

661
00:37:15,040 --> 00:37:18,839
Speaker 2: of these individuals who was, you know, always thinking about

662
00:37:18,840 --> 00:37:22,680
Speaker 2: ways to improve on a given device, though perhaps I

663
00:37:22,719 --> 00:37:24,759
Speaker 2: mean more than perhaps I think, certainly with more of

664
00:37:24,800 --> 00:37:28,360
Speaker 2: an entrepreneurial spirit to things as opposed to just a

665
00:37:29,600 --> 00:37:36,040
Speaker 2: more of a sheer exuberance for it, for invention and mechanisms.

666
00:37:37,160 --> 00:37:41,240
Speaker 2: And so basically, around eighteen sixty, according to the Beehive,

667
00:37:41,840 --> 00:37:45,000
Speaker 2: Plimpton takes ill, goes to the doctor, and the doctor says,

668
00:37:45,400 --> 00:37:47,719
Speaker 2: I think you should take up some physical activity. I

669
00:37:47,719 --> 00:37:50,759
Speaker 2: think you should take up ice skating. And Plimpton, being

670
00:37:50,800 --> 00:37:52,839
Speaker 2: a Northerner, would have would have been familiar with ice

671
00:37:52,840 --> 00:37:55,400
Speaker 2: skating and you know, maybe even had some history with it,

672
00:37:55,440 --> 00:37:57,239
Speaker 2: and maybe it was you know, falling back on something

673
00:37:57,239 --> 00:37:59,120
Speaker 2: he did as a kid. I'm not sure. We don't

674
00:37:59,120 --> 00:38:02,399
Speaker 2: have all the details, but what happens when summer rolls

675
00:38:02,440 --> 00:38:06,120
Speaker 2: around is you may find yourself unable to ice skate anymore,

676
00:38:06,480 --> 00:38:10,440
Speaker 2: and so keen to continue his wellness exercises, he bought

677
00:38:10,560 --> 00:38:15,080
Speaker 2: himself a pair of roller skates or what was passing

678
00:38:15,120 --> 00:38:18,719
Speaker 2: for roller skates at the time, and proceeded to think

679
00:38:18,719 --> 00:38:21,839
Speaker 2: about ways to improve upon them. Because much like we

680
00:38:21,840 --> 00:38:24,719
Speaker 2: were talking about with Merlin's roller skates. These would have

681
00:38:24,719 --> 00:38:28,680
Speaker 2: been very fixed, strapped onto your boots or your shoes.

682
00:38:29,080 --> 00:38:32,120
Speaker 2: They allowed you to go forwards or backwards, but not

683
00:38:32,200 --> 00:38:35,520
Speaker 2: take any turns. And also I think there may have

684
00:38:35,560 --> 00:38:38,000
Speaker 2: been some challenges with stopping when you needed to stop.

685
00:38:39,280 --> 00:38:42,399
Speaker 2: But yeah, there were various versions of this. I read

686
00:38:42,440 --> 00:38:45,560
Speaker 2: that there are some early roller skates attributed to a

687
00:38:45,680 --> 00:38:49,680
Speaker 2: Dutchman by the name of Hans Brinner from the same century,

688
00:38:50,360 --> 00:38:53,720
Speaker 2: but these are largely considered not true roller skates because

689
00:38:53,719 --> 00:38:56,560
Speaker 2: you could not turn in them. I mean, think about

690
00:38:56,560 --> 00:38:58,360
Speaker 2: a roller skating rink. Part of the whole field of

691
00:38:58,360 --> 00:38:59,840
Speaker 2: going to the old roller skating rink is going to

692
00:38:59,880 --> 00:39:03,320
Speaker 2: go round in a circle over and over again, or

693
00:39:03,320 --> 00:39:04,280
Speaker 2: at least in an oval.

694
00:39:04,640 --> 00:39:04,920
Speaker 4: Right.

695
00:39:05,480 --> 00:39:09,600
Speaker 2: So, at this point, again to be clear, commercially available

696
00:39:09,640 --> 00:39:14,840
Speaker 2: roller skates were very much around, and we've already I

697
00:39:14,840 --> 00:39:21,120
Speaker 2: think firmly established some early examples of things like roller skates,

698
00:39:21,120 --> 00:39:24,160
Speaker 2: and we speculated on even the ancient existence of things

699
00:39:24,160 --> 00:39:26,960
Speaker 2: like roller skates. But I know you and I kept

700
00:39:27,000 --> 00:39:31,160
Speaker 2: both both of us kept coming across mentions of a

701
00:39:31,239 --> 00:39:36,520
Speaker 2: seventeen forty three London theater production in which actors had

702
00:39:36,800 --> 00:39:41,960
Speaker 2: roller skates on simulating ice skating for theatrical purposes.

