Moonrise Over Mountains (7/19/18)

(The moon as a ping pong ball with an LED light inside)

An Introduction To The Diorama Page

John Fraim

On the Midnight Oil Studios site, the Dioramas Page was the last one created and is at the far right of the other headline topics of writing, screenplays, websites, music, photography and films. While it is the last “art form” placed on the website, it does seem to combine a number of my artistic interests into one artform. Although the art of dioramas is the last added on the site, the love of model-making goes back many years with the me.

In the 50s, my father had a HO layout in out basement, and I grew up reading Model Railroader magazine and helping my father build models for our train layout. Through the years, I bought models here and there. I would always glance at the model railroad magazines in bookstores or online. I thought of building a train layout in perhaps N scale in my basement. But it was not an overall train layout that I saw a vision about. Rather, it was particular scenes within a train layout.

Some might view the following blogs to the Dioramas Page of our site as posts relating to that art form of making dioramas, or small dramatic scenes. But, more this, they are more of the memoirs of an artist discovering and pursuing an old love of model-making in a new form. Interest in the diorama art form began in January of 2018 and consumed much of my creative output until September 2018. The Dioramas Page was created on the Midnight Oil site to separate dioramas from the rest of our blogs. Eventually, though, these diorama blogs dominated the blogs on the Midnight Oil site.

The below is this record of this particular muse that came quickly into my life and became a focus of my artistic energy for nine months. And then, left just as quickly. I think it best to view the materials below as a memoir of a very creative period in my life. It is a record of the creation of dioramas during this period. But more than this, it is also a record of the creation of symbols in the artist’s mind during this period of time. They should be viewed this way more than a book string of different dioramas.

* * *

Some might view the following posts to the Diorama Page of our site as posts relating to that art form of making dioramas, or small dramatic scenes. I created a number of them last year and many involved dramatic scenes. Yes, I wrote almost sixty posts about the creation of dioramas. But, more than a blog about dioramas. It is really a memoir of an artist discovering and pursuing a new art form.

The below blogs from our site really represent more the creation of a memoir from an artist about his discovery of a new means of creative expression. Who would know that his interest in the creation, photographing and writing about dioramas, or, small, dramatic scenes, frozen by the model-making and scenery creations of the dioramist? Many of the dioramas might have been little models of scenes in great films developed by Hollywood studios of the 40s and 50s.

For once in a long time, there is a type of peace pact between the various muses of the artist. Here was an artistic activity that all of them could participate in. The artist finds a common ground for his interests in writing, photography, music, screenwriting, symbolism. And, the creation of these worlds in the form of dioramas or various models interposed into a particular environment. It seems the model represented a symbol placed into a symbolic environment.

* * *

This strange multi-headed hydra of the art form of the diorama muse attacked me in January of 2018 and dominated much of my creative output until September 2018. The Diorama Page was created on our site to separate out this new form of art from the rest of our blogs. Eventually, they became most of our blogs.

On the Midnight Oil Studios site, the Diorama Page is at the far right of the other headline topics at the top of the screen: writing, screenplays, websites, music photography and films. While it is the last “art form” placed at the top of my website, it does seem to combine a number of interests of the artist into a new type of artform.

Although the art of dioramas is the last added on the site, the love of model-making and train layouts went back many years with the me. In the 50s, my father had a HO layout in out basement, and I grew up reading Model Railroader magazine and helping my father build models for our train layout. Through the years, I bought models here and there. I would always glance at the model railroad magazines in bookstores or online.

I thought of building a train layout in perhaps N scale in my basement. But it was not an overall train layout that I saw a vision about. Rather, it was particular scenes within a train layout. I went out to this little model train place on the west side of the big interstate that splits the city. It was perhaps one of the last holdouts of model train supplies in our city and surrounding area of two million. It was/is run by a number of people dedicated to keeping the art of making worlds called N and HO scale in existence.

The little hobby train shop was a major source of supplying the materials for the Diorama Page of the Midnight Oil site. The hobby shop in Graceland was also a major supplier of materials for the Diorama Page.

* * *

In this time, many dioramas were created by me, photographed, written about and posted on the Diorama Page of my website. By September it was gone. It had come right after my writing a novel in 2017 about ancient Egypt called Ancient Light with my late friend Eric McLuhan. And now, in September of 2018, I was moving back into pure writing again with a novel.

The below is this record of this particular muse that came quickly into my life and became a focus of my artistic energy for nine months. And then, left just as quickly. The material below is a record of the appearance and disappearance of this muse. The blogs have not been edited yet and I certainly would be open to editing. Not adding as much as taking out materials. Going back and changing what’s in a diary or journal defeats the purpose of it.

