* (restored)
An Answering machine is a device which is connected to a landline telephone, and records messages on to physical recording equipment unlike today’s Voicemail which is connected to a centralized digital network system where all users connect to a central server to replay messages.
Valdemar Poulsen from Denmark patented what he called a Telegraphone in 1898. The telegraphone was the first practical apparatus for magnetic sound recording and reproduction. It was an ingenious apparatus for recording telephone conversations. It recorded, on a wire, the varying magnetic fields produced by a sound. The magnetized wire could then be used to play back the sound.
Several European companies in the 1920s attempted to market improved wire recorders for dictating and telephone recording purposes. These were the first magnetic recorders to use the new technology of electronics. Using the vacuum-tube electronic amplifiers that became available after World War I, these recorders could capture weak telephone signals and reproduce them with greater volume than was possible with the Telegraphone. Examples of these European machines included the Textophone and the Dailygraph.
The Textophone was placed on the market in 1933, about the time Hitler came to power. The Nazis needed all the recording equipment they could get, and the Gestapo bought huge numbers of Textophones for the German government. The market was not entirely a domestic one, however, for they were sold all over Europe, several hundred installations having been made in Switzerland alone.
In 1949 the first commercially successful answering machine was the Electronic Secretary created by inventor Joseph Zimmerman and businessman George W. Danner, who founded Electronic Secretary Industries in Wisconsin. The Electronic Secretary used the then state-of-the-art technology of a 45 rpm record player for announcements and a wire recorder for message capture and playback.
The year 1960 marked a significant turn of events with the launch of the first commercially successful answering machine known as the Ansafone. A compact and sophisticated device, the Ansafone was invented by Dr. Kazuo Hashimoto who worked for a company known as Phonetel. The distribution rights for this machine were later handed over to Dictaphone Corp.
Many such similar models were launched in the market following the success of the Ansafone. In the year 1962, a New York based company known as Robosonics Inc. introduced an inexpensive answering machine known as the Robosonic Secretary. Next to hit the market was a device called the Record-O-Phone.
AT&T executives feared that users might cut back on telephone use if recording devices were widely adopted. The company sought to block the introduction of answering machines even while their engineers made significant technical advances in magnetic recording technology.They finally released the Record-O-Phone after three decades in 1963.
By the 1970’s answering machines became more convenient to use and less expensive owing to the advent of cheap microelectronics. A cheap and handy answering machine known as the PhoneMate was devised in the year 1971 specially to meet the needs of home consumers. It was a technically slick model for its times, weighing around ten pounds with a capacity to hold twenty messages on tape .It made message retrieval possible with the means of an earphone. The mid 1970’s witnessed a further drop in the prices of answering machines with the cheapest models being priced at as low as $125. With the prices hitting an all-time low, the market bloated with demand for answering machines and it became a common household commodity. The sales figures reached a whopping 400,000 units by the end of 1978.The popularity of answering machines continued to grow leaps and bounds and the sales had almost doubled within the next four years.
However, as is the case with almost all technological inventions, the answering machine too had to eventually make way for finer developments. With the emergence of cell phones and their in-built Voicemail feature, the use of answering machines started declining gradually. Also, many telephone service providers offered centralized and inexpensive voice-mail as a standard feature in home telephone lines, hence rendering the answering machine obsolete.Voicemail revolutionized the face of digital sound recording, replacing the answering machine completely.
