Pandora's Briefcase: Harry Potter's Wand Box

It has been a while since I last opened Pandora's Briefcase; life has been a bit crazy, and the briefcase has been buried under more pressing life-matters.  But I thought now was the time to open it up and see if I could find some magic. This is what I found:

Looking for all the world to be a Wand Box from Ollivander's Wand Shop in Diagon Alley, it is only upon opening the box that you find something only slightly less interesting:

A Piano Roll is the music storage medium used to operate the player piano, pianola or a reproducing piano. The piano roll was the first medium which could be produced and copied industrially and made it possible to provide the customer with actual music quickly and easily. So says Wikipedia!


I was surprised to discover that three piano roll companies were initially established in Australia, one of which was still manufacturing and selling rolls right up until 2005!

I have attempted to track down a recording of the piece of music contained on this roll, but to no avail.  The closest I have come is a copy of the sheet music, found here.

A number of years ago I purchased a 61 key Casio keyboard from a local musical keyboard dealer and instructor, Geoff Long. On a whim I asked him if he knew where I could get my hands on a Piano Roll. With a quizzical look he asked if I were after any title in particular. I replied no, and explained the nature of Pandora's Briefcase. He asked me to wait a moment, and within minutes he came back with this little beauty.  I asked him how much it would cost me, and he said I could have it. I thank him for his generosity in helping keep Pandora's Briefcase so diverse.

Pandora's Briefcase: 12-ounce Figgy Fizz Bottle Cap.

For those unfamiliar with the cryptic post name, a bit of background:



Much like Bert's bottle cap collection, Pandora's Briefcase has had a small space reserved within for a special something that I have searched high and low for.  I could find a number of candidates on eBay, but they were either overpriced, or postage was set astronomically high, or both! So I searched further afield, and finally found what I was looking for in what I thought was a somewhat unlikely place.

Etsy.

In my little world Etsy means handmade knits, arts and crafts, sewing patterns and the like. However, a google-search found what I was looking for in the Etsy shop named Savanteer . On the virtual shop-front an Announcement is displayed:

I love vintage! I love vintage books and ephemera, pottery, kitchenware, clothing and accessories, record albums and everything else under the sun. This store is very diverse, so if you have something special you are looking for, please feel free to use the shop categories section to your left.

"This store is very diverse"... diverse enough to have a 12-ounce Figgy Fizz Bottle Cap? Perhaps not. But it had something better:

Yes! Finally I have a reel of Recording Wire! (3600 feet equates to about 1.1 kilometres!)

The reel itself appears to be made of cast aluminium.

The wire is almost as fine as a human hair, and is tied to a length of plastic leader "film" for ease of winding onto the transfer reel.

The plastic leader also keeps the wire from disastrously un-spooling from its reel! 

Can anyone make out the pencil writing on the back? I'm thinking it is:

*Something* - Bee

Garden - *Something*

Anyone?

The service I received from the proprietor was nothing short of amazing! The postage price was more than reasonable, unlike some eBay traders who grossly inflate shipping costs, and it arrived well packaged with a personal note inside! So if you are looking for vintage books and ephemera, pottery, kitchenware, clothing and accessories, record albums and everything else under the sun, check out Savanteer! (I promised a plug, after receiving such wonderful service!

Pandora's Briefcase: Found in Pandora's Emporium

This is The Emporium in Sheffield, Tasmania, into which I ventured gamely last week!


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It is a fascinating place, full of "One Man's Trash is Another Man's..." kind of stuff, and surprisingly doesn't seem to have been completely stripped of all its good stuff, leaving only the dross. That seems to be all too often the case in the few bric-a-brac stores I have visited. If there was anywhere in Tassie that would have a spool of Recording Wire (my current wish-list item for Pandora's Briefcase), it would be here.  After perusing The Emporium's wares for too long, I finally asked the lady at the counter.  After explaining what it was I was after, she said "No, I haven't got one of those, but I do have... " and pointed down through the cabinet in front of me...

Gauge Showing amount of unexposed film in feet; in this case 50 , meaning a full unexposed  magazine!

A tab at the top of the magazine opens and closes the exposure window at the front. ("closed" left, "open" right) You can also see the sprocket holes in the film when the window is in the "open" position.

According to Kodak's Website, in 1936 Kodak introduced a new home movie camera - the 16 mm Magazine CINE-KODAK Camera - that used film in magazines instead of rolls. What is so cool about this find is that it is an unexposed cartridge, which is a slightly odd find as my thinking would be that these things were quite expensive, and the cost of purchase included development of the exposed film and return postage.  So you would think that you would make sure you got your money's worth by actually using it, and getting it developed!  The only thing I can think of is that stores that carried stock would have been stuck with them when Kodak stopped supporting the format.  This would also be pretty much the only way (other than with films that had been exposed, but never developed), to get your hands on the actual cartridge, which remained the property of Kodak and wasn't returned with the developed film.  I'm just hoping they don't ask for this one back, because I have become very attached to it, and I paid a whole ten dollars for it!

The "Develop Before" date is December 1941, so it would have been made towards the beginning of production, so who knows what the story is behind this wonderful find!

Eye of newt, and toe of frog, and essence of Kimba!

I am very hesitant when it comes to tracking down and viewing childhood television favourites. I have been stung far too many times, where I'm so disappointed and left numbed with the glaring realization that "That was Rubbish! What on earth did I ever see in that show!" Mork & Mindy was a prime example, as was F-Troop.  It would have been far better to live with the memory of enjoying these shows as a child, and not look back and have those shows turned to pillars of salt.  There are many shows where I have longed to "feel" how I felt watching them when I was young, but now can't bring myself to ruin that memory of a feeling.

