(this post is an excerpt from the new Afterword that will be appended to the updated 2023 Edition of The Boy Who Invented Television.) In September 2002, Pem Farnsworth was invited to make an appearance at the 54th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards: About midway through the telecast, host Conan O’Brien paused at the edge of […]
Pem Farnsworth at The Emmys Read More »
…and in our pockets, now. Well, sorta. It’s not exactly the theory of relativity, but it’s all part of the same cosmology. Which we take entirely for granted. I posted a piece on the Townsend Brown website about the connections between Albert Einstein, the papers he published in 1905, and the inventing of television: Source:
Television: The Theory of Relativity In Our Living Room Read More »
Above, the first hand-drawn rendering of the Image Dissector, ca. 1922. Arguably, every video display on the planet – including the one you are looking at now – can trace its origins to this drawing, which was presented during patent litigation in the 1930s. Sadly, the myth that television was “too complex” for a
The Distinction is Not Insignificant Read More »
“The most effective lies are the ones built around a fragile germ of truth.” —Andy Greenwald Please step aside as I dust of my lance and go looking for windmills one more time… For… ohm’god has it really been seven years now! – Aaron Sorkin’s play The Farnsworth Invention has presented a loosely twisted
Here We Go Again:
An Open Letter to The Palo Alto Players Read More »
This just showed up in my Google alerts: World’s Fair Predicted TV’s Future (link to actual article since deceased) The article is a look back at the introduction of television at the NYC World’s Fair in April, 1939 – the one where David Sarnoff famously and pompously pronounced, “Now we add sight to sound.” “Philo
Will The Propaganda Never End? Read More »
….if you've heard this one before. From a story that ran in the Investor's Business Daily last week: In 1929, Sarnoff secretly hired Vladimir Zworykin, an engineer and head of TV research at Westinghouse, where he worked on an electronic scanning system for a prototype TV. The Russian immigrant soon hopped from Philadelphia to San
“Every man is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” — Daniel Patrick Moynihan 1. The Widow and the Screenwriter In July 1993, a young playwright and screenwriter named Aaron Sorkin flew from Los Angeles to spend the better part of a day with an elderly widow in Salt Lake City,
The Real Tragedy of “The Farnsworth Invention” Read More »
There is a new "Statuary Hall" at the U.S. Capitol building in Washington. Each state gets to place two statues of its most deserving luminaries in the capitol. Utah's first statue was of Brigham Young (who else?) and after a state-wide referendum back in 1990, the state's second statue was dedicated to the inventor of
A New Home for Philo Read More »
Link: The Farnsworth Invention (2/27). I have been exchanging messages with a fan of The West Wing who maintains a "Live Journal" blog and who has seen an early performance of at the La Jolla Playhouse. Based on these exchanges, I’m starting to get some sense of how the play balances the tricky imperatives
History -v- Hollywood in La Jolla Read More »
I am often asked, where did the term "television" actually come from. There are numerous accounts of the origin of the term. One of them attributes its first use to the writings of one Hugo Gernsback, who published numerous magazines about science and invention during the early 20th century. I recall the first time I
Meet Hugo Gernsback Read More »
