- Purchase this entertainment book and get a 12 issues to either Rolling Stone, Men's Journal or Us Weekly for $2.95 each. That's less than $0.20 an issue. Here's how (restrictions apply)
Join Amazon Prime and ship Two-Day for free and Overnight for $3.99. Already a member? Sign in.
Special Offers and Product Promotions
Frequently Bought Together
Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought
Editorial Reviews
From Scientific American
Rube Goldberg is so renowned for his zany and splendidly overcomplicated "inventions" that his name has made it into dictionaries as an adjective. "Used for describing Any very complicated invention, machine, scheme, etc., laboriously contrived to perform a seemingly simple operation" is the entry in Webster's New World Dictionary. According to Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, the adjective means "accomplishing by complex means what seemingly could be done simply." The inventions appeared in newspapers every day from 1914 to 1964 as a single panel of drawings with an elaborate caption. Wolfe, a photojournalist who also holds patents for product design, presents a collection of Goldberg's inventions, comic strips, editorial cartoons, and sketches and provides a biography of Goldberg. The reader is easily lost in contemplation of such Goldbergian wonders as "Simple Way to Open an Egg without Dropping It in Your Lap," "Simple Orange-Squeezing Machine" (below) and "Easy Way for Tired Tourist to Enjoy Italian Art."
Rube Goldberg is so renowned for his zany and splendidly overcomplicated "inventions" that his name has made it into dictionaries as an adjective. "Used for describing Any very complicated invention, machine, scheme, etc., laboriously contrived to perform a seemingly simple operation" is the entry in Webster's New World Dictionary. According to Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, the adjective means "accomplishing by complex means what seemingly could be done simply." The inventions appeared in newspapers every day from 1914 to 1964 as a single panel of drawings with an elaborate caption. Wolfe, a photojournalist who also holds patents for product design, presents a collection of Goldberg's inventions, comic strips, editorial cartoons, and sketches and provides a biography of Goldberg. The reader is easily lost in contemplation of such Goldbergian wonders as "Simple Way to Open an Egg without Dropping It in Your Lap," "Simple Orange-Squeezing Machine" (below) and "Easy Way for Tired Tourist to Enjoy Italian Art."
EDITORS OF SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN
Product Description
Welcome to the world of that archetypal American, Reuben Lucius Goldberg, the dean of American cartoonists for most of the twentieth century. For more than sixty-five years, Rube Goldberg's syndicated cartoons -- he produced more than fifty strips -- appeared in as many as a thousand newspapers annually He was earning a hundred thousand dollars a year...in 1915. He wrote hit songs and stories and was, in succession, a star in vaudeville, motion pictures, newsreels, radio, and, finally, television.
He even, at the age of eighty, began an entirely new career as a sculptor, and, in inimitable Goldberg fashion, was soon selling his work to galleries, collectors, and museums all over the world. Sure, Rube won the Pulitzer Prize. Every year some cartoonist wins the Pulitzer Prize. But the National Cartoonists Society named its award -- the Reuben -- after you-know-who.
But it was Rube's "Inventions," those drawings of intricate and whimsical machines, that earned Rube his very own entry in Webster's New World Dictionary:
Rube Goldberg...adjective...Designating any very complicated invention, machine, scheme, etc. laboriously contrived to perform a seemingly simple operation.
"Inventions," even the earliest ones that date from 1914, are still being republished and recycled today as they have been over the last eighty-five years. New generations rediscover and enjoy them every day, even though their creator cleaned his pens, put the cap on his bottle of Higgins Black India Ink, and cleared his drawing board for the last time almost thirty years ago. The inventions inspired the National Rube Goldberg™ Machine Contest, held annually at Purdue University, an "Olympics of complexity" in which hundreds of engineering students from American universities and colleges -- and even middle and high schools -- compete to build and run Rube Goldberg invention machines that perform, in twenty or more steps, the annual challenge.
In 1970 the Smithsonian Institution hosted a show honoring Rube Goldberg's lifework. In a life filled with superlatives, it hardly needs mentioning that Rube is the only living cartoonist and humorist to have been so honored. In his speech at the show's opening, Rube said, "Many of the younger generation know my name in a vague way and connect it with grotesque inventions, but don't believe that I ever existed as a person. They think I am a nonperson, just a name that signifies a tangled web of pipes or wires or strings that suggest machinery. My name to them is like spiral staircase, veal cutlets, barber's itch -- terms that give you an immediate picture of what they mean..."
So welcome to a collection of spiral staircases and veal cutlets -- to the inventions of an American original, a creative genius named Rube Goldberg.
See all Editorial Reviews
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
Inside This Book
(learn more)
First Sentence:
Rube Goldberg: the name evokes an image of controlled chaos, wild originality, inventiveness, and good-humored laughter. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Rube Goldberg, San Francisco, New York, Simple Way, Bobo Baxter, Max Goldberg, University of California, Lala Palooza, Professor Lucifer Gorgonzola Butts, Professor Slate, Purdue University, West Coast New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Rube Goldberg: the name evokes an image of controlled chaos, wild originality, inventiveness, and good-humored laughter. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Rube Goldberg, San Francisco, New York, Simple Way, Bobo Baxter, Max Goldberg, University of California, Lala Palooza, Professor Lucifer Gorgonzola Butts, Professor Slate, Purdue University, West Coast New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 1
book:
4
books
cite this book:
- School Days: An Essay on the Hoover Institution Conference "Choice and Vouchers : The Future of American Education?" (Essays in Public Policy) by Peter Robinson on page 29
- 101 Stunts for Principals to Inspire Student Achievement by Frank Sennett on page 114
- Robust Design: A Repertoire of Biological, Ecological, and Engineering Case Studies (Santa Fe Institute Studies on the Sciences of Complexity) by Erica Jen on page 103
- From the Lower East Side to Hollywood: Jews in American Popular Culture by Paul Buhle on page 103
- Interactive Storytelling: Techniques for 21st Century Fiction by Andrew Glassner in Back Matter
What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?
 |
80% buy the item featured on this page: Rube Goldberg: Inventions! $19.00 |
 |
8% buy Gizmos & Gadgets: Creating Science Contraptions That Work (& Knowing Why) (Williamson Kids Can! Series) $10.36 |
 |
3% buy Build a Better Mousetrap: Make Classic Inventions, Discover Your Problem Solving Genius, and Take the Inventor's Challenge$11.66 |
 |
2% buy Mistakes that Worked $9.37 |
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Help others find this product — tag it for Amazon search
No one has tagged this product for Amazon search yet. Why not be the first to suggest a search for which it should appear?
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
|||||||||||||||||
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Customer Discussions
Beta (What's this?)
New! See all customer communities, and bookmark your communities to keep track of them.
|
This product's forum
(0 discussions)
Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Active discussions in related forums
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Product Information from the Amapedia Community
Beta (What's this?)Be the first person to add an article about this item at Amapedia.com.
› See featured Amapedia.com articles
Listmania!
So You'd Like to...
|
|
Look for Similar Items by Category
 Subscribe to The Amazon MP3 Download newsletter to find out about free song downloads, new releases and hot digital music deals first.  |
Buy Three Books, Get a Fourth Free |
|||||||||
|
Your Recent History
(What's this?)|
You have no recently viewed items or searches.
After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in. Look to the right column to find helpful suggestions for your shopping session. |
Continue shopping: Top Sellers
| ||||
| ||
| ||
| ||
| ||
| ||