Ansafone made in the 1960’s:
Phonemate 400 1970’s:
Code a phone 1980’s:
Recommended answering messages:
Dan’s answering machine circa 1995:
Warhol star Jackie Curtis answering message:
Courtney Love answering message to Kim Shattuck:
Kurt Cobain’s threatening messages to young journalist:
Jeff Buckley’s messages to his photographer:
Frans celebrity voice mail:
Bjork “Im in N.Y”
Alec Baldwin crazy message to 12 year old daughter:
Ryan Adams’ message to music critic:
Faye Dunaway’s angry message:
Homer Simpson gets a voice prompt:
Songs feauturing answering machines:
Junior – If Maddona calls
Paul Evans – This is Joanie
Pulp – Ansamachine
Rupert Holmes – Answering Machine
No Doubt – Spiderwebs
Dandy Warhols – Messages
Laptop – End Credits
The Replacements – Answering Machine
Sonic Youth -Providence
*
p.s. Hey. ** Lucas, Hey. Well, as it turned out, it snowed all day here yesterday, for the first time in, like, decades. It was lovely. It didn’t stick to the ground like yours did, except in the parks, but at least we’ve had an actual winter for one day at least. The reading last night was really nice, really fun. And it stopped snowing about fifteen minutes before I walked out the door, which helped. Wonderful collage, masterful! Thank you! Everyone, go check out Lucas’s new collage. It’s a beauty, and it’s here. See you so soon! xo ** iwishiwasanon, Hi. Ah, a fellow ex-patriat, I send my proximate greetings. I definitely want to check out the HK show at Agnes B. Did you end up going to the opening? Yes, let’s try to bump into each or organise a coffee or something. I know of Yann Andréa’s book, but I haven’t read it and, yeah, I don’t think it’s in English? I’ll check. You listening to GbV obviously warms my heart. I can’t really get with Lady Gaga. She bugs me. Although I do have a fondness for her very early stuff. I even know a LG joke that a kid told me. ‘How do you wake up Lady Gaga?’ ‘Poke her face.’ I know basically nothing about perfume, and I’ve never worn perfume/cologne, but people’s interest in it interests me. Maybe I can find a place that’ll let me sample a sniff of ‘Tar’. I live near Rue St. Honore, so there must be somewhere nearby. Really nice talking to you. Why did you end up here, and what do you mainly do? ** Dominik, Hi!!! I would say start with Malick via either ‘Badlands’ or ‘Days of Heaven’. Good, you’re okay health-wise. Zac was sick in bed yesterday, but we’ll see what his today holds. The last time someone did a tarot reading for me, he looked at the laid out cards, made a kind of disturbed face and said he wasn’t going to read the cards for my sake. A bit spooky. Love playing strip poker with you, G. ** _Black_Acrylic, Glad you dug it. You’re set, it sounds like. Or at least your noggin is. Like I said, we were snowed on literally all day yesterday, every second. It wasn’t that cold then, but, jeez, it is now. Bundle up. Me too. ** jay, I’m very happy you like Tambellini’s work. Your link didn’t function for whatever reason. I did read ‘House of Leaves’, and, yes, gotcha. Okay, I’m not sure that I played MGS #2, so I’ll aim for that. The Paper Mario games are great in that their build is pretty intricate and unique-ish, and their writing is quite intelligent and funny. I’d start with ‘Thousand Year Door’ if you want to dip in. Speaking of, answering machine day is here to address all of your questions. I hope the positivity materialised in your yesterday’s proper places. In your today’s too. ** James, Good morning from what is popularly known as France. Oh, I preset the blog launch time for just after 8 for some reason, but then it usually takes me until 9 or even 10 to finish the p.s. and hit publish depending on how many comments there are and whether I have to something else first before I open the blog’s insides and start typing. It’s, let’s see, 2 degrees here at the moment. And my window panes aren’t withstanding that assault very well. ‘V”s great. And let me add my thumbs up re: ‘Pale Fire’. I just don’t understand decaffeinated anything, much less tea, and really much less coffee. ‘Final Cut’, no, haven’t seen it, or I don’t think so. Ace on your better than expected writing. I really liked early Animal Collective, but I haven’t really listened to their recent years’ output. Enjoy the fact that it’s almost the weekend. ** Steve, Hi. Fucking Cloudflare fucking bullshit, grr. Good about the support group’s usefulness. We had serious snow here yesterday. Like actual serious snow. Wow. I’ll have a listen. Everyone, Here’s Steve: ‘The podcast about Columbine movies I recorded last summer is now out. Here’s a Spotify link. It’s also available on Apple Music, and it’ll be on YouTube in a month.’ ** Steeqhen, Thanks in advance. I’ll try not to look mopey. Snow here too yesterday, yummo. Videos about Mario 64? Huh. What’s the photoshoot? You almost losing your entire savefile makes my neck stiff just reading about that. Oh, Zac Farley and I make films together. We’re just finishing the post-production on our third feature. It’s called ‘Room Temperature’. It’s about a family that builds a haunted house attraction in their home. And about other things too, but that’s overall world in which it takes place. It’s strange. I’m excited by it. I can’t wait until it’s out there in the world and you can see it. So, did you read or write? Or both? Is that possible? I’m angling for a fine weekend for both of us. ** HaRpEr, That does sound really cool. What you did at the reading. And even the reading itself. Nice, I look forward to seeing its evidence. The reading I went to was lovely. Good writers, good vibes, a warm bookstore in a cold Paris. Mike and I were really good friends. Both of us LA guys. I think he was kind of a genius. All the artists and writers and pretty much everybody in LA really revered him. He and I were going to collaborate on a Goth Rock Opera at one point, and we started working on it, but then he got really famous/ successful/ busy, and it never happened. Yes, write the novel. If you want my two cents. Sure, working on more than one thing at once is wholly possible. I do it all the time. Yeah, when the time suits, tell me about the new project. Excellent. ** Okay. I’ve restored an old guest-post by a longterm if recently more occasional DC’s commenter, Ferdinand, for those of you who were around when answering machines were second nature and for those of you who weren’t and think they’re primitive curiosities and for those of you think entirely differently about them. See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
Hi!!
