The Explanation
(for those who require one)

And, of course, that is what all of this is -- all of this: the one song, ever changing, ever reincarnated, that speaks somehow from and to and for that which is ineffable within us and without us, that is both prayer and deliverance, folly and wisdom, that inspires us to dance or smile or simply to go on, senselessly, incomprehensibly, beatifically, in the face of mortality and the truth that our lives are more ill-writ, ill-rhymed and fleeting than any song, except perhaps those songs -- that song, endlesly reincarnated -- born of that truth, be it the moon and June of that truth, or the wordless blue moan, or the rotgut or the elegant poetry of it. That nameless black-hulled ship of Ulysses, that long black train, that Terraplane, that mystery train, that Rocket '88', that Buick 6 -- same journey, same miracle, same end and endlessness."
-- Nick Tosches, Where Dead Voices Gather

Faces of Science #9


Hedy Lamarr


George Antheil

The two inventors of the "Secret Communication System" that received patent number 2,292,387. Later known as "frequency hopping" its basic idea is summarized in the second paragraph of the patent:

"An object of the invention is to provide a method of secret communication which is relatively simple and reliable in operation, but at the same time is difficult to discover or decipher."
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3 comments:

Sam Teigen said...

There was a great theater piece with special robotic performance of Antheil's masterpiece http://www.hourglassgroup.org/frequency.html

November 02, 2009 4:38 PM
squajo said...

That's HEDLEY!

November 03, 2009 1:01 PM
michaelE said...

Can you tell what I'm communicating right now?

November 03, 2009 6:13 PM

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