Tom
Noddy
Content originally posted on the Yahoo group
Soap Bubble Fanciers. He's such a detailed writer that with
his permission I keep many of his posts here for future
reference. I think you'll get a lot out of them too. Enjoy.
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/soapbubblefanciers/)
Here's Tom's First Posting:
Hello All,
Sterling Johnson, a long time friend, has been sending me occasional
posts from this email group. I already know some of you (Kelly, Casey,
Geoff, Marilyn, ... I don't know who else yet).
I travel a lot and will be a sporadic contributor to these pages but
I'm inclined to write long letters when I get going. I have a website:
www.tomnoddy.com and I blow bubbles for a living (it's an easy job but
somebody's gotta do it).
The demise of Strombecker Corporation is, of course, worrisome to me
but then I wasn't too pleased when that big company bought up Chemtoy
and changed the name of my beloved Wonder Bubbles way back when.
When I first started playing with bubbles in 1971 (well, I had played
with them before that but in the early 70s my play became more
focused) I tried all the different brands around and for a while
preferred an east coast brand called Jack and Jill but then they
changed and I settled for Wonder Bubbles. I'm not sure if Wonder
changed back then too or if I just started knowing enough to judge
better. It was then that I found out just how much I could do with
that cheap solution.
Over the next nine years I developed what I now call Bubble Magic and
all the while I looked for and asked about anyone else who might be
doing anything with soap bubbles. Occasionally a physics guy would
slip me some information or a magician would tell me about some
illusions that involved soap bubbles (multiplying bubbles, dental
damn, glass balls, Konradie). Then I met a magician who told me about
Eiffel Plasterer.
I tracked down Eiffel on his farm in Indiana. I telephoned him and
then went to visit him. Afterwards, we both admitted that we looked
forward to meeting but that we were both a bit chagrined to find that
this special thing that we had invented independently was something
that someone else had also found. Those reservations melted away when
we found that the differences in formula and inclination resulted in
only the slightest overlap (my caterpillar was his chain, my Love
Bubble was his Marriage of Two Bubbles). I tried to blow a bubble
inside of a bubble (without inserting a straw or other device, just
blowing at the wall) and found that it was close to impossible with
any of his nine formulas (I could do it with great difficulty on
occasion but it was not something that one would stumble upon with
those stiff, strong, long lasting, colorful solutions of his). I
couldn't do what he was doing and he couldn't do what I was doing. We
were delighted and let go of our reservations. We talked for hours on
end with the only person either of us had ever met who understood what
we were talking about.
When I got the Tonight Show, a year or so later, I had lots of calls
from comedy clubs that had previously denied me gigs ("You're not
really comedy.") but I chose, instead, to go to the newly emerging
science museum in San Francisco with my idea of a Bubble Festival. I
had already performed at the Exploratorium a few times but now I was
hot and I wanted to direct the media's interest in me onto the science
aspect of bubbles and I also wanted to use that interest to bring
Eiffel out to San Francisco.
Frank Oppenheimer, the director and inventor of that marvelous new
concept, a hands-on science center, loved the idea. He gave the
greenlight and Ned Kahn, Ron Hipschman, Linda Dackman, and I gave a
shape to the idea of a Bubble Festival.
I had sold it to them as inexpensive because "There are only two
bubble shows in the whole world and if you gather them both you have a
cheap festival." But, of course, each department of the Exploratorium
added their own touch and the budget crept up and up.
Fortunately, the media responded. A story about me in the LA Times
"From the streets to the Tonight Show" was published on the front of
the entertainment section with huge photos. In the body of the story I
was asked what my next project was and I told about the Bubble
Festival. The media world loved the idea and they all did the same
story "The kids and physicists are gathering this weekend in San
Francisco for a (smile, wink) Bubble Festival!"
15,000 people came out that weekend. So did Louis Pearl and Sterling
Johnson and more than a few other local bubble enthusiasts. Eiffel
performed with his daughter Alice as his assistant. Eiffel and I
alternated doing shows in the small (250 people or so) theater and I
did shows on a stage set out in the larger open space for the masses.
When, two years later, we did another Bubble Festival, Sterling,
Louie, and Richard Faverty were on the bill along with David Stein
(inventor of the Bubble Thing), and the Sugiyama Brothers whom I had
met in Japan and introduced to the Exploratorium folks. 17,000 people
came to that weekend event.
I started presenting my show at science centers all over the country.
At the same time, television shows all over the world called. Fan
Yang, an acrobat who had performed with his brother, got a tape of my
performance on German TV and used it to learn how to do some bubble
tricks. When we met, he thanked me profusely (and said that it was
only a temporary interest, he'd go back to acrobatics as soon as his
brother recovered from an injury ...).
There was a clown with the German Circus Roncalli called Pic who did
an act that used bubbles. Not bubble tricks but simply and beautifully
some very large bubbles and the childlike reactions of this marvelous
clown.
Then there was Pep Bou. He is a Spanish (or Catalan) performer from
Barcelona who dressed in a costume reminiscent of an old-time barber.
He manipulated soap bubbles in a way that was clearly not based on
learning mine or Eiffel's work. He has since added a few of my tricks
but his highly original act is a delight to me.
When I auditioned at the Crazy Horse, a nightclub in Paris, I met Finn
Jon, one of the finest magicians in the world. Finn told me about his
previous "bubble period" wherein he tried to find some use for bubbles
in a magic show but he found that they were just too unreliable and he
gave it up. After seeing me he went back to the idea and invented (and
offered for sale) the trick wherein the bubble appears to bounce off
of an invisible barrier above his hand. This trick and others of
Finn's are now getting around within the magic world.
