Dead
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Subject: Dead Media Working Note 02.0
Dead medium: The Magic Lantern
From: bruces_AT_well.com (Bruce Sterling)
Source: Peck and Snyder's Catalog (aka "Price List of
Out & Indoor Sports and Pastimes") 1886, reprinted 1971
by Pyne Press (LC# 75-24886, ISBN 0-87861-094-4)
Who were the "content providers" for the magic lantern
industry? It would seem that most slides were very
generic; job-lot, unsigned work by anonymous artisans.
The Peck and Snyder catalog offers a wide variety of
material on slides, but gives no hint about the lives or
identities of their creators.
Plain slides, simple images on single frames of painted
glass, came in a number of distinct genres: Comedy,
natural history, nursery tales, landscape views, and
Scripture. These would all seem to be children's topics.
More mechanically elaborate slides offered broad, hand-
painted landscape panoramas, moving "views," and
"conundrums," or written riddles whose image could be
flipped over on the screen to reveal the answer.
Peck and Snyder's Lever Slides illustrate the scope of
partial animation in the magic lantern medium. Note that
they offer more than 200 lever slides; the early versions
are now apparently obsolete, removed from circulation like
comic books in a later century. These slide
descriptions give considerable insight into the taste and
humor of the period. I quote from the catalog (((my
comments are in triple parens))):
Lever slides $1.75 each, 4 1/2 x 7 inches
200. SEE SAW
201. BOY BEATING DONKEY. Cruel blows descend on poor
donkey's head.
203. GABRIEL GRUBB AND THE HOB GOBLIN. See sawing on
tombstone, keeping poor Grubb in a terrible fright.
204. DONKEY RUNNING AWAY. With buxom country lass.
206. JUDY AND THE BABY. Judy appears at the window with
the baby, which she tosses up and down, much to baby's
delight.
207. SAM WELLER BLACKING BOOTS. Sam brushes away, but no
thought of the approaching searchers for "Jingle" and the
lady. (((Weller was created by Charles Dickens, though we
see no acknowledgement of this fact. One comes to
understand why Charles Dickens became such a stickler for
intellectual property rights)))
208. FREE LUNCH. Man at an American lunch counter, raises
the dainty morsel on his fork.
209. MENDICANT AT COTTAGE DOOR. A half frozen beggar
lifts his hat in appeal to the sturdy woman at a cottage
door.
210. AMERICAN GENTLEMAN. A portly, well-to-do gentleman
gracefully raises his hat. A good slide with which to
open an exhibition.
212. DENTIST AND PATIENT. To draw a refractory tooth,
dentist and patient brace themselves for a heavy pull, but
to the dentist's horror, the patient's HEAD as well as his
tooth comes out.
214. BEGGAR AND CHILD. A street beggar bows, asking alms
from a child.
218. THE HYPOCRITE. An old woman, who with her eyes
turned upward looks pious, but when she casts them down
and her jaw drops, looks a veritable old hag.
223. SAMBO WITH BANJO. Moves hand and arm very
naturally.
224. SAMBO WITH CYMBALS. Playing vigorously.
227. PORKER, THE COOK. A Pig in Cook's costume, stands
before the kitchen range and tastes the savory dishes
before him.
(((It's of considerable interest to see that Peck and
Snyder offer the chance for individual entrepreneurs to
develop their own slides, as the following illustrates.)))
SLIDES TO ORDER. The above illustrations will perhaps
show the range of possibilities, and while we would have
to make special estimates in some cases, we can give the
following prices as a groundwork, viz:
3 1/4 X 4 1/4 Photographs, 2 1/2 to 3 inch Picture,
uncolored ... $1.50 each
" " " colored, $2.50 each
Mechanical effects, 2 1/2 to 3 inch Picture, $3.00 to
$15.00
Lettered Advertisers " " " black letters, 75 cents
(((Peck and Snyder's Chromatropes -- slides with rotating
rackwork -- are also worthy of a look:)))
CHROMATROPES
FINE GEOMETRICAL PATTERNS, with brilliant chromatic
effects ... each, $1.50
CHANGEABLE HEADS (3 inch single glasses) $1.50
GOOD-NIGHT CHROMATROPE -- the words "Good Night" in a
handsome design, which revolve in a display of brilliant
colors, very effective in closing an exhibition ..........
Each, $2.50
LANDSCAPE CHROMATROPE. A landscape finely painted is
show, with mill and revolving water-wheel, or like effect
.... Each, $3.00
TOO MANY COOKS. A large pot is standing over a fire and a
number (which seems endless) of cooks are cast into the
pot and are apparently boiled into soup, or they may be
ejected from the pot, as if they were boiling over ...
Each $3.00
RAT EATING EXTRAORDINARY. Rat after rat crawls up the bed
clothes, and running along the bed disappears into the
open mouth of a heavy sleeper... Each, $3.00
(((Brian Coe, author of HISTORY OF MOVIE PHOTOGRAPHY,
describes a British rat-swallowing chromatrope: "The
highly popular 'Man eating rats' slide. The sleeper's jaw
can be moved up by operating a lever; the rats, in an
endless procession, run into his mouth when the handle is
turned. The subject could cose ten shillings in the
1880s, perhaps half a week's wages.")))
Dead
Media | 0.01-02.0 | 02.1-04.0
| 04.1-06.0 | 06.1-08.0 |
08.1-10.0 | 10.1-12.0 |