703
00:39:42,160 --> 00:39:45,440
Speaker 4: Yeah. I came across mention of this use in a

704
00:39:45,480 --> 00:39:48,879
Speaker 4: theater production in seventeen forty three in a j Store

705
00:39:48,960 --> 00:39:51,160
Speaker 4: Daily article that I think you and I both read.

706
00:39:52,040 --> 00:39:55,239
Speaker 4: But I had some questions about that. Did you say

707
00:39:55,280 --> 00:39:57,360
Speaker 4: you were able to dig into like what this claim

708
00:39:57,520 --> 00:39:58,640
Speaker 4: was about the play?

709
00:39:58,920 --> 00:40:02,000
Speaker 2: I dug into it more with no real satisfying answers.

710
00:40:02,080 --> 00:40:04,960
Speaker 2: So I would say, first and foremost kind of falling

711
00:40:04,960 --> 00:40:07,960
Speaker 2: along with things we've been discussing already, the idea that

712
00:40:08,920 --> 00:40:12,040
Speaker 2: in the year seventeen forty three, or even earlier or

713
00:40:12,080 --> 00:40:16,600
Speaker 2: certainly later, the idea that somebody staging a production of

714
00:40:16,640 --> 00:40:20,520
Speaker 2: some sort in London or elsewhere could have said, Hey,

715
00:40:20,960 --> 00:40:25,880
Speaker 2: what if in order to create the theatrical illusion of

716
00:40:25,920 --> 00:40:29,279
Speaker 2: ice skating, what if we used wheely skates instead? What

717
00:40:29,320 --> 00:40:31,840
Speaker 2: if we did that? Could we pull that off? It

718
00:40:31,880 --> 00:40:36,120
Speaker 2: seems perfectly reasonable to assume folks at least tried this out,

719
00:40:36,920 --> 00:40:39,719
Speaker 2: if not, you know, perfected to some degree, and you know,

720
00:40:39,800 --> 00:40:42,000
Speaker 2: did an entire series of performances.

721
00:40:42,239 --> 00:40:45,520
Speaker 4: Yeah, but what is the origin of this claim? I

722
00:40:45,520 --> 00:40:47,000
Speaker 4: think that was the thing I was having a hard

723
00:40:47,000 --> 00:40:47,920
Speaker 4: time figuring out.

724
00:40:47,880 --> 00:40:51,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, as far as I can tell. Looking at various

725
00:40:51,080 --> 00:40:55,200
Speaker 2: sources that mentioned this, I just can't find any like

726
00:40:55,320 --> 00:40:58,920
Speaker 2: concrete details, and the details kind of vary too, Like,

727
00:40:59,000 --> 00:41:02,839
Speaker 2: for instance, the Jay Store Daily article mentions something about

728
00:41:02,840 --> 00:41:04,440
Speaker 2: how it might have been a production of a Tom

729
00:41:04,480 --> 00:41:07,560
Speaker 2: Lockwood play, and then I try and research that, and like,

730
00:41:07,680 --> 00:41:11,000
Speaker 2: who's Tom Lockwood? No evidence of such a playwright as

731
00:41:11,040 --> 00:41:12,359
Speaker 2: far as I could tell, Or maybe it's a really

732
00:41:12,360 --> 00:41:15,520
Speaker 2: obscure playwright or lost playwright, or it could be an

733
00:41:15,680 --> 00:41:21,000
Speaker 2: error of record keeping in history. I found another reference

734
00:41:21,160 --> 00:41:24,719
Speaker 2: to this idea in a nineteen ninety nine article by

735
00:41:24,800 --> 00:41:29,440
Speaker 2: Gilbert Nordon Passing Fashions but no Sustainable market A history

736
00:41:29,440 --> 00:41:33,280
Speaker 2: of roller skating in Austria before nineteen fourteen. Oh okay,

737
00:41:33,840 --> 00:41:36,680
Speaker 2: And it states that this was a performance at the

738
00:41:36,760 --> 00:41:41,200
Speaker 2: old Drury Lane Theater, which is still there in London's

739
00:41:41,200 --> 00:41:43,840
Speaker 2: West End. And this article states that it was a

740
00:41:43,880 --> 00:41:47,759
Speaker 2: play by Thomas Hood, or I should state, they should

741
00:41:47,760 --> 00:41:51,080
Speaker 2: stress at least a Thomas Hood, but certainly not the

742
00:41:51,160 --> 00:41:54,240
Speaker 2: Thomas Hood who lives seventeen ninety nine through eighteen forty five,

743
00:41:55,080 --> 00:41:58,239
Speaker 2: Nor could it possibly be his son Tom Hood, who

744
00:41:58,239 --> 00:42:02,799
Speaker 2: lived eighteen thirty five through eighteen seventy four. So we

745
00:42:02,920 --> 00:42:05,680
Speaker 2: run into a similar situation here like this, there's some

746
00:42:05,719 --> 00:42:07,640
Speaker 2: sort of error here. If it was a Tom or

747
00:42:07,719 --> 00:42:10,960
Speaker 2: Thomas Hood play, it had to be later, or if

748
00:42:11,000 --> 00:42:14,160
Speaker 2: it was in this given year of seventeen forty three,

749
00:42:14,239 --> 00:42:17,600
Speaker 2: it had to be a different playwright or a different theater,

750
00:42:17,840 --> 00:42:18,560
Speaker 2: and so forth.

