The original lo-fi

Decades before Edison. Hats off to Jody Rosen for an incredible story.

Fidelity in 1860 wasn’t so high, though. (Clip.)

Proof of how cheap I am

‘Singing-cowboy sci-fi’

Dave Kehr in today’s Times on the DVD release of “The Phantom Empire,” a 12-part serial from 1935 that sounds like a mad attempt to capitalize on every comic book genre then in print:

Life is sweet at Radio Ranch until a band of “renegade scientists” arrives, looking for the massive radium deposits of the secret underground nation Murania, the gateway to which happens to be located in a canyon behind Gene’s ranch. Before too long, Gene and his two l’il pardners (the child actors Frankie Darro and Betsy King Ross) find themselves caught between the rampaging savants and the legions of Wagnerian Thunder Riders (accompanied by appropriate sound effects) and lumbering mechanical men (whimsical robots built for a production number in MGM’s “Dancing Lady” but cut from the final film) sent forth by Murania’s “She”-like Queen Tika (Dorothy Christy) to prevent her land of peace and plenty from being invaded by rapacious “surface men.” It’s a lot for Gene to handle, particularly since he has to get back to Radio Ranch by 2 p.m. every day for his broadcast, which he carries on as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. (Link.)

Can’t wait to see it. Gene Autry’s first starring role!

The peep-hole of the past

Comfort for any bookworms with fond and sad memories of card catalogs:

The Health Sciences Library at Columbia University recently “pared down its card catalog” — adorable: this means they’ve still maintained one? — and made this sideshow of some of the more unusual cards. This is the medical school library, so most have to do with microbes and “nurses on horseback.” Besides the one above, my favorite is for a 30-page study from 1815 entitled “A foetus found in the abdomen of a young man, at Sherborne, in Dorsetshire.”

Just as fascinating and heartwarming are all the quirks of format and typeface — the weird brackets, the inscrutable codes and their inscrutable placements, the additions by typewriter and pencil. This was knowledge at its most compact in the pre-computer age.

Thanks to D. for the tip.

One Girl’s Confession

Reform School Girl

The only band I saw twice at SXSW

I could have watched the deviant contortions of Pissed Jeans’ Matt Korvette all day. At an outdoor set in the hot sun on Saturday afternoon, Korvette performed shirtless and before long started tugging at the elastic band of his underwear, eventually tearing it out through his (dry) jeans in a dramatic, angry gesture. He stood for moment holding this tattered gray cloth and making a face like he had just tasted something putrid.

The sound: 40 percent “Liar”-era Jesus Lizard, 15 percent “Fun House,” 20 percent Flipper. If that doesn’t add up to 100 percent, well, so what.

Bonus: No Wikipedia entry (yet), their MySpace is pathetic and out of date, and dude is an insurance claims adjuster.

---

Download “Secret Admirer.”

Spitzergate: The folk art

Culled from Flickr and elsewhere.

leprechaun

Irish.

(lprxn, lprkn) Forms: 7 lubrican, 9 leprehaun, lepreehawn, leprechaun. [Written lupracán, lugharcán, lugracán, in O'Reilly Irish. Dict. Suppl.; in the body of the Dict. it is spelt leithbrágan, doubtless by etymologizing perversion, the sprite being ‘supposed to be always employed in making or mending a single shoe’ (leith half, bróg brogue); O'Reilly also gives luacharman as a synonym. In some mod. Irish books the spelling lioprachán occurs. All these forms may be corrupted from one original; cf. Middle Irish luchrupán (Windisch Gloss.), altered form of Old Irish luchorpán (Stokes in Revue Celtique I. 256), f. lu small + corp body.]

In Irish folk-lore, A pigmy sprite ‘who always carries a purse containing a shilling’ (O'Donovan in O'Reilly Irish Dict. Suppl. 1817).

