The Dead Media Notebook (14 page)

The ad does not say anything about the content of the VidScan paperless magazine, but given the ad’s placement in MONDO 2000 and its hype of the technology involved, I expect it was to have been aimed at a tech-head audience.

The ad promises that anyone who sends in the questionnaire and a SASE would receive a subscription to the newsletter INSIDE VIDSCAN, including the table of contents for the VidScan magazine and a transmission schedule. The address was (is?): Future Media—Inside VidScan PO Box 11632 Berkeley, CA 94701

I never did send in my questionnaire, and I never heard anything about VidScan after this advertisement. I don’t know if an issue of the paperless magazine was ever broadcast. Certainly today VidScan is an idea whose time has gone—paperless magazines are here, thanks to the internet and the World Wide Web, with far greater capabilities than flipping frame-by-frame through a videotape. But the idea was an interesting one in 1989.

It would have been a great to see the infrastructure of a stagnant medium—television—give birth to some strange new mode of publishing.

Source Mondo 2000 Fall 1989 issue

From Dan Howland

Pirate tactics (side 2, band 2) (Original source: Peter Dawson, “Fifty Years of Song”, Hutchinson & Co Ltd)

“In order to get popular songs recorded by artists who possessed recording voices, it was necessary to carry out a fair amount of pirate tactics. Songs had to be taken down in some way or other as they were being sung, either at a music hall or theater. A miniature recording phonograph was taken into the theater or hall to record the melody. A stenographer took down the words verbatim. It was sometimes necessary to make three or four visits before a satisfactory result was obtained. From these records and the stenographer’s notes an orchestration was made, and an artist selected to make the record.” [This “miniature recording phonograph” must have been small enough to be hidden on the pirate’s person. How small were the cylinders and the horn? Did they fit, say, in a top hat? Note that these live bootleg recordings were not released, but were used to re-create the performance by someone other than the original artist. It was difficult enough to make a decent recording under the ideal conditions of a recording studio, let alone on remote.] Neophone records (side 2, band 9) (Original source: Joe Batten, “Joe Batten’s Book”, Barrie & Rockliffe Ltd)

“Neophone records were made of papier-mache, and were advertised as ‘Warranted Indestructible’. To prove this, Dr. McKaylis (sic?), the inventor of the Neophone Indestructible Record, would assemble a group of potential buyers at the top of a four floor building, then standing at the corner of Worship Street and the City Road, and demonstrate by throwing a record out of the open window into the street below. A boy then dashed down the stairs and retrieved the record. This was then played, and as it emitted its normal noises, this was clear evidence that it was none the worse for its rough treatment. But, although customers did not buy records to drop on the heads of unsuspecting pedestrians, yet all might have gone well had not the records, when displayed in shop windows, curled up in the sun and assumed pathetic, surrealistic shapes.” [Not only is it dead media, but it curled up and died.] Talking Tapes, the records of the future (side 2, band 19)

“Will the talking machine record of the future be made on a tape? A number of inquirers are asking themselves and others that question now. In Poulsen’s Telegraphone the sounds are recorded on and reproduced on a metal strip. Could a talking machine record be made in the same way?” The Multiplex Grand Graphophone (side 2, band 23)

“The Multiplex Grand Graphophone built for the Paris Exposition of 1900 monopolizes a large share of public attention. This is the largest talking machine ever constructed. The cylinder is of giant size, and there are three recordings on each cylinder. There are three horns which amplify the sound, which comes simultaneously from the three reproducers tracking ‘round the same cylinder. The machine is constructed so that the music may be divided into parts; one horn playing bass or contralto, the second, tenor, and the third, a piano or orchestral accompaniment.” The Photophone (side 4, band 15) “Professor A. O. Rankin (sic?) foreshadows a new sort of gramophone which will be known as the Photophone. It is really an optical gramophone in which a beam of light is photographed onto moving film. The fluctuations of this beam of light give a record of sound, so that the film actually records the words or song transmitted, which can be produced at leisure by simply passing the film at the same speed between a source of light and a selenium cell connected up with a battery and a telephone receiver.” [Some of this documentary LP set consists of period gramophone and phonograph recordings from the 1890’s to the 1920’s; the items transcribed here were read by actors when the documentary was made in 1970. Some of these items have specific citations in the liner notes, while others are listed under the following blanket explanation:]

“The majority of the spoken items on this set of records have been taken from contemporary newspapers and journals, including ‘Scientific American,’ ‘The Times,’ ‘Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper.’ ‘Punch,’ ‘New York World,’ ‘The Talking Machine News,’ ‘The Phonogram,’ ‘The Sound Wave,’ ‘Musical Opinion,’ ‘The Daily Telegraph,’ ‘The Daily Mail,’ ‘The Standard’ and ‘The Phonorecord.’”

