The Dead Media Notebook (30 page)

The audio cassette, running at normal compact cassette speed, also contained the audio part of the show, delivering mono sound to the PIP’s built-in speaker. When a motion picture sequence was needed, the audio compact cassette player delivered a corresponding sequence of pulses, at up to, say, 18 frames per second. When no motion picture was needed there were no pulses, and the PIP behaved like a slide-projector, displaying individual frames. It could also show short animated sequences at any necessary frame rate.

With the PIP, one compact audio cassette and a Super- 8-film cassette could create a slide-and-film-and-audio show of, say, half an hour.

Source: Personal experience

From Bruce Sterling

[This excerpt is from a Mark Twain sketch dated November 18, 1865, and entitled “’Mark Twain’ on the Launch of the Steamer ‘Capital’: I Get Mr Muff Nickerson to Go with Me and Assist in Reporting the Great Steamboat Launch. He Relates the Interesting History of the Travelling Panoramist.” The travelling panorama was quite different from its contemporary the cyclorama. The portable panorama did not make use of visual tricks of perspective and did not surround the viewer. The travelling panorama was a very long canvas painting on rollers, which was sequentially scrolled past the eyes of the audience inside a darkened tent, accompanied by a narrative and sometimes music. Twain’s anecdote conveys certain points of direct interest to dead media students. Note the inherent hazards of primitive multimedia when its various elements are poorly rehearsed. The rhetorical flavor of the narration is remarkable. It’s interesting to learn that a travelling panorama crew involved the showman himself, a ticket-taker doorguard bouncer/treasurer, and “supes” behind the stage, as well as the (in this case, deeply disoriented) musician. I note also the fascinating discovery that a large demographic segment of the audience went to panoramas just to neck in the dark. Bruce Sterling]

THE ENTERTAINING HISTORY OF THE SCRIPTURAL PANORAMIST

[I give the story on Mr Nickerson’s own language.] There was a fellow travelling around, in that country, (said Mr Nickerson,) with a moral religious show - a sort of a scriptural panorama - and he hired a wooden-headed old slab to play the piano for him.

After the first night’s performance, the showman says: “My friend, you seem to know pretty much all the tunes there are, and you worry along first-rate. But then didn’t you notice that sometimes last night the piece you happened to be playing was a little rough on the proprieties so to speak - didn’t seem to jibe with the general gait of the picture that was passing at the time, as it were - was a little foreign to the subject, you know - as if you didn’t either trump or follow suit, you understand?”

“Well, no,” the fellow said; he hadn’t noticed, but it might be; he had played along just as it came handy. So they put it up that the simple old dummy was to keep his eye on the panorama after that, and as soon as a stunning picture was reeled out, he was to fit it to a dot with a piece of music that would help the audience get the idea of the subject, and warm them up like a camp-meeting revival. That sort of thing would corral their sympathies, the showman said.

There was a big audience that night, mostly middle-aged and old people who belonged to the church and took a strong interest in Bible matters, and the balance were pretty much young bucks and heifers. They always come out strong on panoramas, you know, because it gives them a chance to taste each other’s mugs in the dark.

Well, the showman began to swell himself up for this lecture, and the old mud-dobber tackled the piano and run his fingers up and down once or twice to see that she was all right, and the fellows behind the curtain commenced to grind out the panorama.

The showman balanced his weight on his right foot, and propped his hands on his hips, and flung his eye over his shoulder at the scenery, and says: “Ladies and gentlemen, the painting now before you illustrates the beautiful and touching parable of the Prodigal Son. Observe the happy expression just breaking over the features of the poor suffering youth, so worn and weary with his long march: note also the ecstasy beaming from the uplifted countenance of the aged father, and the joy that sparkles in the eyes of the excited group of youths and maidens and seems ready to burst in a welcoming chorus from their lips. The lesson, my friends, is as solemn and instructive as the story is tender and beautiful.”

The mud-dobber was all ready, and the second the speech was finished he struck up: “Oh, we’ll all get blind drunk When Johnny comes marching home!”

