The Dead Media Notebook (32 page)

From Bill Burns

Here with the salient points: The Wilcox-Gay Recordio was available nearly 50 years ago, and could record either to tape or “hard disc.” The “discs” in question were not digital, but hard wax or lacquer phonograph records. During the late 1940’s the Wilcox-Gay Corp. of Charlotte, Michigan, manufactured the Recordio 1C10.

This was a unique device, part tape recorder and part disc cutter. Originally intended for music students, it was equally functional for touring pro musicians or in the home.

Disc recorders of the day could only cut audio directly to disc, but the Recordio allowed recording to tape first, then a transfer to a 10-inch, 78 rpm record blank. The tape could be erased and re-used, but it was also possible to make and edit a tape recording before committing it to wax, all inside one machine.

Advertising copy for the Wilcox-Gay Recordio hyped the device as having “full-range, hi-fidelity reproduction,” although it most likely topped off at 5 to 7 kHz at best. To compare, the professional “broadcast quality” RCA 73-B disc lathe had 10 kHz response.

The ad copy went on to boast a full hour of recording time on one slow-moving five-inch reel. The Recordio could be used as a phonograph or PA system, and could record from microphone or telephone.

The icing on the cake was its transportability. The 27-pound unit could be taken anywhere.

[Apparently there was also a coin- driven public version, “the Wilcox-Gay Coin Recordio.”]

Source: Alan R. Peterson, Radio World for September 4, 1996 In the column called A Look Back.

From Bruce Sterling

[I suspect that this little Czech theatre’s aging combination of film, theater and ballet classifies as “dead media,” even if the Laterna Magika theater is not quite so dead as its namesake the magic lantern. If your country has been through forty years of deep-frozen cold war and is being revolutionized by a surrealist playwright, perhaps a theater full of not- quite-dead media makes a very sensible headquarters.]

“
Laterna Magika: Civic Forum was looking for a space where they could take shelter. The visual artists offered the U Recickych Gallery, where Civic Forum was in fact headquartered for the first few days, but it was a small space, and suddenly someone came up with the Laterna Magika (the Magic Lantern theater).

The Prague theater that uses a multiscene format, a combination of film, theater, and ballet. The theater was a great success at the 1958 World’s Fair in Brussels and again at Expo 67 in Montreal.” “I had never been in the dressing room at the Laterna Magika. It was a hot labyrinth with no air. There was practically no ventilation, and everyone smoked like chimneys.

When we went there nine months later with the president of Brazil, who had asked to see the place that had been the headquarters of the revolution, I could not understand how we had managed to survive there. In the largest dressing room, about three by four yards, the staff, about ten people, held its meetings. Costumes, ballet tutus, and quaint monsters were hanging everywhere. It smelled like make-up, and there were mirrors on all sides.

I could not get used to seeing myself everywhere, and I started to feel a little paranoid.

“The ballet dancers buttered bread, sliced salami, and boiled coffee. The whole Laterna Magika was working for the revolution. Everything was flurried and feverish, but people were unbelievably kind and decent to each other.

In the Laterna Magika, everyone moved quickly and purposefully. If someone frowned, he saw it instantly in the mirror.
They worked long into the night, laughing often. From time to time, it was as if Havel had written an absurdist play that he starred in and directed. I will never forget that he took me with them and I was part of almost everything that happened. Once again I had the exhilirating feeling that I was in the right place at the right time, that this was the best place in the world, and that I did not want to be anywhere else.
”

“On Sunday, December 3, Vaclav went outside for the first time in fourteen days. He and Olga went for a walk in Pruhonice park. When he returned to the Laterna Magika underground, he said, ‘At last, outside under the high and wide heavens, I realized that this is for real and it is definitely not a dream.’

“For a while, time settled down, it slowed down to a realistic pace, only to run ahead again, still faster. I thought that, to a certain extent, the atmosphere of unreality was the fault of the underground labyrinth, of the Laterna Magika where amid artificial light, mirrors, and a limited air supply, everything took on a magic, brand-new form. We only saw the light of day on city squares and Letna Plain. Otherwise we did not crawl out from underground.

