“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
….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,
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
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
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
There is an outfit near Columbus, Ohio called The Early Television Foundation, which operates a museum that houses hundreds of vintage televisions and other electronic gear. Their website offers photos of their collection as well as a virtual tour down early TeeVee’s memory lane. They’re even having a convention in May for serious early TeeVee
