Best known today for his zany gadgets, Goldberg won a
Pulitzer Prize for his political cartooning in 1948, and disguised as a Pug
named Waldo, Best in Show at the 1949 Westminster Dog Show.
Rube Goldberg invented the Theremin in 1927, but allowed his
cousin Leo to take credit for the instrument, claiming he felt he never found a
way to make the thing convoluted enough to suit his tastes and that his
recently divorced cousin ‘really needed the win.’
Goldberg and his wife, Irma, wrote their own vows at their
wedding in 1916. Irma ‘s vows consisted of an original poem entitled ‘To be
Complete;’ Goldberg shot a rubber band at a chicken, startling it into knocking
a bowling ball down a ramp and toppling a line of dominoes, which laid flat
spelled out ‘Let’s smooch, dum-dum.’
Followers of Goldberg in the 21st century are
split into two rival camps—the Goldbergians, who run the Goldberg institute in
Jacksonville, and the Ruberoos, a religious cult centered in Cornbone, Arkansas
who believe that many of Goldberg’s designs were actually alchemical
experiments. In 2009, the Goldbergians pushed to have the Ruberoos classified
as a gang; this attempt failed due lack of interest on the part of the legal
system.
In 2012, rap mogul Jay-Z hired the Goldberg Institute to
design a device that would dispense lotion for his wife Beyonce’s legs. The
resulting contraption features 543 moving parts and culminates with a replica
of an Incan human sacrifice atop a 4 foot pyramid—a mechanical priest hacks off
the head of a model victim, the lotion oozes from the wound down gutters built
into the pyramid.
When Goldberg wasn’t inventing, he was busy prognosticating!
While many of his predictions would not come to pass (pig-powered zeppelins,
sea shells as a world currency), Ruberoos believe (and some Goldbergians agree)
that a coded entry from his diary dated Sept. 23, 1949 lays out the plot for
the final episode of MASH with eerie accuracy.
Goldberg’s greatest
disappointment was his failure to perfect his design for a parachute. Twelve
lab assistants were killed developing prototypes—eleven from plummeting to
their deaths and one from asphyxiating on a rubber glove in the laboratory.
As the result of a peace accord between the Goldbergians and
the Ruberoos in 2010, an infant male from each group was sent to be raised by
members of the other, to what end remains unclear.
Towards the end of his life, Goldberg often said he hoped
his lasting legacy would be that of a father, husband, and founding member of
the National Cartoonists Society, and not as someone most people assume was not
real, whose name is synonymous with convoluted machinery.
Rube Goldberg died in 1970, surrounded by friends, family, and
members of the NYPD SWAT team.
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