Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.64.0708022350200.15149@panix3.panix.com>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
To: Cyb <cybermind@listserv.aol.com>, Wryting-L <WRYTING-L@listserv.wvu.edu>
Subject: Radio, fossils, sound, abjection
Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2007 23:50:37 -0400 (EDT)
Radio, fossils, sound, abjection Some extremely old (crystal) radio equipment I'll be working with in New York and West Virginia: The cylinders are the oldest - they're called a 'loose coupler' - this is probably an 'Arlington' type and is an adjustable inductor used for tuning. I think the date is between 1912-1914 which is extremely old for radios. The earphones are newer, but I'm not sure how new, since I have a Western Electric 1903 linesman telephone set (I showed it to you ) that I has roughly the same design. So probably around the same time. The 'box' is a tunable spherical inductor - I have no idea how to use this (yet; I do have schematics back in Brooklyn); I'm guessing the date is between 1915-1919 at the latest. So all of this stuff is extremely early. The cat whisker and galena crystal mounted on the loose coupler is much later; I'm guessing the 50s or so. The loose coupler would have attached to elements spread out on a bench - there weren't any 'sets' that I know of from this period, although I may well be wrong. In other words, this is a more modern crystal that someone attached to the board to complete the set. I want to set all of this up with an extremely long wire antenna; I don't think it will be that difficult and I'll probably have the thing running in a week or so after returning to NY. The eventual idea would be to record the roar of the world, as well as VLF signals, and then to study the result with a modern signal analyzer, either hardware or software. Now part of the theory here - again, thinking of mirror as digital - and then one might think of sound and its reflections as neither or both digital and analog - 'uncanny': Sound always within the imminence of presence - the same sound or granularity whether present nearby or at a distance - echo etc. gives an indication of distance (as if there were a 'distance function), but it's a 'spread' of the original which is always already spread (in time). The original is always present. The original is always present. Sound is always interior and exterior, it relates to abjection (as in opposition to the mirror (stage)); it's second person, it speaks within the body, it's a 'voice in the head' - the mirror on the other hand is all exteriority, purification - Echoes are uncanny - they're a dislocation of granularity; at the same time they preserve it as a kernel (within an aura). - They re/present the kernel as if it were within the abject. The visible has no aura. Radio: http://www.asondheim.org/radio1.jpg http://www.asondheim.org/radio2.jpg http://www.asondheim.org/radio3.jpg http://www.asondheim.org/radio4.jpg http://www.asondheim.org/radio5.jpg http://www.asondheim.org/radio6.jpg http://www.asondheim.org/radio7.jpg http://www.asondheim.org/radio8.jpg http://www.asondheim.org/radio8.jpg http://www.asondheim.org/radio10.jpg http://www.asondheim.org/radio11.jpg http://www.asondheim.org/radio12.jpg Then there are two fossils of interest - these are belemites that seem to be mating. (These were found in the Denver Public Library marble!) http://www.asondheim.org/fossil1.jpg http://www.asondheim.org/fossil2.jpg