751
00:42:18,719 --> 00:42:20,719
Speaker 4: I don't want to presume, because I was never able

752
00:42:20,719 --> 00:42:22,400
Speaker 4: to wrap my head around what the source of the

753
00:42:22,400 --> 00:42:25,239
Speaker 4: confusion was here. But I wonder if the error is

754
00:42:25,360 --> 00:42:28,040
Speaker 4: just that this was not actually a play in the

755
00:42:28,080 --> 00:42:30,640
Speaker 4: eighteenth century, but in the nineteenth century. If it was

756
00:42:30,719 --> 00:42:32,600
Speaker 4: the eighteen forties.

757
00:42:32,239 --> 00:42:35,360
Speaker 2: That would streamline things a lot, because then it could

758
00:42:35,360 --> 00:42:40,640
Speaker 2: be a Tom or Thomas Hood play, and even more importantly,

759
00:42:40,960 --> 00:42:46,040
Speaker 2: it would place it alongside a more well documented case

760
00:42:46,239 --> 00:42:49,600
Speaker 2: of roller skates being used to create the theatrical illusion

761
00:42:49,640 --> 00:42:52,880
Speaker 2: of ice skates, that being an eighteen forty nine French

762
00:42:52,920 --> 00:42:57,520
Speaker 2: opera production of Meyer Beers the Prophet, which featured performers

763
00:42:57,520 --> 00:42:58,400
Speaker 2: on roller skates.

764
00:42:58,640 --> 00:43:01,680
Speaker 4: Okay, yeah, that would make it. But again we can't,

765
00:43:01,760 --> 00:43:05,360
Speaker 4: so we can't adjudicate this question. But this seems possible

766
00:43:05,400 --> 00:43:05,600
Speaker 4: to me.

767
00:43:06,040 --> 00:43:10,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, but the reality is, at some point in history, yes,

768
00:43:10,440 --> 00:43:13,960
Speaker 2: roller skates were used for perhaps the first time on

769
00:43:14,080 --> 00:43:17,080
Speaker 2: the stage to create the illusion of ice skating.

770
00:43:17,520 --> 00:43:20,760
Speaker 4: But okay, so back to the domain of business.

771
00:43:21,680 --> 00:43:24,600
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, so Plimpton comes around, he's trying these out.

772
00:43:25,000 --> 00:43:27,120
Speaker 2: The skates that he's trying are going to be crude,

773
00:43:27,160 --> 00:43:31,319
Speaker 2: they're going to be awkward. Apparently you but apparently some

774
00:43:31,400 --> 00:43:34,200
Speaker 2: of these you could make turns in, but with difficulty,

775
00:43:34,640 --> 00:43:37,440
Speaker 2: so nothing close to the maneuverability of ice skating. So

776
00:43:37,560 --> 00:43:41,120
Speaker 2: especially if you were hoping to trade in your ice

777
00:43:41,160 --> 00:43:44,600
Speaker 2: skates for roller skates during the summer and have anything

778
00:43:44,680 --> 00:43:47,600
Speaker 2: like the same experience, you were in for a great

779
00:43:47,640 --> 00:43:51,439
Speaker 2: deal of disappointment. I was reading about some of these

780
00:43:51,520 --> 00:43:57,240
Speaker 2: earlier commercially available skates, and according to the Birth rollers

781
00:43:57,320 --> 00:44:00,640
Speaker 2: of the roller skate by John Exell twenty eleven, on

782
00:44:00,800 --> 00:44:04,799
Speaker 2: the engineer an eighteen nineteen patented roller skate, the work

783
00:44:04,840 --> 00:44:10,239
Speaker 2: of French and Ventner m Petebled, had metal wheels and

784
00:44:10,400 --> 00:44:14,680
Speaker 2: were I don't know if this criticism holds true, but

785
00:44:14,840 --> 00:44:17,240
Speaker 2: there were arguments that you could barely lift your foot

786
00:44:17,360 --> 00:44:20,239
Speaker 2: with these on, and that on top of it, they

787
00:44:20,320 --> 00:44:23,839
Speaker 2: were so ugly that the quote fairer Sex would never

788
00:44:23,880 --> 00:44:28,200
Speaker 2: wear them Joe included an image here of this particular skate.

789
00:44:28,280 --> 00:44:32,879
Speaker 2: I think you'll agree it neither looks tremendously ugly or

790
00:44:33,040 --> 00:44:36,160
Speaker 2: really all that heavy. But maybe it was actually heavy.

791
00:44:36,280 --> 00:44:37,920
Speaker 4: Yeah, maybe it's made of tungsten.

