Pretty amazing feat. But I do wonder if you guys think this is a pure balancing act as it purports to be, or if there’s some kind of subtle trick to it. I can believe it’s purely a balancing act, but am I being too credulous?
One thing that makes me just a teensy bit suspicious is the very end where she takes the feather off the end of the structure and it all collapses. I don’t know, could that feather really have been that crucial? And why does the central stand keep standing? And does the little flourish she gives when plucking it hide a push or a pull that is doing the real toppling work?
Damn, that almost put me to sleep. Very snoozy. But, impressive.
Well, the stand has a flat base and was shown to be self-supporting earlier on. So, I guess it just wasn’t knocked down. And I guess if the feather was the “starting block” then removing it could topple the whole thing. Anyway, seems pretty plausible to me.
It’s all balancing, and the feather is crucial. Removing the feather takes the first stick out of balance, then that one is out of balance, then the next one is out of balance, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
All of the individual pieces had a downward curve to them, so the center of gravity would be below the point at which it was supported. Like a pendulum, if it was moved it would tend to return to the center.
Every time I see something like this, I think about how much it would suck if you messed up.
Still, I do wonder if it’s a bit easier than it looks. Not because the feather destabilized it, but because she acted like she had to just as careful grabbing the feather as doing any of the other work. As if, if she grabbed it wrong, the structure might stay.
Not saying it still would not be incredibly hard, or that there’s any real “trick,” just that the structure is more stable than it looks.