Farked

April 1979, still in the early days of the home video revolution, in which I was something of a pioneer. Here I'm at the controls of my Advent VideoBeam projection television, which threw a 5.75-foot wide image onto a silvered screen. I got it in 1976 and my first Betamax VCR the following year - #2 is on the bottom shelf, a 2-hour capable SL-8200, replacing the 1-hour-only SL-7200. The gizmo on the shelf above the Betamax is an Atari Video Music. You ran audio into it, hooked it up to your TV and it produced garish animated abstract electronic patterns bouncing around in response to the musical content, the parameters of which you could control via a bunch of knobs and switches. Devo apparently used one in an early music video. It was, like, far out man. View full size.

This is in the video room a friend and I built in the basement of my folks' Larkspur house. The window in the back is for the projection of Super-8 films onto the VideoBeam screen via a clever arrangement of front-surfaced mirrors, as that wall is only a foot or so from the huge old gravity furnace. The wide-angle lens distorts the door frame angle.

Just last year I got my third projection video system, the largest yet, and in adjusted dollars it was the cheapest of the three.

Kodachrome (Konica Autoreflex T) via self-timer and bounce flash (Vivitar 273).

December 1942. Melrose Park, Illinois. "Chicago & North Western RR. William London has been a railroad worker 25 years -- now working at the roundhouse at the Proviso yards." 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Jack Delano for the Office of War Information. View full size.

Washington, D.C. December 19, 1922. "Rep. Vincent Morrison Brennan, Republican of Michigan, listening in on the proceedings of the House, with a receiving set." National Photo Co. Collection glass negative. View full size.

August 1971. A car that today you'd most likely see as a rusting hulk in a junkyard or vacant lot, and clothes in a Goodwill. My brother and sister-in-law pose with their 1967 Datsun Bluebird parked on my father's garage ramp on Walnut Avenue in Larkspur, California. All kidding aside, I think they're both pretty snappily dressed, and her expression is pricelessly inscrutable. My Kodachrome slide. View full size.

February 4, 1941. "Foyer, Brooklyn Public Library (Ingersoll Memorial), Prospect Park Plaza." Acetate negative by Samuel H. Gottscho. View full size.

July 16, 1925. Washington, D.C. "U.S. Patent Office." Information storage and retrieval in the analog age. National Photo Co. glass negative. View full size.

Washington, D.C., 1923. "John F. Keeley, Department of Commerce." National Photo Company Collection glass negative. View full size.