Shortwave

"Everyone should have two radios, in case one breaks." - Lou Reed.

Given the choice between access to the internet and access to shortwave radio, I'll take the latter. Hands down.

Used shortwaves turn up often at yard sales and flea markets. When you encounter them for dirt-cheap prices, nab 'em all. I'll buy any extras you don't want - seriously. Talk to me.

Or you can peruse eBay for various used shortwave radios.

Or, failing that, you could just buy a brand new, sturdy and dependable Hammacher Schlemmer and perhaps apply some cosmetic changes to give it that retrocognitive style we all know and love.


Then, open a bottle of absinthe, recline in the dark, and listen to what's really going on out there.

Zenith Trans-oceanic radios are popular with retro-enthusiasts of all flavors, especially Dieselpunk fanciers, and are a personal favorite of mine.

FREE: Eck-Adams Bench

Free to a good home: this is a late 1950s/early 1960s two-seater waiting room bench. It was manufactured by the mysterious Eck-Adams company that apparently began business in the 1930s.


I obtained it from Electric Blue Print's going out of business sale a few years back and kept it in my art studio at the Cinderblock Gallery for some time after that. Has been used very little. It's a bit dusty from having been in storage for the last year but looks great and is devastatingly sturdy in that way that only old retro furniture can be.


Want it? It's yours, come haul it away. It's in Middletown on the East edge of Louisville. Just e-mail me.

The Zeusaphone

The Zeusaphone is a new breakthrough in retro tech: it's a high-performance solid state Tesla coil that play musical tones, theremin-like, directly through the electrical sparks it emits. As their website puts it, "Just as a speaker vibrates the surrounding air to produce a certain sound, the Zeusaphone™ modulates its lightning-like discharges to do the very same!"

The cheapest model, the Z-18, runs about $1,899 USD.

Although the concept is a variation on the Plasma Arc Loudspeaker, which generates atmospheric compression waves which the human ear perceives as sound, the Zeusaphone looks to be a much more functional and dazzling toy. Plasma Arc Loudspeakers are in turn derived from William Duddell's "Singing Arc" circa 1900. The concept has also found modern uses into next-generation spacecraft propulsion like the ion thruster.

Watch demo videos of the Zeusaphone in action here.

Moon Rock Exposed as Fake

The Dutch national museum has been forced to admit that a rock, supposedly brought back from the moon by U.S. astronauts, has turned out to be a fake.

The museum acquired the rock from the estate of former Prime Minister Willem Drees in 1988. Drees had reportedly received it on October 9, 1969 from U.S. ambassador J. William Middendorf and the three Apollo 11 astronauts during their goodwill tour after the first moon landing.


They're still trying to figure out how this fake moon rock got there. Was NASA giving out fake moon rocks? Or did someone later pull a switcheroo on the Hague? It wouldn't be the first time someone has stolen moon rocks.

Curiously, U.S. law now forbids private ownership of moon materials, even dust or microparticles.

Claude H. Freese

Recently spotted this newspaper clipping from the May 12, 1930 edition of the Galveston Daily News, spotlighting an exciting new aeronautical invention by Claude H. Freese - one that was never seen again.


Freese created prototypes for a number of different experimental flying machines, including U.S. Patent 1,603,384. He seemed to be bridging the gap between the technology of the Steampunk era and the Dieselpunk era, but his hybrid concepts never caught on.


Freese's real name was Claus, and the December 24, 1921 New York Times reported that at in 1918, he'd been arrested as a war criminal during World War I. Apparently he illegally entered Mexico for the purpose of visiting the German consulate and offering the German government plans for a new type of gun. Freese's scheme failed, and when apprehended by the authorities, he claimed to have no sympathy for Germany, and that the whole thing was intended as a "yankee trick" on the Kaiser, as the experimental gun did not actually work as promised.


President Harding released him at the same time as Eugene V. Debs and other alleged un-Americans, stating that Freese had already served enough time and that no harm had come from his actions.

Robert Fawcett

As seen on the Today's Inspiration blog: author Manuel Auad is seeking further information about this wonderful noir-esque Robert Fawcett magazine illustration circa 1940s/50s.

Something about this image definitely stirs some buried memories - I can smell the wooden mustiness of the room; hear the spooky silence in it that makes your ears ring; see the dust particles floating under the bright desk lamp; feel the uneven temperature that comes with radiator heating - pockets of cold and pockets of warmth touching you at the same time. I also strongly smell food in the room, even though none is depicted.

Swimming Cities

The Swimming Cities Collective is comprised of wonderfully crazy folks who create elegant art-boats out of found garbage (mostly taken from dumpsters on the streets of NYC) and then sail them on the open seas. As io9 put it, "The Swimming Cities are something out of Terry Gilliam's daydreams, part Mad Max fantasy and part Waterworld reality."

We need a lot more of this sort of thing at this juncture point.

Last year, JSHNYC reported on a group of "urban pirates" living on an abandoned ferry, which also sounds like something right up our primitive alley.

Surrey Single Bench Deluxe

Forget mundane bicycles. Even forget three-wheeled adult tricycles with the big basket. The real way to travel is this foot-pedaled Surrey Single Bench Deluxe from Industrial Bicycles, Inc.

Very soon, I plan on obtaining one of these wonderful toys, and it will be my winter project to refurbish it in a style somewhere between Steampunk, Voraxica, and Flintstone. Further details will be ongoing on this blog in months to come.

Sheep Skull Mouse

Other people who have reported on this item have been in the "ewww, gross" category, but we think this computer mouse constructed from a baby sheep's skull is the most marvelous invention since sliced bread. See more images of it on Dvice and on the blog of its creator, Ivan Mavrovic.

Animal Sculptural Radiators

From Born Rich:

We have seen some amazing radiator designs in the past, but the animal-shaped radiators from Dutch designer Guus Van Leeuwen take the cake. The designer’s “Domestic Animals” series has made a debut at this year’s Salone Del Mobile exhibition in Milan. The Guus Van Leeuwen radiators are covered with the skin of the animal they represent. Every “Domestic Animal” is crafted out of a single ongoing steel tube that starts and ends at the tail. “This can’t be bended in one time, so every animal is built from 40 to 60 pieces, which are all bent by a computer-controlled machine and then welded onto each other to create this one ongoing tube.” At the tail the radiators can easily be connected to the central heating system. Personally, I don’t see any reason to deck these steel carcasses with the real furry skins, but probably this is done to add a sophisticated touch to these sculptures-cum-radiators.

An Appointed Time...

This is a blog for fellow travelers who may see, recognize, acknowledge, and know. Devotees of various "retro culture" Earth subcultures like Steampunk, Rockabilly/Swing revivalists, and the Society for Creative Anachronism may or may not also find our transmissions of interest.