Hot Slut Of The Day!
Magic Plantern!
Growing up, we had an extremely exquisite touch lamp that my mom bought at the swap meet, and my little gay mind blew into a cloud of glitter every time I turned it on or off by simply touching it. The future was then! But little did I know that there was an even more magical work of gorgeous lamp art that existed back then. Up until a week ago or so, I had no idea that back in the 1970s, a true genius and purveyor of sophisticated home decor created the gorgeous love child of a planter and a lamp. Magic Plantern was born, and it was a lamp in a planter that you could turn on by touching the plant’s leaves. What in “if Mother Nature graduated from MIT” wizardry…
There was more than one plant lamp (plamp?). There was Plant-A-Lamp and today’s HSOTD, Magic Plantern. The way that it worked is that you’d plant your plant of choice into Magic Plantern’s planter, and then you’d be able to turn your lamp on and off by touching a leaf or flower. Here’s a description of that magnificent 70s wonder:
Touch anywhere on the leaves or flowers and the Magic Plantern lights up! Sounds incredible, but it’s true. Place live plants in the Magic Plantern and they become a living part of the lamp. There’s no switch. In 1-way models, touch the plants… the light turns on. Touch again… the light turns off. In 3-way models, touch 3 times in succession and watch the bright-ness increase 3 times. Touch again, and the light turns off.
And here’s it in action in the TikTok that introduced me to this luminous marvel!
@midcenturymillennial The 1970s Magic Plantern is next level 💡✨ #thrifted
Believe it or not, Magic Plantern didn’t come with a trained mouse in genie drag that stood by an electrical socket and unplugged the lamp every time you touched a leaf. The way it worked is that there was a metal plate at the bottom of Magic Plantern’s planter, and it attached to a metal pole. So conductivity or something allowed the light to turn on when you touched the leaf. I don’t exactly know since I spent every high school science class in dreamland.
It seems like Magic Planterns are hard to find nowadays, and that may be a good thing for me. I don’t need one in my life. Just a few big tokes and I’d probably find myself spending hours upon hours turning my Magic Plantern on and off with the touch of a leaf as my mind continually jizzed out loads of wonder. And honestly, my dog has been through enough and doesn’t need to be transported to an extremely annoying strobe-filled rave where the only music is me gasping at the magic of it all.
Pic: AptDeco