Month: November 2016 (Page 5 of 6)

 

Before there was AOL, Amazon, Groupon, Google, Facebook, Yahoo! or any of today’s other Internet titans, there was the Minitel: the boxy little terminal that allowed French clients to access a wide array of services – including, “bien sûr,” hot chat rooms – through a France Telecom phone line.

 

 

Minitel, France’s Videotex telecommunication system, was introduced experimentally in 1981 in Britanny and was rolled out nationally in 1982. It was implemented by France Telecom’s Teletel network. Designed initially to replace the expensive-to-print and distribute French telephone directory, it rapidly evolved and became a news-media/weather, booking, information service and online sex kiosk phenomenon. Minitel was distributed to households for free across the country and soon the French were using it to check exam results, apply to university, book trains and chat online, years before the Internet’s blogs or social networking.

 

 

At its peak, it was earning and sharing the equivalent of 1 billion Euros a year between its state -owned operator and those who sold services or provided content through it. All users had to do was dial up a number on the keyboard to connect to the database of the chosen content provider, then follow instructions that juddered out in black and white across the screen.

 

 

Customers were billed per minute to their phone bill, by the state-owned network operator which then passed subscription fees back to content service providers. It was a network of pay-walls similar to those used today by for example the Apple app store. It is generally overlooked that many of the ideas that formed the Internet were, first of all, tried out on Minitel. — BBC

 

 

By the time it hit its peak in 1994, roughly 20 million users were connecting to 25,000 services through 6.5 million terminals. Minitel had made online, rudimentary interactive, real-time navigation a daily part of French life at a time when few people had heard much about the World Wide Web.

 

 

But its earlier inception and popularity did not allow Minitel to keep up with the internet – whose super fast connections and multimedia sites left Minitel’s sluggish, text-only format looking seriously dated. Despite the fact that it had become obsolete Minitel still held on to life and in 2012 the year of its final demise an estimated 400,000 people were still logging into the Minitel. It’s main uses by then were for accessing the telephone directory, farmers exchanging information on cattle and doctors transmitting patient details to the national health service. — R.F.I

 

 

In 1994, 30% of French households had a Minitel terminal attached to their phones. In contrast, fewer than 6% of American households made use of online services during the same period. The Minitel had created in the French population a new way of thinking, an awareness of the power of information and the will to use it. “It is something to be used in daily life. It is easy. So much more simple than hooking up a computer and a modem,” a writer said speaking to The Inquirer newspaper. In the same article, an environmental engineer says he prefers using the Minitel for researching as opposed to the more sophisticated services available on his high powered Apple Macintosh.

 

 

A Minitel is not a real computer, just a terminal that responds to signals coming from a telephone line. It does not have a memory or computing capabilities. Despite its underlying technology being outdated to sacrifice modernity for simplicity, new Minitel terminal’s were equipped with credit card slots to facilitate home shopping. As a system that was initially implemented to give access to directory information, it gave birth to an entirely new $1 Billion-a-year industry of companies that sell their products and services over the Minitel.

 

 

There were caterers and sex-talk services, real estate brokers and travel agents, movie kiosks and weather bureaus, professionals from a wide range of fields from retail to psychics and meteorologists used the Minitel, plying their trades over the phone links. Availability of online banking and stock market quotes too made the system popular with businessmen and shopkeepers. France Telecom annually published a directory that listed nearly 23,000 different services that can be accessed through codes.

 

 

But unlike the Internet, which was developed by the International Computer Communications Network funded by a Pentagon computer network in the U.S, the Minitel could not be adopted to carry live video or sound. It is far slower and primitive compared to computer products in the U.S. “The Minitel,” said French Communications Minister “may be obsolete, but it has prepared people for what is to come in regards to the information superhighway.The Minitel has become a cultural habit.” — Inquirer, Sep 1994

 

 

Doc Introduction to diffrent uses

Publicity cartoon 1

Minitel Publicity general services

Minitel garage directory

Minitel handshake

Minitel fly ad

amstal computer ad

 

 

The Minitel rose

Indisputably the real stars of the Minitel were the world’s first electronic adult chat rooms, where people using pseudonyms patiently exchanged steamy messages that took what would now seem an eternity to appear on screen.

 

 

Several of today’s most influential media bosses made huge fortunes on the “pink messaging” services with their chatroom startup companies. Services advertised on billboards, with names such as Ulla gaining mythical status in France. Thousands of French households saw their telephone bills rise as men logged endless Minitel hours on hot-chat services (usually, it turned out, with male employees paid to pose as aroused and prowling women). Such erotic services were known collectively as Minitel “rose” became so profitable that traditional media outlets hired specialized companies to create libido-throttling platforms of their own.

 

 

The musician Gerome Nox told the newspaper Libération how he had worked on one of the services posing as a hostess called Julie to attract men and keep them online as long as possible. He compared the men replying to his messages to “starving piranhas, no bonjour, no pleasantries, it was direct and crude”. He said he decided to stop as “my Julie had become more and more disagreeable and hateful”. — Time

 

 

By 1989 the reputation of France’s Minitel “rose” had spread and in a news article entitled “Minitel: miracle or monster,” the L.A times called it a network of crime and prostitution, reporting on the lawsuit filed by The Federation of French Families which contended that it had transgressed into a service in which “anonymous video conversations take place between callers and prostitution networks that often involve children.

