In 1926: living at the edge of time - Monoskop

244 ARRAYS
knows how long it will take before wireless communication between
Argentina and Germany will become more than just a technological
marvel. For the time being, the "dialogue with Buenos Aires" is frequently
interrupted by long silences, especially during the daytime. [see
Silence vs. Noise] Such asymmetry between boundless admiration for
new technologies and vague ideas about their possible uses can provoke
ironic reactions. Focusing on phototelegraphy, the advertising section of
Stanford's student yearbook pushes to a level of absurdity the journalistic
ambition of minimizing the temporal gap between newsworthy event
and published report: "The march of science has given to the editors of
this section an opportunity to show for the first time the marvels of
phototelegraphy. The above picture, showing one of the editors looking
with pride at his section in the Quad on the very day it came out, was
taken on the campus here this morning, when the yearbook was distributed.
Proofs of the photograph were sent . . . to the engraver in San
Francisco, who telegraphed a half-tone engraving back in time to get into
the last section of this book. Thus does new invention allow us, so to
speak, to get ahead of ourselves. Ain't Science wonderful!" (1926 Quad,
423).
Although the transmission of telegrams was partly integrated into the
new technology of wireless communication at an early date, the telegram
as a medium invariably bears connotations of the past. If wireless communication
often seems a future vision that is hailed prematurely, the
telegram has become history even before it has achieved broad institutionalization.
[see Present = Past (Eternity)] Only in the preindustrial
South American republic whose backwardness Ramon del Valle-Indin
depicts in his novel Tirano Banderas-and only for a representative of
the outmoded bureaucratic style prevailing in the Spanish diplomatic
service--can the telegram look like a gesture of modernity. But even in
the novel, it is unclear whether the Spanish ambassador isn't speaking
with a certain degree of irony when he urges an ambitious colonist to
send a telegram to the government in Madrid: "Much-honored Don
Celestino, you are one of the most remarkable financial, intellectual, and
social figures in the colony ... Your opinions are highly respected ...
But you are not yet Spain's ambassador. A real disgrace! Yet there is a
way you can become ambassador: send a telegram requesting my transfer
to Europe. I will support your petition" (Valle-Inclan, 33).
More than a time-saving device, the telegram has become a rhetorical