"R. A. Lafferty - Stories 5" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lafferty R A)

received. Still and all, it was money well spent.
The kerosene burner activated a small dynamo that imposed an electrical
grid on the selenium matrix and awakened the memories of the dramas.
There was, however, an oddity in all the playbacks. The film-fix of the
receiver continued to receive impressions so that every time a "slow light"
drama is presented it is different, because of the feedback. The resolution of
the pictures improves with use and is now much clearer and more enjoyable than
originally.
The librettos of the first twelve of the thirteen Bentley dramas are not
good, not nearly as good as the librettos of the Jessy Polk and the Samuel J.
Perry dramas later in the decade. Aurelian Bentley was not a literary man; he
was not even a completely literate man. His genius had many gaping holes in
it. But he was a passionately dramatic man, and these dramas which he himself
devised and directed have a great sweep and action to them. And even the
librettos from which he worked are valuable for one reason. They tell us,
though sometimes rather ineptly and vaguely, what the dramas themselves are
all about. Without these outlines, we would have no idea in the world of the
meaning of the powerful dramas.
There was an unreality, a "ghostliness", about all the dramas, as though
they were made by sewer light underground; or as if they were made by poor
quality moonlight. Remember that the element selenium(the metal that is not a
metal), the chemical basis of the dramas, is named from Selene, the moon.
Bentley did not use "moving pictures" of quickly succeeding frames to
capture and transmit his live presentation dramas. Although Muybridge was in
fact working on the zoopraxi scope (the first "moving picture" device) at that
very time, his still incomplete work was not known to Aurelian Bentley. Samuel
J. Perry and Gifford Hudgeons did use "moving picture" techniques for their
primitive television dramas later in the decade; but Bentley, fortunately
perhaps, did not. Each of Bentley's thirty-minute live dramas, however it
appeared for the first time in the first television receiver, was recorded in
one single matrix or frame: and, thereafter, that picture took on a life and
growth of its own. It was to some extent independent of sequence (an effect
that has been attempted and failed of in several of the other arts); and it
had a free way with time and space generally. This is part of the
"ghostliness" of the dramas, and it is a large part of their power and charm.
Each drama was one evolving moment outside of time and space (though mostly
the scenes were in New York City and the Barrens of New Jersey).
Of course there was no sound in these early Bentley dramas, but let us
not go too far astray with that particular "of course". "Slow sound" as well
as "slow light" is a characteristic of selenium response, and we will soon see
that sound did in fact creep into some of the dramas after much replaying.
Whether their total effects were accidental or by design, these early
television dramas were absolutely unique.
The thirteen "slow light" dramas produced by Aurelian Bentley in the
year 1873 (the thirteenth of them, the mysterious Pettifoggers of
Philadelphia, lacks Bentley's "Seal of Production", and indeed it was done
after his death: and yet he appears as a major character in it) the thirteen
were these:
1. The Perils of Patience, a Damnable Chase. In this, Clarinda Calliope,
who was possibly one of the greatest actresses of American or world drama,