susie_flo | For your wondrous amusement

Someone really needs to ban me from ebay... A few months ago I purchased on a whim a reproduction praxinoscope. Since then it has been sitting under my desk at work waiting to be noticed. Today I finally got round to taking it home and having a fiddle.

What is a praxinoscope? Well... it's a bit like a Zoetrope, if that helps. In fact it's better than a zoetrope.

Basically it is a pre-cinema device invented in 1877 to amuse and amaze one's friends by playing little hand-drawn animations. It has a cylindrical drum with a circular mirror in the centre. You put a strip of paper around the edges, which has lots of little images on it, a bit like a reel of film. Then you spin it and watch the animation take place... it's really delightful!

I have recorded a little video of mine in action... (I know there is a certain irony in filming an action shot of a pre-film device.) For some reason when I uploaded the vid to Youtube, the quality went drastically downhill, but hopefully it gives the idea. It can be seen here...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOItdZOGnx8

In itself it's rather a nice, ornamental object, and it came with loads of image strips! It would look very nice on a desk or side table. However I have absolutely no space left in my weeny residence for it, so it is sadly going to have to live in the loft until I get rid of something else. Poo.