Episode 46- Vulcanite Dentures, or When Patent Violators Strike Back
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(Above: Vulcanite dentures with gold inlay, ca. 1880)
Before the 1850s, dentures were made out of very hard, very painful and very expensive material, like gold or ivory. They were a luxury item. The invention of Vulcanite hard rubber changed everything. It was moldable, it could be precisely fitted, and it was relatively cheap. Everyone began making dentures with Vulcanite bases. But in 1864, a long disputed patent application, originally filed in 1852, was awarded and then acquired by the Goodyear Dental Vulcanite Company. It was an outfit created to collect fees, or very often, sue dentists who already used vulcanite, and there were plenty of dentists to go after.
The person in charge of pursuing the violators was Josiah Bacon, the treasurer of the Goodyear Dental Vulcanite Company. The patent was enforced with extreme prejudice, despite the protestations of the US dental profession.
To quote the secretary of the Goodyear Dental Vulcanite Company, Ernest Caduc: “Many dentists…relying upon the secret nature of the business, prefer to steal this property rather than buy it…”
It all came to a head on Easter Sunday in 1879. A Vulcanite denture patent violating dentist named Samuel Chalfant went to settle his business with his pursuer, Josiah Bacon, in his San Francisco hotel room. Chalfant brought a gun.
A print version of this story originally appeared in the fanzine Murder Can Be Fun by John Marr.
Notes:
This American Life #441: “When Patents Attack!”
Episode 45- Beauty Pill’s Immersive Ideal
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(Above: Chad Clark under the “Abbey Road” window. Photo credit: Jon Pack)
Beauty Pill is band I really like from Washington DC. They have released two EPs (The Cigarette Girl From the Future and You Are Right to be Afraid) and their last album, The Unsustainable Lifestyle, came out in 2004.
In the interim, the singer/guitarist/producer for Beauty Pill, Chad Clark, got very sick and nearly died. That can be enough to make anyone stop making music, but in Clark’s case, he continued to make music, but he just never felt the need to release a record or play live. His music was just for him and his friends, and that was OK.
But a strange confluence of opportunity, desire and architecture knocked Beauty Pill out of their unforced exile. The curators at a new multimedia art center called Artisphere invited Chad Clark to come in and do something musical in the space. While they were showing him around, he saw the angled, 2nd floor window overlooking the Black Box Theater and it reminded him of the window in Abbey Road Studio 2, made famous by The Beatles. Months later, the Black Box Theater was transformed into a very public recording studio, capturing the sounds and energy of the band, onlookers and guests over the course of a couple weeks.
They called the project Immersive Ideal.
(Above: The fully immersed Beauty Pill. Photo credit: Nestor Diaz)
WORLD WIDE WEB PREMIERE! Beauty Pill was gracious enough to let us post one of the finished songs from the Immersive Ideal session. The first sound you hear in “Afrikaner Barista” is a metal dogbowl, spinning on Chad’s kitchen floor. This is a recurring texture in the new music. The dogbowl appears in many different forms, often digitally treated to be unrecognizable. “I’m kind of proud of this,” says Chad.
Beauty Pill finished their experiment in hyper-public music making last summer. Now, they’re putting their entire process—and final product—on display in the very same space where they made their new album. Through Sunday, Jan 22, the Artisphere’s Black Box Theatre is full of images, sounds, and other multimedia wonders in a user-controlled environment. It might very well be the most thoroughly documented presentation of a band’s creative process, ever.
Sam’s note:
- As a former DC resident, I know that Washingtonians can be loathe to hang out outside the city proper—especially if it’s to go somewhere in Northern Virginia. But think of it this way: Metro’ing down to Rosslyn takes less time than trying to find parking in Adams Morgan. And this is worth it.
(Above: The control room “window” brought in by Devin Ocampo. Photo credit: Nestor Diaz)
Other Notes:
- “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.” You guys know this quote, right? There’s some debate in house. (I contend the joy garnered by those who recognize offsets the mild confusion experienced by those who don’t.)
- Beauty Pill member Devin Ocampo (also of the awesome Medications and Faraquet (R.I.P.)) provided one of the more talked about aspects of the Artisphere “studio” design. He constructed a wood frame “window” in the lower theater space to separate the musicians from the engineer, referencing the control room glass window that would normally be there.
- I almost named my first radio program “Smart Went Crazy,” which was the name of Chad Clark’s band before Beauty Pill.
