tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-86776550382235367582024-03-14T13:17:32.358-04:00E P I S T E M O P H I L I A<center>Random Archival finds by Russell A. Potter</center>Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.comBlogger104125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8677655038223536758.post-2232677488564789482022-01-17T10:19:00.003-05:002022-01-17T10:20:22.259-05:00Beware of Artists!<p><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-size-adjust: auto;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEitcEZCRkpbe70XQrNjeYguhpDzxi6Pm2882m1aPepM3JtG5hR65hmQIvthMCQpZTYiHzErxIa8IjjVZEm1F17bePj-Z0xY_XE6s1fi8yTjFXDBCcjP11yTMrZebzo8si8MRu48DCE7AuMpDo-ARJfxJWNxKVJVbTKUAXmSeysmYbXReDgSCwRvqZOK=s640" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEitcEZCRkpbe70XQrNjeYguhpDzxi6Pm2882m1aPepM3JtG5hR65hmQIvthMCQpZTYiHzErxIa8IjjVZEm1F17bePj-Z0xY_XE6s1fi8yTjFXDBCcjP11yTMrZebzo8si8MRu48DCE7AuMpDo-ARJfxJWNxKVJVbTKUAXmSeysmYbXReDgSCwRvqZOK=s320" width="250" /></a></div>We've all seen the meme<span face="-webkit-standard" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-size-adjust: auto;"> -- a text, but graphically represented as though on a poster: "</span>BEWARE OF ARTISTS<span face="-webkit-standard" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-size-adjust: auto;">," the text declared, "THEY MIX WITH ALL CLASSES OF SOCIETY AND ARE THEREFORE THE MOST DANGEROUS." Nearly 90% of these images had a text attached to them, claiming that this was an "actual poster" (always a suspicious way to make such a claim -- one might call it an "authenticity cliché") issued by Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s. Needless to say, most of the people who liked this image the most were self-identified as artists. After all, an artist needs to feel that people care enough to be suspicious.</span><p></p><span face="-webkit-standard" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-size-adjust: auto;">But the words rang false to me. I tracked them using Google Books and other tools, and found that, in the age of printed memes on paper, this same phrase had often been attributed to Queen Victoria. That sounded, if anything, even<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><i style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: -webkit-standard; text-size-adjust: auto;">wronger</i><span face="-webkit-standard" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>(as Blackadder might say), but I gave a Google e-Book edition of the Letters of Queen Victoria a try. And there, I found the meme's source -- a<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=KJQNAAAAIAAJ&lpg=PA54&ots=zPWk3IkLD2&dq=%22dealings%20with%20artists%2C%20for%20instance%2C%20require%20great%20prudence%22&pg=PA54#v=onepage&q=%22dealings%20with%20artists%2C%20for%20instance%2C%20require%20great%20prudence%22&f=false" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; text-size-adjust: auto;" target="_blank">letter from Victoria's cousin, King Leopold of Belgium</a><span face="-webkit-standard" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-size-adjust: auto;">, written not<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><i style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: -webkit-standard; text-size-adjust: auto;">by</i><span face="-webkit-standard" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>but </span><i style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: -webkit-standard; text-size-adjust: auto;">to</i><span face="-webkit-standard" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Her Majesty:</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: -webkit-standard; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: -webkit-standard; text-size-adjust: auto;">Dealings with artists, for instance, require great prudence; they are acquainted with all classes of society, and for that reason dangerous; they are hardly ever satisfied, and when you have too much to do with them, you are sure to have<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>des ennuis</i><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>— Leopold to Victoria, 10 October 1845</blockquote><span face="-webkit-standard" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-size-adjust: auto;">Delighted with my find, I eagerly posted a mimetic "correction," and a few sites</span><span face="-webkit-standard" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-size-adjust: auto;"> picked up on this. </span><span face="-webkit-standard" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-size-adjust: auto;">But really, I needn't have bothered; no one who shared the original version really cared; they had all moved on after the purported poster had done its all-too-brief work. And that's the way it goes, with memes, at any rate. Their power isn't in their truth, but in their infinite replicability. One might as well criticize a piece of DNA.</span>Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8677655038223536758.post-48587299162935190752019-11-12T09:14:00.000-05:002019-11-12T10:07:10.706-05:00When Popeye fought Brutus -- live and in person!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-afB9CNLxfJs/Xcq7GNtzDwI/AAAAAAAA4rc/94rik8jWuvAAxnlNn0ErUQzqEHYSmDdxQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/weird%252Bpopeye.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="375" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-afB9CNLxfJs/Xcq7GNtzDwI/AAAAAAAA4rc/94rik8jWuvAAxnlNn0ErUQzqEHYSmDdxQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/weird%252Bpopeye.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
As I was researching the marketing of Popeye cartoons for television in the early 1960's, I came upon a few puzzling references to a "live" show that King Features Syndicate (who were producing new Popeye shorts for television syndication) had employed in many markets. Exactly how cartoon characters would be "live" was a bit of a puzzle until I stumbled on this publicity photo, dated to 1962.<br />
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As Popeye aficionados will know, the one-eyed sailor faced many opponents in the boxing ring and everyday life -- in the original newspaper comic, "Bluto" was but one of many. The Fleischer shorts made him a mainstay, but when King Features began making new shorts in 1960, they changed his name to "Brutus" (some say because they thought Paramount, who'd bought out the Fleischer studio, still had the rights to the name "Bluto"). King Features was also keen to promote Popeye as having educational value; they produced shorts for schools such as "Look Where You Are Going" (about crossing the street safely), and launched the live Popeye and Brutus show as part of "Popeye's Physical Fitness Campaign." Popeye was represented by Herb Messinger and Brutus by Brett Pearson. This campaign even had the approval of the (then infamous) President's Physical Fitness Council (who scarred me and other kids for life when we couldn't manage five pull-ups). Exactly what happened when the live show came to your neighborhood, I'm still looking to discover.<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5qOU6iQczgk/Xcq-Dsqkf-I/AAAAAAAA4ro/7YTT1HsOMtEJ3VhujT59sQkt8BgOhdj7QCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2019-11-12%2Bat%2B9.13.47%2BAM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="228" data-original-width="915" height="98" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5qOU6iQczgk/Xcq-Dsqkf-I/AAAAAAAA4ro/7YTT1HsOMtEJ3VhujT59sQkt8BgOhdj7QCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/Screen%2BShot%2B2019-11-12%2Bat%2B9.13.47%2BAM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8677655038223536758.post-51182441762455178242018-05-28T10:30:00.002-04:002018-08-18T11:01:13.889-04:00Mystery photo of 1968<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-30Gsi24P19k/WwwNts15s3I/AAAAAAAAslI/Bi1fQuPoPSACTxTr8W7-iAK2OwFsy0WCQCLcBGAs/s1600/refpool1968.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1113" data-original-width="1484" height="240" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-30Gsi24P19k/WwwNts15s3I/AAAAAAAAslI/Bi1fQuPoPSACTxTr8W7-iAK2OwFsy0WCQCLcBGAs/s320/refpool1968.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
It may not be as well-known as some other iconic images -- say, the infamous <a href="http://time.com/4486812/wwii-kiss-photo-vj-day/" target="_blank">V-J Day kiss</a> -- but it captures a singular moment all the same: a white woman and a black man, knee-deep in the Reflecting Pool in front of the Lincoln memorial, both raising their arms in solidarity as the Poor People's Campaign of 1968 rallied in Washington DC. Organized by the SCLC, with Ralph Abernathy taking the helm after the assassination of Martin Luther King, it had many parts -- meetings and rallies in small towns, particularly in the South, a mule-drawn "wagon train" to the nation's capital, and an encampment known as "Resurrection City." Their arrival coincided with a heatwave in DC, and so the entry into the reflecting pool was as much a way to cool down as to mark the moment -- but of course it became both.<br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/--I93OrsdnH0/WwwQfAka0KI/AAAAAAAAslU/G0eH7QLfBtUfJMHzy93V-inu3E011yR3gCLcBGAs/s1600/sclc_linda.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="390" data-original-width="1023" height="121" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/--I93OrsdnH0/WwwQfAka0KI/AAAAAAAAslU/G0eH7QLfBtUfJMHzy93V-inu3E011yR3gCLcBGAs/s320/sclc_linda.png" width="320" /></a></div>
