NIST Stations WWV, WWVH, WWVB and "The Empire Strikes Back"

Being a nostalgic soul, and one that still owns his old Candle shortwave radio, inherited from an aunt, I like to set time on my watches and library clock to the shortwave radio station WWV, an atomic clock-driven time interval broadcasting station operated by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, formerly the National Bureau of Standards. 

There's really no reason for me to set my watches freehand to their coordinated universal time announcements other than I've had this habit for over 37 years, much like my habit of buying an Old Farmer's Almanac every September when the next year's issue is released. 

The Fort Collins, Colorado-based station was always a fascination for me, being an amateur astronomer and so tied closely to time, but official information was a little difficult to come by for teenage kids in the pre-Internet days. When I finally got online in the late 1990's, I searched up basic information on the stations. 

Then one day in the early 2000's when I was working for Manion's International Auction House, a lot turned up with a copy of the NBS Special Publication 432, published by the U.S. Department of Commerce and National Bureau of Standards, called NBS Time & Frequency, Dissemination Services, dated September 1979 - the era I discovered the stations. I still have a copy.

The booklet gives a fantastic rundown of the history of the stations and the technical specifications of their signals.

WWV dates back to 1923 and can be clearly heard throughout the 48 contiguous states. It has two sister stations, WWVB, also located in Fort Collins, and WWVH in Kauai, Hawaii. The stations serve many industries from public to private. Their mission is to broadcast time announcements, standard time intervals, standard frequencies, geophysical alerts, solar-terrestrial indices, marine storm warnings, Omega Navigation System status reports (discontinued in 1997 with the advent of GPS), UT1 time corrections, and BCD time code (binary-coded decimals).

WWV and WWVH can still be heard at 2.5, 5, 10, and 15 MHz, with WWV additionally being heard at 20 MHz. WWVB broadcasts at 60 MHz.

Depending on atmospheric disturbances and other natural phenomena, the signal might not be heard at a given frequency during certain times of day. Generally, frequencies above 10MHz are best for daytime listening, while lower frequencies are stronger at night. 

Owing to our proximity to WWV compared to WWVH's Hawaii transmitter, I usually only heard WWVH late at night, and faintly at that, which nonetheless was thrilling to a kid coming to understand the true size of the world. There is a distinct difference in their tones as well as the fact a female voice announced the time as compared to WWV's male voice. The male voice I was listening to on WWV in 1979-1980 is still there, marking time even as I write this. I've not heard WWVH over the air lately, but I have called the number below, and she's still there.

WWV and WWVH still have a telephone service by which you can hear the broadcasts, (303) 499-7111 for WWV (Colorado), and (808) 335-4363 for WWVH (Hawaii), though I've noticed the telephone signal is approximately half a second behind the shortwave signals.

As a young astronomer, I listened to these stations often during observing sessions, especially when timing was a vital part of the observation, such as during eclipses and occultations. Beyond that, there was something fascinating to a kid about listening to a broadcast from so far away. I became very familiar with Cold War-era shortwave, including the Soviet Union's famous 'woodpecker.' I'll get to that eventually.

So anyway, I came to know the differences in tones and pulses between the stations, especially one particular aspect of WWVH between 30-36 seconds of every minute when there wasn't a constant tone behind the pulses. In place of ticking pulses, there was a curious squelched, almost squealing tone. I always found it intriguing, so imagine my shock and awe when I went to see The Empire Strikes Back in 1980 and heard the tone during the Battle of Hoth scene. You can hear it clearly between 2:16-2:20 of this clip:

Websites:
WWV: https://www.nist.gov/pml/time-and-frequency-division/radio-stations/wwv
WWVH: http://tf.nist.gov/stations/wwvh.htm
WWVB: https://www.nist.gov/pml/time-and-frequency-division/radio-stations/wwvb

In Brief: Criterion Collection's "Island of Lost Souls" DVD

Image courtesy of Criterion Collection

What is the Law? Law No More!

There are a couple of ways I watch Erle Kenton’s 1932 Island of Lost Souls film classic. One, which is the most successful, is as a snapshot of the evolution and state of expressionist cinema just five years after the first talkie.

The other is with an eye on its treatment of the source material, H.G. Wells's 1896 novel, The Island of Dr. Moreau. Unfortunately in this respect, the film misses the mark. Instead of vivisection being the painful centerpiece, this Dr. Moreau is a genetics specialist - though the scalpel certainly still plays a painful role.

Overshadowing even Bela Lugosi, though, is Charles Laughton's great portrayal of Dr. Moreau - a character motivated as much by the ‘question he was pursuing’ as Wells’s own Dr. Moreau. Laughton’s immaculate costume and general delivery makes him exceedingly creepy.

