Guy Whipping A Massive Chain
I know that some of you guys don't clock the videos on these posts, which is honestly fine. I know that with today's technology you can read these posts from any location, on the toilet for example, or on a passenger train, and you maybe don't want to be clicking through on a video out of concern for others. Or maybe you have your own music going and you're like "I respect you [me] but I'm not pausing my music [acid house compilation]". Fair enough! I'm not hung up about it, and as an egoic creature I'm even a little proud that you're here for the text only. Today's vid is just 12 seconds long, so on the one hand you might as well click through, but on the other hand it's called "Guy Whipping A Massive Chain", and that's exactly what happens, so maybe this is the most skippable vid of all? It's still cool though. Honestly it's 12 seconds...
Regarding who is this guy and where are we, I have no data. Is he a street performer and he stands there all day whipping this massive chain and then passing the hat? Or was it a one time thing, like this chain fell of a truck and then people were like "what can we do with this chain". One person tries skipping rope with it, one person draws a penis + balls with it, and then Guy (pictured) is like "I always wanted to try this". He must've done it a couple times already at least because everyone already knows the safe places to stand and no one seems especially fearful of getting their ankles obliterated.
I will be completely honest with you, I thought I understood what happens when you whip a regular size whip, but now looking at this guy whipping a massive chain, which slows the process down and makes it visible, it's clear that I actually do not understand it, and I only thought I understood it because I didn't think about it too much. This probably happens a lot, and not just with me. Why does the chain travel back towards him? Why does it crack at all? It gets faster at the end, I know that-- the sound of the whip cracking is the sound of something actually breaking the sound barrier. But why does it get faster? I don't get it.
I know I could look it up but it feels like I should be able to work this out in my mind… Also feels like I’m almost there, but I’m not there yet, sorry! Sorry if you read this far with these same questions, thinking I would have an answer for you, or at least that I would brush the questions away by saying "everyone knows why this happens". But I don't know! I thought I knew, and then I sat down to write this, and I inched through the video frame by frame, and I realized wow, I do not know. That’s something great about writing, or any art really— being forced to really look and to realize that wow I do not know. And now, like I said, I feel like I almost know, but what’s that worth? Jack shit. Because I promised I’d hit send on this to-day. I’ll tell you this though, if I had never seen Indiana Jones before and someone showed me a length of rope-like material and said "I'm going to push this to speeds exceeding the sound barrier" I'd tell them to go soak their head.
OK, let's end on something I do know, which is how I feel about this video: I like it. I think I like any sort of simple force-multiplier (lever, pulley, inclined plane) and "whip" is a novel permutation. Is it an infinite series of tiny levers? Or is it more like a pulley without the pulley? Sorry, I'm still thinking this through. The important thing to remember is that if you do it right, the force you apply at one end of an unmoored chain can be multiplied to a surprising degree, especially if it's rapid and purposeful and contrary to the most obvious line of tension (either side to side or back and forth).
People ask me sometimes "how do you find these videos?"-- this one showed up in the same cohort as "Scything Lawn Length Grass", "4th Dimension Made Easy", and "Hanatarash - Hanatarashi LP [1985]":
Absolutely perfect grouping. This is like the first 20 minutes and the last 20 minutes of “2001: A Space Odyssey”.
Peace everyone :)
If someone sent this to you because you like moving common objects along surprising vectors, or because they know you like Hanatarash so they send you every mention they find, you might like other things I've written too. This is Pleasant Realms, an email newsletter for mostly-unstressful YouTube videos. Sorry again about all the rhetorical questions in this one!!!