 

 

The complaint lists a series of serious crimes, ranging from child prostitution to murder, that has been linked to the system. In one well known case in Paris, for example, a 24-year-old call girl, Anne Trinh, was tortured and killed by a sadomasochist who made contact with her through one of the Pink Minitel message services. The Trinh murder was detailed in a book entitled “The Black File on the Pink Minitel” by journalist Denis Perier.

 

 

Ironically, the author notes, the Trinh case was also solved in part through the use of a Minitel. Using the sophisticated Minitel electronic telephone directory, a friend of the dead woman was able to locate Trinh’s dentist, enabling police to identify her severely burned body.

 

 

The lawsuit also cited the case of a 40-year-old man in Bordeaux who was using a Minitel service to “lease” the 6-year-old son of his common-law wife for sexual purposes. “Because of its huge potential audience and the anonymity provided by the government, the Minitel is relatively safe and effective criminal tool. And as with the introduction of the telephone more than a century ago, criminals have been among the first to exploit it.” — L.A Times

 

 

Demonstration operating a minitel

Shutting down and recycling the Minitel

Modern Websites like facebook, youtube running on the minitel

 

 

The Minitel serial killer

During the months of October and November 1990, Rémy Roy murdered three men he met through the pink Minitel. His criminal route begins October 11, 1990, with a 46-year-old insurance agent who went by the pseudonym of “hpoilu75.” He had many contacts and practiced sadomasochism. The day after their meeting he was found dead, his skull smashed.

 

 

Rémy Roy struck again a week later on the 19 October 1990. His second victim was an astrologer who appeared on television under the name Nathaniel Mage. His partner found him dead, lying naked on his bed, his head covered with a leather hood, arms folded and crossed in the back. He had suffered several blows to the head with a sharp instrument. He went under the synonymous of Daisy or Coralie on the pink Minitel network.

 

 

His third victim was discovered dead by his wife in their home with a bag containing sadomasochistic instruments.The fourth victim was a 32-year-old man who’s profile stated that he was possibly looking for love. When the man refused to partake in Rémy sadistic routine he was hit over the head with a stone lamp and fainted. He was found alive and taken to the hospital in a coma. He was able to recount to police what happened a few days later.

 

 

In the days leading up to his arrest, Rémy made purchases at two video equipment stores with stolen checks belonging to his last victim. The seller asked for ID and Roy used his victim’s driving license which he had doctored with a picture of himself. The seller made a photocopy of it. Hours later, he made another purchase at another video equipment store, where he is recorded on the store’s CCTV. Rémy was arrested soon after and cited homophobic motivations, which he claimed stemmed from having been the victim of sexual harassment and assault at the hands of other men. These claims were refuted in court. Psychologists said these claims stemmed from the killer’s sadomasochistic fantasies. Rémy also claimed in court to have been taken advantage of or tricked by all four of his victims.

 

 

In 28 June 1996, Rémy Roy gets sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum of 18 years. He was divorced and a father of two. He claims to have turned to using the Minitel extensively after depression which sprung from the failure of his video production company and over-eating.

 

 

Info or intox?

News program on minitel rose

Minitel Ulla demonstration

Minitel rose adverts compilation

3615 Lucky

Minitel rose online dating doc

 

 

The Minitel creates first online queer platform

With its capacity for email, chat, press reviews, news, forums and listings the Minitel enabled instant communication, group dialogue, and information access. It is widely overlooked in Gay cyber studies that the history of online gay activity and interaction began with the Minitel. Internet scholars claim that lesbian chat spaces only appeared in 1993 with the Internet when in fact lesbians were already interacting online on the Minitel nearly a decade before. The first Lesbian Minitel site “Les Goudous” was created in 1985 in stark contrast to the Gay male content service providers who were profit driven like the heterosexual service counterparts.

 

 

Les Goudous Telematiques (The GT’s) were more interested in political organization and listed the first ever gay orientated service directory. In an effort to convert their readership to using their Minitel site they published an animated advertisement in Lesbia magazine in 1986. The captions read: “Tell me, Annie, specialist of the Minitel,” sighs Charlotte, our imaginary user, “what key should I hit?” Annie explains: “You fold down the keyboard, you turn on the screen, you pick up the telephone, and you dial 3614 91 66. Suddenly; you’ll hear a dial tone. Okay? Now press on the key “Connect” and then hang up the phone.” Amazed Charlotte gasps: “It worked! Wow! I’m on the Minitel!”

 

 

Despite immense efforts and personal financial investment by The GT’s to form and keep alive an online community of politically minded lesbians on the Minitel, the enterprise was not successful. For a brief period of three years however Les Guides was exemplary in its anti-capitalistic stance and social activism, serving as a precursor of lesbian communities on the internet and provided “a safe space for lesbians to be out without having their sexuality commodified. By the end of the eighties, a plethora of lesbian sites premised on sexual entertainment was active on the Minitel. — Lesbians online, Journal of the History of sexuality, University of Texas

 

 

In France, The National Confederation of Catholic Family Association opposed the gay use of the Minitel “rose” disputing that it would result in France becoming the country most affected by the Aids virus. In the period when the virus was becoming an epidemic, it was disputed whether these services cashed in on and promoted promiscuity among men or created a safe space where sexual games could be played.