Image courtesy of Criterion Collection

Unfortunately, the screenplay feels rushed and the acting overly dramatic, probably due to the film’s proximity to the silent era.

Some of these same criticisms may be leveled at Wells’ own effort, Things to Come, produced just four years later in 1936. But where Things to Come suffered from excessive preachiness, courtesy of H.G. Wells himself, the continuity of Island of Lost Souls ultimately suffers from a lack of original context.

Still, considering Wells once described the original novel as “an exercise in youthful blasphemy,” this film managed to live up to that idea in some ways. Initially banned in 12 countries, including England, its appearance elsewhere during the Great Depression was likely to have been an edited one.

Image courtesy of Criterion Collection

Released in 2011, the DVD's new digital restoration clocks in at 70 minutes, with a 1.33:1 aspect ratio. The booklet features an excellent essay by Christine Smallwood, audio commentary with film historian Gregory Monk, and a conversation about the film between filmmaker John Landis (Twilight Zone: The Movie, 1983), Oscar-winning makeup artist Rick Baker (Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope, 1977), and genre expert Bob Burns.

Perhaps most interesting, however, are the interview segments with horror film historian David J. Skal, and particularly with filmmaker Richard Stanley, prime mover and the original director for the ill-fated 1996 adaptation of The Island of Dr. Moreau with Marlon Brando, Val Kilmer, Ron Pearlman and David Thewes, a film that is generally regarded as one of the very worst in cinema history.

Image courtesy of Criterion Collection

Just months before acquiring my copy of Island of Lost Souls from my friends at Criterion, Netflix featured a 2014 documentary, Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau. It was clear from this documentary that Stanley, despite harboring a deep love for Wells’s original story, was also going to make a thoroughly modernized and terribly kitschy film.

I had not been aware of the chain of bad executive decisions at New Line Cinema, the war of egos between actors and directors alike, endless production delays, and final degeneration of the entire production into utter chaos and depravity. I think it makes the movie watchable today – provided you keep in mind the reality of the production’s chaos. And of course you have to forgive Marlon Brando wearing an ice bucket on his head. Lord. 

Beyond this, the DVD features also examine the film’s general influence on other films and greater pop culture through the intervening decades, culminating in an interview with Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo, where he outlines the impact of the film on his famous New Wave rock band. Going further, the DVD even includes a short 1976 film by Devo, featuring the songs “Secret Agent Man” and “Jocko Homo.”

Are we not men? Indeed.

https://www.criterion.com/films/27861-island-of-lost-souls?q=autocomplete

Art Deco, Streamline Moderne, and Kansas City's Municipal Auditorium

My wife won a 'flash contest' on Facebook yesterday (meaning you had to pick up your winnings within a couple of hours of notification) for UMKC men's basketball tickets that evening. I'm not a basketball fan, but the game was played at Kansas City's Municipal Auditorium, which happens to be one of my favorite buildings in the city, so I was glad to go.

After watching a few minutes of the game, I decided to take advantage of the sparse crowd to wander the vacant halls and foyers in pursuit of the ghosts of the past.

The arena complex, known here generally as 'Municipal,' includes four separate venues: Municipal Auditorium, Music Hall, Exhibition Hall, and The Little Theater, and was built in 1934 to replace the city's old convention center.

The architecture is a unique mix of Art Deco, an international arts and architectural movement that began in the early 1900's and eventually came to dominate the 1920's and 1930's, along with heavy influence from the Streamline Moderne movement - typified by glass bricks and portal windows, and itself a style that emerged during the Depression years when Art Deco was increasingly being stripped of its sophisticated and exuberant ornamentation in favor of sleek, aerodynamic lines and curves that suggested a faith in the future.

My earliest memories of the auditorium go back to the early 1970's. The complex was renovated in 2007 and 2013, but I'm happy to say the spirit of the original building I remember has largely been retained.

So, here are my images. Of course they're not nearly as nice as those presented by the Kansas City Convention Center's own website, but I offer mine here for fun.

Georges Méliès and the Dawn of Cinema

Before we subscribed to Netflix a couple of years ago, it had been decades since I had seen a complete version of Georges Méliès’ influential La Voyage dans la lune, also known as A Trip to the Moon (1902).

The short was originally shot in black and white, of course, while a hand colored version was also produced, but was eventually lost for decades. A print finally surfaced at the Filmoteca de Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain in 1993. By 1999 the compilation and digitization of the known parts began, with complete restoration beginning in 2010.

This hand colored version is the one featured on Netflix, and was an official selection at Cannes in 2011, having been screened at the Debussy Theatre at 7:45 pm on May 20th. 

The story is about an Astronomer’s Club that conceives and executes a lunar expedition, combining elements and devices from both Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, such as a bullet-shaped projectile/capsule-firing space gun and Selenites.

