In 1926: living at the edge of time - Monoskop

TELEPHONES
The student yearbook of Stanford University features a full-page advertisement
for the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company. Not surprisingly,
it presents the telephone as a medium which, by making travel
almost superfluous, partly fulfills humankind's dream of becoming omnipresent:
"Take a weekly trip home-over the telephone" (1926 Quad,
429). [see Airplanes, Polarities, Center = Periphery (Infinitude)] A drawing
below this slogan shows two elegantly dressed young men, apparently
college students, sitting in front of a window that affords a view
of the university's main buildings. Both wear neckties. The student on
the right is dressed in a suit and holds a pipe; his companion wears an
athletic sweater and is speaking into the mouthpiece of a telephone,
while pressing the receiver against his ear. The caption reads: "I passed
my finals, Mother!"
Telephone technology makes it possible for this student to celebrate
graduation in a novel state of dispersion: his emotions at home, his body
at Stanford, and his voice in both places. Establishing a "thrilling"
contiguity between two individuals (Kittler, 1985, 81f£.), the telephone
connection in this particular case is the functional equivalent of an
umbilical cord: "Pleasant news for your mother to hear. More pleasant
(almost exultant, one might say) for you to tell! And the thrill in telling
is to be found in really saying it to Mother." The father is mentioned
only in the context of everyday college life-and even there, he remains
in the background (symbolized by a much smaller typeface): "Find out
225