Sunday, October 09, 2022

COLOUR SUPPLEMENT: The Devil's Wheel, by JD

 Teufelsrad München Oktoberfest

Last week YouTube had a recommendation in its sidebar, a Teufelsrad or Devil's Wheel at this year's Oktoberfest -



I had never seen anything like this before. Why had I never heard of it? 

Looking at it more closely it seemed to be a cleverly designed and executed piece of German engineering. It could also be an example of the famous German sense of humour! 

A search revealed a brief story in Wiki and these 'wheels' have been used at Oktoberfest since 1913.

One of the links in the Wiki article led me to this Human Roulette Wheel at Steeplechase Park, Coney Island, early 1900s:


Now if I were fifty years younger and if I had consumed a stein or three, I might............ do as I'm doing now and enjoy the entertainment from behind the barriers which is also the safest way to enjoy San Fermin!

4 comments:

Sackerson said...

“Life is like the big wheel at Luna Park. You pay five francs and go into a room with tiers of seats all around, and in the centre the floor is made of a great disc of polished wood that revolves quickly. At first you sit down and watch the others. They are all trying to sit in the wheel, and they keep getting flung off, and that makes them laugh too. It's great fun.

You see, the nearer you can get to the hub of the wheel the slower it is moving and the easier it is to stay on. There's generally someone in the centre who stands up and sometimes does a sort of dance. Often he's paid by the management, though, or, at any rate, he's allowed in free. Of course at the very centre there's a point completely at rest, if one could only find it; I'm not very near that point myself. Of course the professional men get in the way. Lots of people just enjoy scrambling on and being whisked off and scrambling on again. How they all shriek and giggle! Then there are others, like Margot, who sit as far out as they can and hold on for dear life and enjoy that. But the whole point about the wheel is that you needn't get on it at all, if you don't want to. People get hold of ideas about life, and that makes them think they've got to join in the game, even if they don't enjoy it. It doesn't suit everyone.

People don't see that when they say "life" they mean two different things. They can mean simply existence, with its physiological implications of growth and organic change. They can't escape that - even by death, but because that's inevitable they think the other idea of life is too - the scrambling and excitement and bumps and the effort to get to the middle, and when we do get to the middle, it's just as if we never started. It's so odd.

Now you're a person who was clearly meant to stay in the seats and sit still and if you get bored watch the others. Somehow you got on to the wheel, and you got thrown off again at once with a hard bump. It's all right for Margot, who can cling on, and for me, at the centre, but you're static. Instead of this absurd division into sexes they ought to class people as static and dynamic. There's a real distinction there, though I can't tell you how it comes. I think we're probably two quite different species spiritually.”

― Evelyn Waugh, Decline and Fall (1928)
https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/1228767-decline-and-fall

Doonhamer said...

I remember one of these at travelling show or fair in Scotland. The secret was to sit on the centre button.
Perhaps it could not generate enough money because I only saw it one season.
A similar thing was called The Rotor, which was a circular floor with a vertical wall round the perimeter.
The whole thing spins, the floor drops and the customers are left stuck to the revolving wall.

Bucko said...

Heh! I've never seen that before either. Looks great fun

Scrobs. said...

I guess after a stein or three, I'd be worried about the contents of said glass mugs arriving at the edge of the disc a second or so before a green-faced Scrobs...

Looks great fun though!