Also not a series of tubes
November 19, 2008 8:51 AM   Subscribe

RadioWallah - "Fabulous transistor radios from the fifties." A few more.
posted by Wolfdog (11 comments total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
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.
posted by davebush at 9:15 AM on November 19, 2008


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.
posted by Slack-a-gogo at 9:19 AM on November 19, 2008


Thank you SO much! There goes my morning productivity...
posted by paddysat at 9:20 AM on November 19, 2008


I love fifties modern. Awesome stuff. Now to have a cocktail.
posted by Eekacat at 10:02 AM on November 19, 2008


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.
posted by nickyskye at 10:02 AM on November 19, 2008


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

Good times.
posted by tommasz at 10:32 AM on November 19, 2008


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

posted by Mental Wimp at 10:47 AM on November 19, 2008 [1 favorite]


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.
posted by matteesee at 12:03 PM on November 19, 2008


Very nice. Here are some using a bit older amplification technology.
posted by caddis at 12:41 PM on November 19, 2008


Sweet.
posted by tellurian at 5:50 PM on November 19, 2008


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.
posted by Spatch at 8:05 AM on November 20, 2008


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