Ferris Wheel Love Has Nothing on The Gube

For those Vortex-ers in The States, Happy Tax Day! For those outside the U.S., Happy Roy Clark Birthday. Hee-haw!

As promised, we're still all about the Ferris wheel today. I thought Ferris wheels were like puppies-no one could resist, right? So imagine my shock when several of you expressed distaste or the lack of substantive memories associated with them. Maybe today's post can make you a fan again. And, yeah, I have a wussy stomach and they make me a little nauseous, too. That's why my heroine has an iron stomach. She kicks some serious Ferris wheel arse.

Not snarky enough to make a Vortex 10 list, I offer up eight trivial bits about the much-romanticized Ferris wheel that will make you the royalty of small talk (or useless babble) at your next soiree:

1. The Napkin Story

A bridge builder from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania named George W. Ferris overheard architect Daniel Burnham complain at an engineer's banquet in 1891 that there were no projects slated for the upcoming Chicago World's Fair that "met the expectations of the people." Three years prior, France had erected the Eiffel Tower at their World's Fair to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution; and, in typical American spirit, Burnham did not wish to be outdone. Ferris, who was the owner of a business that tested iron and steel, found inspiration at the dinner table that night, sketching the design for what would become the first modern-day Ferris wheel on his napkin. The design never wavered from that initial inspiration.

2. "Lady Lindy"

In 1904, at the St. Louis Fair, a seven year old girl rode the Ferris wheel with her father and a passion for heights took hold. Twenty-four years later, Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean.

3. Hazard Pay, Anyone?

Think all Ferris wheels must have steam-powered engines (old-school) or solar panels (new-school) to run? Check out these man-powered rides in India and Nepal.

4. Inflated Fun

A turn on that first Ferris wheel at Chicago's World Fair in 1893 would set you back $.50. That's a dozen Eastman camera plates, one man's fine felt Alpine hat or a stable lantern. In today's dollars, it converts to $12.30.

5. V.I.P. list

Special guests who took a turn on the first Ferris wheel during its six-month run at the Chicago World Fair include: Thomas Edison, Fredrick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, "Buffalo Bill" Cody, Elias Disney (Walt's father), and L. Frank Baum, author of The Wizard of Oz, whose "Emerald City" was inspired by the fair's "White City" look from the top of the wheel.

6. Elvis Has Left the Wheel

Sadly, Roustabout, one of my favorite movies featuring a Ferris wheel (give the girl some leg room, Mr. Pelvis!), did not make this list of famous Ferris wheel movies. I'm guessing to hold a spot here, the wheel had to have played a more dominant role or included a more memorable scene, ala Grease or The Notebook.

7. An Unfitting End

The first Ferris wheel was sold at auction in 1903 for $1800 and ran from 1904-1906 at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis (Amelia Earhart's turn) before it was destroyed with three hundred pounds of dynamite. The wheel, once built to rival the Eiffel Tower, had become an eyesore and white elephant on the skyline and most watched its demolition with satisfaction.

8. You Lost Me at the Ap-bomb-looking-thing

I couldn't resist trying to tackle the complex physics behind the wheel's motion. Unfortunately, my eyes crossed halfway down the page. Maybe the idea of centripetal acceleration is making my Gube-love all hang out. Nerd glasses all around!

Chime in with your take on the Ferris wheel. Any memorable Ferris wheel movie scenes that didn't make the list? Would you have paid $.50 for that first ride in 1893 or take the human-powered job?

I'm working on hosting a fun writing contest. Deets next week. Until then, may your week be filled with all manner of fantastic.

Here's Your Sign

Bragging rights are on the line for the Vortex-er who correctly guesses The Mystery Guy (first three clues). Robin requested more hints, so look for them at the end of today's post and sprinkled in throughout the week.

During a recent twenty-four hour period of crippling self-doubt I'm told is intrinsic to all writers mid-novel, the universe spoke to me. Not once or twice-that might be coincidence. Three times? Here's your sign.

Frankly, the luster is gone. The bloom is off the rose. Whatever cliche fits that gruesome stretch when I'm courting my manuscript, and I realize it scratches itself in polite company and has the annoying habit of repeating itself to make a point. Other ideas flirt with me across the crowded rave going on in my brain. I wonder if I've made a long-term commitment to the wrong story.

But in that funny way life has of sending us what we need, when we need it, the central, defining image of my story slammed into my awareness like a trinity of reassurance. Three times in that twenty-four hour period, I happened upon Ferris wheels: a yearly carnival parked and assembled on a street I drive each day; a random History Channel International show on the world's biggest machines featuring the London Eye; a full-color ad in a waiting room magazine. Random on any other day, at best, it was precisely what I needed to turn back to my manuscript and remember that spark that made me fall in love with it.

The longer I occupy this Earth, the more convinced I become that God or karma or whatever you attribute to things far beyond our understanding sails us into pockets of awareness we often miss. We have only to listen and plug in to details and things we take for granted each day to find our bearings and seek out our true North.

For now, my true North is to stay the course, man the ship and never lose hope that the journey will be far richer than the destination. What answer is the universe sending your way this week?

Could it be The Mystery Guy? He's now on my radar enough to warrant a change of color and font. This must be serious. Three more clues coming at you:

4. He was once a Tommy Hilfiger model

5. He wears mismatched socks, both in real life and as part of his character's wardrobe because his grandmother believed it to mean good luck

6. BAU

Guesses? Leave them in the comment section. Mid-week, look for little-known facts about the Ferris wheel I uncovered during research for my current novel. Until then, today's question:

What is your favorite Ferris wheel memory?

Do You Smell Buttered Popcorn?