I have met many other bubble blowers: the Russian Blub (who learned
from watching Fan Yang), Anna Yang (and the several other Yang family
members), The French little person Hammou (aka Macdonaldi), the Swiss
woman whose name I have forgotten, and the increasing number of people
who speak to me after my shows to tell me that they too are performing
with bubbles.
There was a time when this caused me concern. Originally, it was the
novelty of what I was doing that lifted me from being a very poor
street performer sleeping in the bushes to one who actually lived in a
house. When my over-reliance on science centers led to exhaustion of
the goose with the golden eggs (they all had sharp reductions in
government and corporate money and some were booking other bubble
shows instead of the original) I was very broke and resented seeing
others making money and failing to mention my name. Eiffel too was
annoyed to find that his work was being copied and going uncredited.
We had chosen the science venues with the idea of giving it away
rather than following the advice of the magicians and keeping our
techniques a secret but now we were less than thrilled that the thing
we were giving away was being taken.
I'm not broke now and I'm not resentful (surprising how directly the
two seem to be related) ... I'm back to my old sharing ways.
It's good to be here.
Tom Noddy
.........................................................................................
From: "tomnoddy00"
Date: Sat Jul 23, 2005 2:26 pm
Subject: Re: Tom Noddy & history
--- In soapbubblefanciers@yahoogroups.com, "mcejohnson"
wrote:
> Tom, welcome.
> I hope, when you get the chance, you will touch on the historical
aspect of your performing experience in as much detail as you
> would care to.
Anyhow, thanks for your post, more of the same if you please, and once
again - welcome.
>
> Best. Keith Johnson
Keith,
Thanks for your friendly greeting. Avner is a good longtime friend of
mine and I saw him last week (as did Sterling) when he was out here
performing at the San Jose Repertory Theater. For the sake of those
who don't know, Avner The Eccentric is a clown who has presented his
one-man show on Broadway and in the best theaters in America, Europe,
and ... well, I don't know where-all. I ran into him once in Bogota,
Columbia. He's pleased to tell people that he and I first met when we
were both playing the same traffic jam in Eugene, Oregon ... back in
the day. He has nothing to do with soap bubbles but lots to do with
performance. By the way Keith, he still lives on Peaks Island in Maine
and his ability (and willingness) to respond to what is really going
on in the room, even while presenting material that he has honed to
perfection over many years, is a hallmark of his conscious clowning.
I like him a lot and he teaches everybody who talks to him about the
stage or about offstage life if they are willing to hear him (onstage
he's silent). But for those who don't know me or my show ... I'm not a
clown or physical comedian. I mostly talk and, if given the chance,
I'll talk about physics, politics, theater, history, and maybe even
mathematics (though I don't really understand this subject well, I
love the spacey characters who do).
As for the history of bubbles as performance ... I have some writing
that I've done on the subject in case I ever want to put out another
book. I'll share some here ...
It would be easy to make the mistake of connecting dots to make them
into lines but things mostly appear to have gone a different way. When
I started doing Bubble Magic in the early 1970s I was not aware of any
other bubble enthusiasts except for the kids and hippies who would
fill the air with small round bubbles. At college, I had a friend
named Rory who use to put cigarette smoke into bubbles and through the
years I occasionally met other people who knew a trick with bubbles
but I never met one who knew two or more tricks.
In that sense, I believe that Sterling's statement that Tom Noddy is
"the guy who started this all" is correct. But, like almost all human
activity, this story is more complex as well.
Eiffel Plasterer had been doing his shows for church groups in and
around Huntington, Indiana after a previous stint on the tail end of
the Vaudeville and Chautauqua circuits. He had even done some
television shows in the Midwest and a national show called Real
People. But it was Eiffel's later appearance at the Exploratorium's
Bubble Festival and the associated media attention that brought people
to his doorstep (including the professional photographer, Richard
Faverty, who was assigned to go to Huntington to shoot pics of Eiffel
for a magazine story). This also led to an invitation for Eiffel to go
to New York for Late Night with David Letterman.
One of Eiffel's tricks caught on more than any of the others ... maybe
because it can be so gorgeous and maybe because, with the proper
mixture, it was the easiest to replicate. The very large bubbles that
Eiffel produced allowed him to actually "encase" people inside of
bubbles briefly.
For the Bubble Festival, Ned Kahn (artist in residence at the
Exploratorium at the time)constructed large hoops with handles and
shallow pools to fill with bubble solution and allow the public to
test their hand at Eiffel's big bubbles and his "Encasement" bubble.
We also wet down table tops to allow people to try some of the
geometric shapes that I would show them from the stage. The
Exploratorium added the "bubble wall". These exhibits are still
staples of science centers all over the world.
Ned and I independently worked on formulas and both found that Dawn
dishwashing liquid was the best at that time. The Exploratorium put
that word out to the rest of the science museum world and Ned and my
original formulas are still quoted back to me by people everywhere I
go (the changes from Dawn to Joy to Ultra and non-Ultra and this and
that are slower to get around). Ned theorized that his open pools of
liquid left overnight allowed for an improving "aging" of the mix (his
backup theory was that it was improved by the number of dead bugs that
he found in it each morning). My own experiments did not find
improvement with age. Comparing notes, we found that he used cold and
I used hot water when mixing. Ned and I speculated that this might
mean that something in the dish detergent needs to evaporate out
before it gets really good.
But while Eiffel's contributions were many and unique (I've never seen
a reference to bubbles nearly as big as the ones Eiffel made in any
science or other literature that predates him), he was consciously
following in the footsteps of Charles Vernon Boys. Eiffel had been a
teacher of physics and he was aware of the work of scientists Plateau
and Boys.
