Topical Guide 569
Mark Dorset
Projects, Practical and Impractical
Impractical Craftsman
Where Do You Stop? Chapter 2:
I dragged Guppa through the entire inventory of his existing inventions and weighed them as possible Flo and Freddie items.
“What about the thing that raises the stuff in the drawer when you open it?” I suggested.
“That’s not a complete success, Peter,” he said.
“Aw, come on, Guppa,” I said.
“Sometimes everything falls on the floor,” he pointed out.
“Or on your feet,” I admitted. “I guess you’re right. Well what about the mailbox?” Guppa had rigged up the mailbox so that a light on top flashed if there was mail in it.
“That’s a good one,” he said, “but it’s not my invention. I got it from Impractical Craftsman.”
This publication appears many times throughout the Personal History. It would not be exaggerating to say that it has had as profound an effect on Peter as anything he has read at any time in his life. Nor, I think, would it be inaccurate to describe Peter himself as an impractical craftsman. MD
Apparently, the spirit of Impractical Craftsman is alive and well.
Livia Albeck-Ripka, “Man Tried to Travel the Atlantic in a Hamster Wheel, U.S. Says. Again,” The New York Times, September 6, 2023:
The man, Reza Baluchi, 51, was charged Tuesday in connection with the attempted voyage from Florida to London, cut short when the authorities caught up with him off the coast of Georgia last month.
Compare Episode 45 and Topical Guide 45.
45: Adventurer’s Bubble . . .
Little Follies, “Life on the Bolotomy,” Chapter 3 concludes:
I’m pleased to tell you that, after extensive research, I am able to say without fear of contradiction that the “Adventurer’s Bubble” in Impractical Craftsman was almost certainly inspired by the “Spherical Transparent Velocipede” that first appeared in De Natuur in 1884. My primary source for this assertion is Leonard de Vries’s indispensable Victorian Inventions (American Heritage Press, 1971).
See also:
Projects, Practical and Impractical TG 367; Ideal or Real TG 443
Impractical Craftsman TG 44, TG 135
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