![]() And I want you to know that I am not experimenting on myself with nitrous fumes. A din of mirth may perhaps escape from my nose and throat areas. I am telling you about this because the topic of today’s essay is such that I may at times seem to be writing from a corner of the basement with Humphrey and Sam. This is why I need Gwyneth Paltrow, really. Have left me to that solitude, which suitsĪbstruser musings Īnd so forth. The owlet’s cryĬame loud - and hark, again! loud as before. I have to admit, ever since I read this story, I have trouble reading Coleridge’s poems without inserting a lot of inappropriate giggling? Like, He was friends with the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who was also in his 20s at this time, and Coleridge would come over and they’d both just get shitfaced on laughing gas. So after the first time he tried nitrous oxide, Davy was like, “Hm … I think … I must experiment upon myself … again!” And then a little while later he was like, “I think … I had better continue experimenting upon myself … for a while!” But he pressed on, like, “Of course, for the good of humanity, for the expansion of knowledge, I must continue to huff whatever random drugs come out of my random drug machine. He did carbon monoxide one day and almost killed himself. They had a machine in the basement that they could use to synthesize nitrous gases, and Humphrey’s job was basically just to make gases and then inhale them to see what they did.įun gig. He was in his early 20s, working at a medical institute in Bristol, England. So laughing gas was first studied seriously, if that’s the word, by this young chemist called Humphry Davy-an incredibly important figure in the history of science, and also, based on name alone, unequivocally the best possible person to discover laughing gas. Mary Shelley writes Frankenstein in there at one point. And it’s just-KPPPPPPPRW-heads in wigs exploding all over the place. There’s a moment where this eminent late 18th-century astronomer looks up at the night sky and realizes that because of the distances between the stars, their light might take years to reach Earth, so that when you look at the stars, you’re actually looking back in time. It’s just page after page of dudes in wigs going up in hot air balloons and getting struck by lightning. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. The book is called The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science, by the beloved English biographer Richard Holmes. I know this because it’s a topic in one of my favorite books of the last, oh, hundred million years. I do know a little bit about the origin of laughing gas. Hang on-did this actually happen? Am I remembering something that actually happened? Did Goop sell a home nitrous valve at some point? Am I on laughing gas right now, if I kind of remember this?Ĭonrad, if you can hear me, I need a shepherd, please. That company’s like the Sharper Image of bad decisions. Maybe I just think Goop would sell the best upmarket laughing-gas hookahs. And you’d be like, “OK … I have an oxide shepherd. He’ll be your oxide shepherd today.”Ĭonrad’s facial expression wouldn’t change at all. Like she’d gesture calmly toward a serious-looking man in a black spa uniform and say, “This is Conrad. I just feel like Gwyneth could really curate the bejesus out of a premium laughing-gas experience. Number two, I think I would like to take laughing gas in, like … Gwyneth Paltrow’s living room? I have some laughing-gas-related stipulations, I guess you could say, for the universe. Many rivers do we float upon as we wend our way through this mortal existence, and those rivers have many tributaries, and some of those tributaries lead to a shore where there’s like a blue fire-extinguisher-looking canister thing, and a gas mask, and someone saying, “Here, put this on.” ![]() ![]() Life simply has not maneuvered me into a nitrous-oxide-adjacent situation yet. I’d kinda like to try it? Never had the opportunity. Today’s story involves Joe Gaetjens and an assembly of amateur American players making history in 1950. Every Wednesday, until the end of Qatar 2022, we’ll publish an adapted version of each 22 Goals episode. ![]() The Ringer ’s 22 Goals: The Story of the World Cup, a podcast by Brian Phillips, tells the story of some of the most iconic goals and players in the history of the men’s FIFA World Cup. ![]()
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