In 1899 C.V. Boys presented lectures in London on Fluids in Motion and
at Rest wherein he demonstrated his skill at manipulating soap
bubbles. He followed the success of those lectures by converting his
lecture notes into a book that is still in print: Soap Bubbles, Their
Colours and the Forces Which Mould Them (actually, the color part was
added to later editions).
In 2003 astronaut Donald Pettit took a copy of that book into space
with the idea of testing the reactions of soap bubbles in zero
gravity. He discovered brand new surprising basic science: contrary to
his very premise, he found that pure water can produce a film without
adding soap. The water film that he produced was forty times thicker
than a soapy water film and on earth that would cause it to collapse
but it is not simply the nature of pure water that prevents it, it's
that plus gravity. Eiffel would have loved that (he passed away in 1989).
There do turn out to have been a couple of odd acts dealing in soap
bubbles way back when ... but nothing that is continuous. That is, I
don't believe that anyone doing bubbles in performance today is doing
anything based on their awareness of the work of Griff or Hap Handy.
I've been unable to find more than passing references to Griff in
British Music Hall or what Hap Handy did in Vaudeville beyond
"bouncing bubbles and causing colors to run down them in beautiful
patterns" (which might have been a non-bubble person's idea of what
they were seeing when someone simply lit the bubbles well).
So, unless Eiffel saw Griff or Hap Handy or other bubble performer
(his writings suggest otherwise, he developed his performance from his
knowledge of science and his own curious approach ... you should have
seen his Whirling Lights! or Pendulums Fantasia show) there was a
break in the line and much of what the big bubble blowers are doing
today proceeds from Eiffel's big bubbles. Many of them first saw it
when Richard Faverty performed it or David Stein popularized very
large bubbles with the invention of his Bubble Thing. Some, no doubt,
developed their own line by inventing their own bubble things and
their own approach to bubbles. Louis Pearl, for instance, had acquired
a Bubble Trumpet and was already marketing it and showing the wonder
of bubbles to one and all when he first heard about my shows at the
Exploratorium. Sterling Johnson had his own completely different
approach to hand-blown bubbles and fascinated Eiffel, Louie, and I
when he showed up at the Bubble Festival. David Stein came to the
second Bubble Festival with his new toy sensation.
David Stein was an architect in New York who had dreamed of using his
profession to "make the world more beautiful" but found that the world
of building codes, zoning ordinances, construction norms, and other
practices forced his creations to be as uninteresting as what was
already out there. Then, responding to his daughter's request for
bigger and bigger bubbles, he invented the Bubble Thing (straight rod,
long draped cloth used to form the film and then a slide on the rod to
allow the closing of the bubble). David says that he was unaware of
earlier efforts of this nature. But once his Bubble Thing was a huge
hit (national television coverage) there were several similar devices
on the market that were said to be based on an earlier expired patent
and not on his patent. He eventually sold the Bubble Thing to Whamo
toy company to allow them to defend his patent claims in court.
Whether the beauty extended to the legal battles or not, his ultra
large bubbles became a rage and he was, indeed, making the world more
beautiful.
Many agree that the two handled version (like Dip Stix) was an
improvement of the design (but, since the two handled version predated
the one-handled, maybe "improvement" isn't the right word) and it was
with a two handled version that the New Zealand bubble enthusiast,
Alan McKay shattered the world record for the biggest bubble (105'
compared to David Stein's 50' before that) in 1996.
I've done big bubbles on stage from time to time but with others
concentrating on that aspect of bubble blowing I rarely do more than a
touch of it. I've been featured in science publications showing the
torus (donut) shaped bubble which I can only do with the bigger
bubbles and, of course, I have done Eiffel's encasement.
Kelly O'Neill, through his website, has done a lot to popularize big
bubble blowing and to spread the word about modifying the formula to
the weather and other news in the bubble world. Clearly the world of
bubble blowing is now bigger than my own experience can encompass. The
internet allowed me to find the beautiful pages of Marilyn Doyle and
others who have spent time on this subject and who have come at it
from their own unique angles. Casey Carle, from my understanding, came
at this as a professional entertainer and has added his own
inventiveness in creating new forms in addition to his stage presence.
As Sterling pointed out in a recent letter, crediting the source of a
particular form onstage is difficult and, I believe, silly. It's in
venues like this one or in written tellings or interviews that we can
honor those whose work we are benefiting from. The magicians do it,
the jugglers do it, scientists do it ... we can argue and make
counterclaims about who did what first as each of those groups of
people do. In the end, I don't think that we can get too hot about it
all because eventually we'll notice that it isn't brain surgery or a
cure for cancer we're talking about here ... we won't be able to keep
from giggling at ourselves when we remember that they are only soap
bubbles. And, as I'm fond of reminding my audiences, every bubble I've
ever blown has popped. I like that about them.
Tom Noddy
.........................................................................................
From: "Tom Noddy"
Date: Fri Jul 29, 2005 6:46 pm
Subject: Re: bubble deviance & Keith's questions for Tom N.
--- In soapbubblefanciers@yahoogroups.com, "mcejohnson"
wrote:
I just have to ask... do you worry much? As you're flying into
Germany to perform, do you dwell on what the venue will be like? Do
you have riders on your contract demanding a particular kind of
atmosphere in the performance space? Are you so improvisational that
you can deliver a show regardless, even if it wasn't the show you
intended to deliver? And how many minutes are you usually asked to do?
...
Best, Keith.
Keith,
No, I don't do much dwelling ...
The big bubbles are much fussier than are the smaller ones. I've seen
other bubble performers misting the air with water and calling for the
theater to lower or raise the temperature in the room. Personally I
think of that stuff as mostly superstition. In practice it didn't work
and then they misted and it did and that's it ... for years afterwards
they mist the air whenever there are problems.