The photo, according to a recent <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/a-50-year-old-mystery-whos-that-frolicking-in-the-lincoln-memorials-reflecting-pool/2018/05/25/87ab488e-553e-11e8-9c91-7dab596e8252_story.html?utm_term=.7b7fa74e340c" target="_blank">article in the <i>Washington Post</i></a>, was taken by labor organizer Richard Bensinger, and he's spent the past 50 years trying to track down the people in it, without success. And yet, armed with the digital resources of today, the odds have been significantly improved, and I've made tentative identification of the woman on the left: she may quite possibly be Lisa Cusumano. I found a photo of her in a digitized copy of an old SCLC publication, <i>The Poor People's Campaign: A Photographic Journal</i>. She stands out, not only as one of the relatively few white activists in the pamphlet, but because her attire -- though not her expression -- is similar in some regards. In both images, she's wearing two distinctive buttons designed for the Poor People's Campaign, and in both the buttons are high up, near or on her collar.<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-b97jrhoD5SU/WwxCG83yT5I/AAAAAAAAsl0/8BblYVhb5MMtRhOleLMPgJ-tZFfdllMJACLcBGAs/s1600/buttons.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="589" height="190" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-b97jrhoD5SU/WwxCG83yT5I/AAAAAAAAsl0/8BblYVhb5MMtRhOleLMPgJ-tZFfdllMJACLcBGAs/s200/buttons.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
Ms. Cusumano had already made a name for herself as an activist earlier that year when, in support of striking trash collectors in New York City, she launched trash-cans like missiles into the street, leading to her arrest. She was described at the time as a 23-year-old single mother. At a number of rallies and events, including after the PPC reached Washington, her voice stood out and was quoted, and she was also credited with a poem, "Children of the Universe," published by the SCLC Information Center in July of 1968. Although the woman in the reflecting pool image looks a lot more relaxed and less angry than the Linda Cusumano seen in these other photos, I think it's a reasonable possibility that she may be the same person.<br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1sp0Ez6Kx4U/WwwR53HdqbI/AAAAAAAAslk/Z8RjaYVRE38UewY8qxg_5hYBHWBKR9KfQCEwYBhgL/s1600/trashcan.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="638" data-original-width="1600" height="158" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1sp0Ez6Kx4U/WwwR53HdqbI/AAAAAAAAslk/Z8RjaYVRE38UewY8qxg_5hYBHWBKR9KfQCEwYBhgL/s400/trashcan.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="color: orange;">UPDATE: The mystery -- or at least half of it -- has now been</span></b> <b><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/how-a-50-year-old-photo-mystery-was-solved-well-at-least-half-of-it/2018/07/20/c73c5786-8a95-11e8-a345-a1bf7847b375_story.html?utm_term=.f6e291465d82" target="_blank">solved</a>!</b></div>
Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8677655038223536758.post-30749895730963487362018-04-23T20:24:00.002-04:002019-01-21T22:22:12.206-05:00A "poem by Dickens" -- not!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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A few days ago, I heard a lovely vocal setting of a hymn-like verse and melody, which was brought to my attention since the poem to which the music was set was ascribed to Charles Dickens! I was immediately a bit skeptical of this claim; while Dickens did write a few bit of <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=-PdQAQAAMAAJ&lpg=PA473&ots=OWBexiemq6&dq=%22To%20that%20white%20region%2C%20where%20the%20lost%20lie%20low%22&pg=PA473#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">occasional verse</a>, nothing of it had the particualr qualities of these stanzas. It's a striking text, the epitome (perhaps) of Victorian sentiment, a string of adjectives and sweet epiphanies, evoked even in their loss, as a symbol of all that matters. All of which are then tied together with the hopeful refrain that "these things can never die":<br />
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<i>The pure, the bright, the beautiful,</i></div>
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<i>That stirred our hearts in youth;</i></div>
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<i>The impulse to a wordless pray'r</i></div>
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<i>The dreams of love and truth;</i></div>
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<i>The longings after something lost,</i></div>
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<i>The spirit's yearning cry;</i></div>
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<i>The strivings after better hopes;</i></div>
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<i>These things can never die!</i></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RMjZ6H7xBQE/Wt9RqDW44ZI/AAAAAAAArxE/bn3MxEDRyEQ3tRajxDDP277nadffhFKigCLcBGAs/s1600/foster_sheet.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="598" data-original-width="737" height="259" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RMjZ6H7xBQE/Wt9RqDW44ZI/AAAAAAAArxE/bn3MxEDRyEQ3tRajxDDP277nadffhFKigCLcBGAs/s320/foster_sheet.png" width="320" /></a></div>
It was written in the 1860's, and has apparently been set to music dozens of times since; the choral arrangement I'd heard, composed quite recently by one <a href="https://www.shawneepress.com/biographyDisplay.do?id=279&subsiteid=1" target="_blank">Lee Dengler</a>, has become a sort of standard. But what was the source of the attribution to Dickens? My hunch was that it might be due to its having appeared in one of his periodicals, and that proved right when I found it in <i><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=KdUNAAAAQAAJ&dq=%22these%20things%20shall%20never%20die%22&pg=PA348#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">All The Year Round</a></i> from an issue in 1862. Here, it was given the title "Imperishable," but without an author credit (<i>ATYR</i>, like Dickens's earlier <i>Household Words</i>, never gave any of its authors a byline). But wait, the plot thickened: rival settings of the same song, under the title "The pure! The bright! The beautiful!" turned up at nearly the same time, attributed to the famous songster <a href="http://www.stephen-foster-songs.com/foster178.htm" target="_blank">Stephen Foster</a>, he of "I Dream of Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair." It's possible that Foster composed a setting for the poem, of course, but the published sheet music mentions no other author.<br />
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The Foster attribution is maintained by a number of present-day sites dedicated to his music, although in published books it's never listed as among his works. The association with Dickens, however stuck with the poem, such that quite a few online versions still <a href="http://www.angelfire.com/ca4/angelwing1/never_die.html" target="_blank">credit it to him</a>, despite the lack of byline. The full list of contributors to <i>All The Year Roun</i>d, I knew, had been largely unknown until the fortuitous <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/charles-dickens-all-the-year-round-discovering-the-fascinating-insight-into-the-world-of-victorian-a6815301.html" target="_blank">discovery in 2015 of Dickens's own annotated copy</a>, which included handwritten indications of the authorship of nearly every piece. And so I contacted Jeremy Parrott, the discoverer of this treasure, and from him learned the that the name of poem's true author was neither Dickens nor Foster, but <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Doudney" target="_blank">Sarah Doudney</a>!<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-sc5FnN6X6k4/Wt9RGU1GkJI/AAAAAAAArw8/FNq0PeMmHKc63AsIIzV03XuaPfThgwPCwCLcBGAs/s1600/Sarah_Doudney_signed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="760" data-original-width="511" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-sc5FnN6X6k4/Wt9RGU1GkJI/AAAAAAAArw8/FNq0PeMmHKc63AsIIzV03XuaPfThgwPCwCLcBGAs/s320/Sarah_Doudney_signed.jpg" width="215" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sarah Doudney</td></tr>
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Doudney (1841-1926) was best known in her day as a novelist, though other poems of hers had become the text of hymns, such as the popular "<a href="http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/c/g/o/cgoodnit.htm" target="_blank">The Christian's Good-Night</a>." Searching for "Imperishable" with her name, I found that the earliest references to it dated to the early twentieth century, long after the duelling attributions to Dickens and Foster. It seems likely that Doudney, later in her career, must have in some way have re-asserted her authorship, such that newspapers and magazines that reprinted it -- even when they chose only a single stanza -- regularly credited it to her. Despite this, the Dickens attribution has persisted, and it was apparently under the misapprehension that it was his that Lee Dengler composed his setting.<br />
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Dengler's <a href="https://youtu.be/sko9Lb8aLnA" target="_blank">arrangement of the song</a> remains an extraordinary one, with a sort of antiphonal structure between lower and higher registers, and a hymnodic resolution to each verse that could bring the hardest unbeliever to believe -- not necessarily in God as such, but in "these things" -- and in these long-misattributed words of Sarah Doudney's, which have long since proven themselves imperishable.</div>
Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8677655038223536758.post-73409328667405680162017-06-09T23:25:00.001-04:002017-06-09T23:27:56.521-04:00Man Messages<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Hot on the trail of Levi Furbush -- who may or may not have been the same man as the union activist and regular correspondent in the Boston papers in the 1890's -- I stumbled upon James W. Elliott. When it comes to forgetting to remember, or remembering to forget, Mr. Elliott -- an avuncular advice-giver of the early twentieth century -- seems to have been something of a pioneer. He was known for his weekly pamphlets, which he dubbed "Man Messages," in which he sought to exhort the common man to avoid self-indulgence, embrace gratitude, and employ his natural gifts. The exact angle from which Elliott's pamphlets came -- temperance? -- religious feeling? -- socialism -- is a bit unclear, but his gift for memorable phrases was a singular one. Who would have imagined that, way back in 1915, he would have coined the phrase "keep on keeping on"? His pamphlets today are notably obscure; they rarely appear in library catalogues or online scans, and the only hits I could find for his titles led to auctions on eBay. And so, for the modest sum of six dollars, I obtained a copy of The Song of Ingratitude, a 1914 leaflet in which a tale is told of one "Bill Williams," a totally average man who manages to miss the bus of his own life.<br />
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Each of these leaflets was emblazoned on the back with <br />
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Elliott's trademark -- though it's a bit unclear how he financed the production of these Man-messages, which were printed in letterpress and said to be "published weekly." It sounds a little bit like some early 20th-century version of EST or perhaps the "Rainbow Gatherings" where a 'talking stick' was employed to give the cue for men to speak. But whatever his motivations, the phrases he chose, which were echoed in many of these pamphlets, seem to me as though they may well be a source for Levi Furbush's poem, which uses nearly identical language.</div>
Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8677655038223536758.post-24421128851157052292017-05-30T13:55:00.001-04:002017-06-05T21:05:21.018-04:00Never forget to remember ...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image courtesy Graduate Theological Union Library, Berkeley CA</td></tr>
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Of course, the twenty-four-hour news cycle has long ago moved on, but call back -- if you can -- the kerfuffle over Donald Trump's awkwardly-chosen "Irish Proverb," <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/17/trumps-irish-proverb-causes-derision-on-the-web" target="_blank">recited by him</a> on the occasion of the traditional St. Patrick's day visit by the <i>Taoiseach</i> (Prime minister) of Ireland, in this case Enda Kenny. The reaction from the plain people of Ireland was immediate and blunt: they'd never heard of it. A bit of poking about by journalists showed it had been included as an "Irish" saying in a number of manuals for speech-givers, which likely explained why the president's team had chosen it -- and then there was the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/17/politics/trumps-irish-proverb-nigerian-poem/" target="_blank">Nigerian poet</a> (now a banker) Albasheer Adam Alahassan, who'd published a version of it in a school journal back in the 1990's. How delightful the irony would have been, had this been true and Trump inadvertently quoted a Muslim poet? But alas, it was as well that Alhassan turned to banking as a career, for his little poem turned out to have been copied from other, still earlier sources. Mashable's Sasha Lekach dug <a href="http://mashable.com/2017/03/17/trump-irish-proverb-poem-history-nigeria/#MtlNvwnNX5qN" target="_blank">deeper than most</a>, tracing it back to a 1936 appearance in<i> The International Stereotypers & Electrotypers Union Journal</i>, where it was apparently attributed to Harold Keating. This was a blind alley, though; Keating was merely the author of the column, and the poem added as filler. Lekach also dug up a slightly earlier one in the <i>Gazette and Daily</i>, published in York, Pennsylvania on March 3, 1936.One of these sources apparently attributed it to one "Levi Furbush," and an appearance in a magazine named <i>The Cheerful Letter</i>.<br />
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This was a turn of ill luck, though, as <i>The Cheerful Letter</i> turns out to be a very obscure publication. Begun by a group of Unitarian women during the time of the Spanish-American war, its original work was to send individual "cheerful letters" to soldiers in hospital. By the early twentieth century, it had evolved into a modest periodical, appearing monthly, with regular columns and features. And yet, though published in Boston, no Boston library had more than a few scattered issues; even the archivist of the Unitarian Universalist Association -- once I tracked him down -- had to admit that he had no idea where one could find a copy. The WorldCat system, indeed, listed only three libraries with the periodical: Harvard Divinity (when contacted, it turned out they had only a handful of issues), the New York Public Library, and the Graduate Theological Union Library in Berkeley, California.<br />
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This week, I was very glad to hear from a librarian there that they indeed had a substantial run of <i>The Cheerful Letter</i>, and that they'd located the poem, attributed once again to Levi Furbush. There, nestled above an inspirational quote from J.P. Morgan, and above the newsletter's masthead, was the long-sought "Irish" saying that, for a day or two, had intrigued and amused the world -- and here, with the library's permission, I give it to you.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: #b45f06;">UPDATE (June 5 2017): It turns out that the poem's appearance in <i>The Cheerful Letter</i> is <u>not</u> the earliest known -- this issue actually dates to July of 1937. I'm working again to see whether there may by any other earlier instances than that in the <i>Gazette and Daily</i>. </span></b></div>
Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8677655038223536758.post-33959039502787339402017-02-19T13:33:00.001-05:002017-02-19T16:05:44.633-05:00What movie is playing in Robert Frank's "Drive-In, Detroit 1955"?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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It's an <a href="https://iconicphotos.org/2012/02/02/robert-frank-the-americans/robert-frank-drive-in-movie-detroit/" target="_blank">iconic photo</a> if there ever were one -- Robert Frank's "Drive-In, Detroit, 1955," one of the best-rememered of those in his 1958 book <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Americans_(photography)" target="_blank">The Americans</a></i>. A couple of weeks ago, my friend James Morrison -- who knows a <a href="https://www.cmc.edu/academic/faculty/profile/james-morrison" target="_blank">thing or two about film</a> -- posted a link to this photo, commenting that he recognized the Gratiot Drive-In, where he'd once been to a few movies (<i>101 Dalmations, Funny Girl</i>) as a kid. But what movie was that on the screen? As a reward, he offered a quarter.<br />
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This might be the most "textbook example" instance of my condition, after which this blog is named, that of epistemophilia -- the raging curiosity to find out some random fact that, though of no great importance by itself, turns out not to be easily answerable, even in this day and age of Google and Reddit (there did turn out to be question buried deep in a <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/whatisthisthing/comments/5sr4om/which_movie_is_playing_in_this_classic_photo_of_a/" target="_blank">sub-Reddit on this very question</a> -- which was not answered). How to proceed?<br />
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I began with Google Image search, which can often pair an image with a source, using only a clever search paradigm based on an analysis of the pixels. Unfortunately, with this iconic photo, all that did was lead me back to innumerable instances of the original Robert Frank photograph. I tried cropping the image, but the grainy detail produced nary a match. So what did I have to go on? A man in a plaid shirt, with a prominent hairline (Rock Hudson, some suggested), and another man in profile, also apparently in plaid, with what I first took to be a hand wrapped in a bandage. The second man looked a little like Anthony Quinn, I thought, so I started there, and with Rock Hudson -- who <i>had</i> been seen in plaid in 1955 (in <i>All That Heaven Allows</i>), but the film was not a match.<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Vng3my5VyeA/WKoCGyoRaBI/AAAAAAAAdVo/NYtaQ7IraAsfm4WPadjA2pNqtu2F0yWcgCLcB/s1600/Jun30.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="117" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Vng3my5VyeA/WKoCGyoRaBI/AAAAAAAAdVo/NYtaQ7IraAsfm4WPadjA2pNqtu2F0yWcgCLcB/s320/Jun30.png" width="320" /></a>I next tried the IMdB's listing of the most popular films of 1955, working my way through more than 200 of them. I eliminated historical films, but checked for stills from every Western, and any film with an outdoor theme. Men in the 1950's, I soon learned, only wore plaid shirts when they were in the woods, although plaid overcoats were deemed acceptable for working-class blokes, such as Marlon Brando in <i>On the Waterfront</i> (no dice there either). Finally, I turned to Newspapers.com, which has a reasonably easily-searched run of the <i>Detroit Free Press</i>. By searching the movie listings, I was able to see what was being shown every week at the Gratiot, then search for images or online copies of each film. Many of these were the same ones I'd already checked on the IMdB, but a few were different, and it was with one of these that I hit paydirt.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-u5VzuqWW06g/WKoD_Nc8l0I/AAAAAAAAdV0/Fl2IwIjtR_IHVAk0DmPUtsdQvdYJj2gsACLcB/s1600/641-eureka.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="193" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-u5VzuqWW06g/WKoD_Nc8l0I/AAAAAAAAdV0/Fl2IwIjtR_IHVAk0DmPUtsdQvdYJj2gsACLcB/s320/641-eureka.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">At 6:41 into <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d81f6PZ_I-g" target="_blank">The Looters</a></i></td></tr>
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Abner Biberman's 1955 feature <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d81f6PZ_I-g" target="_blank">The Looters</a></i> opens in the woods -- that place of log cabins, hot coffee, and plaid shirts all around. And, as fate would have it, the scene on the screen took place early on, as one mountaineer served coffee to another. What I had taken as a bandaged hand was a cup of coffee in motion, as the two men chatted over their plans. The film eventually takes a darker turn; when a plane crashes in the nearby mountains, the discovery of a large amount a cash on board deflects the moral compasses of the rescuers, who then become the "looters" of the title. The fellow I'd guessed was Rock Hudson turned out to be Ray Danton, a staple of 50's film; the other man was Rory Calhoun, a man who actually had spent some of his pre-acting career as a lumberjack. The listings in the <i>Detroit Free Press </i>show that the film was the second feature as of June 30th, 1955 -- pinning down, for what it's worth, the date of Robert Frank's photograph.<br />
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Never was a quarter harder earned.</div>
Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8677655038223536758.post-82561991859271897212016-07-17T10:34:00.000-04:002018-10-05T20:07:51.158-04:00A letter from Amos Tutuola<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Twenty-four years ago, when I was a freshly-minted assistant professor, a colleague and I planned a book project to collect brief essays by writers around the world on the subject of language; it was to be titled "Without Any Rules: The Politics and Poetics of the Vernacular." In the end, we only received a small fraction of the hoped-for contributions, and the project remained incomplete. Some, though, were very kind and enthusiastic -- among these was the late Nigerian writer Amos Tutuola, best known for <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Palm-Wine-Drinkard-Life-Bush-Ghosts/dp/0802133630" target="_blank"><i>The Palm-Wine Drinkard</i> and <i>My Life in the Bush of Ghosts</i></a>. He did indeed send the promised essay, and perhaps someday I'll find a home for it -- but in the meantime I'll always cherish our brief correspondence.<br />
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<span style="color: #e69138;">UPDATE</span>: Mr. Tutuola's essay has been published in <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/transition.issue-120" target="_blank"><i>Transition</i> 120</a>, and the editors decided to use images of the original typescript!</div>
Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8677655038223536758.post-51514681159231589272016-06-01T11:53:00.001-04:002017-12-27T09:38:31.550-05:00The photographer, the madman<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Many people today are familiar with the early photographic format known as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrotype" target="_blank">Ambrotype</a>, but few are familiar with James Ambrose Cutting, the man who lent the process its most familiar name. Cutting was a man of many interests and pursuits, among them boating (he had a small personal yacht which he christened the Ambrotype) and natural history. Inspired by the work of the prominent scientist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Agassiz" target="_blank">Louis Aggasiz</a>, he partnered with Henry D. Butler to launch the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Aquarial_Gardens" target="_blank">Boston Aquarial Gardens</a> on Bromfield Street in Boston, the first aquarium in the United States; Agassiz gave lectures there. Receipts, alas, did not quite keep up with expenses, and among the investors Cutting and Butler turned to was the showman P.T. Barnum, whose own American Museum in New York featured some marine exhibitions. As finances got tighter, Barnum put on the squeeze, eventually acquiring a controlling interest in the Aquarial Gardens, which were swiftly converted from a scientific establishment to a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnum%27s_Aquarial_Gardens" target="_blank">show-hall</a>, featuring -- among other attractions -- a "Madame Lanista" who wrestled with snakes!<br />
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Cutting, disgusted with this turn of events, found a new partner and established the "New Boston Aquarial and Zoological Gardens" at the <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/search/sumner+and+chauncey+street+Boston/@42.3545904,-71.0595252,19z" target="_blank">corner of Summer and Chauncy</a> streets. Here, too though the need to draw a crowd led Cutting and Guay to seek out fresh attractions; one of their first was the Inuit couple who had lately served as Charles Francis Hall's guides in his search for the lost Arctic expedition of Sir John Franklin, <a href="http://arctic.journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/arctic/index.php/arctic/article/view/2071/2048" target="_blank">Ebierbing ("Joe")</a> and <a href="http://visionsnorth.blogspot.com/2014/12/tookoolito.html" target="_blank">Tookoolito ("Hannah")</a>. Though popular, their appearance failed to generate the hoped-for revenue, and the new enterprise closed shortly afterwards. Distraught by the collapse of his venture, Cutting lost his mind, and was soon confined at an insane asylum near Worcester, Massachusetts; he died there in August of 1867. </div>
Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8677655038223536758.post-23016179204027897732016-02-04T12:09:00.000-05:002016-02-04T12:12:06.685-05:00The earliest portrait of the Virgin Mary?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Fordham University Theology professor Miachel Peppard has a bee in his bonnet -- and it's an interesting one. We have, as he points on in his recent <a href="http://nyti.ms/1OXYyqW" target="_blank">opinion piece</a> in the <i>New York Time</i>s, very little representational art from the earliest era of Christianity. Among this small and precious store, the illustrated wall-panels from the ancient Syrian city of Dura (now <i>Deir-es-Zor</i>) loom large. Buried as a defensive fallback by occupying Roman troops around 250 A.D., the site offers a Pompeiian degree of preservation, the floors, walls, and objects of everyday life sealed up, the moment frozen in time. Among the items recovered there is a wall-panel from the baptistery of a substantial home, which includes in one corner a rough depiction of a woman at a well, identified by the Yale Art Gallery -- where it now resides -- as a depiction of the "Samaritan Woman" encountered by Jesus in the Gospel of John.<br />
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For some reason, this text was the subject of several recent sermons I've heard -- you can read the whole passage <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+4%3A1-26" target="_blank">here</a>, along with various commentaries <a href="http://biblehub.com/commentaries/guzik/commentaries/4304.htm" target="_blank">here</a>. Several points are key: The woman recognizes Jesus as a Jew, and he recognizes her as a Samaritan, by their clothing; Jesus compares water that the Samaritan woman is drawing with "living water," which one, having drunk, will never thirst again. <a href="https://01varvara.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/01-anonymous-christ-and-the-samaritan-woman-duomo-di-monreale-monreale-sicily-it.jpg" target="_blank">Depictions of this scene</a> are common in early Church iconography (all of it later, of course, than that in the Syrian baptistery).<br />
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Peppard thinks this might be the earliest "securely datable" image of the Virgin Mary; he points out that the Annunciation was said to have occurred when Mary had gone to fetch water from a well (a <a href="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/01/31/opinion/sunday/31peppard2/31peppard2-blog427.jpg" target="_blank">scene also shown</a>, though less often, in early Church art).<br />