Some of the people giggled, and some groaned a little. The showman couldn’t say a word. He looked at the piano sharp, but he was all lovely and serene, he didn’t know there was anything out of gear.

The panorama moved on, and the showman drummed up his grit and started in fresh: “Ladies and gentlemen, the fine picture now unfolding itself to your gaze exhibits one of the most notable events in Bible History, our Savior and his disciples upon the Sea of Galilee. How grand, how awe inspiring are the reflections which the subject invokes! What sublimity of faith is revealed to us in this lesson from the sacred writings! The Savior rebukes the angry waves, and walks securely upon the bosom of the deep!”

All around the house, they were whispering: “Oh, how lovely! How beautiful!” and the orchestra let himself out again: “Oh, a life on the ocean wave, And a home on the rolling deep!”

There was a good deal of honest snickering turned on this time, and considerable groaning, and one or two old deacons got up and went out. The showman gritted his teeth and cursed the piano man to himself, but the fellow sat there like a knot on a log, and seemed to think he was doing first-rate. After things got quiet, the showman thought he would make one more stagger at it, anyhow, though his confidence was beginning to get mighty shaky. The supes started the panorama to grinding along again, and he says: “Ladies and gentlemen, this exquisite painting illustrates the raising of Lazarus from the dead by our Savior. The subject has been handled with rare ability by the artist, and such touching sweetness and tenderness of expression has he thrown into it, that I have known peculiarly sensitive persons to be even affected to tears by looking at it.

Observe the half-confused, half- inquiring look, upon the countenance of the awakening Lazarus. Observe, also, the attitude and expression of the Savior, who takes him gently by the sleeve of his shroud with one hand, while he points with the other toward the distant city.” Before anybody could get off an opinion in the case, the innocent old ass at the piano struck up: “Come rise up, William Ri-i-ley, And go along with me!” It was rough on the audience, you bet you.

All the solemn old flats got up in a huff to go, and everybody else laughed till the windows rattled. The showman went down and grabbed the orchestra, and shook him up, and says: “That lets you out, you know, you chowder-headed old clam! Go to the doorkeeper and get your money, and cut your stick - vamose the ranch!”

Source: Mark Twain, Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches, & Essays 1852-1890, The Library of America, 1992 ISBN 0-940450-36-4

From Bruce Sterling

“Edison’s electric pen was used almost universally in business and professional offices during the late ‘70’s [1870s] and early ‘80’s. He invented it while still in Newark before moving to Menlo Park, and perfected it at the latter place.

“In operating the electric pen, I got my current from a Bunsen battery consisting of two glass jars, capped at the top and controlled by a plunger with which I lowered the plates into the acid solution or drew them up when the pen was not in use. Thus the life of the battery was prolonged.

“The pen had a needlelike point which darted in and out of the writing end so rapidly that the eye could hardly detect it. This was operated by a miniature electric motor small enough to be attached to the upper end of the pen. The shaft containing the needle was given its motion by cams on the rotating engine shaft so that when the current was turned on, and I wrote with the pen, holding it in a vertical position, it made innumerable tiny punctures on the sheet of paper, tracing the words that comprised the letter.

“After the master copy of the stencil had thus been made, I took it to the ‘press,’ where it had to be spanned in a frame before the copies could be made. A plain sheet of paper was placed on the press, the stencil was laid on top and an ink roller passed over it. The impression of the handwriting was marked on the under sheet by the ink through the holes made by the needle. It was said that 5,000 copies could be made from a single stencil.

“Its widespread use is indicated by the fact that, within three years after Edison brought it out, it could be found in the government offices in Washington, D.C., in city and state offices, and in such far-away lands as Australia, New Zealand, China, Brazil, Russia, and elsewhere.”

“Edison worked out the principles of the pen while at Newark and took its manufacture with him to Menlo Park. Shortly after I went to to work for him I noticed one day a large frame building not far from the Edison homestead. It stood across the railroad tracks on the way to Newark, and looked considerably dilapidated. Some one told me that this was the building in which the electric pen had been manufactured. It became a roosting place for tramps along the railroad, but, eventually, I was to see the same building rebuilt and restored to use as the first commercial factory for making the Edison incandescent light.

