katoarts

The Timeless Oaf

Definition:

oaf (plural oafs)

   1. (obsolete) An elf's child; a changeling left by fairies or goblins, hence, a deformed or foolish child.

   2. (pejorative) A person, especially a large male, who is clumsy or a simpleton; an idiot.w

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    6. Patrick - SpongeBob Squarepants (1999) - IMDB

The most fun-loving and silly character on this list. He is well aware of his limitations, but stubbornly breaks through any barriers that lay in the way of his mental deficiencies. His home is under a large rock which is wonderful symbolism for his ignorant life style. Him and SpongeBob are an odd couple as they both lack common sense and logically reasoning. Although I love Patrick Starr he is really just a mix of every Oaf that has ever existed in film and TV effectively making him a hybrid oaf to rule them all. 

    5. Mongo - Blazing Saddles (1974) - IMDB

Who can forget Mongo? Mr. Brook's Greasy, dumb, and lovable creation. His brutal primitive actions are made innocent by the fact that he is a big troubled child inside. Kind of like a much larger, dumber, and racially confident Micheal Jackson. He is actually very reminiscent to Lennie, but without a proper counterpart.And although slow, his primitive wisdom does shine through. "Mongo only pawn... in game of life. "

    4. Lennie - from 'Of Mice and Men' (1937) - Wiki & IMDB

Lennie is who made me think of this list to begin with. I finished this brief Steinbeck tale on the train yesterday.  Lennie is a sweet, childish, and brutally strong friend of George, who is his smaller more socially slick counterpart. This genuine tale follows the wandering odd-couple in their journey to find happiness. As George tells a raptured Lennie, "We're gonna do it, we're gonna get a little place of our own an' live off the fatta the land." Already sounds sad doesn't it? I'll be watching '92 movie that features John Malkovich as Lennie shortly.

    3. Ludo -  Labyrinth (1986) - IMDB

So much love fills this over sized and hairy Jim Henson creation. For years I have been trying to recreate  his enormous cry with my own voice or complain about something smelly in his likeness. As is most of the characters in this film, he is a ruthless friend to the main protagonist, played by the stunning Jennifer Connelly. Ludo actually fits both entries of oaf. A success story to say the least.

    2. Glottis - Grim Fandango (1998) - Wiki

Glottis is on the edge. His physical appearance will get him thrown in with oaf community immediately, although his outward appearance does not reflect his deep and complex mind. Glottis is a demon from the underworld whose "roots lie not in any Earthly nation's soil. I am an elemental spirit summoned up from the Land of the Dead itself and given one purpose, one skill, one desire... TO DRIVE."  Like many of the best oafs, he teams up with a smaller and socially smoother counterpart. Here is Glottis at his most Glottistic:

1. Curly - Three Stooges (1933) - IMDB

No one can leave this hero off this list. A winner in everyones book. Every modern oaf is a large part of Curly. His wisdom. His charm. His blatent stupidity. His homosexual overtones. The stooges are unique in that they come in a trio. Where an oaf is usually matched with a guardian figure, the stooges are all foolish, childish men that manage to take care of each other. Curly is often full of excellent ideas when he is not attempting to be brilliant. However has great difficulty when actually putting his mind to something. "I try to think, but nothing happens..."

Winning in Life

I don't need to and don't often win things. Not to say I don't like excelling in my professional or personal affairs--I just don't have that supreme competitive drive that forces people to seek out useless challenges to pad their inner desire to win. It's a funny act. You can win the lottery,  a peace prize, a 1/2 gallon of milk, a heated game of Yahtzee, the possibilities are infinite. I personally like the feeling of win better when it's not based on chance or pity. Many probably disagree and treat all win equally. I received a nice taste of win the other day and it made me look back at some of the stupid things I've won in life.

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The Talent Show

I don't think I understood the meaning of win at this point in my life. I was a happy child doing what my parents told me, practicing my piano, doing my homework, being a good little Catholic school boy. Memories remain hazy of the days of pre-sixth grade, but a few remain. One being the amazing model Iroquois Longhouse I made with my father in the basement. Another being the day Sister Elsa dumped the contents of my desk onto me leaving me with bruised ribs. Another and most relevant being the 1995 Kingston Catholic Talent Show.

In my younger years I was considered a profound pianist. After only 2 years of playing I was better than anyone I knew and had a knack for performing. This is funny to me because somewhere along the road I've gained a phobia of performing and now avoid it at all costs.