I think the materials below should be seen mostly as a memoir, journal, diary or scrapbook of a creative period in a person’s life. Here, the life of a writer, researcher into symbolism for 30 years. In addition, a photographer, musician, filmmaker and model-maker. This was the core of this art muse of diorama that overtook us from January to September of 2018. Blogged about on the Dioramas Page of the Midnight Oil Studios site.

It is a record of the creation of dioramas during this period. But more than this. It is also a record of the creation of symbols in the artist’s mind during this period of time.

* * *

They should be viewed this way more than a book on dioramas. It was a time in my life dominated by the creation of an artform called dioramas. It contains photos of dioramas. Yet it is not really a story about dioramas but rather the story about the discovery by an artist.

In the final sense, the Diorama Page on the Midnight Oil Studios site, represents the unique story of a multi-media artist pursuing a new art form. Will it become a new and perpetual muse for the artist? Therefore, competing with his other muses? Or, will it simply come and go like a historic storm over the landscape of all lives?

Some might view the following posts to the Diorama Page of our site as posts relating to that art form of making dioramas, or small dramatic scenes. I created a number of them last year and many involved dramatic scenes. Yes, I wrote almost sixty posts about the creation of dioramas. But, more than a blog about dioramas. It is really a memoir of an artist discovering and pursuing a new art form.

The below blogs from our site really represent more the creation of a memoir from an artist about his discovery of a new means of creative expression. Who would know that his interest in the creation, photographing and writing about dioramas, or, small, dramatic scenes, frozen by the model-making and scenery creations of the dioramist? Many of the dioramas might have been little models of scenes in great films developed by Hollywood studios of the 40s and 50s.

For once in a long time, there is a type of peace pact between the various muses of the artist. Here was an artistic activity that all of them could participate in. The artist finds a common ground for his interests in writing, photography, music, screenwriting, symbolism. And, the creation of these worlds in the form of dioramas or various models interposed into a particular environment. It seems the model represented a symbol placed into a symbolic environment.

* * *

This strange multi-headed hydra of the art form of the diorama muse attacked me in January of 2018 and dominated much of my creative output until September 2018. The Diorama Page was created on our site to separate out this new form of art from the rest of our blogs. Eventually, they became most of our blogs.

On the Midnight Oil Studios site, the Diorama Page is at the far right of the other headline topics at the top of the screen: writing, screenplays, websites, music photography and films. While it is the last “art form” placed at the top of my website, it does seem to combine a number of interests of the artist into a new type of artform.

Although the art of dioramas is the last added on the site, the love of model-making and train layouts went back many years with the me. In the 50s, my father had an HO layout in out basement and I grew up reading Model Rail Roadermagazine and helping my father build models for our train layout. Through the years, I bought models here and there. I would always glance at the model railroad magazines in bookstores or online.

I thought of building a train layout in perhaps N scale in my basement. But it was not an overall train layout that I saw a vision about. Rather, it was particular scenes within a train layout. I went out to this little model train place on the west side of the big interstate that splits the city. It was perhaps one of the last holdouts of model train supplies in our city and surrounding area of two million. It was/is run by a number of people dedicated to keeping the art of making worlds called N and HO scale in existence.

The little hobby train shop was a major source of supplying the materials for the Diorama Page of the Midnight Oil site. The hobby shop in Graceland was also a major supplier of materials for the Diorama Page.

* * *

In this time, many dioramas were created by me, photographed, written about and posted on the Diorama Page of my website. By September it was gone. It had come right after my writing a novel in 2017 about ancient Egypt called Ancient Light with my late friend Eric McLuhan. And now, in September of 2018, I was moving back into pure writing again with a novel.

The below is this record of this particular muse that came quickly into my life and became a focus of my artistic energy for nine months. And then, left in about a year. The material below is a record of the appearance and disappearance of this muse. The blogs have not been edited yet and I certainly would be open to editing. Not adding as much as taking out materials. Going back and changing what’s in a diary or journal defeats the purpose of it.

I think the materials below should be seen mostly as a memoir, journal, diary or scrapbook of a creative period in a person’s life. Here, the life of a writer, researcher into symbolism for 30 years. In addition, a photographer, musician, filmmaker and model-maker. This was the core of this art muse of diorama that overtook us from January to September of 2018. Blogged about on the Dioramas Page of the Midnight Oil Studios site.