Thank you for the tips about Terrence Malick’s work! “Badlands” definitely sounds like something I’d be interested in.
Fingers crossed for Zac’s speedy recovery!!
Uh… That’s quite an ominous tarot reading. When was this?
Alright, love. I’m bad at cards, so I’m probably naked, haha. Love wondering how a squirrel found its way to his fifth-floor balcony, Od.
Just about noon over here. Usually I’m up at half 6 on Fridays, but I woke up at 10 after staying up till 1, a nice change. I can’t keep awake the way I used to. Was baffled when I turned my phone on after waking up and saw I was… about to buy a vacuum cleaner. No idea how I ended up there.
Primitive curiosities, indeed. Such big + bulky things. Old tech is charming to me, probably just for aesthetic reasons, because I’d obviously have no idea how to work it. Most ancient thing I can use is a Gameboy.
Makes sense the P.S. takes such time, typing these comments always takes me longer than I expect. Trying to be swifter today so I can get to studying, but if I didn’t do this *before* studying I’d get side-tracked and type this up when I should be doing A Level stuff. God my laptop is bugging out currently. ‘open the blog’s insides’ – I like this wording. Conjures pictures of bloody guts packed into a computer.
Few, 5 degrees, warmer tomorrow, supposedly. I went on a walk last night with a friend and just *froze* my hands off, but had a good time, so, worth it! It’s a little chilly indoors over here, too. So grateful for hot showers, even if I felt a bit like a lobster being boiled. I’m sure France’s beauty makes up for the nippiness, though? Hopefully?
Read Pale Fire, noted. Just have to finish Don Quixote (~300pgs left!), and then I think I’ll read Amsterdam by Ian McEwan because I really quite like Ian McEwan’s writing, and *THEN* Pale Fire. And then probably Demian by Hesse. And then… etc.
Decaf tea is truly pish, but I resort to it when I want a hot drink but to avoid caffeine-ing myself up before bed. It was kind of meta, this film about an amateur film group shooting a camp zombie flick, and then, someone ACTUALLY kills someone, and then there are REAL zombies, or, something? It seemed silly, I was probably busy farting about on the internet when it was on.
Yay! :] I’ve had these kinds of ideas for edgy queer short stories as I’m reading my way through Userlands, and I was sick of just having the ideas and not doing anything, so I thought, fuck it I need to actually *write* so I wrote. Couldn’t think of a name for what I was doing so I just called them ‘Things’ and wrote the first vignette of hopefully more. I reread it a few times and realised I had confused myself as to the ‘actual’ gender of the narrator, several conflicting layers, but, I mean, I kinda thought, fuck it, isn’t that kind of cool? Confusion is the truth, and all ;p so that’s some more writing news over here in Jamestown. The stuff I hate the least is the stuff that sounds least like myself, and I usually write it late at night when I should be sleeping.
Listened to Centipede Hz. last night – meh, was the consensus. AnCo fell off after Merriweather Post Pavilion, imho.
Hurray for Friday, and, for me, a day off! :] See you tomorrow too. Study time now. Yayyyyy.
The humble answering machine is most definitely a thing of the past. My mum being the only person I know who seems to bother leaving any messages on my cell phone. For everyone else, simple texts seem to be the way it’s done. All of which would make the answer phone an ideal subject for this blog. Kudos to Ferdinand, wherever you may be these days.
Started reading George Grossmith’s 1892 The Diary of a Nobody and it makes for an enjoyable experience. Gentle Victorian humour would be the order of the day here.
Oh man, the Youtube upload of that Laptop song really evokes a weird and eerie nostalgia specific to my age, probably. Not only is that song ridiculously 2000s and extremely melancholy but the early Youtube thing of having a song lyrics video made in Windows Movie Maker with really low res images and lyrics against a blue background a “special message” at the end.
Re: answering machine songs, might I also suggest:
Melvins- Laughing with Lucifer at Satan’s Sideshow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSHbxbo8Bq0
Macha/Bedhead- Believe (Cher cover): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZYkrY9yxC0
Sparklehorse- Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd cover): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSbuixO2mYA
bonus for a song not featuring any message machine sounds but based on an answering machine message sent to its performer… Foetus- English Faggot/Nothin’ Man: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBGftENIxGU
I think Lady Gaga’s big problem is that she’s very American brained in thinking that stuff like rock, country, Broadway, jazz, American songbook etc. is more respectable than club music. Her whole thing now is doing really corny awards show appearances so that old people can go “wow I thought Lady Gaga was a vapid SLUT but then she did Julie Andrews/Elton John/Carole King/Metallica and she can actually SING???” I think that Charli XCX does a good job bring the sound and aesthetics of garage music to the mainstream because club music is more respected in the UK. Then again, Lady Gaga did a remix album with a ton of underground dance artists a few years ago and it was one her biggest stinkers.
