Comments on: Also not a series of tubes

Also not a series of tubes

Wolfdog — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 08:51:59 -0800

RadioWallah - "Fabulous transistor radios from the fifties." A few more.

By: davebush

davebush — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 09:15:09 -0800

Great post - thanks for this. My love of music began in the early 70's with a pocket size transistor radio continually tuned to Toronto's 1050 CHUM. I'll have to search these galleries to find my little buddy.

By: Slack-a-gogo

Slack-a-gogo — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 09:19:11 -0800

And if that's not enough, there more here and this guy's flickr page has a few hundred more (and there are even more in his favorites). I could look at these things all day.

By: paddysat

paddysat — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 09:20:17 -0800

Thank you SO much! There goes my morning productivity...

By: Eekacat

Eekacat — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 10:02:01 -0800

I love fifties modern. Awesome stuff. Now to have a cocktail.

By: nickyskye

nickyskye — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 10:02:22 -0800

oh wow. Amazing to see what I put under my pillow in the early 60's, the $5 dinky rectangle that Granny gave me. What a treasure that thing was, how much pleasure I got out of its static riddled output. omg, my boyfriend had one of these in pea green in London in the first half of the 70's. Didn't know it was that old then. That sweet little piece of electronics is now probably part of my genetic makeup. It's so interesting how well radios last. I have a 1959 Zenith plug it in the wall model that still works like a charm. Amazing. For anyone who doesn't speak Hindustani, a "wallah" is a person who does something. A person who sells vegetables is called a vegetable (subzi) wallah. Not just as a profession but as a dedicated interest or connection. So neat for me to see Hindi come into the English language in this way. There are other words from India woven into English already, like pajamas, bungalow, thug, assassin, chemise and now Bollywood. But wallah is one of those words that is always in used in India, all the time. Like MeFites would be MetaFilter wallahs.

By: tommasz

tommasz — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 10:32:27 -0800

Now I have the "77 WABC" jingle going through my head. Not to mention visions of the "WMCA Good Guys" sweatshirts. Good times.

By: Mental Wimp

Mental Wimp — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 10:47:23 -0800

Whatever happened To Tuesday and so slow Going down the old mine With a transistor radio

By: matteesee

matteesee — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 12:03:21 -0800

I love how much effort and care were put into just the good looks of these things. For some reason we seem to be really into black rectangles for our cutting-edge electronics these days.

By: caddis

caddis — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 12:41:31 -0800

Very nice. Here are some using a bit older amplification technology.

By: tellurian

tellurian — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 17:50:22 -0800

Sweet.

By: Spatch

Spatch — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 08:05:47 -0800

For anyone who doesn't speak Hindustani, a "wallah" is a person who does something. A person who sells vegetables is called a vegetable (subzi) wallah. Not just as a profession but as a dedicated interest or connection. So neat for me to see Hindi come into the English language in this way. Now that's very interesting. In terms of radio and audio drama, "walla" (spelled without the H) stands for the miscellaneous background crowd mumbling that adds atmosphere and character to busy scenes. (The term is apocryphally derived from the technique where your background actors just mumble "walla walla" over and over again to create the effect. Some actors prefer to just say "rhubarb", and others use "peas and carrots", but the effect is typically the same.) If a street scene calls for "crowd walla", you throw in a group of actors mumbling busily amidst automobile sounds. Restaurant crowd walla involves pleasant dinner conversation with silverware and plate clinking. That kind of stuff. Seeing the Hindi term here, I could offer up a tenuous connection here and say that a crowd is made up of people who are doing something that, in the context of the scene, implies a common interest (eating in a restaurant, walking down the street, attending a trial). But boy howdy is that extremely tenuous. While I can tell that the Hindi wallah refers to someone with a more, well, dedicated interest, I think that the two terms are still very interesting compared to each other.