Kelly will tell you that I've teased him about the care that he takes
in making his mixes and Eiffel freaked when I almost contaminated one
of his batches of mix with my bubble wand without first rinsing it
with distilled water. Honestly, I suspect that those guys knew more
than I did about the subtlety of different formulas (but don't tell
Kelly that I said so).
All of this doesn't mean that I'm insensitive to the different
conditions presented by changing humidity or other air conditions. I
keep an eye on the colors and I have a few jokes for the inevitable
unexpected bubble bursts (my first time on the Tonight Show I had
resolved to "accidentally" pop one when making the Love Bubble because
I had a good joke for a break in that trick. But I would only
intentionally break it if I hadn't had any real trouble from the TV
lights or studio air by that time in the act. I had no such trouble
and the joke in that delicate place where it looks like the guy messed
up was ... huge).
I've been doing this for a long time now and it's very rare that I
can't pull off all of the tricks that I want. But when that happens, I
can still do several tricks and I have a good bit of spiel to go with it.
I normally like to take my time and let them see me building the more
complex structures ... I can hear some sweet exclamations when they
actually note the movement of the straw and the development of those
forms. I imagine them seeing what I see in the hands of a machinist at
a lathe or a guitarist whose hands alone would be a show even without
the music.
But if the air isn't good ... they don't know a good day from a bad
day and I generally avoid telling them. But I sure do hurry up! The
goal becomes making the form instead of entertaining the audience with
this part of the show.
I have forgotten, Keith, whether you've seen my act or not but I
always tell them first what I'm going to do so there's that pressure
to actually do it and that might mean that the second or third time
(depending on how many third times I've had to take already or how
many popped-bubble jokes I have left) I have to lower my goals and
just pull off the bare minimum version.
If the audience knew as much as I do about how easily or slowly I
could do my act on a good day or what sort of extreme tricks I could
add at the end they would sometimes be disappointed. But they don't
know how long a caterpillar I can make or how long a Bubble Cube
sometimes lasts or what I can do to mess with it once it's out there
... so they are amazed if I can do it at all. If I then hurry and
flash a dodecahedron before it pops, then it's spectacular. Then I can
end with the carousel and they're thrilled.
No carousel inside of a bubble, no two-story carousel spinning in
opposite directions, no other extras and no explanation telling them
that there is something that I do that they can't see today (you can
almost hear the groans when I just talk about it, huh?) I think that
apologizing or showing displeasure with the bubbles are always a
mistake (well, sometimes a contrast joke in that regard is fun).
It's something that you often see with young jugglers on stage. I can
understand the problem ... the learning of their skill was a kind of
sport. They got the cascade then the shower, then more balls, clubs,
hoops ... then more ... and more ... And each step was attained by
setting it as a goal and going for it. When they finally were able to
do it they pumped the air with their fists and rejoiced in the
accomplishment. Rightly so. That moment is part of the reward of
getting there. But that usually means many moments of frustration when
they dropped as they tried it ... followed by, if not cursing, then
the physical equivalent.
All of that is natural when the goal is the accomplishment of the
skill ... as in any other sport. But when they go on stage they
sometimes forget that the audience is the point now, not the sport.
The audience sure does like to see the fifth ball go up into the
pattern but they aren't as consumed by that idea as they are when
they're watching their hometeam cleanup hitter at the plate in a
baseball game. They think that they're watching a show, not an
athletic competition. If the juggler can let go of the backyard sport
that got him/her this far and, instead, get in line with the audience
they'll have more fun onstage and the audience will certainly have
more fun whether or not they ever see a five ball shower.
So, yeah Keith, the conditions can be so bad that I can barely pull
off any bubble tricks. That use to happen to me a lot when all the
money I ever made was as a street performer (but then I'd switch to
the puppet show). Nowadays, indoors I can entertain them while I do
all or most of the bubble tricks that I normally do. When the
conditions are really good (back East or down South in the humid
summertime) I try to take advantage and add in some things that I like
mostly because they're difficult.
To more directly answer your questions Keith ... I do have Tech Notes
for the places that I play regarding the wind and rarely but sometimes
that takes up a lot of tech time. Even the best tech guys have no idea
about wind. Telling them beforehand is important but it has so little
effect. They generally guess that it isn't really windy in their place
and they leave it at that.
If there's a wind problem (air conditioning, heaters, or vents that
can't be turned off by anyone who is there and knows how) then my
whole pre-show time can be about that one question. Usually this is
solved by getting a guy on a tall ladder with duct tape and a piece of
cardboard covering the one vent blowing my way. Sometimes they think
that I'm being over fussy about even that ... but the truth is that
I've seen the bubbles before and I could probably pull off some kind
of show for the audience even with the vents aimed my way. But, unlike
the humidity this is something that we CAN control and I know that my
show is nicer when I'm not only going to see IF I can pull off the
trick. So, for the audience's sake I go ahead and make trouble until
they get out that ladder or hunt down the guy who has the keys to the
room where the turnoff switch is. This trouble is doable because I DID
make a bit of a deal about it in the pre-show tech notes that I sent
to them.
Your other question was about how much time I spend onstage doing
Bubble Magic. Typically about 20 or 25 minutes and in situations where
it's appropriate, I will add the science and Q&A and then it normally
goes about an hour all together.
And yeah ... call me Tom if you like.
Tom Noddy
.........................................................................................
