Ship in a Bottle

February 20, 2007 6:07 PM

Got a few hundred hours to kill? (pdf) A Ship in a Bottle is a type of impossible bottle. No, not this Ship in a Bottle. Have you ever wondered how it gets in there? Or thought about building one yourself? Here's some tips and tricks. If you are not mechanically inclined, how about making a PSP version? Or, heck, just go buy one.
posted by figment of my conation (10 comments total)

This man gave my wife (before we met) a ship is a bottle that he had hand made especially for her. Said he didn't expect anything in return.

Unrequited, introverted, obsessive, sad?
posted by wilful at 6:14 PM on February 20, 2007

This post reminds me how awful "The Good Shepherd" was.
posted by phaedon at 6:17 PM on February 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

Harry Eng's bottles are pretty mind-blowing.

More here.
posted by gottabefunky at 6:19 PM on February 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

I was going to post a Harry Eng link as well, but gottabefunky beat me to it. Now THOSE will make you think...
posted by mosk at 6:51 PM on February 20, 2007

I was actually excited for a second that my dream of a ship in a bottle game for the PSP had been realized.
posted by saraswati at 7:19 PM on February 20, 2007

I recommend clicking around the "how it gets in there" page--it's got lots of incredible ships. I especially like this enormous bottled version of the USS John F. Kennedy.

Great post! Also, excellent use of the "scaryfirstFPP" tag.
posted by Upton O'Good at 7:27 PM on February 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

Put an impossible bottle inside itself: Acme Klein bottles. Or, put yourself in one.
posted by cenoxo at 8:00 PM on February 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

I only allow genies in my bottles.
posted by sparkletone at 8:45 PM on February 20, 2007

There is a magician named Paul Harris who was good friends with Harry Eng, and in one of Harris' books, he describes Eng's method of getting a boxed deck of cards into a Jack Daniel's bottle. After the breathless description of the ridiculously hardcore feat -- never mind the much more impossible things that Eng has squeezed into bottles -- Harris adds the following quote, which has always been one of my favorites (having had some personal experience with performing hobbyist sleight-of-hand):

"Sometimes to do astonishing things you actually have to be able to do things that most people can't do."

(First ever comment. Hi, MeFi!)
posted by sappidus at 9:34 PM on February 20, 2007 [3 favorites]

Great post, and a great addition of those Eng bottles!
posted by OmieWise at 6:12 AM on February 21, 2007