792
00:44:38,000 --> 00:44:42,279
Speaker 2: I did. The wheels are supposedly metal. I can't tell

793
00:44:42,320 --> 00:44:43,120
Speaker 2: to what extent.

794
00:44:42,880 --> 00:44:46,200
Speaker 4: They are in this image, but solid metal, like not

795
00:44:46,280 --> 00:44:46,880
Speaker 4: even hollow.

796
00:44:47,400 --> 00:44:51,200
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah maybe so.

797
00:44:50,120 --> 00:44:53,000
Speaker 4: Well yeah, so this would have been a design that

798
00:44:53,360 --> 00:44:56,880
Speaker 4: comes well after Merlin, but well before Plimpton, kind of

799
00:44:56,920 --> 00:44:58,759
Speaker 4: in between, in the middle between them.

800
00:44:59,080 --> 00:45:02,520
Speaker 2: Another example would be the three wheel juvenile inline skate

801
00:45:02,880 --> 00:45:05,600
Speaker 2: that was The dates of these are found like eighteen

802
00:45:05,640 --> 00:45:09,279
Speaker 2: sixty through eighteen sixty three, including an image here for you, Joe,

803
00:45:09,280 --> 00:45:12,360
Speaker 2: and basically it is what it sounds like. Instead of

804
00:45:12,400 --> 00:45:16,520
Speaker 2: two wheels inline strapped beneath a shoe or boot like

805
00:45:16,560 --> 00:45:18,120
Speaker 2: we were referencing earlier, this would.

806
00:45:17,960 --> 00:45:19,360
Speaker 3: Be three yeah.

807
00:45:19,640 --> 00:45:22,080
Speaker 2: So this is what Plimpton was working with, and his

808
00:45:22,320 --> 00:45:25,960
Speaker 2: main adjustments to the skates of his time were just

809
00:45:26,480 --> 00:45:29,279
Speaker 2: largely related to the exact layout of the wheels. He

810
00:45:29,320 --> 00:45:33,680
Speaker 2: went with a quad wheel or rocker arrangement that was

811
00:45:33,760 --> 00:45:37,279
Speaker 2: more comfortable to wear and far easier to turn and

812
00:45:37,360 --> 00:45:39,920
Speaker 2: for the most part, this is the same design you

813
00:45:40,000 --> 00:45:43,000
Speaker 2: find on roller skates today. There have been all sorts

814
00:45:43,040 --> 00:45:47,480
Speaker 2: of minor adjustments to this, but essentially it is accurate

815
00:45:47,520 --> 00:45:51,520
Speaker 2: to say that Plympton Innovates Slash invents the modern roller

816
00:45:51,560 --> 00:45:55,680
Speaker 2: skate with his patent, and it largely remains the way

817
00:45:55,719 --> 00:45:59,720
Speaker 2: people were skating off of the ice until around nineteen

818
00:45:59,760 --> 00:46:02,600
Speaker 2: seven nine, and that's when there's an attempt to sort

819
00:46:02,640 --> 00:46:06,520
Speaker 2: of redo the ice to roller transfer, generating a modern

820
00:46:06,640 --> 00:46:09,760
Speaker 2: roller skate based on modern ice skates, and this becomes

821
00:46:09,760 --> 00:46:11,840
Speaker 2: the inline skate or roller blade.

822
00:46:12,520 --> 00:46:15,480
Speaker 4: Okay, so the history of roller skates really does start.

823
00:46:15,719 --> 00:46:19,200
Speaker 4: The early designs are pretty much all inline. They're the

824
00:46:19,280 --> 00:46:23,040
Speaker 4: roller blade, and then we get the innovation of the

825
00:46:23,160 --> 00:46:29,000
Speaker 4: quad design, the two axles each with two wheels in

826
00:46:29,040 --> 00:46:31,759
Speaker 4: the orientation like a car. This solves a lot of

827
00:46:31,800 --> 00:46:33,920
Speaker 4: problems with roller skates, and then we find ways to

828
00:46:33,960 --> 00:46:36,480
Speaker 4: go back to the inline design and make it more

829
00:46:36,480 --> 00:46:37,719
Speaker 4: comfortable and desirable.

830
00:46:38,280 --> 00:46:41,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, this really got me to thinking about the way

831
00:46:41,360 --> 00:46:44,719
Speaker 2: that we might think about inventions based on our own

832
00:46:44,800 --> 00:46:48,680
Speaker 2: sort of vocabulary of technology. Like, growing up, I kind

833
00:46:48,680 --> 00:46:51,160
Speaker 2: of thought of a roller skate as a car or

834
00:46:51,200 --> 00:46:53,880
Speaker 2: a toy car that is on the bottom of your foot.

