Quote:Life Magazine in 1953 headlined its article, “Machine-Age Revenge—Californian’s mechanical clown is built to accomplish nothing.” It went on to say:

The good earth and green thumb are tools enough for Lawrence Wahlstrom of Los Angeles who, in his calling of landscape gardener, is more immune than most to the tyranny of efficient machine—machines that clamor to write his letters, eliminate distances, grind out his product or wake him with music. But for Mr. Wahlstrom, immunity is not enough. When he gets home he slips into his workshop and takes the offensive, working earnestly with piles of nuts and gears. The resulting machine is his own personal triumph over efficiency. It has no name but 700 moving parts. It is cheap to manufacture, economical to operate and it runs smoothly without a hitch or backlash. More important, Mr. Wahlstrom has made sure this one device will never speed or complicate his comfortable way of life; a captive mass of cogs, it will start and stop, but otherwise it accomplishes utterly nothing.

The machine, and Wahlstrom, had a flirtation with fame in the 1950’s, and Wolf has a scrapbook detailing more than 25 television appearances including gigs on the Garry Moore Show as well as spots with Bob Hope and Art Linkletter.

From time to time, Wahlstrom called the machine a Flying Saucer Detector, or a Smog Eradicator. Obviously, it did none of those things—it does nothing but entertain, the inventor was prone to admit.

The Do Nothing Machine

By Keith Christensen, Tabor, SD

It’s wonderful, stupendous, colossal

It wakes up all of my loves

The most wonderful gadget ever

Now what would you say that it does?

It has big gears and small gears and levers

It has a governor too

This machine is downright exciting

I wonder what all it can do?

There’re seven hundred gears to amaze you

There’s even a flashing red light

Things go this way and that way and new ways

It’s just a most wonderful sight.

A magnificent kind of invention

A wonderful thing to behold

The most beautiful thing in the world

It’s a do nothing machine I am told.

The Internet Craftsmanship Museum Presents: Lawrence Wahlstrom