Source The Wonder of the Age, Mr. Edison’s New Talking Phonograph, a boxed set of two 12 LP records with separate sheet of notes, Argo, ZPR-122-3, (P) 1970, Great Britain

From Stefan Jones

If you have ever read a comic book, then you almost certainly know about the Johnson Smith Company. They’re the folks that have been placing jam-packed advertisements in the backs of DC and Marvel comics since the dawn of time. You know: the ones that push whoopee cushions, fake dog crap, ventriloquism kits and glow-in-the-dark yo- yos. In addition to supplying generations of class clowns with stink bombs and squirting daisy buttoneers, Johnson Smith’s mail order business offers more respectable educational and recreational items. I recently reread my reprint edition of the 1929 Johnson Smith catalog—and a genuine copy of the 1947 catalog that my brother picked off a garbage heap—with the intention of finding some examples of Dead Media. I was somewhat disappointed, particularly in the 1947 catalog, but I did find some items of interest in the 1929 reprint edition. Note: I’d love to supply page numbers, but there are none. The reprint is at least 300 pages long, with no index or table or contents. I am still finding new things after owning the thing for over a decade. Many of the media we are familiar with today were already well established by 1929.

The catalog offers: Two portable, spring-driven phonographs. Nothing radical here. If it weren’t for the crank, one of them would look like the Beany & Cecil portable my sister and I got when we were toddlers. Two movie projectors (“Be a Movie King. Oh Boy! Some Sport! Surprise the bunch—have a barrel o’ fun!” Keystone Moviegraph, No. 6575, $5.75; Keystone Rewind Model Moving Picture Machine, No. 6198, $12.50. ). These had electrical lamps, but were hand-cranked. The kits came with a free roll of film (Johnson Smith’s choice, apparently), tickets, badges and arm bands for the crew, and a “U-Draw- Em” slide for announcements.

Both models could also be used to project “lantern slides.” Johnson Smith sold “Extra Reels of Movie Film” for $5.00. These were
generic
pieces of motion picture entertainment; the buyer got what the folks in Racine had on hand. (Note that if these potluck offerings were on nitrate stock, an unlucky junior theatre operator would be getting bombs even if the features on the reels happened to be good.) Interestingly, the projectors—and all other electrical devices in the catalog—had power cords that ended in screw-type plugs shaped like the base of a light bulb. Two opaque projectors. (“The Mirrorscope or Projecting Lantern: The MIRRORSCOPE is a great improvement upon magic lanterns because you have an UNLIMITED SUPPLY OF PICTURES free of cost. Post-Cards, photographs, engravings from illustrated papers and, in fact, any opaque object, such as moving works of a watch, living insects, and so on, can be projected upon the screen in exactly the same manner as the transparent slides in a magic lantern.”) The cheaper model (No. 6011, $5.00) had one “carbon electric” bulb; the fancier two. Stereoscope slides were still around.

A two-page spread invited browsers to “See the Wonders of the World Through THE VISTA CHROMOSCOPE. Magnified Life-Like Views and Scenes of America, Europe, The Holy Land, The World War, etc. Interesting! Instructive! [DRUM ROLL PLEASE!] Educational!” Despite the hype, this appears to be a standard stereoscope. Its chief advantage was that it was cheap

(No. 6608, Vista Chromoscope (without the Views), $1.50)
Stereo pairs, also offered in the catalog, cost $.35 for a set of 25. Thirty-nine sets are offered. They range from #48101, Historical Spots of America, to #48139, Big Cities of Europe. Some of the sets caused me to raise an eyebrow

(#48108, “A Trip to the Philippines with Uncle Sam’s Soldier Boys,” #48121, “French Cook and Comic Lover Series. No. 1”)
Hmmm.