Most memorable for me was Marie and Katie performing their unpracticed rendition of new Oasis hit 'Wonderwall'. I recall strong feelings of empathic embarrassment and confusion over the spectacle. I also remember a magic show put on by Philip. An unconvincing but very entertaining act. I'm almost positive he had a most excellent top hat. I also remember some primitive dance lesson chops and some better practiced sung songs.

Finally I was up. The piano was in the center of the gymasium/auditorium. I sat down at the old bright wood upright Steinway, stared at the keys for a moment--then started playing 'Spinning Song' which I had just recently mastered for NYSSMA.

Some strange boy playing Spinning Song

After I was done, everyone went wild not knowing the chops I had. And for the rest of grade school I would be made fun of because pianist sounds like penis. They also made a no-winner rule for all subsequent talent shows. I just had to ruin it for everyone.

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Amazing Magna Mountain Bicycle!

This was a random win. I put my name in one of those raffle bins they have at your local bakery or corner store. A few weeks later we got a call from the local fire department saying I was the lucky winner of a Magna Mountain Bike. "Great!" I thought. I like mountains and I need a new bike. This should be the perfect thing for me. 

No one informed me this was the worst bike ever. They just told me I won. This monstrous steel burden lasted for a few squeaky months before becoming completely unusable. Riddled with flat tires and an exuberant amount of rust, this piece ended up a permanent fixture of the garage where it still sits today. Thanks a lot Kingston Fire Department, ya cheap bastards!

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I know there is more, but many things I refuse to call winning. Such things as lotto scratch-off's, sandwich club cards, and Super Ghouls and Ghosts don't deem personal win. They are just life sucking bumps along the road that promise us glory.

Flea Market Wire Recorder

Rummaging through the Laney Flea Market, as I do every Sunday in Oakland, I happened upon a strange piece of equipment. The dirty suitcase, as I suspected, was carrying antique circuits, and to my surprise it was an antique recording device. The woman running the booth wanted the thing gone. For $20 I assumed ownership of a Webster-Chicago 'Electronic Memory' Wire Recorder. I was very happy to find out the very same model is on show in the Smithsonian!

As always being car-less and forgetting rope and scissors, we bought both and tied it to the back of my bike and started back to East Oakland. Upon returning I plugged the thing in and to my surprise the damn thing actually turned on. It's lucky for anything electrical to turn on from the flea market let alone something that is over 60 years old. The antique has an eerie look to it that matched it's electronic hum and recording quality.

The Recorder in it's heyday was quite the possession. It promoted the idea of talking to relatives and meeting new friends by "mailing your voice instead of a letter." They had a ''Wirespondence Club' that "maintains lists of wire recorder owners all over the world" which I'm assuming acted as a primitive Casual Encounters.

Before the golden age of magnetic tape, these babies were the prize. They were actually made of stainless steel Piano wire and if kept in good conditions are said to last up to 250 to 300 years. Here's a little history from the Video Interchange.

The technology of magnetic recording dates back to 1878, when Oberlin Smith proposed the idea of recording telephone signals onto a length of steel piano wire. Over the next thirty years the technology evolved at a "snail's pace"; stalled by lack of adequate and cost effective electronic amplification. By 1930, advances in electronics allowed the first commercially successful wire recorders to be introduced as dictating machines and telephone recorders in Europe and North America. During WWII, the machines found their way into the BBC who employed banks of them for sending messages to the French underground. Meanwhile the US Army & Navy also employed them for similar purposes in their operations centers. Following the war from 1947 to 1952, wire recorders became popular in America and across Europe, and started showing up in many homes. The wire recorder was the very first reliable audio recorder to find it's way into the American home in significant numbers.

So The first spool I whipped out also had the most interesting material. As the motor hummed as I switched on the machine, the words "Brother Master Ceremony" spat out of the machine. As it continued I quickly realized it was the swearing in of a lodge master for the Freemason fraternity. Very interesting. Very eerie. The determined voice went through the proceedings for a certain 'Brother Frisbold' who didn't seem at all present. I'm assuming they were both part of the 'Wirespondence Club'.

Here's a pic of the wire spools.

Finally, The recording plus a remix of the ceremony. 

1. Freemason Brother-Master Ceremony

2. Remix - Freemason Pancake Breakfast

I'm very interested in the production capabilities of rerecording things to the machine itself. The microphone that came included is said to have very bad frequency response. However, the actual wire itself, if fed a line level signal into its input, is said to sound very unique and warm.

I'll be collecting Wire Recording Spools and putting them unto Archive.org and also indexing them on this website. So if anyone has these laying around please contact me!