There have been those odd occasions, however, where a newer show has come along and I have found myself hit in the face with a duplication of feeling, if that makes sense. This happened quite recently when I crumbled under terrible peer-group pressure from fellow COA bloggers, Lee and Dan, and tracked down the first season of Avatar: The Last Airbender. It was only a few episodes in when I recognized the feelings and emotions I was experiencing whilst watching Avatar were very reminiscent of how I recall feeling while watching Kimba the White Lion as a child! The feelings I had for Kimba were ones I didn't want to risk ruining by revisiting; and yet here I was feeling them again! But there was more; just like Avon's Black Suede Cologne - with its rich, smooth scent with sweet mossy tones and spicy accents against a background of amber, woods & musk, Avatar  has spicy accents of Monkey, another "Memories of Fondness" show that is still in the "Don't Revisit" basket. So maybe I no longer need to revisit either Kimba or Monkey! Perhaps it's like the "If you like Drakkar Noir®, you'll love our New York Nights 2oz Spray Cologne" idea, continuing the somewhat tenuous men's fragrance analogy - it is something different, but smells very similar. For a while, at least!

I recently posted at the COA about an imagined Blake's 7/Doctor Who crossover episode; what I didn't mention was that I haven't seen any Blake's 7 since my early teens!  I think it would have to be on the top of my "I'm too afraid to revisit!" list. Fortunately there have been some other more recent shows that have "a vibrant mix of grasses, spicy coriander, and a small band of outlaws, under a figurehead leader, leading a rebellion against a tyrannical regime!"- the essence of Blake's 7! Firefly and Farscape, for instance, have a rich herbal blend of Blake's 7 infused within them.

So far, these shows have been enough to allow me to feel much as I did for TV shows lost. And so far, it has been enough. But I still have that nagging, gnawing thought at the back of my mind. In reality, which is the Drakkar Noir®, and which is the New York Nights ?

Therin lies the rub.

Hell, That's a Dam Fine Piece of Engineering!

Back when I was thirteen I, with 20,000 others, marched through the streets of Hobart chanting "No Dams" in what was then Australia's largest ever environmental rally, protesting against the construction of the Franklin Dam. Due to my upbringing I have developed a great love for Tasmania's wild bush... and yet somewhere deep inside me, I think I have Engineer blood in me...











On an overcast, showery day in Sheffield last week we decided on a whim to visit the Devil's Gate Dam. Just as we arrived in the car park the rain stopped and the sun broke through. We couldn't have planned it better; as we walked down to the viewing platform the sound of rushing water became louder and louder. And then the dam came into view- in spill with massive volumes of water plummeting eighty-four meters and the only-recently-revealed sun at just the right angle to produce swirling multiple rainbows in the spray.

It was an absolute wonder to behold, and took my breath away!  I love the rainforests and the bush, but when I stand near something like this, all I can do is go "Wow!"
I have to admit it is moments like these that I question my "Greenie-ness".

It is an amazing feat of engineering, using a non-polluting renewable, free energy source.  I'm certainly not saying we should dam every river in the state, and there are some river systems that should never be touched, but I'm also coming round to thinking (and I'm about to be attacked from all angles here!) that maybe there shouldn't be a knee-jerk "No Dams" reaction every time a new hydro-electric scheme is proposed. Maybe. Or maybe I should get one of those Teen-Vamps to suck the engineering blood out of me.

However, I also think there must be a much more efficient, cost-effective method of harnessing the power that flows through our rivers.  Like this, for example. But you don't get a big, stonking, awe-inspiring dam doing that.

I'm so torn.

Just thinking...

Pandora's Briefcase: Who is this Shorty anyway?!?

Sorry it has been so long, but a comment on Lee and Dan's Young Guns II Midnight Movie Club podcast prompted me to blow the dust of the ol' briefcase, twirl the tumblers on the combination lock, and extract this little number from its bowels. So to speak.

Some of you may saying, "ahhh, that's just the soundtrack to the movie Get Shorty, on a vinyl thirty-three and a third Double Sided LP!" but alas, you would be wrong. You would be right on the double-sided bit, though... "but a double-sided what?", you may ask!

The bottom left hand corner of the cover is a bit of a give-away:

Yes, a LaserDisc! I won't get too bogged down in the technical specifics (the Wikipedia entry is a pretty good read); the movie runs for 106 minutes and is recorded in CLV format (60 minutes a side) meaning that for the majority of users it required manually flipping the disk over midway through. The disc is quite heavy and is about twice the thickness of a DVD. It is very shiny!

For anyone rich enough to own a decent LaserDisc collection, storage must have been a nightmare! I know I have a centimetre ruler scale on these images, but to really put it into perspective here is the other side of the disc with a DVD on top of it for comparison:

As for the movie? I have no idea - I've never seen it!  This is the first of many items contained in Pandora's Briefcase that have contents that are a mystery, as I have no means of playing them! Sure, I could probably rent the DVD, but to be honest (a) I'm just not a DeVito fan, and (b) I'm even less of a Travolta fan!

I really wish now that I had a copy of Young Guns II on LaserDisc instead!

Perhaps this is Pandora...

No, this isn't a Pandora's Briefcase entry, but I just had to post this bit of artwork. It was done by one of our four-year-olds on a megasketcher, and I just discovered it on the lounge-room floor.  I love how Laura sees and portrays the world, especially people!

(I have increased the contrast, as megasketchers are quite grey in colour, the light was poor, and I didn't use the flash on my phone due to glare)