Near the beginning of the catalog is a small section devoted to musical instruments. Most of these are variants of the kazoo and harmonica. The capper: two nifty items that qualify as genuine dead media: The Rolmonica and The Chromatic Rolmonica.

(No. 4470, THE ROLMONICA, Complete with 1 Roll, $1.50)

The engraving shows a flat box, opened clamshell style, with a projecting mouthpiece and two metal crank handles. A sliver of a roll is visible within; it looks quite a lot like a small player piano roll.

“ROLMONICA The Pocket Player Piano Mouth Organ that Plays with a Music Roll ANYONE CAN PLAY IT WITHOUT PRACTICE A Wide Selection of Rolls to Choose From A VERITABLE POCKET SIZE JAZZ-BAND!”

“Rolmonica is an automatic harmonica, that plays a music roll just like a player piano. It is a whole brass band all in one—the biggest sensation of the musical world in the last few years.” [etc.]

“The Rolmonica has a very simple mechanism, yet so strongly built that it may be entrusted without hesitation to children. The volume can be regulated by the user. When sounding at is [sic] full power reproducing a band performance, it can be almost deafening in the strength of its tones, yet it will deliver with perfect clearness a pianissimo passage in an instrumental solo.” [I imagine parents regretting the Rolmonica’s sturdy construction after a few nights of “Turkey in the Straw” played at “deafening” power.]

Over a hundred rolls are offered at $.10 a piece. They range from the familiar (“Swanee River,” “Yankee Doodle,”) to the obscure (“It’s Unanimous Now,” “True Blue Lou,” “Chant of the Jungle”). It’s possible that a
lot
more than the hundred or so titles shown in the reprint version were available; the numbering scheme runs from 201 to 263 on one page and 477 to 536 on the second page. A significant number of the popular songs of the day may have been transcribed on these things.

(No. 4471, THE NEW CHROMATIC 16-NOTE ROLMONICA, $2.50)

The first part of the copy, verbatim: “The tremendous success and popularity of the Rolmonica has induced the manufacturers to bring out this new 16- note CHROMATIC ROLMONICA. This new model is larger than the $1.50 12-note model described on the following page and is ENTIRELY CHROMATIC. [Do not confuse this with cheap imitations that only have a thin
veneer
of chromatic!] “This enables you to get a larger range of music, to play in various keys, and to get the beautiful tremolo effects as produced on the regular harmonica, which is impossible with the lower-priced Rolmonica. The CHROMATIC ROLMONICA is a bigger and better Rolmonica, still built to conveniently slip into the pocket upon the same happy principle of the player-harmonica operating with a music roll, but with certain additions and refinements of its tone varieties and combinations, so that now in the CHROMATIC ROLMONICA you have an instrument that enables you to play your favorite composition, either classical or jazz, with all the trimmings.” [If you can read that last sentence of copy out loud without taking a breath, YOU may have the lung capacity required to take full advantage of the CHROMATIC ROLMONICA!]

Only sixty rolls are available for the Chromatic Rolmonica; they are apparently incompatible with those made for the lesser model (“Do not confuse these with the Rolls for the ordinary Rolmonica.”) Judging from the trademarked Rolmonica logo proudly displayed on the top of the page, these were gadgets with name recognition.

The Rolmonica company also had heavy hitters pitching product for them: In one of the very few photographs in the entire catalog, five of the early Little Rascals are seen blowing and cranking away.

Their ring-eyed dog, Pete, is seen cowering at the bottom of the picture, a paw over one ear.

Source: The Whole Fun Catalogue of 1929
, Chelsea House, New York, 1979 (ISBN 0-87754-079-9)

From Bill Wallace

“A most beautiful toy that demonstrates synthetic speech is the Speaking Picture Book, made in Germany in 1895. The mechanism, which produces nine different animal sounds, consists of seven bellows with complicated flute pipes with stops reminiscent of the Kratzenstein pipes. When the cover is opened, one reads a verse about a cow, sees a picture of it, and follows an arrow pointing to a string. When the string is pulled, a realistic moo sounds out.

“This Victorian toy, primitive though it is, is probably still the best synthetic speech toy to reach the market, and was certainly the predecessor of the Vocoder and of modern electronic voice synthesizers.”

There is also some discussion of toy animals that emit accurate sounds when the toy is turned or squeezed—crude examples can still be found today, but the variety and accuracy of older specimens probably represent a lost art.