Bubble Wars

The Bubble Thing, by David Stein, maker of the Bubble Thing Bubble Maker Wand, here so vividly depicted - the Bubble Thing Bubble Maker which, in turn, is the maker of giant, truly giant, bubble-like thing, beyond round, rainbowed, fragile, bursting into memory like a breath.

Am I sounding poetic here? Well, how'd you expect me to be after watching and listening to him read what might be the world's biggest, most personal, most bubble-loving bubble poem: Spheres of Air, in which he writes:

This lofting spheres of air-- Is it a sport? Is it an art?
--Well, it’s done outdoors with something of the grace

of skating or of surfing or especially of hang gliding
where timing’s everything and one must tune oneself

to ice or surf or air. Or weightlifting might compare,
a stationary sport whose goal is greatest weight, or

--about as stationary-- putting shot for furthest cast, or
(when the children chase) any sport where catching

of a flying ball (no ball so huge and hovering as these)
is all that counts. A mob chasing a ball while crowds

arise and cheer. Well, maybe it is something of a sport.
Yes, and most like golf-- Outdoors in a field, a stroll,

not very great a sweat, split second skill to loft the ball.
Or (lacking irons, ball, and distant goal) less like golf

than tai chi or karate or aikido, or rite of stick or sword,
or other Asian sport wherein-- in practice anyway--

no blow is ever struck, each kick or punch is pulled,
and the opponent is oneself, or especially one’s mind,

which is invisible as the wind that fights the spheres
while lofting them, and whose instant moves of open,

hold, and close are similar--

Am I sounding perhaps a bit abashed? As might be you if you had publicly overenthused about something called "Beebo Bubbles" - as Bubble Thing Maker David Stein so clearly reminds us, waving in our virtual faces the Record Bubble Making achievements of Alan McKay, who "arose from obscurity and astonished the world. Inspired by the Bubble Thing, he had developed an enormous loop supported and controlled on two long poles, and he’d brewed a thundering good soap to go with it. He managed to photograph a tubular bubble 113 feet long"?

Or overly analytic? Perhaps because of all Mr. Stein's amply bubbly links to further splendiferous repositories of bubble science.

Probably just dazed, as one might understandably be after watching this.



from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith