What I’m Blogging

Lately, I’ve found myself wading through nonfiction. I have liked nonfiction since I was a boy. I spent a great deal of time reading Greek and Roman history, and as I aged, by enjoyment of nonfiction has come with me. I’m currently enjoying and Orwellian take on my nonfiction reading and so I’ve just completed this gem.

Orwell, George. 2004. Why I Write Penguin Books. ISBN 0143036351.

The book is a collection of essays by Orwell published between 1931 and 1946. It is composed of Why I Write(1946), The Lion and the Unicorn(1940), A Hanging(1931), and Politics and the English Language(1946). They recount his view that progressive socialism was the only way to defeat Nazism. That capitalism was a sham of the professional managerial class, and that English, as a language, was in peril from the perverse forms it was being molded by - advertizing, political language, and slang. “Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” Words to think about even now.

It was on this day in 1927 that an audience in New York City saw an image of Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover in the first successful long-distance demonstration of television. At the time, there were several competing versions of television, and this version was a mechanical process that used a metal disc, punched with holes in a spiral pattern, which transformed light into electrical impulses. It had been invented in Europe, and it was called “Radio Vision.”

…the broadcast began with a close-up of Hoover’s forehead…

Herbert Hoover was speaking in Washington, D.C., to the audience in New York City. The broadcast began with a close-up of Hoover’s forehead, because he was sitting too close to the camera. Hoover backed up and delivered his speech, saying, “It is a matter of just pride to have a part in this historic occasion … the transmission of sight, for the first time in the world’s history.” Hoover’s speech was followed by a comedian performing jokes in blackface.

“Radio Vision” never really caught on. Instead, the TV as we know today was an entirely different technology, invented by a high school student in rural Utah named Philo Farnsworth.