Did you have someone lined up to write the music for the opera or was it Mike Kelley himself, since he tended to write the music for his projects?
Hola Dennis! Wow, answering machines! I always love your days like this. Hmm, to me, answering machines are probably mostly recognisable as a filmic thing to me, I’ve never seen one in real life. I think they’re mostly just movie props for grief, in my mind – like, when a character calls an answering machine to hear someone’s voice, or something like that. I honestly can’t think of another time I’ve ever seen one.
Yeah, MGS2 is probably going to be the one you like the most, it’s super strange and slightly hostile in a way that I don’t think the other games are. It’s got a really great style of prose too, which is really rare for videogames I think. I don’t know if you’ve seen the later parts of the game, but one of the big enemies starts shouting “turn off the game console!”. It’s also a very interesting cultural document, it’s one of the very latest pre-9/11 pieces of fiction about terrorism. Yeah, I’ve seen a few really good jokes from Thousand Year Door, I’ll put it on my list! Thanks for the recommendation.
Oh also, that woman I’m friends with, who’s really into that drone/hypnosis thing did a very entertaining, like, half hour session with me? It was unbelievably interesting. It largely revolved around a kind of call / response pattern, with a heavy emphasis on repetition, and a kind of rudimentary attempt to discreetly connect words and phrases. I think I’ve maybe left that with even less of an understanding of how her and her girlfriends actually engage with one another, but it was really amusing to try out.
P.S., James, you aren’t by any chance a Limbus Company fan? One of my friends is totally fixated on that game, and (from my limited understanding) it’s based on a few books on your list?
Hihi jay, drone/hypnosis shenanigans sure sound like something. I regret to say I had no fucking idea what Limbus Company was, and had to Google it, which I did in the middle of a walk in the cold and dark. I have heard of Library of Ruina and Lobotomy Corp, by the same guys. Which books could possibly be pertinent?
Hope you’ve had a good Friday :]
hola dennis,
popping in with my once a year comment
—
two answerphone messages I wish i had kept were
john peel – was doing an indie club night yonks ago, sent him a flyer, playlist and cheeky letter asking if he’d like to dj for free the next event. shockingly he phoned up and left a message to the effect of playlist was great, would love to come up there was a liverpool game is on at the same time.
martin from club 69 – legendary underground techno club in paisley, just outside glasgow, in the basement of an Indian restaurant. as a friend commented – who played there – “the neighbourhood is so dangerous you have to get out the car and run inside very fast before someone stabs you”. anyway, their way of advertising when someone was playing at the club was to phone round everyone – no flyers or emails. the ones from martin were hilarious as he had a very very thick Glaswegian accent and spoke in a drawl, so the message was ; awright, eh wwlwlwldkld kdwkwk derrick may fjfjdoepsskek saturday wjfjeeopwgrmcs. you could only understand the name of the guest and the day. great fucking guy BTW. used to take his scooter all over europe, old skool mod.
whilst we are on the subject – this as well. hal mcgee did a cool answerphone project. link below. played these a lot on the radio. some really ultra unhinged stuff in there,
X hugs and kisses from the Kapital of Europe
dr. KK
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https://archive.org/details/AutomaticConfessionalTape23
AUTOMATIC CONFESSIONAL VOICEMAIL PROJECT – ANYBODY AND EVERYBODY WELCOME TO PARTICIPATE
Call The Automatic Confessional and leave a one minute message of any words and sounds that you want.
I will not edit or restrict or censor the messages in any way. I want you to understand the full implications of what this means. I will allow any form of expression, no matter how offensive, objectionable, or tasteless — this includes hate speech, racism, sexism, ageism, etc. This does not mean that I personally condone or approve of or agree with any content of any of the messages
Hi Dennis,
I love watching videos about speedrunning or communities around video games, and Mario 64 is rife with that! There’s 3 hour long videos about how invisible walls work in that game, how the speedrun went down to only 16 stars from the 70 stars necessary through glitches. A whole “parallel universe” mechanic that I barely understand but is like moving so fast you somehow change the game… it’s fascinating stuff
The photoshoot was for the magazine I’m an editor on, though we had to postpone it now due to weather warnings for tonight.