“At one of the first meetings with the authorities, Vaclav asked about allocating a building for Civic Forum. In the end, they alloted us the building that had belonged to the Union of Czechoslovak-Soviet Friendship on the corner of Wenceslas and Jungmann Square, the Spalicek building. Here, everything seemed to be more real.”

Source VACLAV HAVEL: THE AUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHY by Eda Kriseova. Translated by Caleb Crain. St Martin’
s Press, 1993. ISBN 0-312-10317-4

From Bill Crawford

A description of smoke signals among the Karankawa.

“They are very sagacious and cautious; and they send messages by smoke signals, some signals calling them together, others warning them to flee, others giving notice of anything new. The proper Smoke for each being given, as soon as one gets the message he passes it to another; and he, in turn, gives it to those who follow; and, in a very short time, whatever news there is has been made known and forwarned in the province. More on the Karankawa.

“On clear days, generally at noon, they signalled news by columns of Smoke from their camp Fires which were started from small pits in the ground, every Indian having a Fire in front of his lodge. The column of Smoke was made to ascend in more than twenty different ways, sometimes diverging or curling in spirals, sometimes rising up in parallel lines. Some looked like the letters V and Y others resembled spiral lines, or two parallel zigzag lines moving upward, or twin columns standing close to each other.

Smoke signals and the Apache.

“Smokes are of various kinds, each one significant of a particular object. A sudden puff, rising into a graceful column from the mountain heights, and almost as suddenly losing its identity by dissolving into the rarified atmosphere of those heights, simply indicates the presence of a strange party upon the plains below; but if those columns are rapidly multiplied and repeated, they serve as a warning to show that the travelers are well armed and numerous. If a steady Smoke is maintained for some time, the object is to collect the scattered bands of savages at some designated point, with hostile intentions, should it be practicable. These signals are made at night, in the same order, by the use of Fires, which being kindled, are either alternately exposed and shrouded from view, or suffered to burn steadily as occasion may require.”

Source: Diary of a Visit of Inspection of the Texas Missions Made by Fray Gaspar Jose de Solis in the Year

From Bill Wallace

SLATE WRITING

“Slates, prepared and unprepared, have played an important part in the spiritualistic racket. An unprepared slate against the under surface of a table by the medium’s fingers, his thumb resting on the top of the table. Yet the slate will be handed to you in a few moments with scrawled writing on it. The medium uses a thimble arrangement with a piece of slate pencil attached to write the message with one of his fingers.”

“Again, a slate and a piece of chalk may be placed on the floor under the table. Although the subject may hold the medium’s hands across the top of the table and place his feet on the medium’s feet under the table, writing appears. The medium has simply slipped his foot out of the loose-fitting shoe which has a steel toe—leaving the subject with the impression that he still has the foot under control—and written the message with his toes, the front of his sock being cut out to permit their free use.”

“A false, paper-thin flap of silicate has been used to cover writing on a slate. Held under the table, the flap is slipped onto a shelf and the slate produced with the message written on it.”

THE REACHING ROD

“An indispensible tool of the medium is the reaching rod. It is used to pick up spirit trumpets and tambourines, to float ghosts about the room and to aid in the production of countless other phenomena. Constructed on the fishing- rod telescope principle, it can be folded into the size and form of a thick fountain pen. Extended, it may reach as far as ten feet. The end is generally equipped with a small hook or pincers device to be used in picking up objects.”

SPIRIT MUSIC

“To cause spirit music, one medium used an old style Swiss music box fastened under the table.”

“Still other methods of getting music from the air are the concealed musician method and the radio phonograph method.”

TRUMPET SEANCES

“When the mediums learn that spirits could be made to whisper through trumpets or megaphones instead of dumbly rapping out “yes” and “no” on a table or wall panel, psychic communication took a vast step forward.”

