Anyone familiar with old movies is familiar with one sight: the asbestos curtain in theaters, slowly lowered over the stage at the conclusion of successful (or unsuccessful) performances done on the cheap. Asbestos used to be the country's miracle material, the chief product in fire blankets, insulation, and anything that needed to be protected from fires. But upon the discovery that asbestos...
We're all familiar with reels as tools, whether we're talking about fishing reels, hose reels for fire fighting, or demo reels in the world of filmmaking or video art. But one use of the word "reel" that many of us have forgotten about is the tradition of the reel in dancing--one of the four basic dances of the mysterious highlands of Scotland.
For all the Scots people will tell you about...
Fire hoses are most commonly associated in our minds with their intended function: putting out fires. But the simple fire hose, with its ability to direct extremely high-pressure sprays of water, has also been known in a more sinister aspect: as a weapon, used infamously against American civil rights marchers in the 1960s. But even this sinister quality to the common fire hose can have its...
Comic books: one of the few great American art forms, known worldwide as mental rot and poison, at best "literature for illiterates." But a few comics have attempted to rise above their low image by providing valuable public services. In particular, there's the NFPA's line of fire protection comics for kids.
The fire safety comics aren't particularly attempts to do something interesting...
A fire extinguisher: for most of us, nothing but a standard piece of safety equipment, tied to the wall with extinguisher brackets and sealed in an extinguisher box. But for the early filmmakers of a largely pre-narrative Hollywood, a fire extinguisher of the classic pre-pressurized type was just another means of struggling to develop a common language of film.
It's hard to believe that...
Fire extinguishers aren't just nice safety features to have around anymore. The prevalence of chrome extinguishers in modern hotel and restaurant design is starting to revolutionize how the public thinks about one of the inescapable fixtures of modern life: visible safety features.
It's been acceptable practice to mix function and form liberally for some time now. Changes in the law and...
Symbols: from fire extinguisher signs to airline diagrams, they're becoming a more and more common sight in our world. Some people consider the proliferation of the symbol to be a sign of declining literacy rates worldwide, and with them the decline of civilization in general.
But the rise of the symbol is by no means bad--and by no means new.
Although there is some truth to the idea...
Fire buckets--one of the great innovations of fire suppression technology, and one that today is largely obsolete. Foam extinguishers and other more modern means of fighting oil fires have become the standard, and the quaint red buckets of sand from yesteryear have become for the most part a thing of the past. But one artist is fighting to ensure that the past remains remarkably present.
...
A stainless steel extinguisher: a classy piece of decor. A vital tool for fighting large, dangerous fires. And, in some urban areas--an art supply. Not that the graffiti artist's arsenal needs to be limited to co-opted extinguishers: the traditional spray can is still popular, and other industrial sprayers, stencils, and tools for putting up illegal art are well-known around the world--yet...
Extinguisher stands were hardly a standard safety option during the all-too-brief career of William McGonagall, the Dundee man commonly known even today as the "Worst Poet In The World." But McGonagall--the poetic chronicler of the Tay Bridge Disaster--would have been the first to applaud the invention, though it surely would have spelled the end of his career.
McGonagall began his life as...