(Above: Chad with guitar. Photo credit: Jon Pack)
Episode 44- The Pruitt-Igoe Myth
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The Pruitt-Igoe housing project in St. Louis became most famous at the moment of its demise. The thirty-three high-rise towers built in the 1950’s were supposed to solve the impending population crisis in inner city St. Louis. It was supposed to save the urban poor from the indignities of the downtown slums that lacked natural light, water and fresh air. And for a short while, it worked. It was a housing marvel.
But when conditions started to decline, everything got very bad, very fast.
It got so bad, only two decades after it was built; the housing authority blew it up. The image of the first Pruitt-Igoe controlled implosion circled the globe.
The implosion footage became the unassailable proof that Modernist architecture and federal housing just didn’t work.
Chad Freidrichs is the director of the new documentary The Pruitt-Igoe Myth and in the film he examines all the reasons people cite for the demise of Pruitt-Igoe.
In this episode of 99% Invisible, we focus on the popular idea that the architecture was to blame.
Trailer for The Pruitt-Igoe Myth:
The Pruitt-Igoe Myth is distributed by First Run Features and is screening at the IFC Center in New York City starting January 20, 2012 and will roll out across the country to coincide with the 40 year anniversary of the implosion in March 2012.
Aerial view of the massive thirty-three building project:
Notes:
- The Pruitt-Igoe architect, Minoru Yamasaki, has the great misfortune of having another one of his designs forever remembered at the moment of its destruction.
99% Invisible featured on How Sound
Rob Rosenthal does a really fantastic program called How Sound (nee Saltcast) about the “backstory to great radio storytelling” and I am this week’s guest. If you want to make radio stories like mine, (or Ira, or Joe Richman, or The Kitchen Sisters) go download & listen to all of Rob’s episodes. Each episode is a fascinating DVD commentary/master class for public radio stories. I love it. Subscribe!
Rob has also taught most of the best young producers in the field and is currently running the Transom Story Workshop. Want to go from 0-60 in eight weeks? Go learn how to make radio right with Rob Rosenthal.
Episode 43- The Accidental Music of Imperfect Escalators
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“There’s a secret jazz seeping from Washington’s aging Metro escalators - those anemic metal walkways that fill our transit system…they honk and bleat and squawk…why are you still wearing those earbuds?”
-Chris Richards, “Move along with the soundtrack of Metro’s screechy, wailing escalators” The Washington Post, 01/14/11
Ever since the industrial revolution, when it became possible for products to be designed just once and then mass produced, it has been the slight imperfections and wear introduced by human use that has transformed a quality mass produced product into a thing we love. Your worn blue jeans, your grandmothers iron skillet, the initial design determined their quality, but it’s their imperfections that make them comfortable, that make them lovable, that make them yours.
And if you think that a “slightly broken” escalator can’t be lovable, then our own Sam Greenspan would like to introduce you to Chris Richards. Chris Richards is a music critic for the Washington Post, and after years of ignoring the wailing and screeching of the much maligned, often broken escalators in the DC Metro, he began to hear them in a new way. He began to hear them as music.
Notes:
- This story was adapted from one Sam Greenspan produced for his podcast, Whisper Cities, which tells stories of overlooked places and the people who find them.
- The designer of the first DC Metro stations was Harry Weese. Weese’s “Jailhouse Skyscraper” in downtown Chicago was profiled in 99% Invisible #26 by Dan Weissmann. The Metro ceilings may be brutalism at its best.
- If you don’t get the “Culs-de-sac” joke, listen to this episode.
- Radio producers Alex Van Oss and Charles Maynes also created their own Ballad of the DC Metro for Podstantsiya, a Moscow-based podcast and audio collective. (The site in in Russian, but the radio feature is in English.)
Also:
THANKS, RADIOLAB! For a brief shining moment, 99% Invisible was the #2 podcast on iTunes, and #1 in both the Arts and Design categories. Thank you so much for checking out the show. If you’re new here, never fear, you did not miss a thing! All the past episodes are available for download and are great (you know, as a body of work, some are better than others). You can subscribe in iTunes or here is the RSS feed if you use another podcast catching device.
If you appreciated Radiolab telling you about the show, do us a huge favor and tell everyone you know to listen and subscribe. If the response that Jad and Robert have gotten is any indication, they will thank you for it!
Finally:
Let’s hear it! What’s your favorite sound that you know other people hear as just noise? Please leave a comment below.
Radiolab presents 99% Invisible
I’m totally honored to be on Radiolab this week! Jad and Robert are presenting three full, uncut episodes of 99% Invisible along with an interview with yours truly.