835
00:46:54,120 --> 00:46:56,840
Speaker 2: But as we've been discussing, the roller skate was invented

836
00:46:56,880 --> 00:46:59,400
Speaker 2: as a playoff of the ice skate, and for the

837
00:46:59,440 --> 00:47:02,560
Speaker 2: most part, is not created with the idea of strapping

838
00:47:02,600 --> 00:47:05,759
Speaker 2: small carriages to the bottom of your feet. Yeah.

839
00:47:05,840 --> 00:47:08,000
Speaker 4: Yeah, A lot of times when we're thinking about the

840
00:47:08,040 --> 00:47:13,240
Speaker 4: history of technology, we like retrospectively, we don't have access

841
00:47:13,239 --> 00:47:17,160
Speaker 4: to the same chain of a visual analogies that people

842
00:47:17,200 --> 00:47:20,439
Speaker 4: were using when they were working prospectively. Does that make sense.

843
00:47:20,520 --> 00:47:24,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, And this is all fascinating when you think. Like again,

844
00:47:24,280 --> 00:47:27,120
Speaker 2: I think back to being a kid in the nineties

845
00:47:27,160 --> 00:47:29,480
Speaker 2: seeing roller blades and thinking, well, that's brilliant. They're making

846
00:47:29,520 --> 00:47:33,200
Speaker 2: a roller skate like an ice skate. But of course

847
00:47:33,200 --> 00:47:34,880
Speaker 2: this was always part of the equation.

848
00:47:35,200 --> 00:47:37,480
Speaker 4: In the box looks like as lasers on it.

849
00:47:39,560 --> 00:47:41,400
Speaker 2: I love this quote, by the way, from The Beehive.

850
00:47:41,760 --> 00:47:44,160
Speaker 2: That kind of sums up what happened next for Plimpton.

851
00:47:44,400 --> 00:47:47,080
Speaker 2: Quote James Plimpton spent the rest of his life selling,

852
00:47:47,200 --> 00:47:51,280
Speaker 2: improving and litigating his patent. So I mean no shame,

853
00:47:51,400 --> 00:47:55,439
Speaker 2: you know, he is a businessman. But I was reading

854
00:47:55,480 --> 00:47:57,920
Speaker 2: various accounts of it, you know, in the language of

855
00:47:57,920 --> 00:48:03,400
Speaker 2: the day, talking about cotecting the roller skaters in Europe

856
00:48:03,600 --> 00:48:07,600
Speaker 2: by litigating various patents, you know, like we're looking after you.

857
00:48:07,640 --> 00:48:09,320
Speaker 2: We want to make sure that when you roller skate,

858
00:48:09,440 --> 00:48:11,320
Speaker 2: you're using real Plimpton skates.

859
00:48:13,600 --> 00:48:15,880
Speaker 4: I don't know why, but this is made funnier by

860
00:48:15,960 --> 00:48:18,480
Speaker 4: I looked him up earlier, and I know what James

861
00:48:18,480 --> 00:48:21,759
Speaker 4: Plimpton looks like, and he's not exactly what I expected.

862
00:48:21,880 --> 00:48:24,440
Speaker 4: He looks kind of like he's like Garth Hudson of

863
00:48:24,480 --> 00:48:28,840
Speaker 4: the band, like a big beard and somehow kind of

864
00:48:28,840 --> 00:48:29,680
Speaker 4: looks like an artist.

865
00:48:29,960 --> 00:48:33,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, hard to imagine him on roller skates just looking

866
00:48:33,320 --> 00:48:35,160
Speaker 2: at some of these images, but I mean, that's awesome.

867
00:48:35,640 --> 00:48:39,640
Speaker 2: So roller skating becomes quite the hit, obviously, and you

868
00:48:39,760 --> 00:48:42,400
Speaker 2: end up with these various phases where things really pick up.

869
00:48:42,440 --> 00:48:46,560
Speaker 2: They including the eighteen eighties. Oh man, I was. I

870
00:48:46,640 --> 00:48:49,839
Speaker 2: was looking around at some, you know, contemporary writings from

871
00:48:49,840 --> 00:48:54,280
Speaker 2: this time about about roller skating, and I ran across

872
00:48:54,280 --> 00:48:59,160
Speaker 2: an eighteen seventy six book titled Rinks and Rollers by J. A. Harwood,

873
00:48:59,200 --> 00:49:01,719
Speaker 2: And I want to you just a bit from this

874
00:49:01,840 --> 00:49:07,120
Speaker 2: because it's it touches on what on some thoughts at

875
00:49:07,120 --> 00:49:09,000
Speaker 2: that point regarding the future.

876
00:49:08,640 --> 00:49:09,480
Speaker 3: Of roller skating.