“Sometimes a small trumpet not over eight inches in length stands in the middle of the table. A circle is formed about the table, with hands clasped and the medium’s feet under control. When the lights go out, spirits speak through the trumpet. The medium has merely leaned forward and picked it up with his teeth by the suitably constructed mouthpiece, whispering his messages through it.”

“At times a length of garden hose is put into the trumpet, by which it can then be elevated; and the medium, talking through the hose, produces whispers at a greater distance.”

“Sometimes a medium dares to give a light seance, though this is not often as it is too risky. In such cases the principle of radio is used, coils being secreted under rugs and elsewhere.”

SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHS

“Double exposure is the method mostly used, the spirit being previously photographed against a black background of velvet or some similar material that will not reflect light. Instead of a complete double exposure however, some are made by exposing one-half of the plate for the spirit and the other half for the sitter. A trick slide is used with such a method.”

“Figures are sometimes painted with sulphate of quinine on the back screen. While such figures are not visible to the eye, they appear on the photograph directly behind the sitter.”

“A medium may lay the plates you bring on an innocent- looking table top and print the spirit on them before placing them in the camera. A ghost face is painted in lead on the undersurface of the tabletop, and it is printed on the plate by X-rays. Often the plates thus treated are not even exposed, the face appearing merely through the medium’s having prayed over them.”

“Another method . . . is one in which the medium palms a much reduced copy of the photograph of the spirit. This picture, painted with luminous paint, is transfered to the plate by the medium simply bringing the two into contact for a moment.”

“ . . . a special flashlight with the message written on the lens may be pressed secretly against the plate at an opportune moment, thus giving the appearance of a photographed spirit message.”

SPIRIT READINGS

One of the tricks of the medium is to answer sealed questions.” (Several paragraphs describe methods for reading answers using sleight-of-hand.)

“The same principle is employed when the subject places the card upon which he has written his question between the leaves of a Bible. The center of the back and most of the pages have been cut out, permitting the medium to read the question as he did through the opening in the card in the above trick. But this trick becomes more effective when performed in the following manner. The question is written on a piece of paper and slipped into an envelope. The Bible, hollowed out as above, has two batteries and two three- volt lamps in it, and a piece of glass cemented into the opening in the back binding. Under the pretext of writing a birth date or a name on it, the medium places the envelope on the Bible, which he has been reading, for more solid support. Having actually placed it on the glass window, he switches on the lamps and reads the question through the envelope.”

Source: An Exposure of Mediums’ Tricks and Rackets, by C. Samuel Campbell. LITTLE BLUE BOOK NO. 1746. (Edited

From Manoj Kasichainula

The They Might Be Giants album, Factory Showroom, has a track entitled I Can Hear You which was recorded at the Edison Historic Site on a wax cylinder phonograph without any electricity. Here is the what the members of the band (John and John) say about the song.

“This track was recorded at the Edison Historic Site in West Orange, New Jersey on an Edison wax cylinder recorder. We performed this and other songs in front of a small audience, singing and playing acoustic instruments as loud as we could into a pair of enormous metal cones, the larger of which was perhaps twelve feet long, which fed the sound into a hundred year old non-electrical recording device created by Thomas Edison in the 1890s. The wax cylinder recorder carves a groove into a rotating tube of softened wax with a needle that is vibrating from the sound pressure collected at the small end of the cone. That is the best we can explain it. It looked very cool.”

The recording doesn’t sound as bad as I would have expected, having never heard a wax cylinder recording.

Source: They Might Be Giants web press release

From Lauri Christopher Gardner

I remember when I was in the U.S in 1987, I played a game called “Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future.” It was a game that came on VHS videotape. You used a starship-shaped gun to fire at the screen; when you were hit, you “died,” causing the canopy, pilot, and the chair to eject, thereby ending the game. In many ways this game was heads above others, especially considering how good the graphics were.