Here are the original entries to each of the stories Radiolab featured:
Sounds of the Artificial World
Nikko: Concrete Commando
(Hear the original Nikko radio piece by Stephanie Foo for Snap Judgment. Buy Delfin Vigil’s zine describing his years long Nikko quest.)
If you’re new here, welcome! I hope you enjoy the show. All the past episodes are available for download and are equally great (and short and evergreen). You can subscribe in iTunes or here is the RSS feed if you use another podcast catching device.
If you have any problem there, you can also listen and download everything on my Soundcloud page.
I need to give a big shout out to my home station KALW, to the American Institute of Architects | San Francisco, and the greatest sponsor in the world, LUNAR. If you like the show, they are the ones to thank.
Thanks again for stopping by.
-roman
Episode 42- Recognizably Anonymous
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Anonymous is not group. It is not an organization. Rob Walker describes Anonymous as a “loosely affiliated and ever-changing band of individuals who… have been variously described as hackers, hacktivists, free-expression zealots, Internet troublemakers, and assorted combinations thereof.”
But when Anonymous came up against the Church of Scientiology, a small, non-hierarchical collection of Anons decided to take the disparate phrases, images and ideas circling around the 4Chan.org /b/ message board (where Anonymous has its roots) and combine them into a very engaging and effective “brand identity” (For lack of a better word. Is there a better word? I’d love to hear it. -rm).
The over-the-top, ominous voice of Anonymous was established in an online video and manifesto directed at the Church of Scientology:
The Anonymous logo is comprised of a headless man in a suit, with a question mark where the head should be, juxtaposed against a UN flag. All of these elements are freely interchangeable and can combine with other Anonymous imagery (see top illustration). According to Walker, the logo is “a cleverly subversive, and ironic, appropriation and exploitation of paranoia about Big Brother-style faceless power.”
And then there’s the mask. Appropriated from the graphic novel and movie “V for Vendetta,” the V mask (designed by comic book artist David Lloyd) has become the de facto public face of Anonymous, and it serves as such a powerful image that it has skipped over into other street protests like the Occupy Wall Street movement. Alan Moore, the author of V for Vendetta, has expressed his support of demonstrators exploiting the theatrical qualities of the V image in street protest.
In this episode, Rob Walker explores the origins of the meme-like images in the Anonymous “visual brand” and explains why these icons so powerfully define a phenomenon that eschews definition.
This piece was produced by me and Rob Walker based on his article “Recognizably Anonymous” in Slate.
Sam ID’s himself, others wish to remain Anonymous
Greetings 99th Percentile! My name is Sam Greenspan (Ed note: See photo, center background. Not really.), and I’m the new guy helping out with the show. I’ll be contributing to the blog, occasionally telling stories on the show, and pulling all kinds of levers and knobs behind the scenes.
Roman is hard at work putting together this Friday’s episode—the story of how the Anonymous movement came to be known by the Guy Fawkes mask. (And trust me, it’s not what you think.)
To tide you over til then, check out this story that Carrie Kahn reported for NPR earlier this week about the Occupy movement’s use of the “people’s mic.” Even though the people’s mic was born out of a need—loudspeakers were banned in Zucotti Park—the Occupy protestors are finding that this call-and-response form of decision-making has become emblematic of their ideals.
What stories have you heard in the news that deal with design? Let us know!
Episode 41- The Human-Human Interface
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Above: Paola Antonelli’s favorite piece from Talk to Me: Sputniko!’s “Menstruation Machine” that communicates the feelings and discomfort of menstruation to a non-menstruating person (e.g. a man).
“There’s a whole universe in every single object that becomes even bigger when put in relationship with a person.” – Paolo Antonelli
Paola Antonelli is the Senior Curator in the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art. Her most recent blockbuster show, Talk to Me, explored the communication between people and objects: from chairs that talk to subway kiosks.
It’s pretty easy to get overwhelmed and frustrated by all the human-object interactions in the modern world. I’ve never used a “coin return” button on a vending machine that worked and there is interesting criticism of the increasingly common “pictures under glass” type of interface on the iPhone and iPad.
But as Paola Antonelli explains to producer Benjamen Walker (from Too Much Information), the evolution of communication design is pointing to a world that minimizes human-object interfaces and leaves us to free to focus on real human habits and needs.
Above: Episode #41 producer Benjamen Walker compares “UBIK” tattoos with Jonathan Lethem.
My benefactors at LUNAR are so cool. I swear I would say that even if they weren’t supporting the show.