877
00:49:10,120 --> 00:49:15,080
Speaker 2: Okay, how long will this rage for rinking last? Everyone

878
00:49:15,160 --> 00:49:17,879
Speaker 2: is asking, to which the reply generally is except from

879
00:49:18,000 --> 00:49:21,640
Speaker 2: rink owners, Oh, it will soon wear itself out. For

880
00:49:21,719 --> 00:49:24,400
Speaker 2: my part, I doubt that it will die away so rapidly,

881
00:49:24,640 --> 00:49:27,240
Speaker 2: and think that rinking is destined to take a permanent

882
00:49:27,280 --> 00:49:32,320
Speaker 2: place among the institutions of civilized society. Rinking drinking. Yeah,

883
00:49:32,360 --> 00:49:37,440
Speaker 2: and the name rinking did not stick, thankfully, but I

884
00:49:38,280 --> 00:49:40,120
Speaker 2: think that the idea that it's becomes a part of

885
00:49:40,120 --> 00:49:45,000
Speaker 2: civilized society absolutely does stick, he continues. But probably there

886
00:49:45,040 --> 00:49:47,279
Speaker 2: will be some abatement in the present fever in a

887
00:49:47,320 --> 00:49:51,680
Speaker 2: short time, and proprietors will find it expedient to reduce

888
00:49:51,880 --> 00:49:56,160
Speaker 2: their prices of admission. These violent beginnings have violent ends.

889
00:49:56,440 --> 00:50:00,040
Speaker 2: People skate too much now, both for their purses and constitution,

890
00:50:00,560 --> 00:50:04,280
Speaker 2: and rink proprietors grow too rich. If prices were reduced,

891
00:50:04,680 --> 00:50:06,680
Speaker 2: there would not be such a desire on the part

892
00:50:06,680 --> 00:50:08,959
Speaker 2: of the public to have its money was worth, even

893
00:50:09,000 --> 00:50:12,320
Speaker 2: at the cost of excessive bodily fatigue.

894
00:50:13,040 --> 00:50:15,840
Speaker 4: Oh man, it's not good for your bodies to skate

895
00:50:15,880 --> 00:50:16,400
Speaker 4: this much.

896
00:50:17,160 --> 00:50:20,239
Speaker 2: And so basically, as he continued to explain that the

897
00:50:20,320 --> 00:50:23,040
Speaker 2: rinks were not open long enough and so people were

898
00:50:23,120 --> 00:50:26,120
Speaker 2: just really getting it during the two hours that they

899
00:50:26,160 --> 00:50:28,400
Speaker 2: could skate. And he was like, this is not healthy.

900
00:50:28,440 --> 00:50:30,879
Speaker 2: We need skating rinks to be open longer. It needs

901
00:50:30,920 --> 00:50:36,160
Speaker 2: to be cheaper because people cannot physically or monetarily.

902
00:50:35,520 --> 00:50:38,000
Speaker 3: Keep up with their desire to go. Ranking.

903
00:50:38,440 --> 00:50:42,719
Speaker 4: I love. That doesn't make sense in like three ways, but.

904
00:50:42,920 --> 00:50:47,719
Speaker 2: You know, a little snapshot into roller skating fads and

905
00:50:47,840 --> 00:50:48,959
Speaker 2: enthusiasm of the time.

906
00:51:00,160 --> 00:51:00,359
Speaker 3: Now.

907
00:51:01,120 --> 00:51:03,400
Speaker 2: I also was looking into this a little bit. I

908
00:51:03,440 --> 00:51:05,200
Speaker 2: thought it was interesting to think about roller skating in

909
00:51:05,239 --> 00:51:09,680
Speaker 2: combination with another major invention of this time period, that

910
00:51:09,800 --> 00:51:14,320
Speaker 2: being the moving picture, and the earliest depiction of roller

911
00:51:14,320 --> 00:51:18,400
Speaker 2: skating on film is generally considered to be nineteen sixteen's

912
00:51:18,520 --> 00:51:21,120
Speaker 2: The Rink starring the one and only Charlie Chaplin.

913
00:51:21,200 --> 00:51:25,160
Speaker 4: Okay, so not incidental. This is about This is about skating.

914
00:51:25,080 --> 00:51:27,600
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, the whole thing is. And you can find

915
00:51:27,880 --> 00:51:31,279
Speaker 2: examples of this. They have it on YouTube, probably on Wikipedia,

916
00:51:31,560 --> 00:51:34,839
Speaker 2: certainly on archive dot org. But yeah, the whole thing

917
00:51:34,880 --> 00:51:38,000
Speaker 2: takes place on a skating rink. You can watch Charlie

918
00:51:38,040 --> 00:51:43,120
Speaker 2: Chaplin and the supporting characters skate about and you know,

919
00:51:43,360 --> 00:51:46,879
Speaker 2: it's entirely possible. There was some other, you know, very

920
00:51:46,920 --> 00:51:50,160
Speaker 2: short silent film project that involves someone skating in the

921
00:51:50,200 --> 00:51:54,120
Speaker 2: same way that there are various old silent films of

922
00:51:54,320 --> 00:51:55,160
Speaker 2: people doing.

923
00:51:54,960 --> 00:51:57,279
Speaker 3: Other things, you know, running around, riding.