 

 

The Court of Auditors in France also warned that the Minitel network of erotic and other message services makes the government an unwitting accomplice in criminal acts from which it profits. Amidst the Minitel “rose” controversy and uproar that dismissed it as a tool for thieves and prostitutes, its defenders pointed out that new tools of communication have always been quick to be adopted for sexual purposes. In the beginning, the telephone in France was synonymous with prostitutes and some assigned the success of home video as being fuelled by the porn industry.

 

 

In 1983 the same year that the American Usenet internet service created its members of the same sex newsgroup (net.motss) the French gay male community recognized the Minitel as the new way to hook up. Within a year the popular gay male magazine Gai Pied set up its own Minitel site, and in record time was logging about a thousand use hours per day, ranking in an inexhaustible source of revenue.

 

 

By 1986 using the code 36 15 GPH users could access an online kiosk service where the latest issue of the magazine was summarized, along with horoscopes, latest movie outings, gay-related news aswell as an AIDS folder with advice from the Association of Gay Doctors. However, the main draw of its Minitel site was the gay chat room which had the capacity for 192 members to connect simultaneously.

 

 

“There’s a bit of everything,” Gai Peid explains in their January 1986 issue concerning their successful Minitel site: “hards, softs, masochists, the vulgar, the tender, and lonely.” Messaging is alive, the magazine reports, allowing others the opportunity to pass for what they are not. Even “straight slumming” happens. When all goes well during an online interaction, the anonymous participants end up exchanging phone numbers. Others, however, may disappear suddenly leaving the other correspondent frustrated. Gai Pied announced that from December 1989, members will be able to send their own picture to the magazine which will then be put online with the use of pixellisera. — Gai Pied n°198 (14 Décember 1985) and Gai Pied Hebdo n°261 (14 March 1987).

 

 

“Homosexuals found a new form of conviviality that suited them, a new sociability of desire. Sexual difference could be abolished; role playing thrived within a permanent carnival where masks were required. Cruising on Minitel, with its combination of secretiveness and invisibility – since it required the use of pseudonyms –allowed for every sort of transvestism. It replaced the personal ad. In every city, and often among people who did not acknowledge their homosexuality, it was possible to find at any hour of the day or night, someone for a brief encounter or for a lifetime. Minitel’s role as a meeting place was a major development in the history of homosexuals in France. A cruising place “outside of the ghetto,’” it allowed them to find companions. It put gays in touch with one another. In the provinces, the homosexual emerged from his isolation. — The Pink and the Black: Homosexuals in France Since 1968

 

 

Smaller gay channels started competing against the popular content providers like Gai Pied with exaggerated descriptions of services offered and often abused the anonymous character of Minitel communication by passing on descriptions of illegal activities such as “12-year-old boy sucks off for a tenner.” In 1987 the police had their own Minitel installed and announced that all sexual content service providers falling under the wider name of Minitel Rose will from now on be under continuous surveillance. As a result, Gai Pied employed their own moderators to weed out the mimicry of minors, illicit intimacies, and illegal fantasies. — Gay Studies from the French Cultures Vol 25

 

 

 

 

The pink office

“SLT. H or F? I JH23”
“SLT. I F.21,Paris”
“Describe yourself”
“Blonde,1m71, 51 kg, 85-60-90. Student. You c. what?
“Meet. What are you wearing?”

Stephane was a super nice guy with long hair and a denim jacket with badges of bands like Slayer.It was in the early 90’s. He had a student job that required a Minitel and a calling card (it was called a Pastel card in those days) He was connected to the back office of a “pink” Minitel service and transformed into Mistress Caroline, Master JF, Soumise75, studentSC, jf69 and twenty other characters for a few nights a week.

“Slt. You like sandals?” – Spartacus

Stephane introduced me to his boss, Alain, who asked me to work for him. The office, where I became a cyber-dominatrix, was surreal and filled with big tables and Minitels and behind them mostly boys between 20 and 30 playing women and managing a dozen messages from anonymous male users at the same time. “With each exchanged message, our screen displayed the previous message and the connected answer with space for the next response. The screen also included a “memo” area which displayed the information of character you played as well as those of the other message operators in order to successfully distinguish yourself.”

“I’ll take you to construction sites..” *

“Some want to be on a leash while others want to be the CEO banging his secretary on his desk. Sometimes while your busy introducing the use of a big candle as SevereNatacha45a, you are also conversing with tourist types, cool guys, the type you could even be friends with.” Programmed dialogue was also implemented which was designed to lead the client through erotic scenarios. “In the beginning it was sometimes hard to keep up role play with men who wanted to be humiliated, it took discipline not to laugh and sneer at them, and to keep them online as long as possible while catering to their flabbergasting fantasies.” – “Bye fantasmeur!” Putthebraindown.com

“Your a dick garage..” *

“It was while working for a Minitel rose service that I first learned to type on a keyboard. It helped me to take my first step on the networks and getting paid to communicate. I was a facilitator and had four or five Minitels in front of me with which to converse simultaneously with as many users as possible. One Minitel was dedicated to naughty scenarios or general messages sent to all who were connected, and the other Minitel’s were used to interact with individual users on a one to one basis.”