Some of you know my latest novel revolves around a New Jersey boardwalk amusement park that is ground zero for a time grid that temporal agents use as a kind of super-highway.  This grid surfaces in pockets of high, naturally-occurring electromagnetic energy, but also in places where humans have contributed to that energy.  I've long thought about residual emotions that abound in places of extreme terror or joy or sadness. I envision a century-old carnival as that kind of place.  It is a place where people go seeking escape, hungry for that charge that will pull them from their reality into another one.  A place where time is suspended and we reconnect with that innocence we've all but left behind.

A few nights ago, the Sundance channel ran a documentary called Carny. Filmmaker Alison Murray followed a traveling carnival for a season and recorded candid interviews, life-changing events, the good, the bad and the ugly of living life as a gypsy for the sole purpose of entertaining others.  The work is hard, physical labor at below minimum wage.  Some join up because they're running away from the law, from their problems, from addictions.  Some are carnies because there were no other options.  Some missed out on their childhood and spend their lifetime filling in the void. Most come because they are different and stay because they realize they're not as different as someone else.

I've attended these carnivals, clutched my purse a little closer, held on a little more because I worried the guy who put the rides together did a half-arse job. I've thought the carnies were fringe and kept them at a distance.  I'm guilty, but I'm not the only one.  Otherwise, the impetus wouldn't have been there to document the truth. 

This knowledge came at an important time in the writing of this story. I need to dig deeper, write my hero from a place of enlightenment, not misconception. 

If you walked off your job today and joined a traveling carnival, what kind of carny would you be? Now's the time to cough up any bizarre talents or preoccupations. I'll start.  I used to be able to contort so that both ankles would rest behind my neck. I know.  As attractive as you can imagine that was, I'd give all that up to run the-you guessed it-Ferris wheel.

Friday, look for pictures from my adventure to a Big Cat Sanctuary.  Trust me, carnies aren't the only ones that smell like buttered popcorn.

Reset Button

It is a week of transitions, epiphanies and firsts. All involving time travel. Imagine that.

For the first time in my life, as in ever, I went to a movie alone. Not just any movie, mind you, but The Source Code. I could not have picked a better lone-virgin movie. No one saw me drool at the budding action star Jake Gyllenhaal is becoming. No one crunched popcorn in my ear and spoke at crucial turning points. No one grumbled “I don’t get it” at me while stumbling out into the blinding sunlight. No one nudged me by the elbow, a Captain Obvious, to say, “Oh. My. God. This is what you write.” The other lone-cinema guns and I strapped in for the long haul to a short conclusion: The Source Code is beyond awesome. At least by Vortex standards. It’s impossible to review this movie without spoilers, so I offer up something here that’s spoken to me this week. A reversal of sorts. From the end product to the first thread. I traced the backward journey from production to pre-production to casting to green light to screenwriter, for therein lies a map for a similar journey, not to film but to novel. And not just any novel. A great novel.

I know Hollywood and New York publishing cycles are polar. When one is up, the other is down. But time travel threads within other genres do not seem to follow this pattern. If you look at the television shows and films involving time travel in the past five years, there is a small, yet consistent presence even vampires can’t touch. I’m not sure it will ever be “over”. Too much of human nature rests on the possibility of what-might-have-been. The desire for a reset button.

I needed to read about the project in its organic form. To know that screenwriter Ben Ripley didn’t have it all figured out in the first draft, or even the fifth. I needed him to remind me to "Put character first. Don’t let the technology take over the story. Center your narrative on an emotional experience and let the science part of it be the ambiance."

It so happens this week, I’m in transition. Which project to dedicate myself to make it stellar? For a myriad of reasons, it is a difficult choice. After much thought and no conclusions, I offered it up God, angels, the universe, karma. Take your pick. I told myself I would look for a sign that would show me I was on the right track. I believe in signs. They're around us every day. We don't always pay attention. Today, like a gift, my sign came.

I’ve written about this traveling carnival before. Every April, it comes. And every May through March it is forgotten. On a road travelled infrequently, this carnival came to me today of all days, the morning after I asked for it. Ferris wheel glistening in the sun.

Here’s your sign.

The Haunted Swing

While doing turn-of-the-century amusement park research for my current WIP, I came across some ingenious ways park owners came up with to thrill their customers. Times were tough, but the Ferris wheel, a promise to see the land as only birds had before them, was enough to make even the stodgiest penny-pincher empty his pockets. Me? I like the simpler pleasures just down from the bawdy burlesque shows. When I read about the Haunted Swing, I knew it had to be part of my novel.

Picture this: a tiny room, a wooden swing long enough to fit four comfortably, cables affixed to each end that hang from a bent iron bar that bisects the room and rotates crank-style, walls dark and Gothic, the only light coming from the midway through the plank's uneven cracks. Customers sit, an attendant pushes the swing. The ride begins as all other swings do. After several full movements, the swing's amplitude increases. It feel high. Higher than any of them are comfortable with. They realize the attendant is gone from the room and the light coming in from the cracks takes a full 360 degree rotation around them. The trapdoor in their stomach opens at the full-circle ride. They scream.

You can imagine in the early 1900s what a thrill this would have been. Of course, the passengers never moved any higher than a ordinary park swing. It was a mere trick of the mind. The attendant would step out of the room and crank a lever which rotated the room a full 360 degrees around the bar. Cool, huh? I would dance in a burlesque for a chance at that ride.

When Googling to try to find out more about the Haunted Swing, I came across this little scientific nugget. Yes, the X-files theme music drew me in, but there is some solid science behind this supposed "Haunted Swing" in Argentina. Who knew?


What's your favorite amusement park ride? Don't forget to tell us where it is.