Zilch

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Zilch

Postby Enzo » Sat Dec 09, 2017 3:28 am

I was recalling something from my hippie days recently. Well, really my days in the street/drug culture in the 1960s, as I suspect I still am a hippie. We called it a "zilch", but I assumed it had many names. Apparently a lot of folks called it a zilch.

You take one of those long filmy bags like the dry cleaner puts around your clean suit. Now stretch it lengthwise and roll it a bit to make it vaguely rope like, then put a knot in it every 6 inches or so. Now you have a sort of rope ladder four or five feet long.

This is best done outdoors with calm winds. Over a campfire is fun. Indoors it is done over a bucket of water. Hang the rope from something. We tied it to a wire coat hanger and hooked that over a tree branch or a light fixture. Light the bottom end on fire. Watch the fun.

AS the plastic slowly burns, little beads of burning plastic drip off the end. As they drop, the flame oscillates in the breeze, making a VWEEEEP sound. Very ray gun. What I just found was not only do a lot of people call them a zilch, but there is even a you tube. Now imagine this with dilution of the pupils and expanded consciousness.

Watch on youtube.com
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Re: Zilch

Postby Lance » Sat Dec 09, 2017 4:51 am

Wow, man...
No trees were killed in the posting of this message.
However, a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.

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Re: Zilch

Postby Heid the Ba » Sat Dec 09, 2017 5:29 pm

Hmm, I just got dry cleaning back . . .
Get it up ye.
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Re: Zilch

Postby g-one » Sat Dec 09, 2017 7:43 pm

As kids we used to do similar, with every plastic bottle or container as we burnt the garbage. We would just hook the plastic on a stick.
I remember the sound very well, but never heard it referred to as 'zilch' though it makes sense.
Never tried the 'altered states' version either.
Did you do "purple city"?
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Re: Zilch

Postby tubeswell » Sat Dec 09, 2017 10:04 pm

I never did this.

Only homemade gunpowder (with varying degrees of success).
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Re: Zilch

Postby Enzo » Sun Dec 10, 2017 5:40 am

Oh yeah, I made black powder and other stuff. Potassium Nitrate and sugar? I seem to recall?

I heard of putting a milk jug on the end of a tree branch and lighting it.


In my day, the sought after commodity was Owsley Blue Cheer, which I found once. No purple city. We had red flats, blue double domes, and white double domes, and of course blotter.
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Re: Zilch

Postby g-one » Sun Dec 10, 2017 5:35 pm

Sorry I wasn't clear, 'purple city' wasn't a variety.
You could do it while tripping though, and that's probably where it came from.
It involved staring at yellow lights and then looking around to see everything had turned purple. Here, the province's Legislative Building was lit at night with yellow and that's where it was usually done. Not sure if they still use those lights, it's been awhile. ;)
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Re: Zilch

Postby tubeswell » Sun Dec 10, 2017 5:56 pm

Enzo wrote:Oh yeah, I made black powder and other stuff. Potassium Nitrate and sugar? I seem to recall?


I used to use potassium nitrate (available from the local town chemist over the counter in the 1970s), powdered sulphur and charcoal powder, all mixed up and stuffed into a test tube with a bit of clay sealing the end. Sometimes it would bang (which resulted in a euphoric sense of fulfilment), other times just fizz like a smoke bomb (disappointment), other times nothing would happen (resulting in alarming trepidation). How many unexploded test tubes packed with home-brewed gunpowder there still are on that old farm is anyone's guess.
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Re: Zilch

Postby Lance » Sun Dec 10, 2017 6:04 pm

tubeswell wrote:How many unexploded test tubes packed with home-brewed gunpowder there still are on that old farm is anyone's guess.

42?
No trees were killed in the posting of this message.
However, a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.

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Set a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life.
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Re: Zilch

Postby Heid the Ba » Sun Dec 10, 2017 9:01 pm

All of the Katie.
Get it up ye.
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Re: Zilch

Postby Enzo » Mon Dec 11, 2017 6:27 am

That is classic black powder, tubes.
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