“Fdujku =mpjsd”
“????????”*

“Many users addressed me as “little bitch” or asked “do you suck?” by way of greeting, which annoyed me. “Is that how you greet the ladies'” I often responded. Women operators on the Minitel “rose” in fact were rare. It was essentially a role assumed by men. People were less informed on the Minitel than on the Internet.” The test from suspicious clients would be the common question “what are you wearing?” A woman would answer the question convincingly and without faltering, men assumed. “Other’s merely ignored the deception,” says Stephane who worked as a facilitator from the age of 20 to 28. He remembers talking philosophy all night to one client phone sex. “On the human level, it was fascinating. It allowed me to see facets of human nature that people kept hidden. It is a very effective tool to drain perversions” — www.20minutes.fr

“T.M.C” *

*Quotes taken from Hot, hot Minitel. Gay Letters November 1994

 

 

 

It was a closed network, there were no click-able links or spam, you merely interacted with the specific database you accessed through your Minitel terminal. Legend has it that in 1982 the system’s emailing between-user-function was implemented after a user hacked into the real-time communication feature on an erotic service provider known as Gretel. This help function between a service provider and the user was hijacked by the user who was then able to chat directly with other users. Thus in 1982 direct online messaging between users was created on the Minitel. Although competitive technology was developed by Calvados and Apple Macintosh between ’82 -’86, online interaction between these Macintosh users did not happen on the same national scale as it did with the Minitel, which thrived during the 80’s and early 90’s. The boxy terminal with its closed system served as an alternative to the internet until its inevitable demise in 2012.

 

 

Minitel: further links and reading

A cultural battle: French minitel, the internet and information highway:
https://www.academia.edu/10229023/A_Cultural_Battle_French_Minitel_the_Internet_and_the_Superhighway

Minitel: The rise and fall of the France-wide-web: (BBC 2012)
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-18610692

The politics of information: a study on the french minitel
Between communication and information vol 4 – Transaction Publishers 1993

Minitel, La grande aventure. Collectif. Edité par Larousse (1987

Minitel: miracle or monster: (L.A Times 1989)
http://articles.latimes.com/1989-10-24/news/mn-718_1_france-telecom/2

Minitel, the “French Internet” That Came Before the Web
(Internet history podcast)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqA6w6daq6g

How steve jobs was inspired by the minitel: mail online
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2170535/Oui-invented-How-Steve-Jobs-inspired-Frances-dial-Minitel.html

Tech savvy family from 1982 talks internet (France TV)
http://www.ina.fr/video/SXC00008471/l-informatique-a-domicile-video.html

Minitel 10 year anniversary: diffrent minitels displayed:(France TV)
http://m.ina.fr/video/RNC8910031053/les-10-ans-du-minitel-video.html

Institut national de l’audiovisuel
https://www.ina.fr/recherche/search?search=minitel

http://www.minitel.org

Justine, de Sade. Minitel adaptation made by JET7
http://cecileadam.alwaysdata.net/minitel/justine.htm

 