Six umbrella-waving astronomer travelers descend beneath the lunar surface where they are captured by Selenites and paraded before the Grand Lunar.There they revolt and fight their way back by madcap umbrella bludgeon warfare to the projectile, where one traveler remains outside to dangle from a rope and pull the capsule off a cliff - the edge of the moon, as it were - along with a Selenite stow-away hugging the back of the projectile. They return to earth, splashing into the depths of the ocean - with the astronomer and Selenite still miraculously clinging on! There is a rapturous reception, giant medals for the explorers, and an introduction of their Selenite visitor, who ends up dancing with his handler.

Méliès was a stage magician, known for props and tricks. He produced over 500 films throughout his career which spanned the period 1896 to 1913. His films ranged between one and 40 minutes, and covered genres like advertising, documentary – A Hypnotist at Work, historical reenactments - Divers at Work on the Wreck of the ‘Maine,’magic and illusion – The Vanishing Lady, drama – L’affaire Dreyfus, and of course fantasy, like our current subject, La Voyage dans la lune. 

Méliès interest in filmmaking began when he attended a cinematograph demonstration by the Lumière brothers, August and Louis in late 1895. At the time, the cinematograph was in direct competition with Thomas Edison’s Kinetoscope, but as the Lumière brothers mysteriously believed cinema had no useful future beyond science, they never sold their invention, even to the interested Méliès, and continued their work on color photography.

Yet, as is often the case with new technologies, other inventors were working on similar machines, including Robert W. Paul with his Animatograph in London, from whom Méliès finally secured a machine along with several films to play in his own Théâtre Robert-Houdin, where he had been performing his own magic shows since 1888.

Méliès reverse-engineered the projector into a camera, purchased unperforated film in London, and experimented with development and printing methods, and began producing his own films.

By 1897, a new generation of cameras had hit the market, and Méliès abandoned his old camera for something newer. He had also moved production to a new studio called Montreuil, outside Paris, enabling him to fill his days with production, and still present shows at the Théâtre Robert-Houdin in the evenings.

Méliès is the most famous of early filmmakers for his memorable use of special effects, partly due to his background as a stage magician and experience with props. These props were often papier-mache or painted sets, and his female performers, drawn from the Corps de Ballet du Châtelet, were often dressed in shades of grey Méliès knew would suggest color better than actual color costumes on black and white film.

Apart from the colorized version of La Voyage dans la lune available on Netflix, there are hundreds of his other short films uploaded to streaming sites like Youtube.

So, take an hour or so to step back 120 years, to the dawn of cinema, and enjoy what your great-great-grandparents probably thought was one of the most truly amazing things of their time.

References:
Stover, Leon E. Science Fiction from Wells to Heinlein. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2002. Print.
"A Trip to the Moon (1902) – IMDb." N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Oct. 2016.
"Georges Méliès - IMDb." N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Oct. 2016. 
"Méliès, Georges - Festival De Cannes (International Film Festival)." N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Oct. 2016. 

Detecting Inpainting in Artwork

If you’ve spent time around artists, museums, or artwork in general, you have probably heard the term "inpainting." Simply put, inpainting is a process that reconstructs deteriorated portions of a painting or image.

The term can be also be used in reference to the replacement of corrupted or lost parts of a digital image, and is also known as "image interpolation" or "video interpolation."

In the world of fine art, a painting may have experienced varying degrees of deterioration, loss or damage that an owner or institution wishes to restore. An art conservator is called in. The best conservators are able to match pigment and texture so well that an expert eye is needed to spot it – or at least eyes armed with the right technology.

Naturally there is an army of things to consider before executing any inpainting: light and color phenomena, pigments and their properties, preparation and fills, wet and dry inpainting, media and toning systems – generally synthetic resins, watercolor, gouache, gums, pencils, pastels, dyes, etc. And there are inpainting modifiers such as bulking, glossing, matting and polishing agents; medium/pigment/diluent adjustments for unique structures, the application instrument, and of course any overarching philosophical or ethical considerations.

So, let’s assume we suspect a work of having inpainting, but the conservator was highly skilled. One of the easiest ways to discover it without the benefit of an art museum’s conservation laboratory is by examining the work under ultraviolet light, a common UV-A “black light.”

I recently examined a painting by Anton Lhota (Austrian, 1812-1905), an oil on linen biblical scene of a horrified Judas returning the thirty pieces of silver reward money as he sees Christ carrying the cross through a window. The painting was professionally restored in 1985, and included inpainting with Liquitex acrylic above Judas' head, and an isolating varnish.

Unlike major museum quality restorations, the inpainting here is visible to the naked eye - if you know what you're looking for, but a simple black light in a dark room readily reveals the restoration.