Phonographs are taking over the planet and one day records will be sent out weekly to everyone who owns a player. While certainly dated (1920), I absolutely love the part about how movies are meant to be seen and not heard.
The Phonographs Fans
The Day Is Coming When We’ll Get Our Records Weekly, the Same as Some Kinds of Magazines, and When We Do You’ll Listen to Testimonials for the Soap That Floats as an Introduction to Caruso’s Solo.
By Neal R. O’Hara
THE phonograph fan is the guy that wants more records than Babe Ruth and has more needles than a porcupine. You’ll always find him listening. Or if it’s she, you’ll always find HER listening. Which is going some – to catch any female listening. The phone nut believes a talking machine should be in every home along with the other lawfully wedded talking machine. He’s the nut that tries to get a corner on records every month, which is foolish. You can’t get a corner on records — not while they make them round.
There’s no telling what these rabid recorders will fall for either. A few years ago they were bugs on Hawaiian music and Waikiki had plenty of kick. Today they want jazz, which is nonsense and noise divided evenly — about 100 percent of each. Some of them are nuts about John McCormack and some are crazy about that other great Irish singer, Al McGluck.
They call it canned music and sometimes you wish it would simply stay canned. For why is it that the guy in the next flat always has for a favorite the record that gets your goat?
Yep, records are issued monthly the same as the magazines. But thank heavens we don’t have to read the records! And that goes for the Congressional Record, too. The monthly crop pleases all tastes. A guy that likes sprightly music listens to Sousa’s band. And a guy that likes jazz listens to what sounds like a band of Sioux. When your favorite Sousa record disappears you know some one has stolen a march on you.
You can even hear William Jennings Bryan talk, which shows there’s no limit to the phonograph industry. And no mercy either. There are two sides to every Bryan record and much to be said on both sides, you bet. A lot of folks buy them just so they can have him on hand without letting him talk. Bryan’s been in the cabinet for years — the music cabinet of many happy homes. But the pleasure of it all is that an infant can stop the silver tones orator from talking.
But we fear the day is coming when we’ll get our records weekly the same as some kinds of magazine. And when we do, you’ll listen to testimonials for the soap that floats as an introduction to Caruso’s solo, and you’ll finish with facts from the man who owns one. We may even get them oftener than weekly. The Evening Record of the Daily Disc wouldn’t surprise us a bit.
There was a time when they had talking movies, but you’ll notice they cut them out. Movies are made to be seen and not heard. And anyway, they’re senseless enough without having some talk thrown in. Besides, if there’s talking to be done in the movies there are always two nuts in front of you that are sure to furnish the gab.
Business men now use the talking machine in their offices. He talks into a three foot hose and gives a cylinder of conversation to his stenog. Stenog puts down the cylinder, but the sad part is that it’s the wrong kind of cylinder. Talkies will some day revolutionize business offices though. The day is coming when we’ll all have cylinder stenogs — with the latest shades of paint, we hope.
Source: The Evening World. Newspaper. February 07, 1920.