1604 MIDDLETON 2nd Pt. Honest Wh. III. i. Wks. III. 175 As for your Irish lubrican, that spirit Whom by preposterous charms thy lust hath rais'd In a wrong circle. 1620 DEKKER Dreame (1860) 28 Mounted on a spirits back, which ran With mandrake-shrikes, and like a lubrican. 1627 DRAYTON Agincourt, etc. 127 By the Mandrakes dreadfull groanes, By the Lubricans sad moanes. 1818 LADY MORGAN Fl. Macarthy (1819) I. v. 289 There, your honor, them's my cordaries, the little Leprehauns, with their cathah heads, and their burned skins. 1860 All Year Round No. 38. 282 A little, lisping, attenuated falsetto voice, such as you would fancy would have proceeded from an Irish leprechaun. 1895 J. BARLOW Strangers at Lisconnel 231 A little ould lepreehawn.

Comb. 1883 W. BLACK Shandon Bells xvii, This little red-haired leprechaun-looking Andy.

---

Copyright © Oxford University Press 2005

Season of the Lep: Day 6

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Love, Warwick

Bonus: Warwick Davis’s other little-green-man franchise, the non-horror “Very Unlucky Leprechaun”:

La idioma del Leprechaun

• Your luck just ran out. (Tu suerte se acabó.)


• This time, luck has nothing to do with it. (Esta vez, la suerte no tiene nada que ver.)


• Welcome to Vegas ... the odds are you won’t leave alive! (Bienvenido a Las Vegas ... ¡las probabilidades son que no dejar con vida!)


• Evil has a whole new rap! (La maldad tiene un nuevo rap!)


• Evil’s in the house. (La maldad está en la casa.)


• One small step for man ... one giant leap of terror. (Un pequeño paso para un hombre ... una gigante zancada de terror.)


• Welcome to Vegas ... your losing streak is about to begin! (Bienvenido a Las Vegas ... ¡las apuestas se inclinan a que no te iras vivo!)


• The gold, the bride and the ugly ... (El oro, la novia y lo feo ...)

Four-word reviews from SXSW

I stole the idea from Coolfer, who used to do this regularly. Here are all the four-word reviews of bands I saw at SXSW, which have been posted on the Times’ ArtsBeat blog:

• Film School: Neon shades, dreampop noise.
• Bodies of Water: A starker Arcade Fire.
• A Place to Bury Strangers: Thank God for earplugs.
• Chromeo: Journey medley = girls grooving.
• The Night Marchers: The Flamin’ Groovies redux.
• Two Gallants: Singer fingerpicks, drummer sweats.
• 2 Live Crew: Raunchy oldies; ladies appreciate.
• Spank Rock: Raunch nouveau, spelled “B-O-O-T-A-Y.”
• Shining: Complex, serrated Norwegian jazzcore.
• Howlin Rain: Exorcism by Southern rock.
• White Shoes and the Couples Company: Winsome Indonesian retro pop.
• The Pillows: Unapologetic Japanese pop-punk.
• Virgins: Nostalgia overload, but nice.
• Wye Oak: Pensive, countryish. Drummer = keyboardist.
• Torche: Beefy metal, unironic mustache.
• Handsome Furs: Every song: hating home.
• Health: Dance, noise? Neither? Both?
• Born Ruffians: Hyperactive, not necessarily happy.
• Pissed Jeans: Menacing vaudeville. Current fave.
• Jay Reatard: Pretty standard garage-punk.
• Liam Finn: A one-man basher!
• Bon Iver: Mournful but gorgeous harmonies.
• Atlas Sound: Pleasant guitar noise-clouds.
• Le Loup: Tribal rhythms, postpunk angst.
• Pit er Pat: More tribal, less angst.
• Georgie James: Kinks aims, Petty results.
• The Stills: Saw one song. Pretty.
• Motörhead: Rock will never die.
• Tokyo Police Club: Complex record, straightforward live.
• Holy Fuck: Dance punk sex magik.
• My Morning Jacket: Perfect jam/pop balance.
• John Maus: Howling noisemaker, strangely handsome.
• No Age: Ph.D. punk. Rocks, though.