*

p.s. Hey. Our pal Ferdinand has put together this fascinating collection of info, insights, back stories, inside scoops, and visuals about the early French internet precursor Minitel, and it’s really something. Even residing here in France, as I mostly do, I had only known the very minimum about Minitel until Ferdinand filled me in, and, yeah, I think you’ll learn a lot and have a very fine time here this weekend, so please do. Thanks, and thank you ever so much, Ferdinand! Now, as prefaced yesterday, today’s post and p.s. will be your last new, fresh ones for the next 11 days. (Wait, amidst the upcoming revived dead posts, there will be two brand new ones, so never mind. ) I’ll be away from here and from home in the Eastern US where I’m doing two events, the first on this coming Monday the 7th at the Museum of Modern Art, and the second on the 16th at the New Museum in NYC. If anyone reading this is in or near NYC, please come to one or another of the events if you can and like. The blog will return live with me in charge on Saturday, Nov. 19th. Between now and then, as always, please feel far more than free to leave comments for me and hang out here to talk with each other. I will respond to every comment that’s directed towards me on the 19th. Thanks! ** Bernard, Hi, Bernard! A belated very happy birthday to you, old pal! Did your extrication happen and smoothly enough? I know, it bites hard indeed that we can’t cross paths in NYC. I promise to make that away time count if you do. ** Lee, Well, hi there, Lee! Not quite top of the morning, through no fault of ours, to you! It rained like mad here yesterday too. In this weird, un-Paris-like non-pausing way. Is stuff awesome with you and yours, I’m imagining? Have a great time while I’m seemingly having a great time over yonder. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Thanks for the condolences. I feel quite sickened by it. The Shaye Saint John doc is finished? Sucks that they didn’t include you, the dummies. Still, I’m obviously very curious to see that somehow. I hope everything goes splendidly for you while I’m off, my friend. ** Jamie, Hi, Jamie! Yeah, the video situation is gross. It feels very much like we’re not being told the whole story. My only goal at this point is to not have done all that work for nothing. We really like the video, and I want to be able to show it to people, so I guess trying to get the powers that be to let us show it as some kind of unofficial video or something is the best we can hope for. I don’t know. But that’s definitely the first and last time that Zac and I will agree to make a music video, that’s for sure. I’m glad the Peggy Ahwesh post fed you stuff. We (Zac and me) leave for the trip early tomorrow morning. I’m excited about the GIF event at the New Museum. Discovering how all of those very interesting artists will choose to ‘read’ my GIF fiction has my imagination doing very interesting tricks. I’m glad your night with your singing friend went well. Gotcha, single mom with two kids, that’s tricky, timewise. Could you get around that by making her kids your back-up singers or something, ha ha? Or not ha ha? Thank you for the bon voyage, my friend. I hope your next 11 or whatever number of days it is are joy-packed, and I look forward to seeing you and mutually catching up ere long. Love quadrupled, me. ** Steevee, Hi. The problem isn’t that the video we made is too ‘Dennis Cooper’. It’s actually a very fun, bright, friendly, odd video. And the artist knew exactly what we were doing and seemed very happy to be filmed in the way we were filming him. It’s not like the video is not what we said it would be and what he knew it would be. I honestly don’t know what the problem is exactly. Everyone on that end is being very tight-lipped about the whys and what’s going on. Never again re: making a music video, that’s definite. I hope the med adjustment helps as much as your doctor suggests, of course. And have a lovely next week and a half, and maybe I’ll see you in NYC. ** Dóra Grőber, Hi! Well, we definitely shouldn’t have been given total creative freedom, and the artist shouldn’t have participated in what we were doing with full knowledge of what we were doing with apparent happiness and complete support, if they were then going to turn around afterwards and say that what we did is not what they want. Ugh. We figured out our in-between trip yesterday. We’re going to do this ridiculous thing and go to Orlando and spend five days blowing ourselves out on all the many amusement parks there. It’s pretty extravagant, but Zac and I are both heavy theme park enthusiasts, and neither one of us have ever been to those parks, so we’re going to go for it. So I’m excited. Plus, we’ll be traveling there on the day of the utterly terrifying US election, so hopefully that will prove to be a good distraction. I hope … well, I know … that you’ll have a great and productive time with your writer friend today. Gee, I hope everything goes really, really well with you while I’m away from this place, and do report here if you like while I’m gone because I will be checking in and reading the comments, and, in any case, I look forward greatly to catching up with you when I get back. Best to the best of you! ** David Ehrenstein, Thanks, David. Yes, I’ve known about the Carax/Sparks film for quite a while because Gisele is friendly with Carax, and I’m very happy that it has been cemented enough to be announced. From what I know about it, it’s going to be wild. I read your Fandor piece this morning. Excellent! Major kudos to you! Everyone, Mr. David Ehrenstein has written a very, very fine and must-read piece for Fandor. Its title is ‘Evidence of Things Not Seen’, and it’s subtitle is ‘Why is it so hard to make a film about black lives that both critics and the public love?’, and I highly recommend it to you. It’s here ** Tosh Berman, Hi, Tosh. I’m not mentioning the artist’s name because I don’t want this to become some widespread thing. I feel like I can talk a little about it here because all of us here are like family. It’s all very mysterious thus far in a very unpleasant way, and I hope that the mystery gets solved at the very least. Yes, they finally officially announced the Carax/Sparks film! Like I said to David, I know something about it due to Gisele’s friendliness with Carax, and it certainly sounds to be potentially amazing and very, very strange. ** Jeff Jackson, Hi, Jeff. You would think the artist should be able to push that through, yes, which begs the question. I don’t believe I know Andrei Bitov’s work, unless I’m forgetting. Huh, well, if he was put in context with those other writers, he definitely is worth investigating, and I will do that. Thank you a lot for passing that along, man. Yeah, as I told Dora, we’ve decided to go whole hog and do the Orlando theme park maxing out experience for five days, which is nuts, but … ha ha. Take care, man, and I’ll write to you on FB today. ** B, Hi! Thanks for the commiseration. No, we decided to do it even though what we were offered was far less than what it would cost to make it, and I think we just have to eat the self-imposed loss, as far as I can tell. Thanks for the safe travel wish. And I’ll hope to get to see you on the 16th. Have a fine week-plus! ** James Nulick, Hi, James! Welcome home! I don’t know if the artist has overriding power, and I don’t know if he’s exercising it if he does. We’re in the dark. That time change is nuts. I’m getting phantom severe jet lag just thinking about it. I’m so glad you had such a blast in Tokyo. It’s a very additive place if you’re susceptible to its glories. I miss it all the time, and I’m hoping and pretty much planning to get back there this spring after we finish shooting our new film, as I think I might have already said. Try to enjoy your re-ensconcing within the US, and hopefully we’ll all still be around in one piece after Tuesday, gulp. ** Okay. Again, enjoy Ferdinand’s shebang. And enjoy the next 11 or so day when I won’t have the privilege to speak with you. And please do hang out here and tell me and each other stuff while I’m in absentia. The blog will see you on Monday, as usual, and I will see you ‘in-person’ on the 19th. Take good care, everybody!

