Star-dust in Hollywood (1930)

Los ^Angeles — -from a Bungalow Qourt six had wireless sets with loud speakers bought on the instalment system. In addition to these the bungalow court immediately behind us was equally well supplied with its quota of radio apparatus or gramophones. On the most favourable occasions we might have to submit to the blarings of some twelve simultaneous trumpets torturing the longsuffering sound-waves. In American parlance we suffered from ' an earful.' Front or back the coarsevoiced cacophony persisted, starting at 7.30 in the morning, when the housewives underwent their thinning exercises and physical jerks to commands from headquarters, continuing all through the morning with musical programmes or cooking recipes carefully followed, so that perhaps twenty thousand of the Los Angeles husbands fed, so to speak, on the air. There was no escape ; if one housewife left home another came in. They seemed to have a horror of silence, the terror of an emptiness within their own skulls. The American wireless has been dominated by publicity. These varied programmes, or most of them, were provided by generous but clamorous commercial firms, so that before and after each selection the introducer would bellow (and the coarser-grained of the American voices do not come sweetly from the trumpet) : " Now, folks, you're going to hear the Prelude, by Rachmaninoff, played by the world-famous pianist Zubisky. Now, folks, this piece is presented by the Near East Carpet Company of Summer and Fifth Streets ; so, folks, while you're listening to their treat don't forget that it's due to the Near East Carpet Company." And when the piece was over : " Hello, folks, that's Rachmaninoff's Prelude, given by the Near East Carpet Company. The next piece on our programme to-night will be . . ." If there had been but one transmitting-station the noise might have been bearable, but a couple of dozen or more c [33]