the invention of air, and other ways to take on risk for fun
joseph priestley and the invention of air
Joseph Priestley, the guy who discovered oxygen “dephlogisticated air”, also invented/predicted the idea of oxygen bars
“Who can tell but that in time, this pure air may become a fashionable article in luxury. Hitherto only two mice and myself have had the privilege of breathing it.”
- Joseph Priestley, Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air
He also invented seltzer.
There’s one glass bottle seltzer factory left in Brooklyn, so here’s a great little documentary about it with wonderful machinery (god I love a factory tour, even a virtual one):
“When you drink good seltzer, you should not be able to gulp it down. Good seltzer should hurt. “ - Kenny Gomberg, Seltzer Works
Can’t talk about air without talking about Ted Chiang’s heartwrenching short story Exhalation, which sure let’s say leads us to The Ballad of Barry Allen by Jim’s Big Ego (with that beautiful lyric about how “I’ve got time to think about the beauty / of a thousand variations / of a beating of a wing / of a humming bird suspended / in the aspic of the world”), by way of
“Eventually the pressure differential will fall to such a level that our limbs will weaken and our movements will grow sluggish. We may then try to slow our thoughts so that our physical torpor is less conspicuous to us, but that will also cause external processes to appear to accelerate. The ticking of clocks will rise to a chatter as their pendulums wave frantically; falling objects will slam to the ground as if propelled by springs; undulations will race down cables like the crack of a whip.”
and The Quiet World by Jeffrey McDaniel (a love poem I adore, which a friend once told me reminded him of cruising), by way of
“Perhaps we’ll be able to speak for a while longer, because our voice boxes operate on a smaller pressure differential than our limbs, but without the ability to visit a filling station, every utterance will reduce the amount of air left for thought, and bring us closer to the moment that our thoughts cease altogether. Will it be preferable to remain mute to prolong our ability to think, or to talk until the very end? I don’t know.”
Not to mention, the protagonist in Exhalation performs self-neurosurgery. Which isn’t entirely unprecedented in real life?
“In 1970, the countess [Amanda Feilding] was filmed performing the procedure [trepanning] on herself with a dentist’s drill before wrapping her head in a scarf, eating a steak to replace iron from the lost blood and heading out to a party.”
- The Countess of Cannabis Has a Hole in Her Head and a Job With Canopy
and of course I can’t ever think of self-surgery without remembering about whitequark
Or you could just breathe ether for fun instead, might be safer
“Doctors and journalists commented disapprovingly on chloroform’s ‘luxurious’ use in tea rooms, and on the occasional public sightings of groups of young women giggling and swooning under its influence… an ether-soaked strawberry floating in champagne produced a heady rush, the fruit preventing the volatile liquid from evaporating too quickly.”
i feel like it’d be fun to get really high on serotonin and turn into a locust
(according to wikipedia, “increased tactile stimulation of the hind legs causes an increase in levels of serotonin”, which also sounds like a good time)
wait are we self-medicating with mind-control fungus now?
i continue to find it hilarious how normcore cordyceps has become
or why not just smoke a scorpion and join palantir or something
but honey, there are limits
“As we say with most things you come across in a national park, whether it be a banana slug, unfamiliar mushroom, or a large toad with glowing eyes in the dead of night, please refrain from licking”
(though I did lick salt off the ground when I visited Death Valley, because how could I not)
Actually, this is fun - there are a few critters that live in Death Valley worth glancing at here.
Like the Death Valley pupfish, who are “thought to be the remainders of a large ecosystem of fish species that lived in Lake Manly, which dried up at the end of the last ice age leaving the present-day Death Valley.” As the Nature Conservancy put it, “as the climate became hotter, the lakes and rivers began drying up, leaving only isolated springs, pools and rivers. The pupfish became isolated in these little pockets of remaining water. Essentially desert springs became habitat islands.”
(Sidenote to the sidenote to the sidenote: There was an ephemeral lake in Badwater Basin in February 2024, after it was filled up by an atmospheric river - a great term I only just learned today! An atmospheric river can carry as much water as the Amazon but up in the sky, but also apparently defining what exactly counts as one is so confusing that they formed a committee about it)
Or the Badwater snail, about whom Encyclopedia of Life only reports: “Assiminea infima is a species of snails in the family assimineids. They have sexual reproduction.” Well bless their horny little hearts.
EoL’s traitbank is fun to browse around in general, fwiw
anyways, be careful what you lick out there, but maybe not too careful - some mucus mediated gliding is worth the risk
thanks for sharing!