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But I'm not convinced. For one, it's in a baptistery -- surely a place where the references to "living water" would have special resonance. For two, even at this early date, I think Mary would have been shown with some sort of halo. The fact that the figure is shown alone, to my mind, doesn't shift the argument one way or the other, and as for invisible angels, I'm not convinced. In this early period, before the great conflicts over iconoclasm, it seems to me that anything and anyone important would be shown, at least in symbolic form -- in any case, there's neither Christ nor angel here. But still more convincing, to me, is that this woman is not wearing any kind of veil or head-covering, as a good Jewish woman of the era would; my understanding is that, among Samaritan women generally, such coverings were not commonly worn. She also seems to have bare feet -- it's hard to imagine an artist of this era drawing Mary in such a fashion! It's intriguing, certainly, but I don't think that this argument is compelling enough to declare this the earliest depiction of Mary -- though it may be one of the earliest of the Samaritan woman!</div>
Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8677655038223536758.post-63430489223611045222016-02-01T21:15:00.000-05:002016-06-01T12:29:07.679-04:00John Logie Baird in Tea Cards<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The recent <a href="http://www.google.com/doodles/90th-anniversary-of-the-first-demonstration-of-television" target="_blank">Google Doodle</a> of John Logie Baird's Televisor doubtless raised a few eyebrows -- Baird? Television? Most people, especially in the United States, have never heard the name; most assume that TV was invented by RCA, or (if they're fans of the "lone inventor" school) Philo T. Farnsworth.<br />
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Those claims have their supporters, but there's really no question that <a href="http://www.ric.edu/faculty/rpotter/baird.html" target="_blank">Baird</a>, a reclusive Scot who 'preferred to work alone' through much of his career, first demonstrated a working television system to members of the Royal Society in January of 1926.<br />
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At the time, he was working in a chilly garret on <a href="http://www.ric.edu/faculty/rpotter/frith.html" target="_blank">Frith Street</a> in Soho; his "televisor" was a cobbled-together affair, making use of lenses made for bicycle-lamps, cardboard tubes, and old "Rich Mix" biscuit tins. The room was too small to accommodate more than a few people at a time, with the result that the august members of the Royal Society had to be escorted up the stairs in small groups, a few at a time, all still in their formal evening dress, and all a bit chilly.<br />
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Television's first subject -- a dummy head known affectionately as "<a href="http://www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk/collection/television/studioequipment/collectionitem?id=2001-5037/3" target="_blank">Stookie Bill</a>," was on display -- in one room in person, in another as a 30-line televised image. Baird then invited the skeprics to see each other via his apparatus, and lo! there they were. One participant, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanger_Shepherd" target="_blank">Sanger Shepherd</a> (a pioneer of color photography), was particularly impressed, and was heard to exclaim "Baird has got it! The rest is merely a matter of <i>£. s. d </i>(pounds, shillings, and pence)."<br />
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Many years later, long after Baird's original mechanico-electric system had been supplanted by electronic television, these three "tea cards" -- included as premiums in boxes Brooke Bond and other brands of tea -- showed that, when it came to television, Mr. Baird was still 'first in the hearts of his countrymen.'</div>
Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8677655038223536758.post-27233295657410774822016-01-27T11:51:00.002-05:002021-07-04T09:14:00.582-04:00Moondoggers<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nCQSaeIkrow/YOGzhlGWuXI/AAAAAAABG30/gMVSVdJAI2gtyGEoOkRwlylcabFzQ_4dwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1200/moondog-laser.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="904" data-original-width="1200" height="241" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nCQSaeIkrow/YOGzhlGWuXI/AAAAAAABG30/gMVSVdJAI2gtyGEoOkRwlylcabFzQ_4dwCLcBGAsYHQ/w320-h241/moondog-laser.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Photo © Peter Hastings, All Rights Reserved</span></td></tr></tbody></table>Alan Freed's original <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moondog_Coronation_Ball" target="_blank">Moondog Coronation Ball</a>, which was shut down a few minutes into the first set by the Cleveland Police on March 21st, 1952, is the stuff of Rock legend. Some historians, confusing later events in Freed's career after he moved to NYC and popularized "Rock 'n' Roll" among white teenage listeners, have claimed that the crowd that night was "mostly white." But in fact it was almost entirely black, though many surviving photographs are too small or blurry to confirm this. A few years ago, I was able to track down the man who took these original photos, the late <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Musical-Images-Photographs-Conductors-Performed/dp/B000NPTF9E" target="_blank">Peter Hastings</a>. At the time, he was a freelancer, though his services were later retained by the Cleveland Orchestra, where he was their longtime official photographer. When I spoke with him on the phone, he recalled the evening as chaotic, and the light was so dim inside the Cleveland Arena that he used a long exposure; he was only able to get off a few shots before everything 'went crazy.' The image above is a digital scan of a new print, and any copyright in it is retained by him -- but I thought it worth sharing online, as clear images of that night are so rare. You can see the guys in their fedoras and porkpies, the gals in their dancing dresses, and what I believe to be the first (and only) act, Paul "Hucklebuck" Williams, on stage. The dancers are moving too quickly for the slow exposure, and appear as blurs, or images connected by blurs -- this could be thought a flaw, but I think it underlines the kinetic, ephemeral nature of that evening, and evening that was about to come to a premature end only moments after this fleeting photograph was taken.</div>
Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8677655038223536758.post-90363792129561705422015-07-04T10:52:00.000-04:002016-02-03T11:55:04.450-05:00In Memoriam Ralph Hyde, 1939-2015<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The first time I met Ralph Hyde in person was at the old Woolwich Arsenal train station — itself a vaguely panoramic structure, with <a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/57/Woolwich_Arsenal_stn_building.JPG" target="_blank">curving glass walls and a cylindrical cupola</a> — back in 1999. In those ancient days of the early, mostly non-pictorial Internet, neither of us had any idea of how to recognize each other; fortunately, he’d thought to bring along a copy of his <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Panoramania-Art-Entertainment-All-embracing-View/dp/0862941253/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1436021603&sr=1-8" target="_blank">Panoramania!</a></i> book, and I easily deduced that the white-haired gent near the top of the escalator must be he.<br />
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We went over to his home, a comfortable little cottage-like dwelling tucked away behind one of the brick walls of the Arsenal grounds. He and his wife welcomed me, and we sat in the small but comfortable living room, with gorgeous large-format prints of panoramas festooning the walls. Every topic led to another of interest, and the conversation continued at the dinner table. We could very likely have gone on all night, but I was anxious to get back to my hotel in London before the tube stopped running, and so Ralph called a mini-cab, which got me back to the station just in time.<br />
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In all my many visits to Britain, he was the only person I ever met who, in a completely natural manner, actually used the expression “jolly good.”<br />
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By the time of that meeting, we’d been corresponding by snail-mail for some time. I’d written to Ralph at the suggestion of the pre-eminant Victorianist Richard Altick who, when I told him that I was researching Arctic panoramas, recommended to me as a ‘brilliant young man’ who would surely set me in the right direction (Altick being by then nearly ninety, ‘young’ was a relative term!). And when I wrote, I discovered that this was true in a more exact way than I’d imagined — for Ralph himself was working on an article about panoramas of the polar regions! It was a mark of his unvarying graciousness that he didn’t discourage me from my own researches, shared all that he knew, and celebrated the work I’d done once it was published.<br />
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A few years later, along with my son — at that time an avid Civil War re-enactor — we met up with Ralph at Jonathan Gestetner’s home, and saw a small portion of his extraordinary collection. We saw, in person, the famous “London in a Nut-Shell,” along with several miniature panoramas of the Civil War, which we did our best to help him identify. On one wall in the house, a series of photographs showed the presentation of a Gestetner copying machine to each of the modern Popes — a reminder both of the significance of mechanical copying, and of the eventual passing of that technology and its era.<br />