It is a record of the creation of dioramas during this period. But more than this. It is also a record of the creation of symbols in the artist’s mind during this period of time.

They should be viewed this way more than a book on dioramas. It was a time in my life dominated by the creation of an artform called dioramas. It contains photos of dioramas. Yet it is not really a story about dioramas but rather the story about the discovery by an artist.

In the final sense, the Diorama Page on the Midnight Oil Studios site, represents the unique story of a multi-media artist pursuing a new art form. Will it become a new and perpetual muse for the artist? Therefore, competing with his other muses? Or, will it simply come and go like a historic storm over the landscape of all lives?

____________________________________________________________________________

INSPIRATION OF BOX DIORAMISTS

Behind much of this creation was my discovery of the work of the master dioramist Sheperd Paine who worked in the particular form of dioramas called box dioramas. They were called this because the box dioramists created their dioramas inside boxes so they could control things like light and perspective. Something you couldn’t do with just putting objects on a flat piece of wood. I discovered the great site for box dioramists called Box Dioramas. This is the Mecca for this form of modeling and I spent hours studying the works of Shep Paine and other great box dioramists like Jim Derogatis, Barry Biediger, Ray Anderson and Darryl Audette. In particular, Darryl and I become good virual friends through a number of emails. Darryl was one of the creators of the Box Diorama site and I ended up featuring some of his spectacular work on posts to Midnight Oil. Perhaps the ultimate honor for me from this year of exploring the art of dioramas is that a page was created for me on the Box Diorama site at John Fraim page on the site. (Thanks Darryl!)

____________________________________________________________________________

BELOW DIORAMA POSTS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

(Short references and links to the posts appearing on the Midnight Oil site)

ETHYL’S FUEL SERVICE(1/14/18)

The Art & Psychology of Staged Scenes John Fraim   Not to in define the meaning of a scene in the present but rather to start an internal process in the audience/observer/reader that will lead eventually to an obsession with defining the meaning of a scene in the future. One of the most famous screenwriters […]

ICONS OF OUR TIMES …(1/20/18)

Iconic Image Studios Concept draft by Jim Arter / John Fraim Winter 2018 Iconic Image Studios

JACK FRAIM FORD(2/8/18)

Jack Fraim (circa 1952) at Jack Fraim Ford in Culver City SCENE: A model representing not must a place but a time in life. A young boy looks at the walls that surround the MGM Studios on Washington Boulevard in 1952. The young boy stands at the edge of the huge car sales lot […]

LATEST DIORAMA WORK …(2/16/18)

My writings (and relationship) to creating dioramas since I was possessed by this strange hobby … Not published in any form so far. Think it’s pretty interesting stuff. A philosophy (Phenomenology? Psychology?) of model building or creating miniature representations of reality. Who is this group of passionate hobbyists like model railroaders, car builders, plan and […]?

STARLIGHT JAZZ CLUB(2/19/18)

(Note: Before reading notes below, scroll to bottom and press play to hear The Chico Hamilton Quintet’s “Stella By Starlight” from 1955) Chico Hamilton is one of the most famous of Los Angeles’ jazz musicians. He was born in 1921 in LA and it is now the mid-50s and he has formed his famous Chico […]

BEACON STUDIOS(2/24/18)

Backlot of MGM Studios (Getty Images Copyright) Beacon Studios diorama, the studio serves as the plower character symbol in Bruegel’s “Landscape With The Fall of Icarus” (circa 1560). It occupies the important forefront landscape in the painting. Perhaps a reference to the Bruegel painting via a billboard on the street saying it is now at […]

WHEN SMOOTH JAZZ CAME TO BERKELEY(2/26/18)

One of the Many Versions of the KRE Radio Building in Berkeley, California West Berkeley in the 1970s and 80s. The great avant-garde jazz station KRE is located at the south end of Berkeley’s Aquatic Park. We can see a small sign with a flickering light inside of it (as if the electric company is […]

DRAIN THE SWAMP!(3/1/18)

Concept and original model completed over one night (2/26/18). Created for the monthly model challenge for the IPMS (International Plastic Modeler’s Society). I just joined the organization made up of the greatest model makers around the world. I was blown away by the IPMS convention in Columbus a few weeks ago and decided it would […]

THE “I THINK I CAN” USA TEAM(3/4/18)

What if the little engine had to compete in extreme ski jumping? (3/3/18) The Little Engine That Could is an illustrated children’s book that became widely known in the United States after publication in 1930 by Platt & Munk. The story is used to teach children the value of optimism and hard work. Based on a […]