For this post, I picked four bridges that I have visited with unique histories to profile. Some of the stories are creepy, some are interesting, and some are just downright weird. Hope you enjoy!

 

The Antique

 

London Bridge – Lake Havasu, AZ
Length: 930 feet (280m)

How did a century old bridge from London end up in the middle of the desert on a lake that straddles the boarder between California and Arizona? The answer to this strange story involves a property developer, a soft river bottom, and 2.5 million dollars spend in what may have been the world’s strangest antique sale.

In 1897 the bridge was the busiest traffic point in London, servicing 8000 people and 900 vehicles per hour. At this point it was decided that the bridge would have to be widened in order to prevent congestion, the survey for which revealed that it was sinking at a rate of a little more than an inch each decade. At the core of this problem were the heavy granite blocks used in the bridge’s construction. The weight without traffic was somewhere in the vicinity of 130,000 tons.

Enter Robert McCulloch, an oil mogul turned property developer.

“In 1967, the Common Council of the City of London placed the bridge on the market and began to look for potential buyers. Council member Ivan Luckin had put forward the idea of selling the bridge, and recalled: “They all thought I was completely crazy when I suggested we should sell London Bridge when it needed replacing.” On 18 April 1968, Rennie’s bridge was sold to an American. It was purchased by the Missourian entrepreneur Robert P. McCulloch of McCulloch Oil for US$2,460,000.”

In order to prevent the sinking from happening in Arizona, the bridge was reframed out of steel and then covered with the original granite blocks, which had to be numbered and shipped in such a way that they could be reassembled piece for piece once it arrived at its new home.

There is some speculation as to whether or not McCulloch knew which bridge he was purchasing. Legend has it that he was under the impression he was getting the much more recognizable Tower Bridge and only realized the mistake once the construction was already underway, a claim that McCulloch denied.

Interestingly, the “sinking” effect was not the origin of the popular children’s nursery rhyme “London Bridge is Falling Down”, which can be traced as far back at 14th century Italy. Popular theories to the origin of the song include the frequent burnings of the wooden bridge’s by invading armies prior to the construction of a less flammable structure and rumors of child sacrifices being buried in the later structure’s foundation.

Although the bridge and it’s adjoining somewhat underwhelming, “English Village” never became the tourist magnet that McCulloch has hoped it might, Lake Havasu’s popularity as a retirement destination and the logistics of disassembling a two hundred year old bridge in the middle of the Arizona desert mean that London Bridge’s future is likely secure.

German Tourist’s video:

Bread’s Song “London Bridge”:

“is nothing sacred anymore?”

English Village video:

 

 

The Battle of the Sundial

 

Sundial Bridge at Turtle Bay—Redding, CA
Length: 700 feet (210m)
Width: 23 feet (7m)
Height: 217 feet

A world-renowned architect and a group of small town visionaries faced some heavy resistance when they announced a unique plan: to build a state of the art walking bridge across a small bay North East of Redding, California.

The story reads like something out of a Marquez novel. It all began when the city allocated $2 million in funds towards the creation of a footbridge that would connect a local park to a wildlife center and arboretum. The initial plan called for a simple stone design with towers at the end, but when the city began pursing an architect to draw up plans, the committee in charge found themselves enamored with the work of the Spanish neofuturist Santiago Calatrava.

Much to everyone’s surprise, Calatrava agreed to submit three designs, and the cantilever-spar cable stayed bridge won out.

Despite the fact that the increased cost of the much more complex plan (an extra $20 million) would be provided mostly by a private foundation, with some extra money coming in from state and federal grants, local officials and papers took every opportunity to skewer the project. One local city councilman even took a vow to never step foot on the structure, a promise he has kept today, over a decade since its completion.

Still, the value of the project is hard to deny today. The small Northern California city now receives 300,000 tourists each year and benefits from the millions of dollars of commerce and tax revenue that those visitors bring with them.
Side note: As the name would suggest, the cantilever tower from which the weight of the bridge is suspended acts as a huge sundial. The tip of the shadow, which the tower creates, moves at a speed of one foot per minute, which allows the observer the unique opportunity to see earth’s rotation with the naked eye.

Ground perspective video:

“This. Is. The. Sun. Dial. Bridge.”

Drone Footage featuring Clair de Lune:

Documentary:

 

 

The Bridge from Hell

 

Hell Gate Bridge—Queens, NY
Length: 17,000 feet (3.2mi/5.2km)
Width: 100 feet (30.5m)

The long and curious history of the Hell Gate is often overlooked in favor of its more popular cousin just down the East River in Brooklyn. Even with its diabolical name (actually derived from the Dutch word for waterway “hellgat”) this bridge in Astoria, Queens still struggles in terms of recognition when compared with so many other New York Bridges. Although its construction was a feat of engineering unprecedented at its completion in 1916, the stories of the Hell Gate and the water below are what make it interesting to me. As far as strange history goes, it doesn’t get much better than this one.

A list of actual facts about the century long life of the Hell Gate:

-The name “Hell Gate” actually comes from the Dutch word for waterway, but was also given in reference to the notoriously treacherous waters that the structure spans.

-It is almost identical in its design to the Sydney Harbor Bridge. The main difference is in size, with its Australian sister being 60% larger.