From: "Tom Noddy"
Date: Mon Aug 1, 2005 1:55 pm
Subject: Distilled water tomnoddy00
Offline Offline
Send Email Send Email
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I don't do the big bubbles much
anymore but there was a time that I did a lot of experimenting. Other
people who are doing that now will have more up-to-date info than mine
but some things haven't changed. [You kids today with your fancy
schmancy dish detergents, store-bought water and personal lubricants!
Why, in my day we had to squeeze the glycerine right out of the
vegetables if we wanted any.]
--- In soapbubblefanciers@yahoogroups.com, "bubbler0000"
wrote:
> I have been wondering about ... Distilled water brands.
KellyO
In theory distilled water should be distilled water but in practice
... it seems to vary from the simple H and 2 and O.
Things are worse in Europe. In Germany and in France they sell water
as distilled that did not go through the mechanical distilling process
(essentially boiling the water and collecting the steam which means
that it has risen and left the minerals behind). There is another
chemical practice common now to separate water from its minerals which
in the US is usually labeled "demineralized water" and is said to be
just as good for your car battery or steam iron.
In Germany, I finally had the theater call the company that provided
what they called "destilliertes Wasser". When I found that the guy
spoke English I got on the phone and he absolutely assured me that it
was distilled and when I asked if they used a boiling method he told
me that they used a chemical process but that the end product was
different in no way. But since I had already had to throw away two big
batches of big bubble mix (with a lot of the Dawn that I had carried
on the plane for the 5 month engagement) I knew better.
In France, I found the same ... eau distillée is not necessarily
distilled. The chemical "demineralizing" process is cheaper and all of
the supermarket and auto shop eau distillée is really that cheaper stuff.
In both countries I found that I can get very expensive and very pure
distilled water at the pharmacy where it is sold for the purpose of
diluting medicines (sterilized water is a different matter and is, I
found, bad for bubbles).
I probably don't have to tell the people here that rain water (at
least the sweet stuff that falls here on the West coast) is good. Or
do you have a different experience in that matter?
Tom Noddy
.........................................................................................
From: "Tom Noddy"
Date: Mon Aug 1, 2005 5:44 pm
Subject: Re: [Soap Bubble Fanciers] Distilled water
--- In soapbubblefanciers@yahoogroups.com, XTREME Bubbles
wrote:
> there is a simple method of determining a waters purity. a device
known as a conductivity meter.
Hmmm, I wonder if this was the system that the German company was
relying on when assuring me that there is "no difference" between the
water that is actually steam distilled and their product that was
chemically demineralized (which they nonetheless called
distilliertes). The guy was really adament but the bubble mix worked
with one and did not work with the other.
By the way Sterling, I too normally used/use normal tap water, at
least for the first test and only switch to distilled water if there's
a problem. If I plan to do big bubbles in a new town (rare) I'll often
ask for them to provide (real) distilled water just in case. When I
get there and find that the tap water works, I leave the distilled
with them.
There are so many possible causes of problems that I always want to at
least rely on the water and soap before considering what external
problems (dust, pollutants, humidity, salt, ...) might be causing
trouble. Finding "distilled" water that was, itself, the problem was
disconcerting. But it only ever mattered for the big bubbles since the
Mr Bubbles formula was reliably unchanging (till I worked on a BBC
television show and had all kinds of problems and later found that
they had tried to change their anti-bacterial agent ... but that's a
different story).
Tom Noddy
.........................................................................................
"Tom Noddy"
Date: Wed Aug 3, 2005 8:09 pm
Subject: Re: [Soap Bubble Fanciers] Dirt in the mix Challenge (An interesting discussion about dirt and impurities getting into bubble fluid and what it would do.)
Right Sterling, that is my view of things ... that the dust problem
only arises when it's dry ... but ... as Kelly says, the nature of the
dust might be important as well. If the dirty bucket and the stick
that I'm stirring it with or the strings that Kelly's guests are
dragging along the ground are adding iron-rich dirt/dust to the mix
then all of that care about getting pure distilled water in the first
place may well be being undone ... at least to the extent of no longer
being able to ask the bubble mix to offer up the extremely large ones
that Kelly (and others here) like.
or
It could be so minimal a difference that even Kelly won't notice which
of the batches were made up with my sloppy method and which with his
most careful approach.
See Kelly, I don't really want you to give up the persnickity idea. As
with Eiffel and I, I cherish our differences at least as much as the
ways that we are alike.
Tom Noddy
.........................................................................................
"Tom Noddy"
Date: Wed Aug 3, 2005 8:44 pm
Subject: Re: [Soap Bubble Fanciers] Deionized Water
Send Email Send Email
--- In soapbubblefanciers@yahoogroups.com, Sterling Johnson
wrote:
"Since we generally use mixes that are hugely over the CMC point (that
is, lots of detergent remains in micelles in the liquid, ready to rush
up to the surface when the film is stretched, it seems like the
replacement of some molecules ought not to have this devestating effect."
Sterling,
I don't know the CMC point, what's that?
I do agree that there is a lot of detergent free in the solution ready
to rush to the surface when the film is stretched but I don't picture
THAT free detergent arranged in micelles. My sense of the micelle
arrangement is that it only comes about when the soap molecules are
grouped around some foreign, usually greasy, nucleus. Those bits of
detergent are electrically occupied with their grease bit and are not,
therefore, going to rush to the surface like the other detergent
molecules who are longing to get their hydrophobic ends away from the
water in the mix.
Come to think of it, this is another good reason for thinking that
contaminates (at least greasy ones) are to be kept out of the mix.
Tom Noddy
.........................................................................................
From: "Tom Noddy"
Date: Thu Aug 18, 2005 1:03 am
Subject: Re: More/Powder, and who really makes commercial bubble solutions anyway?