WHO IS PROFESSOR GALAXY(3/4/18)

We arrive at the diorama somewhat like we arrive at other places in life that offer more enigma than answers. An empty classroom without a professor at the front. Everyone is gone from the scene. An empty classroom … We look into an empty college classroom. A wall on the left of the diorama and […]

THE SUSPENSION OF PROFESSOR GALAXY(3/9/18)

Here, more of an intellectual exercise that requires participation of the viewer. In effect, the viewer becomes the absent students in the diorama. The viewer/student is given four pieces of a question/puzzle being exposed. The first piece of the puzzle is the large blackboard on the right full of math calculations and formulas. This blackboard […]

DIORAMISTS: MODELING A NEW WORLD?(3/12/18)

The Starlight Jazz Club (part of the LA Ford 1950s dealership diorama project) NOTE: Before reading below, press play on the music at end of this post … then scroll back up to here to start reading it while Chico’s Stella By Starlight is playing in the background.

MINI IDIOMATIC DIORAMAS(3/14/18)

“They were thrown under the bus.” A new area for me. Mini dioramas based on popular idiomatic phrases such as “thrown under the bus” or “drain the swamp.” I’ve downloaded a number of lists of idioms from Google search. But, might it go further than just idioms to encompass other areas of so-called comments or […]

NEW IDEAS(3/19/18)

Killer Raccoons 2! (Premiere night at Graumans Chinese Theater in Hollywood) Summing the past few weeks up. After creating the “I Think I Can Team” at the Olympics and “Professor Galaxy,” I did a series of six small idiomatic dioramas based around popular phrases such as “thrown under the bus,” and “that train has left […]

IRISH SPRING(3/24/18)

Spring in Ohio has been elusive this year. One day you think it’s here and the next day it snows. What if Spring could simply come out of a box. Of course, this would be the objective if I was a creative director at the ad firm that has the account for Irish Spring. Reporting […]

THE GREEN GIANT(3/25/18)

Product metaphors, like Irish Spring, is a ripe area for symbolism and dioramas. Here is another product metaphor-based diorama. In the old office is an empty can of sweet peas from the Green Giant brand. A picture of the “jolly” Green Giant in the logo top of the can. A reference to the mythology […]

MALCOLM: THE LAST DINOSAUR(3/28/18)

The Last Dinosaur “Latest blog below on dioramas. About one I’m doing now. Political stuff lurking in it. But mainly cultural criticism of American branding and marketing everything. Politics is little more than ‘messages’ in the great ‘medium’ of the culture at a particular point in history. Here, this is experienced through the perspective of a […]

THE GREEN LIGHT(4/7/18)

Last scene of The Great Gatsby. Jay Gatsby stands on his dock reaching out for the green light on Daisy’s dock across the bay. Behind the screen in front of Gatsby green light simulated by using a Litra cube with green filter and diffuser on it. The Litra cube sits on top of a Nano Cube […]

THE LAST DINOSAUR(4/11/18)

Old Route 66 and the Parking Lot for The Last Dinosaur Tourist Trap (See The Last Dinosaur in the June 2018 issue of Fine Scale Modeler) Our diorama The Last Dinosaur is finally complete. It’s a piece of nostalgia (on a 2′ x 1′ plywood board) for desert trips my family took in the 50s. […]

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS(4/16/18)

Devil’s Tower in the Bear Lodge Mountains of Wyoming – Background for the Movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. After completing The Last Dinosaur, we took a break for a few days, but our mind started working again on a new diorama. A monthly contest for the IPMS was to create something from TV […]

DESERT WITNESS(4/23/18)

The Close Encounters Diorama A man on a mountain road in the desert has pulled off the road and leans up against his car observing a huge alien disk in the desert five miles away. The craft is at the intersection of two roads. One road disappears into the distant mountains that surround the desert. Our […]

CHASING BULLITT: PART ONE(4/28/18)

McQueen’s Mustang Going 90 MPH Takes Flight in the 1968 Movie Bullitt (Don’t Try This at Home) Some Trivia About A Famous Chase Scene Fifty years ago, a San Francisco detective named Frank Bullitt was given the task of protecting a witness in a mob trial. When a pair of mob hitmen enter the scene, […]

HISTORY OF THE GREYHOUND(4/29/18)

Dedicated to my Greyhound Genna.