-In the event of a total apocalypse in which human life ceased to exist, the Hell Gate would be the last structure standing in New York City.

-Before its construction, the waterway below was known for being the most hostile and difficult to navigate point of entry into the city. This was mainly due to the presence of a large reef that created both physical obstacles and caused the sudden appearance of huge and unpredictable whirlpools. During the height of oceanic trade, the waters were causing the grounding of almost a thousand ships each year.

-This reef was destroyed in the largest man made explosion prior to the testing of the atomic bomb. The army corps of engineers was called on to plant 300,000 pounds of explosives inside the reef using 7,000 holes drilled into its exterior over the course of seven years. The resulting blast sent a water spout hundreds of feet into the air and was heard and felt as far away as west New Jersey.

-Prior to that successful explosion, a French engineer named Benjamin Maillefert raised money from local merchants in an attempt to clear the straight. His method involved using a long pole to lower large amounts of explosives down onto the areas of the reef that were exposed above the water. This method was meant to take care of the problem a little bit at a time, and worked for several months, until Maillefert and his team made a mistake. An account of this day reads:

“The relentless blasting of Hell Gate went on till March 1852, when the law of averages caught up with Maillefert. After placing a 125-pound charge of powder atop a rock, he took what he thought were the lead wires to the submerged mine and paid out the line till he and the supply boat were a safe distance from the explosion site. Upon touching the wires to the battery terminals in his boat, he blew the other boat clear out of the water and was thrown 50 feet in the air himself. Of the five men in the operation, three were killed and Maillefert and his assistant were disabled.”

-There are two shipwrecks of note that took place in the waters that the bridge now spans. The first was the loss of the HMS Hussar, which happened prior to the bridge’s construction. Actual details of what the ship was carrying vary by account, but some suspect it was bringing back pay to British soldiers and might have gone down with a fortune in gold coins worth over $500 million today. Salvage experts and treasure seekers are still pursuing the wreckage.

-The second shipwreck took place in 1904. The steamer General Slocum caught fire and sank rapidly while carrying 1,342 members of an evangelical church to a picnic across the river. Estimates put the death toll at a little over a thousand, which make it the worst New York area disaster prior to September 11th. Most of those on board were women and children who could not swim and discovered when they attempted to escape the blaze that lifeboats had been painted directly into the deck preventing their removal. Life preservers also were found to have been filled with iron bars to meet manufacturer weight requirements, and several accounts of the disaster make mention of mothers throwing their children overboard inside of the rings, only to watch them sink immediately to their deaths.

-In 1991, $55 million was raised to refurbish the look of the Hell Gate. This restoration included to repainting of the long neglected structure in a color invented specifically for the project, appropriately named “Hell Gate Red.” A flaw in the paint resulted in its almost immediate fading. It would appear the new look just wasn’t meant to be.

-Many believe the Hell Gate it haunted, with stories of disappearances and ghost sightings going as far back as the 1920’s. It is easy to see why the bridge would have captured the imagination of story tellers: two small, red lights are all the illuminate the structure at night, making it by far the most poorly lit bridge in New York City.

-Nazi agents targeted the bridge for sabotage during the ill fated “Operation Pastorius” in 1942. Eight spies were dropped on American shores with orders to destroy several key pieces of infrastructure, of which the Hell Gate was one. The mission had several close calls but was ultimately brought down when two of the men decided to betray their team to the FBI. The betrayal was not as easy as it sounds. One of the men attempted to do it over the phone but was hung up on several times as being a prank caller, and ultimately had to travel to the FBI offices in DC. Even then it took several hours and meetings with various agents before someone decided the story was true. The two informers were given life in prison and eventually deported back to Germany, while the other six members of the team enjoyed one-way trips to the electric chair and burial in unmarked graves in a potter’s field.

Climbing Hell Gate bridge:

Drone footage:

Hell Gate Gold:

 

 

 

Bat Bridge

 

Congress Avenue Bridge—Austin, TX
Length: 945.9 feet (288.3m)
Width: 60 feet (18m)

Residents of Austin, Texas got a surprise when a rehabilitation project on the busy Congress Avenue Bridge was finished in 1980. A colony of Mexican free-tailed bats decided that the beneath the road deck in the concrete structure made a most excellent and cozy home for their summer migration north.

Initial reactions to the bats were not positive. The fear of the flying rodents led to a petition demanding their eradication.

Today, bats and humans live in relative harmony. The 1.5 million creatures eat up to 20,000 pounds of bugs each night including agricultural pests, and contrary to their pop-culture persona, are harmless as long as there is no attempt to handle them. The city even built an observation center adjacent to the bridge, “giving visitors a dedicated area to view the nightly emergence.” The Austin Ice Bats, a minor-league hockey team, was named in their honor, which is probably the least they could do considering Count Dracula’s tiny cousins bring the city an estimated $10 million in tourism revenue each year.

The Texas department of Transportation even recently launched a project to study ways in which to make other bridges more habitable to bat colonies. The name of this project is “Bats and Bridges.” Presumably “Operation Wingspan” was already taken.