--- In soapbubblefanciers@yahoogroups.com, "ribubbleguy"
wrote:
I guess these are questions for everyone out there. (I was talking about cricket hill powder and who really makes solutions anyhow?-http://groups.yahoo.com/group/soapbubblefanciers/message/654)
1. IMPERIAL makes Miracle Bubbles. But do they also make (brew) Super
Miracle Bubbles and is Super Miracle Bubbles any better than the low
grade stuff they have been bottling?
Yup they make it, or anyway, their website names it as one of their
products and the separate website for Super Miracle names Imperial. I
haven't tried it so I don't know if it's good, better, or best.
2. What about Gazillion Bubbles and Gazillion Bubbles Gold for larger
bubbles? ... Who makes them and what do you folks think of the
solutions?
Funrise Toy Corporation makes Gazillion and they have some kind of
deal with Fan Yang (Sterling has said that they "sponsor" Fan). They
have offices in the UK, France, Hong Kong, and California.
3. Tom, would Gazillion work for your act?
I haven't tried it for the more extreme tricks but it worked well when
I tested it with the basics. I think that I could do my act with it or
Mr Bubbles or Pustefix. I prefer Mr Bubbles because I have used it for
so long and I'm use to it.
4. I really enjoy Gymboree Oodles Bubble mix, ... Who makes (brews)
these bubbles? Have you tried them?
I don't know. No.
5. Does Pustifix now make Fan's "special" solution?
Fan has apparently made a deal with Pustefix in addition to his deal
with Funrise (Gazillion). His publicity talks about his special LLBS
solution that makes longer lasting bubbles. I haven't tried it. He
also has versions of Fan Yang bubbles that is made by and in jars that
are the same as Pustefix. Whether it is identical to normal Pustefix,
I don't know ... haven't tried it.
6. Are we all agreed that Pustifix is a good solution, but not great?
I like it. I'm not sure what you're calling a "baby powder smell"
unless you mean the smell that I think of as ammonia. Ammonia is
sometimes mentioned in chemical formulas for bubbles as a catalyst.
The fresher containers of Pustefix have this smell quite strong.
By the way ... I stopped in to a Toys R Us today to see if I could get
a few jars of Miracle Bubbles. Actually, I just need the jars, not the
juice. My stage table is designed for those 4 ounce bottles and if Mr
Bubbles won't be around producing them I thought that I'd buy Miracle,
dump the juice, and stock up on the bottles before they change over to
the new clumsy jars they're making for Super. But what I found at my
local Toys R Us is ... lots and lots of Mr Bubbles four ounce six
packs. I naturally bought them all and now have all of the four ounce
jars that I will need for a long time ... and some of the good juice
for a while too.
I'm guessing that they either had their own stash of Mr Bubbles and
are unloading them now or they picked them up from Big Lots or got
them at the same time that Big Lots did ... I don't know but they went
from having none all summer to having lots. Check out your local
stores if this is the stuff you use.
Tom Noddy
.........................................................................................
From: "Tom Noddy"
Date: Thu Aug 18, 2005 7:18 pm
Subject: anti (bubbles)
--- In soapbubblefanciers@yahoogroups.com, "ribubbleguy"
wrote:
Hey! Check out this Raiders of the Lost Bubble Movie, parts one and
two! I love the internet.
www.abc.net.au/science/experimentals/stories/s1330365.htm
Keith
Back in 1975 I was crossing the country and stopped in to the
University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. I did some street performing on
the campus and passed the hat but after a while I wandered into the
physics building and tried to interest someone-anyone in what I was
doing with soap bubbles (I was looking for some explanations by then).
I tried to just explain what I did to someone to ask who in the
department might be especially interested in this field of physics ...
but they looked at this raggedy hippie, thought about bubbles briefly
and walked away. I finally asked some passing student "Who's the wacko
in this department? The one interested in anything odd." He
immediately named the well-known wacko and I made my way to his
office. He welcomed me immediately and was thrilled to see what I did.
Then he set up his equipment to show me an "anti-bubble".
It was interesting, for sure. This brilliant man (I am so sorry that I
have forgotten his name) bent over his lab equipment barely containing
his glee as he prepared his mix (just detergent and water). He used a
small beaker to drop a heavy drop of soapy water into a beaker of
soapy water and kept doing it until "Ouuuu, yes, yes, it's starting to
get active now" he chortled. And then one big plop of water went into
the water having trapped a very thin film of air around itself!
It went down first from the force of the dropping and immediately
formed into a perfect sphere. Then it floated up to the surface. He
explained how important it was to clear the smaller bubbles off of the
surface of the soapy water and then when the anti-bubble (water inside
of water separated only by a very thin spherical film of air) made it
to the surface it sat there for a while. He had set up his light and
screen and when the anti-bubble became steady at the surface he
focused his light onto it and projected the colors of the thin surface
(wave interference patterns due to the extreme thinness) onto the
screen and talked a bit too fast about the mathematics of this phenomenon.
We talked for hours and I picked up a bit of explanation about various
bubble physics but mostly I remember the guy ... centuries ago we
would have called him a wizard. Now they are scientists. For his part,
he was happy to accept the title that I had given him before we met
... I was shown an anti-bubble by a charming wacko.
Tom Noddy
.........................................................................................
From: "Tom Noddy"
Date: Fri Sep 2, 2005 10:03 pm
Subject: Re: What I did in a past life.....
Note: this was in response to two threads, this one (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/soapbubblefanciers/message/712) where Felix shares his news about an article featuring one of his amazing machines, and this one (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/soapbubblefanciers/message/715) where I talk about the shortage of Mr. Bubbles.
Nice article Felix ... and a great picture of this charming approach
to bubble presentation. Bravo.