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After that, most of our other meetings were at various gatherings sponsored by the International Panorama Council — at Hunter College in New York City and the Yale Center for British Art — by which time we’d switched to e-mail to continue our shared research on many topics. It was through these means that, in 2002, we stumbled together upon the passage in a German tourist’s account of his visit to the Marshall Brothers’ panorama of the Battle of Navarin, which proved — after a careful translation by fellow IPC member Gabriele Koeller — to be one of the most significant accounts of just what a “peristrephic” panorama was: “the canvas is not flat, but stretched out in a half circle. It is slowly moved on rollers, the scenes changing nearly imperceptibly.”<br />
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We continued our correspondence over the years, with Ralph often sending along copies of <a href="http://rapsvault.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-polar-dog.html" target="_blank">handbills</a> and other documents of polar panoramas. Without fail, he sent a Christmas card every year. More recently, I hadn’t been able to attend several of the IPC meetings at which he presented, but was glad to be able to see his illustrated talks on video, which were unfailingly informative, witty, and wry.<br />
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From what I’ve heard, Ralph was pursuing all his usual research passions right up to the moment of his passing — and I’m not surprised. A few months ago, I was delighted to see that his <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Paper-Peepshows-Jacqueline-Gestetner-Collection/dp/1851498001/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1436021558&sr=8-1&keywords=Ralph+Hyde" target="_blank">book on paper peep-shows</a> in the Gestetner collection was finally out, and I’d meant to see if I could get Ralph to autograph a copy. It’s strange to be presented with a long series of our archived e-mails, suddenly rendered poignant by the inability of the “send” button to ever reach him again.<br />
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One of Ralph’s ongoing projects, which I contributed to in small ways, and drew from in large ones, was his <i>Dictionary of Panoramists</i>. I don’t know what state it might be in — Ralph certainly realized that, no matter what the time and effort, it would always be incomplete in some details. And yet, perhaps now, it might be possible to bring this work to fruition, either as a published reference, or — as Ralph himself had begun to think better — as some kind of online resource capable of continual updating. It would be, in either form, a most fitting memorial for a man whose career, like the paintings he studied, was all-encompassing. He was truly a "jolly good" fellow.</div>
Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8677655038223536758.post-22140326501865081692015-03-24T21:30:00.000-04:002015-03-26T04:17:08.834-04:00When I edited the Eighteenth Century<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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One of the more peculiar job titles I've ever had, long before I was a professor, was "Editor of the Eighteenth Century." This was my task back in the mid-1980's when I worked for Connecticut-based Research Publications (now <a href="http://www.cengage.com/search/showresults.do?N=197+4294904141" target="_blank">Primary Source Media</a>), a company that had the contract for the Eighteenth Century microfilm project, which aimed -- ambitiously, it seemed then -- to film every unique work published in English between 1700 and 1800, based on what was then the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Short_Title_Catalogue" target="_blank">ESTC</a> (Eighteenth-century Short Title Catalogue -- now simply the <i>English</i> STC and extended to the birth of print), a database that was, long before Google Books, the key to every such work in any collection around the world.<br />
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This letter -- somewhat quaintly addressed to me as "<a href="http://www.ric.edu/faculty/rpotter/temp/18thce001.jpg" target="_blank">Russell Potter, Esq., Editor, the 18th Century</a>" -- concerned the quest to avoid duplicate titles -- the ESTC had been assembled to catalog everything and a number of duplicates or near-duplicates was inevitable -- because, at that time, it seemed unwise to spend the resources to film such things. With Google Books, though, the aim grew wider -- scan them all, let researchers sort 'em out -- and this, despite the best-laid schemes of the 1980's, turned out to be the way of the future.</div>
Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8677655038223536758.post-40838768295439383642015-03-15T20:52:00.002-04:002020-01-21T11:08:52.789-05:00Count Curly Wee<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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There's nothing weirder than another country's comics -- a fact that I've known since, at the age of five or six, I first opened a packet of British comics sent by my mother's UK pen pal, and first laid eyes upon <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dandy" target="_blank">The Dandy</a></i>, featuring (among many others) <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desperate_Dan" target="_blank">Desperate Dan</a>, <a href="https://ukcomics.fandom.com/wiki/Dirty_Dick" target="_blank">Dirty Dick</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korky_the_Cat" target="_blank">Korky the Cat</a>, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuddles_and_Dimples" target="_blank">Cuddles and Dimples</a>. And so, a few years ago, when I picked up an old paper from an empty seat while on the Irish Sea Ferry from Dublin to Holyhead, and saw a pair of comic panels, I had a feeling it might be another encounter with the comic otherworld. And it was: Count Curly Wee, originated by <a href="http://curlywee-and-friends.blogspot.com/2009/08/forty-years-after-death-of-curly-wee.html" target="_blank">Roland Clibborn</a>, ran under various titles in Irish newspapers, as well as the <i>Liverpool Echo</i>. Cliburn's style was unusual; he drew two narrative panels, with a poem in ballad stanzas at the foot of each. The resulting plates were all numbered; this one that I came upon on the ferry is 6685. Clibborn retired after plate 10,274 -- but I've been unable to locate much further information about him; the <i>Irish Times</i> had been re-running his old panels, which was how I stumbled upon them. His sense of humor was, to put it lightly -- unique -- but absolutely distinctive. If you find it to your liking, the National Library of Australia has a <a href="http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/1722441" target="_blank">complete volume</a> that you can read or download for free.</div>
Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8677655038223536758.post-72639748854112984622015-03-11T20:04:00.000-04:002015-03-25T04:10:38.037-04:00An Invitation to the Exposition, 1876<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The invitation was the sort given to important men -- and my great-grandfather-in-law, Mr. Jesse J. John, was such a man. He was a member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, a man who had his copies of <i>Harper's Monthly</i> bound in leather, and carried a gold-tipped walking stick engraved with his name (I have both of these in my home library). So, when the <a href="http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/things/4280/centennial_exhibition_of_1876/478192" target="_blank">Centennial Exhibition</a> was announced, it was natural that he would be sent a complimentary ticket, along with a <a href="http://www.ric.edu/faculty/rpotter/platform_map.png" target="_blank">map of the speaker's platform</a> (he was to be seated in Section E, two sections over from President Ulysses S. Grant, surely within range of his ubiquitous cigars -- not that he would have been the only one smoking them).<br />
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At the exhibition, Mr. John might have taken in all kinds of attractions -- chief among them the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Exposition#/media/File:The_Centennial_Tower_Philadelphia_1876.jpeg" target="_blank">Centennial Tower</a>, but also such themed buildings as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Exposition#/media/File:Horticultural_Hall,_from_Robert_N._Dennis_collection_of_stereoscopic_views_3.jpg" target="_blank">Horticultural Hall</a> and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Exposition#/media/File:Collossal_hand_and_torch._Bartholdi%27s_statue_of_%22Liberty.%22,_from_Robert_N._Dennis_collection_of_stereoscopic_views.jpg" target="_blank">torch</a> intended for the Statue of Liberty. He might also, if he had been so inclined, have visited other exhibits, such as the wax figures of Mr. Moulthrop, which included Chief Red Cloud, the 'Esquimaux' <a href="http://www.ric.edu/faculty/rpotter/hjoe_sm.jpg" target="_blank">Hannah and Joe</a>, and all the survivors of the Amistad.</div>
Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8677655038223536758.post-57902536150666345442015-01-01T21:24:00.000-05:002018-04-24T20:02:11.998-04:00Mystery of the 1977 Gandalf Poster<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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It's not an image of Gandalf you see every day -- but I used to. I bought this poster for my bedroom wall in 1977; when I left the next year for college, it came with me, and I've kept it ever since, though it spent the last twenty years or so rolled up in a closet. Today, I decided to take it out of storage and frame it, and it was only then that I started to wonder -- where, after all, did this Gandalf -- pre-Rankin-Bass, pre-Bakshi, and certainly pre-Jackson, come from? My only clue was the artist's name, which was clear enough: "Alvin Hudson." But who was that? There was no artist of that name with any sort of online presence; the only image of another copy was from an old listing on eBay Canada -- that, and the entry in the US register of Copyrights: ""Gandalf the wizard. Half port, of bearded old man from The Hobbit, wearing large hat, holding pipe & walking stick. Painted by Alvin Hudson. Col. reproduction of painting. © Spellbound, Inc.; 30NOV77; K128162." And who was Spellbound, Inc? The US Patent and Trademark office showed that the company had filed for its trademark in January of 1977, and had been based in Akron, Ohio, not far from my hometown of Cleveland. The trademark had expired in 1985.<br />
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So I wonder: is there anyone out there who can tell me anything about Alvin Hudson, or Spellbound? Did they put out other posters? Did they license the names? And could it be -- as seems very possible -- that Ralph Bakshi was influenced, just a bit, by this image in his conception of Gandalf for his <i>Lord of the Rings</i> movie? I'd be interested to hear from anyone who knows.<br />
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<b><span style="color: red;">UPDATE 6/11/16</span></b>: With thanks to my old friend and former student Patrick Robbins, I can report some additional detail on Spellbound, Inc. -- according to an item in the <i><a href="https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/153995819/" target="_blank">Akron Beacon Journal</a></i> on December 6th, 1977, the company was founded by Bonnie Anderson and Merrilee Anthe, whose ambition was to become "Poster Queens." The article mentioned the popularity of Tolkien's work, and the recent airing of the Rankin-Bass Hobbit cartoon. It went on to note:<br />
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There are Tolkien posters, jigsaw puzzles, sweatshirts, T-shirts, calendars, games, national fan clubs and posters but not, as Bonnie and Merrilee saw, any made from oil paintings. The first poster from Spellbound is, of course, the Alvin Hudson painting of Gandalf.</blockquote>
Alas, Bonnie and Merrilee were not destined to become poster-making magnates -- but certainly their first was a brilliant one. The article mentions Alvin Hudson as though his name would be recognized -- but he remains resolutely obscure.</div>
Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8677655038223536758.post-41134003099130917802013-12-15T09:20:00.000-05:002013-12-15T09:34:07.441-05:00What's an album?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Seeing that NPR recently published its list of the <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/bestmusic2013/2013/12/10/249243871/npr-musics-50-favorite-albums-of-2013" target="_blank">'Top 50 Albums' of 2013</a>, my mind turned to a question asked last year by a freshman student in my class: "What's an album?" It's actually a very reasonable question, in a time when downloaded music far outpaces the sales of physical "units" of any kind, and most younger listeners pick and choose the songs they want, and put them on playlists without any regard for what "album" they appeared on.<br />
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The first "albums" were notebooks; the term derives from <i>album</i>, Latin for "white," which was figuratively used for a blank tablet, and later a blank <i>book</i>, in which friends might leave their thoughts (this was called an <i>album amicorum</i>). In the later nineteenth century, the term was applied to <a href="http://www.mccord-museum.qc.ca/en/keys/virtualexhibits/notmanstudio/themes/albums/" target="_blank"><i>photograph</i> <i>albums</i></a>, with blank paper leaves upon which photos could be affixed with glue. And, in the early days of recorded music, when a single 10-inch 78 rpm disc could hold only 8-10 minutes of music, longer works -- concertos, symphonies, and so forth -- were issued in a bound volume, with a sleeve for each disc needed to play the complete work -- this was the <i>phonograph album</i>. The term was carried forward when <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LP_record" target="_blank">LP</a> (for Long Playing) 33 1/3 discs were first released in 1948, since each of them contained up to 45 minutes of music, which could include perhaps ten or twelve individual popular recordings, which previously would have been contained in a multi-disc album. In the late '60's and '70's, the "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concept_album" target="_blank">concept album</a>" took advantage of the format to create a carefully sequenced series of interlocking songs -- sometimes, as with Abbey Road, 'gapless' -- which constituted a whole.<br />
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But alas, our albums are no longer held together with paper and glue, nor with any material substance -- but only by the dream-stuff of our imaginations.</div>
Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8677655038223536758.post-46382674660534143392013-12-03T12:18:00.001-05:002013-12-03T13:58:26.449-05:00The First Solid-State Lamp<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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As LED's have become progressively less expensive, the future of indoor lighting looks to be all lit up with them. But back in 1967, it was news when the General Electric company announced its first production-model solid state lamp, the SSL-1. As this press release indicates, it wasn't intended for consumer use, but more specialized circumstances such as space ships, aircraft, and computers. These early SSL's were essentially single LED's in an electrical mount, as opposed to the much more common <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:E27_with_38_LCD.JPG" target="_blank">multiple-LED</a> lights of today. The crystal was enclosed in a cylindrical "top hat" <a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f9/LED,_5mm,_green_(en).svg/220px-LED,_5mm,_green_(en).svg.png" target="_blank">capsule</a> and socketed to fit in the same slots as transistors; the anticipated price of the production model was $6.60 (the equivalent of around $45 today). As one of the team who helped invent and design this lamp, my father Dr. Ralph M. Potter was the recipient of an <a href="http://www.rdmag.com/award-winners/1967/01/ssl-1-solid-state-lamp?qt-recent_blogs_articles=1" target="_blank">award</a> from R&D magazine. It's amazing to me to think that this same technology, invented with such a modest set of possible applications, may well end up being the most common form of electrical illumination in the future. You can read the full press release <a href="http://www.ric.edu/faculty/rpotter/temp/ge-pressrelease.pdf" target="_blank">here</a>.</div>
Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8677655038223536758.post-4926016983204922702013-11-07T09:41:00.000-05:002013-11-07T09:47:46.287-05:00Science Stories Book Three<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iWrv6huLGBU/UnuiZCOdeVI/AAAAAAAAKuw/Y6yMJFsY1sA/s1600/sciencestories004+sm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="608" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iWrv6huLGBU/UnuiZCOdeVI/AAAAAAAAKuw/Y6yMJFsY1sA/s640/sciencestories004+sm.jpg" width="440" /></a></div>
It was the first and most important book I never read. Back in first grade, although I was already a big Dr. Seuss fan and could read picture books on my own, what I truly craved was some sort of talisman of my ability to read the same books grown-ups did, something I could hold on to, carry around at school, and put under my pillow at night to imbue myself with advanced reading powers. I found this book in the discard bin outside the third-grade science classroom -- <i>people thew books away?</i> -- and immediately adopted it as my talisman. Whenever I had an idle moment at school, I sat or leaned against the wall, opening it to some random page, and assuming an air of profound readerly engagement. Only I never read it, not until many years later when I found it in a box of my old childhood things. It turns out to be a lovely book, published in 1936, and filled with quaint questions and answers ("In what ways are land animals fitted to move?" "How is the mole fitted for tunneling through the soil?"). But the greatest thing about it, to me, is that it <i>worked</i> -- not as a mere book, but as a gateway, a door, to an entire universe of others.</div>
Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8677655038223536758.post-50250809284893386122013-10-31T16:15:00.001-04:002018-04-24T22:39:27.305-04:00I Am Death<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yt0Tc4ANfYQ/UnK25lVS0oI/AAAAAAAAKuE/uGzSK2CsaYo/s1600/im-iumed-iph-1912-v15n4g1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yt0Tc4ANfYQ/UnK25lVS0oI/AAAAAAAAKuE/uGzSK2CsaYo/s640/im-iumed-iph-1912-v15n4g1.jpg" width="436" /></a></div>