The sound of the bats pt. 1 (turn your volume up):

The sound of the bats pt. 2:

The colony exiting, seen from the water:

 

*

p.s. Hey. I’m so happy to be able to facilitate and introduce this beautiful post by your 24 hour guest-host B, artist of theatrical and other stripes as well as a d.l. of this joint sometimes known as Bear. Please let your bygones be bygones today and pleasure up. Thank you, and mega-hearty thanks to you, B. ** Dóra Grőber, Hi! Well, actually, he doesn’t in fact seem to love it, and we’re currently negotiating over some requested changes that we think will make the vid far less interesting, and ultimately it’s his call, so we’ll see. The interview for Japanese Wired Mag was really nice. Very interesting questions and discussion, and I was very happy. So, cool. I’m kind of in love with or obsessed by or both re: Japan. Especially by being there. Zac and I are hoping/planning for a visit there after we finish shooting our new film to celebrate and recuperate. We’re figuring out the US road trip today. The whole point of it was originally supposed to revolve around going to America’s most legendary amusement park Cedar Point, but we only realized yesterday that it’s closed for the winter! So, we have to make new plans rapidly. Oh shit, your cold came back? I hope it was just a brief flirtation that your body has thwarted. How are you feeling? What are you up to today in case of perfect health or even not? ** Ferdinand, Hi, man. Yeah, she is, right? Thanks for the link. Everyone, if the Carla dal Forno track/vid intrigued you yesterday, Ferdinand has provided a quick route for you to listen to her broadcasts on Berlin Community Radio, and the entrance is here. ** Jamie McMorrow, Hey, J-man! Oh, you were around there even back then? Sucks, ships in the night. Time’s hard-assed linearity has its downsides. Thank you much for the link to the doc. I’ll hope to have time for it today, Cool, unzappiness is next to godliness, or it can be. I went to take a photo of my chocolate loot and realized I had eaten enough of it that it was no longer an impressive sight, and I didn’t want to spoil the majesty of the original, untouched booty by besmirching its legend with a ruins shot, but trust me. Oh, you can guess about the composer if you want, but I can’t tell you if you’re right or even if you’re warm until the signal comes from on high. I’m happy to hear you made some music yesterday. How did that go? Yeah, the Moor Mother is quite something, isn’t it? She’s very interesting. Wednesday had its ups (fun interview with Wired Magazine Japan) and downs (a less than stellar reception of our music video), but it did its job, I guess I would say. Did your Thursday bear fruit? Big love, me. ** MANCY, Hi, S. I saw that very mysterious and charismatically unsolvable image you put up on FB re: your project with Mark, and it did the trick of building up my anticipation through the wonderful filter that only feeling confounded can instill. Here’s hoping the weather and co-ownership — that sounds like a spooky couple — stop requiring your attention asap. ** Sypha, Hi. I think Gaga used to infest her trash pop with enough elasticity and effective hooks that one could think there was someone more interesting than her pushing its buttons. She played dumb more skillfully than she plays meaningful. Well, naturally, I would be way more than happy to have a second Mauve Zone Recordings Day on the blog, if you’re so inclined. Thank you for proposing that, and, yes, bright green light, if you need one. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. I’m a big fan of Thomas Brinkmann, and that new album is just terrific. Yes, CDF’s involvement in F ingers is what drew me to her own work. Let me know how that live Coil is. I haven’t received the CFT Day in my mailbox yet. Do you have my right email? [email protected]. I’m excited for it! ** Steevee, Hi, Steve. There was some good stuff in the gig. I might particularly recommend the Moor Mother and Yves Tumor to you, if I know your tastes at all? Gosh, I’m not sure if you’ll need to get advance tickets for the New Museum thing. It’s a reasonably biggish theater space, but I don’t know. I think I’ve seen at least one of those videos by Errol Morris’s son, but I don’t think I realized there was a series of them. I did not know that about quaaludes, no. Huh. Very interesting. I’m going to go find that doc and his others. Thanks a lot, Steve. ** Jeff Jackson, Hey. I like what I’ve heard of Jack Rose, which isn’t a massive amount yet. The recent reissues of a bunch of his albums has put scoring some of them on my to-do list. You recommend anything in particular? I just got Ambarchi’s new album yesterday, but I haven’t heard it yet. Yes, I’ve had him in posts here before. He’s great, and he’s a really nice guy as well. He has collab-ed with Stephen O and the guys in Golden Fur, so I know him a little through them. I put my finger on the trigger of a site selling that Robbe-Grillet and then pushed downwards yesterday. Anticipation. All best, bud. ** Misanthrope, Clearly whatever is haunting your recliner does not have your best interests in mind, but then again, something that can haunt something else clearly has more awareness of things than you or I do, so its madness may well be methodological and beyond such lowlife human judgements as right and wrong. I remember your erotically tinged fondness for normal dudes. That seems sane, but it may not be. 30 trick-or-treaters: not bad in these dark, dark, dangerous days. ** Thomas Moronic, Hi, T. Very happy you like the gigs and that one too. Oh, yes, I’ll send you my mailing address. Do I have your email address in my new email account, I forget? My old one is a huge jumble to find anything in. If you haven’t written to me since the switch, can you send me just a quick email? Otherwise, I’ll send you the address shortly. ** Cool. With that, continue or begin your exploration of B’s bridges. Thank you. See you tomorrow.