CHASING BULLITT: PART TWO(5/7/18)

The Attraction of Craft (In Our Age of Distraction) “Big Brother does not watch us, by his choice. We watch him, by ours. There is no need for wardens or gates or Ministries of Truth. When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious […]

DEEP STATE SWAMP(5/11/18)

Deep State Swamp in March of this year, I created the first Drain the Swamp diorama for the monthly theme contest of the IPMS (International Plastic Modeler’s Society) chapter in Columbus. The challenge was to model something on a 4″ x 4″ square. I created a little FBI Building and a number of layers of […]

WITNESS(5/13/18)

Witness Mock-Up After completing the Deep State Swamp diorama, I returned to a project called Witness that had been incubating for some time. The basic idea was to suppose there was a witness in the mountain hills above what is happening in the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The witness has pulled his car off the […]

FINAL WITNESS(5/15/18)

The 1/12 Scale Man With the Binoculars in Witness. We first ask you to scroll to the bottom of this page and click on the YouTube containing the music from the movie Close Encounters of a Third Kind. Then, scroll back up and press our Vimeo above. We are not allowed to upload the […]

GREEN GIANT PEA SPILL(5/17/18)

Do you ever worry that the highway you’re on might be shut down because a giant Green Giant can has spilled peas across the road? And now, up ahead, you can see a couple of police cars have stopped traffic where the peas spilled over the highway. Someone has opened a can of Green Giant Peas […]

CHASING BULLITT: PART THREE(5/20/18)

The completed Chasing Bullitt diorama. Having fun with a poster for Bullitt on the side of the flat. Of course, the poster is not on the side of the flat and could not announce a movie that is still being made in the diorama scene. (It can be attached or detached via a magnet behind […]

ESCAPE ROUTE(5/23/18)

To Eric McLuhan, A Wonderful Friend, Collaborator & Fellow Traveler (1942 – 2018) I’m beginning to stop using paper, cardboard and foam core to create my dioramas and starting to use wood. For the most part, all the latter materials are by-products of wood. But, it is good to simply go to the source and use wood […]

HERITAGE SQUARE ANTIQUE MALL(5/29/18)

The Chinese Sage After the meticulous assembly involved in the Chasing Bullitt diorama, I had a sudden inclination towards simply searching out objects for my dioramas rather than creating them. The Buckeye Burl wood bin at WoodWerks offered a number of great contexts for dioramas. Then, I discovered the huge Heritage Square Antique Mall. For years, I had […]

TRUMP/KIM RESORTS(6/13/18)

The Coast of North Korea – 2020. People Magazine: “‘North Korea has great beaches’,” Trump told reporters. ‘You see that whenever they’re exploding cannons into the ocean. I said, “Boy, look at that view. Wouldn’t that make a great condo?” ‘Trump said he advised Kim that instead of pursuing his nuclear ambitions, he should […]

TILDEN PARK(6/18/18)

View of San Francisco from Grizzly Peak in Tilden Park, Berkeley – A Photo of a Photo There is nothing quite like Tilden Park above Berkeley in the East Bay. In a matter of minutes, one can go from Berkeley up into the wilderness of Tilden Park. I’ve been hiking in Tilden for years so […]

MAKING SCENES(6/28/18)

Casanova’s in Carmel, California – Carmel’s “Most Romantic” Restaurant – Photo by John Fraim (2007) I’ve been absent lately as I’ve taken time off from my hectic pace of creating dioramas to writing about them. Have started writing a book titled Making Scenes: New Directions in Dioramas (I thought of calling it Making A Scene but with the “A” […]

DESERT PATRIOT(7/1/18)

Desert Patriot – Diorama & Photo by John Fraim Anyone who has lived in the desert for a period of time have probably seen the lone trailers with some junk or cars surrounding them. Often, there is an American flag somewhere. With the gathered cars around the trailer, we can suspect some type of meeting […]

THE BULLITT EXPLOSION(7/3/18)

Explosion Scene of the Dodge Charger in movie Bullitt (McQueen’s Mustang speeds by on the road) (Note to Readers: First scroll down to the bottom YouTube image on this post and click on it and then come back up to the text right below what you’re reading now … with music.) The spectacular fate of […]

LIGHTHOUSE(7/3/18)

What do you do with a tea light, a piece of Purple Heart wood (6″ x 6″ x 2″ thick from the scrap bin at Woodwerks) and a green glass Hemingway telegraph insulator from the Antique Mall? The tea light was attached to the wood by a magnet and the telegraph insulator placed over it. Background […]

PREMIERE OF KILLER RACCOONS II!(7/5/18)

My friend Travis has just completed his second raccoon horror film, Killer Raccoons II. The first film was shot almost ten years ago and developed a small cult following. The second film had a much better equipment with a more professional cast. It was filmed in Ohio but completed in Los Angeles. This diorama envisions the […]

EXPLOSIONS(7/6/18)

The above is part of a new diorama in process.