By the way ... I think that they are wrong in suggesting that
Archimdies suggested the 120 degree angles that films meet at ... I
have never seen another reference to him having done so. He was one of
the early Greeks who knew that the sphere was the minimal area able to
contain a maximum volume. Perhaps the person writing the story saw a
reference to that and bubbles and put two and two together incorrectly.
Also, to Keith, yes ... I am getting several emails from bubble people
who are concerned about the loss of the Strombecker product. I tell
them what I have heard about the hoped-for comeback and I have advised
people to try different mixtures and see what THEY are capable of.
I believe that the reason that Bubble Magic wasn't done before I came
along was that people who considered doing things with bubbles always
thought that what they wanted was STRONGER stuff. They added glycerine
or other stuff and sometimes got thicker, "stronger", slower liquid
that made bubbles that lasted longer. But asting longer and bouncing
were among the few things that such a solution would do. Eiffel went
further and developed nine different solutions for his several tricks
because each mix was not good for much more than the trick that he
made them for.
I was broke and on the streets and found the cheapest stuff (okay,
there were a few cheap ones and I found one that I liked) and then I
found many things that IT could do.
The people on this list and others who worked in isolation, instead of
trying to do something that they already knew about, found different
ways to go. Mr Bubbles being gone might be a good thing ... it might
take us elsewhere.
Tom Noddy
.........................................................................................
From: "Tom Noddy"
Date: Tue Sep 6, 2005 7:07 pm
Subject: Re: Bubbler needed in Santa Barbara, CA tomnoddy00
Dear All,
In response to the person who wrote to Kelly from Santa Barbara
looking for a bubble demonstration for a birthday party he replied
that his own show was "probably beyond their budget" and then he
generously posted the letter to the bubble fancier site.
I get several of these and I know that Kelly and maybe others do too.
Sometimes they are very clear about the fact that they are looking for
someone in their area to come to the party and that's a good clue to
the fact that they are not looking to pay for airfare and that
probably means that they expect a smaller fee as well. In those cases
(or when I am simply unavailable) I give them the names of people that
I know in their part of the country (ideally, I give the name of
someone whose show I have seen or at least a person who I know
something about).
But it occurs to me to suggest to that the person originally solicited
could just as easily give them a big price as actually turn down the
gig. Normally, this will have the same effect but now and again
someone will surprise you by agreeing to what you assumed would be a
deal-breaker fee.
Naturally, this would be risky if you fooled around in the local
market where you will or won't get future calls ("No, I tried her
once, she is WAY too expensive") but when some one-time distant call
comes in and you don't especially want the gig, there isn't much to
lose. And, of course, you can always back it up with the suggestion
that you know of others who might be interested and more available.
When I first started doing Bubble Magic I had a free hand in setting
the price for something so unique. There were no other bubble
performers that anyone had ever heard of (Eiffel was the only one out
there but he performed only for school and church groups in his part
of the country and no one knew about him till the media attention
focused on the SF Bubble Festival). No one knew how much it would cost
to have a bubble show and I was getting calls from TV shows and other
venues everywhere. I had no idea what these guys paid for other
entertainment and all I could do was guess and hope that I was hitting
a high number within their realm.
I took some gigs based on my guesses or on their offers. When I got
calls to come to places that I really wanted to go to I wouldn't mess
around. I'd put forward a fee based on what I thought might get me
there but when I didn't especially want a particular show I would
invent a much higher fee and suggest that. That often meant that they
said "no". That was fine, they said "no" instead of me saying it.
Sometimes I was shocked to find that some people were willing to pay
much more than I had guessed at. Eventually, that taught me something
about the market (which changed as soon as Professor Bubble and Fan
Yang started offering their own shows to the same market).
Of course, I continue to do lots of gigs for reasons other than the
fee: benefits, friends, or just gigs that I'd like to experience ...
but it doesn't hurt to know a bit about the ever changing scene out there.
Tom Noddy
..............................................................................
This was a response to a post I made about the smoke machines I've worked on to get smoke into bubbles, also a question about helium and how it works with bubbles.
From: "Tom Noddy"
Date: Sun Oct 9, 2005 8:21 am
Subject: Re: Smoke Bubble Ideas & Helium Question
Keith,
I have a friend in Germany who does very large smoke rings in his
clown show. He and I have played with fog machines and Zero Toys
devices for a while. I've played with helium and other gases in and
around bubbles. C.V. Boys used "coal gas" (mostly hydrogen and
methane) to float a bubble within a bubble and that allowed him to put
a third bubble inside and to keep that system stable. The bubble
inside didn't "blip out" on the bottom because the lighter-than-air
gas lifted the inside bubble and the drop that formed on the bottom
didn't cause actual contact. It's usually that wet spot that causes
the contact and therefore the minimizing of the two bubbles into a
single double-bubble system. With the gas, the "contact" was at the
top and in the absence of a falling drop up there the charge of the
two surfaces prevented actual physical contact and so the bubbles
stayed separate spheres.
My own play with helium was more along the lines of inhaling helium
from an untied balloon and talking funny before showing that a helium
blown bubble will shoot straight up but I did play around with finer
degrees and mixes of air/helium to create lift of just to try to
counter the weight.
Eiffel liked to use hydrogen. He liked the much greater lift that it
had and, of course, the explosive fireball with "loud report". He'd
actually giggle when he spoke of shaking up an audience with that big
bang.
Carbon Dioxide bubbles fascinated me for a good long while. I use to
fill my bathtub with it and watch bubbles float on that dense sea and
then slowly sink into it ... growing as they descend. Lifting them
once they've taken on the gas via osmosis and feeling the weight of
the gas delighted me. At the Exploratorium I played with the first of
those exhibits that use this phenomenon. I astounded them by using
smoke to make the invisible gas visible as it streamed into the bubble.