Room Temperature sounds really interesting! I went through a period of constantly watching movies either about haunted house attractions, set in haunted house attractions, or documentaries about them. Most were pretty mediocre but some were pretty interesting. Hell House LLC was an interesting found footage film about a group setting up a haunted house attractions in an allegedly haunted house, with some really cool scenes involving clown statues moving about the house (though the ending was a bit meh).
Ended up going back to my family house and watching tv with them, though was somewhat stuck in academic mode and was looking through notes and things I need to read soon!
My weekend seems like a quiet one, although I’m sure I’ve probably forgotten some commitments! Hopefully it’s a quiet one though, I really want to finish Silent Hill, get through a few books, and most importantly rest!!!
Hey. I immediately thought of The Replacements song when I saw ‘answering machine’ so I’m glad it’s included. How does one say good night to an answering machine?
Thanks so much for your two cents about my writing. I’m trusting my instinct to put my main focus into it at the moment. I can’t properly remember my instinct letting me down in the past. So, the book is in the form of a dialogue between the narrator and a kind of sphinxlike figure who asks questions. It’s not like a regular dialogue. What each character says is one stream of text, unbroken by line breaks, the main speaker being the narrator. The only paragraph spacing is when the other voice speaks if that makes sense?
I’m really influenced by James McCourt’s ‘Time Remaining’ structurally with no main emphasis being placed on anything in particular and subjects being discussed as they seemingly come into memory. When it feels like there’s some semblance of a plot I start on something else. My hope is that if there is a plot, it can only be observed from afar. Like a pointillist painting that only looks like anything from a distance.
I’ve got tons of frameworks but the main ones are: Faust, the life of Rimbaud, the one person on the planet who was cured of rabies, and the rise and fall of the hyperpop scene. I guess there’s also a thing where the narrator randomly changes gender.
Anyway, I conceived this idea years ago. I think I wrote in my diary that I wanted to write a book focused on things that were completely ‘artificial, vulgar, and stupid’. I’ve always wanted to write something like that, so it’s very freeing. And the words are really coming out of me. I’m in a stage where I’m not looking back and just getting it all out. I want the whole thing to read like the conversation you have at the end of the party where you’re both high out of your mind and having a conversation about something totally stupid, like a pair of sunglasses. And you spend an hour talking about how good the sunglasses look and you eventually both start crying and eventually go home. A kind of emptiness revealed through superficial means. I want it to be fairly short. 50,000 words max, I don’t know yet. But that’s not today’s problem. I’m having a lot of fun with it. I wasn’t having much ‘fun’ on my other project because it’s very difficult, but that doesn’t mean I believe in it any less. Different projects have different methods, and this current project just so happens to be no holds barred for me.
Damn, sorry I went on for so long. You can probably tell I’m overexcited.
Hey Dennis! Hopefully today’s comment breaks through the tech barrier. Read Quarry by Jane White over dinner (I feel like it’s the kind of book you would have read). Very neatly done book and interesting in that it feels oddly like a well made object, perhaps a clock. You see it, you marvel at it, and you move on unmoved. Been sick in bed this evening but it’s the sickness of recovery, which I’m still trying to puzzle out. Hope your weekend goes well. I will be industriously writing about Kafka. Were you ever much of a fan? Oh also do you have any funny book recommendations?
Hey hey. Again sorry that I couldn’t make it: my mom said she wouldn’t go and sort of threw me out like she does sometimes so I’m at my best friend’s place right now. I’m okay though. Pls tell Zac that I’m sorry I wasn’t able to come and that he’s sick, and that it would’ve been rly nice to meet him. I’ve been vaguely planning to go to Berlin during the Christmas holidays with the same friend whose house I’m at right now, so maybe we could stop by Paris for a day or two after. Idk, I just miss the city. I think I’ll just try to throw myself into writing and studying this weekend. I want to keep working on that ghost boy story idea I had. I want to make it more of an intentional structured thing so I’ll have to plan a little in advance, I think. The thing is that I wanted to make it sort of spiral-y and repetitive in a way but I don’t know how to do that without making the story boring to read, so maybe I’ll scrap that. To be honest I was really inspired by what you said about the George Miles cycle and ‘Period’ especially showing the effects of the psychological, physical abuse etc. suffered by the characters in the writing and I’d want to do something similar but in like a more wonky way since the narrator is already dead at the start of the story. I told you about how I sometimes think a lot about physical textures when writing: this time, I just get the image and feel of the rough transparency of a veil (duh, since ghosts and all) and that’s something I want to achieve in words. The exciting part is figuring out how to do that. I hope you have a good weekend, xo