LANK:

I've been wanting to do this task for a looooong time. So last night, I did.

I decided that I wanted the coulage material to be fun & edible, so what better to use than chocolate?!

There were a few things I wanted to accomplish with the set-up:

I wanted to start with just the raw materials (i.e., solid chocolate, not pre-melted).
A "sword" would be involved in some capacity.
I wanted to set in motion a simple Rube Goldberg device that would trigger the coulage-making.

All of this went well. I used Ghirardelli (since I live in SF now!) bittersweet chocolate morsels. For the "sword", I used my ceremonial (prop) dagger, which also appeared here. I like that the dagger ended up hanging by a thread, a la the original Sword of Damocles.



The "device" ended up being not-so-simple. It took up a majority of our small kitchen and took hours to construct, let alone to design.



You can read the huge block of small print below to learn how this was all set up, or just watch the first video and skip all the tedious reading.

The chocolate morsels were placed inside a small pot, which was in turn placed inside a larger pot half-filled with water. These sat on the back-left burner of our stove. The small pot had two strings attached to it that held it up out of the water slightly and held it in place. These strings were attached to a thin dowel (from this task), which was held aloft by a tripod on one end, and more string tied to our overhead pot rack on the other end. A third string was attached to the handle of the small pot which, when pulled, would lift the pot out of the large pot and dump its contents into the bowl placed to the right of it. This string was attached (after a couple of pulley points on the pot rack, etc) to a long arm that was part of a see-saw mechanism on the front of the stove. The see-saw was actually a small metal folding table that we had found on the street, placed here upside-down. On top of the see-saw were two plastic bottles connected mouth-to-mouth, one of which was 75% full of water, the other only 10% full. The metal arm was on the end of the see-saw with the mostly empty bottle, and the arm served as a counter-weight. This end of the see-saw had to be held in place by another string, tied to the leg of the table to hold it in place. Releasing that string would cause the see-saw to tip, the water to travel from one bottle to another, and the arm to move downward, thus pulling the string attached to the handle of the small pot. Also attached to this string was yet another string, which was holding in place the dagger, The dagger was suspended above the pots on its own string, which was wound up. More string was used to dangle a small spoon from the end of the dagger, which rested inside the chocolate morsels. Releasing the dagger would set it and the spoon spinning, thereby stirring the chocolate. By this time, the water should be boiling and the chocolate melting. My hope was that it would take a while for the see-saw to tip, allowing more time for the stirring before the pouring. Both of these actions would be triggered by one final string, attached to that key string that was holding the see-saw in place. This string was tied to that string, with its other end resting under the large pot, right next to the burner. Phew!



I had a big setback in the process because I had originally intended to attach propeller blades to the dagger in order to spin it (and thereby trigger another part of the mechanism). The idea was that the heat rising from the burner would cause the propeller to spin. I made the propellery bits out of a cut-up whiskey box and some chopsticks, and it looked great! But when I tested the PropellerBlade, it failed miserably. The heat just wasn't powerful enough to make the thing spin. So i scrapped it and moved on with a different design.



See the video for the result! The first part is the explanation of the whole mechanism, and the failed first attempt:



The second video: SUCCESS! (with snazzy music added) The final moments happened more quickly than I anticipated, but it all worked! Yay!



ANNA ONE:

When Lank started the process of putting together the complex workings of his Rube Goldberg device, I was deep in the midst of a different task. Mildly distracted by his mad-whiskey-induced ramblings about string and swords and chocolate, I agreed to provide the soothsaying bit of the task. A cursory search of the interweb led me to (I'm guessing) the same information on ceromancy that rongo rongo used. The list of possible signifiers and their attendant meanings appeared satisfactory, and so I continued working on other projects... for hours... and hours... until at last! Lank was excitedly ready to start the machine-a-machine!

I operated the video camera for documenting purposes, and gave what suggestions I could to remedy the slow-burning hemp issue.

After it was all over (and tense it was watching it all happen), we carefully moved the bowl of water and chocolate to a better lit location for identifying possible portends of our future.



Immediately I was struck by the stripedy-swirly nature of the chilled chocolate suspended on the surface of the water. A particular section looked to me like a peacock fanning it's feathers. A bird! Many of the swirls formed into shapes resembling leaves of different kinds- most clearly, a maple leaf. A big blob towards the center of the bowl had the shape of a baseball cap- a hat! Beside the hat, two long stripes of chocolate formed into a simple outline of a bed, seen from the sides- when the image was reversed by turning the bowl around 180° this same image formed a mountain, and another 90° turn revealed a snuffed candle. To the side, another combination of swirls produced a pipe, another long strip formed a walking stick- complete with the u-shaped curve at one end for the handle. Much of the swirlyness reminded us both of clouds, worms, snakes and lots and lots of grass.

Looking over our accumulated list, and the interpretation provided we were shocked to find so many seemingly negative predictions. We turned to looking at the globular shapes below the surface of the water. As Lank photographed below, many of the big globules on the surface produced long spikey stalactites underneath. These looked quite a bit like pins! Another smaller glob off to the side looked just like a tiny fetus- complete with googly eye, formed by a bubble of air frozen into the chocolate under the water.

Unfortunately the image most strikingly accurate (to me at least) was a nifty outline of an elephant- no such luck in finding ceromantic translations for that image....

Here's what our inter-web translation of these images revealed:

BABY - Troubles are coming
Indeed- babies are trouble, alright.
BED - A vacation would be good for you
Always true. A roadtrip, perhaps?
BIRD - News will reach you soon
Well, yes- as rongo pointed out- everyday.
CANDLE - Spiritual growth
Hmmm... I don't know where to take this.
CLOUD - Something or someone threatens you
Could it be the New Era? The GYØ boys, perhaps?
GHOST - Someone from the past is looking for you
For me, this is always true. The bastards.
GRASS - Good fortune is approaching
Thank goodness. Not a second too soon.
HAT - A change of location is indicated
I'm hoping this has to do with that vacation mentioned earlier.
LEAF or LEAVES - Things will be changing soon
They always do- let's hope for the better, eh?
MOUNTAIN - Good friends are willing to help you
Especially for the tasking. The New Era tasking.
PIN - Your lover may be attracted to another
Well, as this is Lank's big undertaking, and I am only the interpreter...
I do have to admit that there are a number of fine mustaches distracting my attention of late.
PIPE - Peace and comfort
Whew. Does this include a global shift? That would be fantastic.
RING - Marriage may be possible in the near future
Well, I must say, we do have this task on our list, Lank and I.
SNAKE - Be on guard against an enemy
Oh noes! Is the Villian coming out of retirement? Is it Dick Cheney? En gard!
WALKING STICK - Get out of the house and visit friends
Always good advice. Especially when good friends are willing to help us guard against this mysterious enemy!
WORM - Business troubles ahead if you are not careful
I suppose we'll have to be careful. Or stay out of business altogether.