924
00:51:57,000 --> 00:51:59,160
Speaker 2: A horse and so forth. But as far as I know,

925
00:51:59,239 --> 00:52:01,120
Speaker 2: it was lost, such a thing existed.

926
00:52:01,520 --> 00:52:03,000
Speaker 4: Lots of earlier films were lost.

927
00:52:03,280 --> 00:52:07,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's also a nineteen nineteen silent film titled Don't Shove,

928
00:52:07,560 --> 00:52:10,280
Speaker 2: starring Harry Lloyd. And this one, this one was likely

929
00:52:10,320 --> 00:52:12,279
Speaker 2: inspired by the rink.

930
00:52:12,320 --> 00:52:13,200
Speaker 3: I'm to understand.

931
00:52:13,719 --> 00:52:15,840
Speaker 4: Is it like a public service announcement or is this

932
00:52:16,000 --> 00:52:16,760
Speaker 4: just what it's called.

933
00:52:17,080 --> 00:52:19,799
Speaker 2: It's just another funny, that's all it is. It's just

934
00:52:20,000 --> 00:52:23,719
Speaker 2: another comedy. I think don't Shove because there is some

935
00:52:23,760 --> 00:52:26,480
Speaker 2: shoving that occurs, and this was probably a rule, you know,

936
00:52:27,160 --> 00:52:29,440
Speaker 2: when you went to the rink, rinkers don't shove each other.

937
00:52:29,920 --> 00:52:31,840
Speaker 2: Not sure if they were still calling each other rankers

938
00:52:31,880 --> 00:52:35,200
Speaker 2: at that point, and then, according to Turner Classic Movies,

939
00:52:35,480 --> 00:52:37,120
Speaker 2: a couple of other key moments in the history of

940
00:52:37,239 --> 00:52:40,279
Speaker 2: roller skates cinema include Modern Times from nineteen thirty six

941
00:52:40,520 --> 00:52:43,080
Speaker 2: and Shall We Dance from thirty seven and I think

942
00:52:43,080 --> 00:52:46,239
Speaker 2: it's kind of potentially telling here because even in these

943
00:52:46,360 --> 00:52:49,719
Speaker 2: just just few cinematic examples here, we maybe get an

944
00:52:49,760 --> 00:52:53,560
Speaker 2: idea of some of the ups and downs of roller

945
00:52:53,560 --> 00:52:59,080
Speaker 2: skating popularity. You know, we see there's like a for

946
00:52:59,080 --> 00:53:02,000
Speaker 2: instas another example, nineteen thirty eight black and white popeye

947
00:53:02,000 --> 00:53:05,240
Speaker 2: short titled A Date to Skate. And at this point

948
00:53:05,239 --> 00:53:07,560
Speaker 2: we're very much into the period of the Second World War,

949
00:53:07,719 --> 00:53:11,960
Speaker 2: during which skating experienced i yet another boom period as

950
00:53:12,000 --> 00:53:14,760
Speaker 2: people in the US looked for distractions from global events.

951
00:53:15,640 --> 00:53:19,240
Speaker 2: And so we see and also I found it interesting

952
00:53:19,280 --> 00:53:21,120
Speaker 2: that we see some of the early roots of roller

953
00:53:21,160 --> 00:53:24,360
Speaker 2: derby during this time. Roller Derby of course would have

954
00:53:24,400 --> 00:53:28,320
Speaker 2: to be its own episode, but this kind of apparently

955
00:53:28,400 --> 00:53:30,759
Speaker 2: kicked off as sort of a dance a thon on

956
00:53:30,880 --> 00:53:35,279
Speaker 2: skates that had no real competitive contact sport aspects to it.

957
00:53:36,040 --> 00:53:38,319
Speaker 2: But the roots of roller derby are there.

958
00:53:39,120 --> 00:53:41,120
Speaker 4: How do we get from that to roller ball?

959
00:53:42,920 --> 00:53:45,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean there's probably a whole lot you could

960
00:53:45,760 --> 00:53:48,440
Speaker 2: you could dissect culturally about the different boom periods of

961
00:53:48,480 --> 00:53:51,960
Speaker 2: skating because yeah, even just very roughly looking at what

962
00:53:52,040 --> 00:53:54,399
Speaker 2: we've looked at here, and we're looking at the late

963
00:53:54,480 --> 00:53:58,759
Speaker 2: nineteenth century. We're looking at the nineteen thirties. We can

964
00:53:58,840 --> 00:54:01,720
Speaker 2: easily look at skating in the fifties, and then again

965
00:54:01,800 --> 00:54:04,960
Speaker 2: in the seventies, to some degree in the nineties, and

966
00:54:05,000 --> 00:54:08,120
Speaker 2: then once again, you know, really booming more recently during

967
00:54:08,120 --> 00:54:08,719
Speaker 2: the pandemic.