Tom Noddy
...................................................................
Keith,
You ask "Am I missing something, or was it simply Eiffel who you never met, and you at the start? Did you find other's ideas, besides CV Boys' book, to inspire your creativity at the start?"
That was the way that I experienced it. Actually, I knew nothing about CV Boys until I already had my act for five years (I met Eiffel after being into it for nine). It is so good that I didn't know about Boys or Eiffel. In subsequent years I would now and again meet a magician or physics person who knew something about bubbles but invariably they were trying to get "stronger" bubbles. Boys' formula looks to me to be pretty hefty. Eiffel started with Boys as his base. This was a blessing and a curse. It set him off down a path and in some ways that limited where he ended up.
The chemistry approach and the assumptions made by those who had sought out "strong bubbles" were, I think, the most important thing that kept anyone else from finding out what the cheap store-bought bubbles could do. They were simply regarded as too delicate to "work" with. I wasn't working with them, I had no expectations and so I got past that and found something else in their nature.
When I first went to the Exploratorium in 1976, there was not even a sign outside that I could see that told what the big building held. I tried the door and it surprisingly opened. Some smiling guy inside saw me wander in and assured me that it was okay, it was a free museum of science. They had a donation device but I was broke and passed it by. I ended up in a conversation with a scientist on the staff (many science museums today don't have actual scientists) and I showed him bubble tricks. He was thrilled and gave me a copy of CV Boys' book and some oleic acid and glycerin. I mixed it and experimented but I was mostly disappointed with this stronger, slower solution.
Actually, Boys' book helped me to understand why what I was seeing with the bubbles worked. It made me look closer at the regularity of the angles and it inspired me to see it as science. But I can't say that it gave me a single trick that I added to my show. Had I read Boys first, my performance would have looked a lot more like Eiffel's. Had I met Eiffel first I would probably not have bothered to take it up at all. It was the unexplored nature of what I was finding that kept me interested (well, that and the pretty colors).
David Stein, the guy who invented the Bubble Thing, hadn't seen Eiffel's big bubbles and that left him looking for another way to go. Performers who have seen what I found with soap bubbles have that as a disadvantage -- I have it as a disadvantage. If there is something else in their very nature that I've missed, it's going to be difficult to find because I know too much about them now.
I really did look on them with fresh eyes back then. In 1971, a year and a half after Woodstock, I worked that factory job and then sat, night after night, looking at the flow of the colors and the glistening fluid surfaces without any history, knowledge, or intent. I just looked.
When people write to me now asking for advice that's what I advise them. Blow a big bubble and hold it in good light and watch it -- till it pops. And then do that again.
The important skills (holding it up, catching it when it falls, and not spilling the jar) will come with that effort. But different minds are bound to find different things of interest in the images that play along those wet rigid surfaces and it's in there that I found the greatest value (and some darn pretty colors).
Keith, you remind me that people who saw my act on television in 1982 remember it today and remember it in some surprising detail. I do know that. It, somehow, never surprised me. I don't know why everyone doesn't stop what they're doing and take up bubbles. How can they stick their hands in the sink to do the dishes and still think that bubbles are fragile, glass-like objects that are simply too delicate to deal with? I say it so often and throw it off like a vaudeville joke but "You can't make an ugly bubble." Thoreau said that the perception of beauty is a moral test and I think that people often search for beauty and look past so much of it.
I sat down at home those humid nights in New Jersey and looked. That, as it turns out, was a lot to do.
Tom Noddy
...................................................................
Keith,
You said "I would imagine true people of math and science would delight in seeing the "impossible", and accept the fact of it with grace. Or, they would try to point out how you are technically incorrect on some point or another."
This is, perhaps, the strongest argument for calling it a bubble cube rather than a square bubble. If you tell them that you can show them a square bubble and they call that impossible, they are correct and when you do the cube (which is what it technically is) they (whoever they are) can point to the fact that you said it would be square and it is, in no way, square.
But they (some of them) will say the same thing about the cube. They'll use the word "impossible" when they mean that they can't imagine it. Lovely.
Onstage I'll sometime anticipate the only argument left to anyone who wants to find technical shortcomings. I will explain that the walls are bulging out from the center and meeting at 120 degrees, forming a spherical cube (a term that not all of them are familiar with but one that is technically correct. I will say that the six surrounding bubbles are "exactly equalish in size" and when the oxymoronic laugh comes for that term I'll waggle my hand in a dismissive way and say "plus or minus epsilon".
If that gets a laugh, I'll note who laughed ... that's the science/math people (it's a term that they use in their work to refer to inexact or unmeasured factors that they are generally acknowledging but are asserting are of a minor enough effect that will will be inconsequential). There are other lines that I will direct toward those people later in the show or, when I'm doing Q&A, those are the people I will look to for confirmation or contradiction when I try to answer good questions by stretching to questionable comparisons.
You know, ... some of the perfectly simple questions about bubbles actually call for a correct answer that is best stated as a mathematical equation. But I don't speak that language. Saying it in English instead sometimes makes it just a bit less true and if you want to say it in terms that are understandable to a non-science audience you end up making comparisons to things that are only similar is some ways so you have to qualify the comparison or risk spreading inaccurate information ("in some ways it's like the oil floating on the top of the soup" or .
When the questioner is a kid we look even further afield for experiences of hers that will help her to relate to what we are saying ("it's like a balloon in some ways"). At some points we have gone too far and are no longer connected to the thread of the truthful mathematics equation. I like to test my stretched metaphors against the minds of the people who understand the primary language better than I do.