Moondoggers

Photo © Peter Hastings, All Rights Reserved

Alan Freed's original Moondog Coronation Ball, 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 Peter Hastings. 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.

In Memoriam Ralph Hyde, 1939-2015

The first time I met Ralph Hyde in person was at the old Woolwich Arsenal train station — itself a vaguely panoramic structure, with curving glass walls and a cylindrical cupola — 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 Panoramania! book, and I easily deduced that the white-haired gent near the top of the escalator must be he.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.”

We continued our correspondence over the years, with Ralph often sending along copies of handbills 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.

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 book on paper peep-shows 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.

One of Ralph’s ongoing projects, which I contributed to in small ways, and drew from in large ones, was his Dictionary of Panoramists. 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.

When I edited the Eighteenth Century

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 Primary Source Media), 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 ESTC (Eighteenth-century Short Title Catalogue -- now simply the English 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.

This letter -- somewhat quaintly addressed to me as "Russell Potter, Esq., Editor, the 18th Century" -- 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.

Count Curly Wee

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 The Dandy, featuring (among many others) Desperate Dan, Dirty Dick, Korky the Cat, and Cuddles and Dimples. 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 Roland Clibborn, ran under various titles in Irish newspapers, as well as the Liverpool Echo. 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 Irish Times 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 complete volume that you can read or download for free.

An Invitation to the Exposition, 1876

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 Harper's Monthly 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 Centennial Exhibition was announced, it was natural that he would be sent a complimentary ticket, along with a map of the speaker's platform (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).

At the exhibition, Mr. John might have taken in all kinds of attractions -- chief among them the Centennial Tower, but also such themed buildings as the Horticultural Hall and the torch 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' Hannah and Joe, and all the survivors of the Amistad.

Mystery of the 1977 Gandalf Poster

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.

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 Lord of the Rings movie? I'd be interested to hear from anyone who knows.

UPDATE 6/11/16: 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 Akron Beacon Journal 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:

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.

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.

What's an album?

Seeing that NPR recently published its list of the 'Top 50 Albums' of 2013, 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.

The first "albums" were notebooks; the term derives from album, Latin for "white," which was figuratively used for a blank tablet, and later a blank book, in which friends might leave their thoughts (this was called an album amicorum). In the later nineteenth century, the term was applied to photograph albums, 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 phonograph album. The term was carried forward when LP (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 "concept album" took advantage of the format to create a carefully sequenced series of interlocking songs -- sometimes, as with Abbey Road, 'gapless' -- which constituted a whole.

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.

The First Solid-State Lamp

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 multiple-LED lights of today. The crystal was enclosed in a cylindrical "top hat" capsule 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 award 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 here.

Science Stories Book Three

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 -- people thew books away? -- 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 worked -- not as a mere book, but as a gateway, a door, to an entire universe of others.

I Am Death

Public health campaigns have, it seems, always gone for shock value -- who can forget such ads as the crying Indian, the smoking fetus, or "This is drugs ... this is your brain on drugs"? 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 (and it is). This image 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 house fly and rats and fleas, along with (on the other side of the equation) the illustrious benefits of good hygiene among children.

Duplicates

Image from the Early Office Museum

"Don't you know what duplicates are?" an incredulous Groucho Marx asks brother Chico in one of their better-known skits. "Sure," replies Chico, "that's a five kids up in Canada." The joke was a reference to the Dionne quintuplets 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 "Ditto," Mimeograph, or Gestetner machines -- 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 aniline dye; 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 eBay or Etsy -- or one can, fairly easily, make one's own almost from scratch. And, while you're waiting for the gelatine to solidify, why not read the Early Office Museum's excellent History of Copying Machines?

A Few Talking Machine Records

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 Flickr album, starting with card no. 1 -- Mr. Sears himself, of course!

Mona Darkfeather

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

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.

Asylum cinema

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 Stone House Asylum in Kent. The best-known patient at this facility was doubtless the poet and composer Ivor Gurney, now recognized as a significant "war poet," and whose compositions are still performed. 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 video of it in operation.

Elvish in Old English

In the annals of creating manuscript facsimiles with a false (but playful) sense of age, this document has a curious history. In the early stages of his subcreation, J.R.R. Tolkien composed a number of new texts in Old English, in which he described the creation of the world in the Elder Days; his original plan was to have all of the "Lost Tales" -- an early source of the legends later gathered in the Silmarillion -- recounted by a father to his son in Old English.

This is my own calligraphic interpretation of one of these texts, which I made in 1988 as a diversion when I was enrolled in Professor Geoffrey Russom's Old English class at Brown University.  Following Tolkien's own practice with his "Book of Mazarbul," I aged and discolored the document with an ink wash and a spell in the oven. Those with an acquaintance with the West Saxon dialect will have no trouble deciphering the text, which begins with "After that, the All-father, who in Elvish is called Iluuvatar created the world." The page is also preserved as part of Oxford University's excellent Woruldhord site, which collects all manner of resources for the study and teaching of Old English. And as for Professor Russom, he was not fooled. He took one glance at the fruit of my labors and muttered, "Tolkien, eh?" And then it was back to translating the Battle of Maldon.