968
00:54:10,040 --> 00:54:12,359
Speaker 4: Well, it hasn't made its way back into my life yet,

969
00:54:12,400 --> 00:54:15,799
Speaker 4: but I say bully to it. Let the rinking live on.

970
00:54:16,440 --> 00:54:19,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess one of the key things is to

971
00:54:19,719 --> 00:54:21,200
Speaker 2: be a rinker, you have to go to a rink,

972
00:54:21,239 --> 00:54:23,680
Speaker 2: And a lot of skaters don't go to a skating

973
00:54:23,760 --> 00:54:26,239
Speaker 2: rink or don't exclusively go to a skating rink, so

974
00:54:26,480 --> 00:54:28,279
Speaker 2: they couldn't really own that terminology.

975
00:54:28,320 --> 00:54:31,520
Speaker 4: I guess they call that D ranking, D ranking, D

976
00:54:31,640 --> 00:54:34,520
Speaker 4: rank your mind so you can go outside the rank.

977
00:54:34,600 --> 00:54:37,000
Speaker 2: We don't need any division in the roller skating community.

978
00:54:37,200 --> 00:54:39,880
Speaker 2: We don't need like rinkers versus wilders or something. I

979
00:54:39,880 --> 00:54:43,719
Speaker 2: don't know what the terminology would be, because ultimately, I

980
00:54:43,760 --> 00:54:45,920
Speaker 2: think the message that we that I've gotten from all

981
00:54:45,960 --> 00:54:48,440
Speaker 2: this is that the roller skating is and should be

982
00:54:48,440 --> 00:54:52,600
Speaker 2: liberating here here as long as you can retard your

983
00:54:52,680 --> 00:54:56,800
Speaker 2: velocity and not crash through a mirror at a fancy.

984
00:54:56,400 --> 00:55:00,319
Speaker 4: Ball I mean, if anything, the Merlin Store, he has

985
00:55:00,320 --> 00:55:03,240
Speaker 4: got to be a warning against distracted driving of all sorts.

986
00:55:03,840 --> 00:55:06,720
Speaker 4: Trying to play the violin wild skating not a good idea,

987
00:55:06,760 --> 00:55:09,879
Speaker 4: regardless of the skate design having breaks or not. I mean,

988
00:55:10,320 --> 00:55:11,440
Speaker 4: that's just not a good idea.

989
00:55:11,840 --> 00:55:12,080
Speaker 3: Yeah.

990
00:55:12,120 --> 00:55:15,560
Speaker 2: Also, like the proper environment for testing out your prototype.

991
00:55:16,000 --> 00:55:20,000
Speaker 2: Is it a maskball or is it maybe like a

992
00:55:20,040 --> 00:55:21,360
Speaker 2: padded warehouse somewhere.

993
00:55:22,040 --> 00:55:23,120
Speaker 3: I think maybe the latter.

994
00:55:23,440 --> 00:55:27,160
Speaker 4: Sorry in my mind that the masquerade that he's skating

995
00:55:27,200 --> 00:55:32,160
Speaker 4: through now is eyes wide shut. I'm sure it wasn't

996
00:55:32,200 --> 00:55:33,960
Speaker 4: like that. I'm sure it was one of the regular.

997
00:55:34,520 --> 00:55:38,319
Speaker 2: That's one of the regular. All Right, we're gonna go

998
00:55:38,360 --> 00:55:40,480
Speaker 2: and close out this episode here, but again, we'd love

999
00:55:40,520 --> 00:55:42,200
Speaker 2: to hear from all the skaters out there if you

1000
00:55:42,239 --> 00:55:45,279
Speaker 2: have some added inside to throw in here. Just a

1001
00:55:45,320 --> 00:55:47,360
Speaker 2: reminder that Stuff to Blow your Mind is primarily a

1002
00:55:47,360 --> 00:55:50,040
Speaker 2: science and culture podcast, with core episodes in Tuesdays and Thursdays,

1003
00:55:50,040 --> 00:55:52,319
Speaker 2: short form episodes on Wednesdays and on Fridays. We set

1004
00:55:52,320 --> 00:55:54,799
Speaker 2: aside most serious concerns to just talk about a weird

1005
00:55:54,800 --> 00:55:56,120
Speaker 2: film on Weird House Cinema.

1006
00:55:56,360 --> 00:55:59,880
Speaker 4: Huge things. As always to our excellent audio producer jj Posway.

1007
00:56:00,160 --> 00:56:01,680
Speaker 4: If you would like to get in touch with us

1008
00:56:01,680 --> 00:56:04,160
Speaker 4: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

1009
00:56:04,160 --> 00:56:06,120
Speaker 4: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

1010
00:56:06,320 --> 00:56:09,000
Speaker 4: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

1011
00:56:09,000 --> 00:56:18,400
Speaker 4: your Mind dot com.

1012
00:56:18,480 --> 00:56:21,440
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

1013
00:56:21,520 --> 00:56:24,279
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1014
00:56:24,440 --> 00:56:41,440
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