Archive for May, 2008

Precipitron Electronic Air Cleaner

Wednesday, May 28th, 2008

The first electrostatic air filter was invented in Pittsburgh by a fellow named Gaylord W. Penney. According to a 1942 Time article,

The Precipitron came out of “a successful failure” in research, and a hopeful house-cleaning experiment in Pittsburgh. Some six years ago a young research engineer, Gaylord W. Penney (now manager of the electrophysics laboratories), sought a conclusion to German experiments with ionized air, found a clue to cleaner air. With a wire, a couple of aluminum plates and a burning oily rag, he rigged his first crude electrostatic dirt trap.

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The Black Cat

Tuesday, May 20th, 2008

Hereafter, perhaps, some intellect may be found which will reduce my phantasm to the common-place – some intellect more calm, more logical, and far less excitable than my own, which will perceive, in the circumstances I detail with awe, nothing more than an ordinary succession of very natural causes and effects.

-Edgar Allen Poe

Dario Argento’s The Black Cat is a smooth, toothsome exploration of its titular tale sprinkled with tropes from Poe’s other parables. It stars Harvey Keitel and Madeleine Potter (recently in The White Countess if you like Merchant/Ivory/Ishiguro) and is bundled with George Romero’s The Facts in the Case of Mr. Valdemar on a DVD called Two Evil Eyes, which I rented from the Dreaming Ant. Both films were shot in Pittsburgh for $9 million in 1989 and have effects by Tom Savini, but only The Black Cat (your only shot to see Pittsburgh [mostly Shadyside] through Argento’s keen eyes) is worth an hour of your life.

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