Public health campaigns have, it seems, always gone for shock value -- who can forget such ads as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_America_Beautiful" target="_blank">crying Indian</a>, the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUolSGfXbN0" target="_blank">smoking fetus</a>, or "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FtNm9CgA6U" target="_blank">This is drugs ... this is your brain on drugs</a>"? Nevertheless, this 1912 poster from the Indiana Board of Health stands out for the stark and threatening appeal it offers against what were seen as the worst health hazards of its day. It's odd for us today to consider that "midnight suppers" or "large amounts of black coffee" might be up there with alcohol as bona fide life-shorteners, and the caution not to "bolt your food" sounds like it's right out of a Dickens novel (<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=2WLhAAAAMAAJ&dq=%22%20never%20see%20your%20Bolting%20equal%20yet%2C%20Pip%22&pg=PA206#v=onepage&q=%22%20never%20see%20your%20Bolting%20equal%20yet,%20Pip%22&f=false" target="_blank">and it is</a>). This <a href="https://scholarworks.iupui.edu/handle/1805/1808" target="_blank">image</a> comes via the Indiana Public Health collection at IUPUI Scholar Works, a project of Indiana University and Purdue University, an archive which also contains delightfully harsh warnings about the hazards of the <a href="https://scholarworks.iupui.edu/bitstream/handle/1805/1805/im-iumed-iph-1912-v15n2g1.jpg?sequence=1" target="_blank">house fly</a> and <a href="https://scholarworks.iupui.edu/bitstream/handle/1805/1815/im-iumed-iph-1914-v17n2g1.jpg?sequence=1" target="_blank">rats and fleas</a>, along with (on the other side of the equation) the illustrious benefits of <a href="https://scholarworks.iupui.edu/bitstream/handle/1805/1827/im-iumed-iph-1915-v18n7g1.jpg?sequence=1" target="_blank">good hygiene among children</a>.</div>
Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8677655038223536758.post-30624397997560046452013-10-28T12:27:00.001-04:002016-07-31T15:44:54.102-04:00Duplicates<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mmaehzPbq-A/Um6NBKLVxZI/AAAAAAAAKtg/Y2L6pMLGDRw/s1600/1876_Transfer_Tablet_Hektograph_Holcomb__Co_broadside_detail_OM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="405" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mmaehzPbq-A/Um6NBKLVxZI/AAAAAAAAKtg/Y2L6pMLGDRw/s400/1876_Transfer_Tablet_Hektograph_Holcomb__Co_broadside_detail_OM.jpg" width="420" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image from the <a href="http://www.officemuseum.com/" target="_blank">Early Office Museum</a></td></tr>
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"Don't you know what duplicates are?" an incredulous Groucho Marx asks brother Chico in one of their <a href="http://www.marx-brothers.org/whyaduck/sounds/opera/canada.wav" target="_blank">better-known skits</a>. "Sure," replies Chico, "that's a five kids up in Canada." The joke was a reference to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dionne_quintuplets" target="_blank">Dionne quintuplets</a> born in Ontario in 1934, two of whom are still alive today. But of course we all know what duplicates are -- or do we? We're so used to the ability to make scans or photocopies today that the earlier copying technology of the 1960's and '70's -- the "<a href="http://www.officemuseum.com/1965_Ditto_adx.jpg" target="_blank">Ditto</a>," <a href="http://www.worldssmallestmuseum.com/pen3a.jpg" target="_blank">Mimeograph</a>, or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gestetner" target="_blank">Gestetner</a> <a href="http://www.turkprinting.com/resimler/Alp_08+(1673).jpg" target="_blank">machines</a> -- seems almost impossibly antique. And yet it's still possible to re-create some of these earlier methods of copying today, such as the Hektograph (above), a precursor to the rotary mimeograph which also used <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aniline#Synthetic_dye_industry" target="_blank">aniline dye</a>; instead of mounting the master copy of a cylinder, it was simply placed in a bed of gelatine, and the dye allowed to soak in; subsequent copies were made by simply placing a blank piece of paper on the gelatine and then peeling it off. Simple Hektograph kits were sold as late as the 1950's and can still be had on <a href="http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-1955-Neighborhood-Times-Newspaper-Kit-RARE-/231082698483?pt=Games_US&hash=item35cd9a26f3" target="_blank">eBay</a> or <a href="http://www.etsy.com/listing/156164960/1950s-hektograph-gelatin-is-in-nice" target="_blank">Etsy</a> -- or one can, fairly easily, <a href="http://blog.lib.uiowa.edu/speccoll/2013/07/16/what-the-hectograph/" target="_blank">make one's own almost from scratch</a>. And, while you're waiting for the gelatine to solidify, why not read the <a href="http://www.officemuseum.com/" target="_blank">Early Office Museum</a>'s excellent <a href="http://www.officemuseum.com/copy_machines.htm" target="_blank">History of Copying Machines</a>?</div>
Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8677655038223536758.post-44347687717271889272013-10-20T18:50:00.001-04:002013-10-28T15:58:45.526-04:00A Few Talking Machine Records<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fObKkEZIpp0/UmRc0W26sjI/AAAAAAAAKsw/kFa67yBmJqA/s1600/stereo-records071.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="241" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fObKkEZIpp0/UmRc0W26sjI/AAAAAAAAKsw/kFa67yBmJqA/s400/stereo-records071.jpg" width="440" /></a></div>
This steroeview, part of a promotional set offered by the Sears, Roebuck Company to illustrate the plenitude and variety of its store offerings in 1906, shows how 78 rpm phonograph records were stored; before shipping or sale, a paper sleeve would be added. The long shot emphasizes the vast array of disks available, just waiting to be shipped to your front door. Note that the employee in this photo is wearing a special, shoulder-length glove on his left hand, to avoid scratching the discs! You can view an entire set of these stereoviews in this <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rich701/6043566777/lightbox/" target="_blank">Flickr album</a>, starting with card no. 1 -- Mr. Sears himself, of course!</div>
Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8677655038223536758.post-32645183486502675542013-10-16T00:45:00.000-04:002018-04-25T09:39:42.002-04:00Mona Darkfeather<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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In the annals of non-Indian actors portraying native American Indians in early silent films, Mona Darkfeather (born Josephine Workman) was among the most successful. She appeared in 110 films between 1910 and 1917, nearly always as an "Indian Maiden" figure. The studios she worked with -- Bison, Selig Polyscope, Nestor, Kalem, Universal -- were a who's who of early silent film, and her name and face were advertised with no irony whatsoever as though she were unquestionably <br />
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authentic, following the claim -- perhaps her own -- that she was a full-blooded Seminole. White men were often called upon to throw themselves on her mercy, lest some fearsome "chief" demand their death -- or, alternately, she would form a romantic attachment with a trader and run off with her beau. She had her own, impressive stationery, and succeeded consistently until the late 'teens, when -- for whatever reason -- the demand for her kind of role dried up. She did a few stage plays, divorced (and later remarried) her husband-manager Frank Montgomery, and lived to the ripe old age of 95. Her grave in Culver City is said to be unmarked.</div>
Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8677655038223536758.post-82571091640664176742013-10-15T10:30:00.000-04:002013-11-01T10:36:42.251-04:00Asylum cinema<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2215M7P_B5Y/UeFjiqaHepI/AAAAAAAAJfg/P4rpJqiaOIQ/s1600/Stone+House+Asylum+Projector.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2215M7P_B5Y/UeFjiqaHepI/AAAAAAAAJfg/P4rpJqiaOIQ/s400/Stone+House+Asylum+Projector.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
One might not think about it, but one of the early uses of cinema film was to provide entertainment at many of the large residential psychiatric facilities -- then often known as "Asylums" -- in the US and the UK. Nowadays, of course, television provides a more wall-to-wall carpet of imagery, but back in the 1920's and '30's, full-size cinemas were a feature at many British asylums. The one shown above was found, still in place and in nearly working order, at the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_House_Hospital" target="_blank">Stone House Asylum</a> in Kent. The best-known patient at this facility was doubtless the poet and composer <a href="http://www.ivorgurney.org.uk/" target="_blank">Ivor Gurney</a>, now recognized as a significant "war poet," and whose compositions are <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbweovGlJeY" target="_blank">still performed</a>. Whether or not he attended the cinema is not known, but this projector -- a Gaumont Kalee 18 Carbon Arc model -- was successfully removed and restored; you can see a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TS-HHw_BGCk" target="_blank">video of it in operation</a>.</div>
Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com0