DESERT PATRIOT’S LAST STAND(7/6/18)

He sold everything he owned, bought a used RV and moved to the desert. He bought a little spot on top of a hill in the middle of nowhere. He lived off-the-grid for years. Every month he went into the small town fifty miles away and bought his food and supplies. He built a fence […]

COLTRANE’S LOST ALBUM(7/13/18)

“Like finding another room in the great pyramids.” Sonny Rollins Both Directions At Once: The Lost Album (March 6, 1963) John Coltrane   I just listened to the deluxe version of these recordings. All of them and this music is some of John Coltrane’s most accessible music. A powerful find of hidden American art so […]

MINIATURE CAR CRASHES(7/15/18)

A quick little diorama from things just “hanging around” the old shop. In Z scale or 1/220. A dab of glue on everything and we’re good to go. (But the two people don’t look too “good to go” to me.) Sometimes, a spur of the moment idea captures things as well as long, planned out […]

CLIFF HOUSE FIRE(7/15/18)

It was a simple download from the Internet from Wurlington Press – paper cut-out of the Cliff House in San Francisco in 1/750 scale and proceeded. The Cliff House was one of the greatest conglomerations of gingerbread ever seen in San Francisco. This is saying a lot. I labored cutting the little pieces out but […]

MASTERS OF ILLUSION(7/19/18)

“Moonrise Over Mountains” – John Fraim (7/19/18) Box Dioramists: Masters of Illusion “The same objects look bent and straight when seen in and out of water … and every kind of deception like this is clearly present in our soul.” Plato, The Republic (380 BC) There is a small group of modelers out there today […]

THE ILLUSIONIST (7/31/18)

Matthew Albanese is one of the greatest dioramists in the world. See some of his incredible dioramas featuring phenomena of nature. “Carl Jung wrote that our ‘projections change the world into the replica of one’s own unknown face.’ Matthew Albanese’s strange worlds serve two masters: they are projections of the artist’s unknown face, but also of our own.” David Revere McFadden (Chief Curator and Vice President for Programs and Collections at the Museum of Arts & Design in New York City)

STUDIO PROTEST(8/10/18)

On July 23 in Casting Call, I offered up the idea of the dioramist as collector of stuff … a type of hoarder in his/her own way. In my case, I finally decided to sort all the diorama materials I had collected over the months from places like Michaels and model shops and antique stores and […]

I CAN TALK(8/13/18)

“I Can Talk!?” What relationship do words have to diorama images or scenes? Or, to any work of art for that matter? Traditionally, words are attached to particular works of art. Sometimes, words have played a great part in making a work of art. Many times, words are attached to types of third person “museum tour […]

NEW NATION(8/19/18)

An Action Figure Photographed Against Frederic Church’s Twilight in the Wilderness (1860) Unifying a Divided Nation John Fraim “There is a sense … that partisan affiliation reflects more than just a voting preference. Rather, it says something about your character.” (NYT 8/17/18) American culture in 2018. All our days increasingly filled with heated back-and-forth battles between media […]

RADIO BATTLES(8/22/18)

KRE 1950s Radio Battles of the Early 80s Smooth Jazz Comes to Berkeley John Fraim Below are notes based on some of thoughts and memories of Berkeley in the early 80s. One of the big things I remember from this time is the battle between two jazz radio stations: the new KBLX and the old […]

A MAGIC LIGHT(8/24/18)

THE REVOUTIONARY LUXLI CELLO LED LIGHT A revolution in LED lighting is occurring now. One of the big topics at the major photography show this year was RGB LED lights. For the first time, photographers and filmmakers have the ability to precisely control the lighting of their scenes. They are no longer limited to […]

NEW WORLD OF LIGHT(8/27/18)

Hollywood & Independent Artists John Fraim   Modern American society has access to most of the magic technologies the nation produces at its faster and faster pace.  For example, in the film industry, independent filmmakers have access to cameras used by the major studios. The focus has been on how to capture the scene with […]

LIGHT EXPERIMENTS(8/28/18)

A red man … In his green office … No, make that his blue office … Ponders a new use of light in the new era of full spectrum LEDs. Mr. Red Man ponders this under the green light of a Luxli Cello light that sits on its light stand in his office. It is now Mr. Green […]

THE TELESCOPE COMPANY (9/9/18)