“To operate his electric pen, Edison used a small electric motor of the impulse type which drew its current from a wet battery of two cells. This was the first electric motor in history to be manufactured commercially and sold in large quantities, and for that reason the device has a peculiar interest to us today.” [Could this assertion be true? Amazing, if so—bruces]

“The first patent covering it was applied for on March 7, 1876, and was granted August 8 of the same year, after he had settled in Menlo Park. It was Patent No. 180,857. Before that time, however, he had brought out an ‘autographic press,’ and what at first was called a ‘magnetic pen.’. “Edison improved this during 1877, bringing out a ‘stencil pen,’ a pneumatic stencil pen, and a perforating pen. The latter (Patent No. 203,329) was operated by the foot or other convenient power instead of by electric current; the power was conveyed to the pen by a shaft with universal joints. The pneumatic pen (Patent No. 205,370) could be worked by air, gas, or water.”

Source MENLO PARK REMINISCENCES. Volume One by Francis Jehl, Dover Publications Inc 1990, originally published by the Edison Institute, 1937 ISBN 0-486-26357-6 page 9

From Bruce Sterling

“Many advertisements dealing with the pen or some form of it were published in magazines and journals of the time. One told of the ‘Woodbury Holder,’ designed to keep the electric pen automatically in a vertical position, thus relieving the operator of that necessity. It was, as I well knew, hard on the fingers to keep the pen upright while writing with it.

“The Woodbury holder could be attached to any pen and was much liked ‘by those who are not expert with it, as it enables anyone to write in their natural handwriting without practice.’
Its price was five dollars. [Illustration:
“In this picture the electric pen rests in its holder, which formed part of the outfit and held the pen when it was not in use. The holder was of metal painted black and made an attractive desk ornament.”]

“Another device was the so-called ‘Reed Pen,’ an extremely rapid form of the electric pen devised by Mr. Edison for fast, skillful penmen. Its speed was so great that it sometimes cut the center out of round letters. Then there was the ‘Music Ruling Pen,’ an electric pen having five needles for the purpose of ruling music. The stencil paper had to be placed on thick, firm cloth or the edges of paper when this particular form of pen was used. Two batteries instead of one were required to supply the current.

“After the Western Electric Company acquired the selling rights to the pen, it made quite a business of it. In one of its catalogs there was a full page showing parts prices for the pen from a bottle of ink to the complete unit, which cost twenty-five dollars.

“Bought separately, a pen cost eight dollars, a wet battery was five dollars and twenty-five cents, a press ranged from eight to seventeen dollars, and a roller from two dollars and twenty-five cents to three dollars and twenty-five cents.

“Perhaps you would be interested in the directions given for preparing a wet battery. [Why yes! We would! Consider that at this point Thomas Edison has not yet invented the electric light. Without this killer application for electric power, there is no electrical power grid anywhere in the world. Every Edison Electric Pen requires its own, individual power source, a desktop chemical power generator, the “wet battery.” It’s a fiendish and troublesome device containing zinc, carbon, sulfuric acid and mercury.]

“’Place the porous clay cups or cells in the glass jars, one with the flat side turned from you and the other toward you. Then attach the zincs and carbons to the rubber discs so that one zinc and one carbon will be secured to the brass posts, and one of each to the iron screws. The brass posts always rest on the rubber discs, the iron screw on the little brass strap.

“’Fill the porous cups to within three-quarters of an inch from the top with red fluid. “’Fill the glass jars to within three-quarters of an inch of the top of the porous cups with water, into which a tablespoonful of common sulphuric acid is then poured. Move the porous cups backward and forward in the glass jar a few times to thoroughly mix the acid and water together. If this is not done the acid, which is much heavier than the water, settles to the bottom and does not mix.

“Slip the battery plates secured to the rubber discs on the upright rod in such a manner that the black plates of carbon shall go into the porous cells, and the zincs into the water.