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Up There In the Stratosphere
Fri, 07/04/2003 - 15:01 — deadprogrammer
Today, when we think about science fiction, we think of rocket ships and outer space. But things were different in the 40s and 50s. Back then the blue sky was almost as exciting a frontier as the black void of space. Hugo Gernsback’s magazine Air-Wonder Stories and TV serial Zombies of the Stratosphere featuring young Leonard Nimoy were all the rage.
The word “stratosphere” was considered and became a futuristic branding element a bit less common than “o-matic” and “o-rama”. It seems to me that Boeing started this trend : B-52 Stratofortress bomber , KC-135 Stratotanker and 377 Stratocruiser. But then the marketers caught on to the hipness of everything “strato”: Sheaffer Stratowriter pen, Fender Stratocaster guitar, Pontiac StratoChief car and probably many other things that I don’t know about. Prefix “strato” was usually applied to top of the line products. And you don’t really get any more “strato” than Zenith Stratosphere 1000Z console.
Considered by some to be the best vacuum tube radio ever produced, it is also one of the rarest. It was top of the line and cost $750 when it was made in 1930s. Times were tough, and there were not enough customers to purchase these amazing and beautiful radios. Only 350 sets were ever made, 40 are known to survive. Today 1000Z is a wet dream of any vacuum tube radio enthusiast. What attracts me to 1000Z? Well, first of all I am a fan of vaccuum tube sound. The absolutely stunning art deco design is just gorgeous, especially the airplane style tuning dial. It looks like it belongs on a starship. This is how I imagine Henry Kuttner’s “twonky” device. There is an interesting thing about the ads for 1000Z. As it can be seen in this ad, there is a art deco porcelain cat sitting inside the concave area of the cabinet of the radio. This led some collectors to believe that the cat was sold together with the radio. But apparently it was only used for the photo shoot. Still, people lucky enough to own a Zenith Stratosphere try to buy a cat statue to go with it. |
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What's All this Then?
My name is Michael Krakovskiy, and this is my blog.
Here’s what you might find interesting:
100 Views of the Empire State Building project: I try to take 100 interesting photos of Manhattan’s (sadly) tallest building.
My Gastronomic Adventures: I eat weird food - from 13 year old New Coke to Durian and parasitic fungi.
My attempts to grow exotic plants: pineapples, coconuts, etc.
My photos, mostly of New York City.
My musings about architecture mostly illustrated with my own photos. Would you like to learn about a mental patient who died at 103 who served as a model for some very famous sculptures? How about Brooklyn’s ugliest building? How about a wooden skyscraper?
I find myself frequently writing about logos. The most popular article I ever wrote is about the redesigns of the Starbucks logo.
I wrote a series of “Best Sci-Fi You Haven’t Read” posts:
Psywarrior
Yes, Virginia There Is Synergy
Call Time Police - We’ve Got a Time Traveler
Other topics that interest me include NYPD, New York City subway system, Japan, and things made out of titanium. On top of all of that, I seem to be interested in pigeions and Rupert Murdoch.
Dear reader, please browse around. You are sure to find something interesting. I could really use some help in bringing in readership: subscribe to the rss feed, digg the stories (there’s a convenient button at the bottom of every article), link to my blog from yours, write some comments. I put in a lot of effort into writing, and I really appreciate your attention.
If you don’t want all this pseudo-intellectual and want some lolcats? Please don’t go away. Here, I have that stuff too. Here, here’s another. And another. And another. I lied about not posting cat pictures.
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