Edison's Legacy

Not only did Thomas Edison electrocute stray dogs (bought for 25 cents from locals), he also didn't make the first voice recording. The New York Times reports.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/27/arts/27soun.html?adxnnl=1&ref=todayspaper&adxnnlx=1206619293-7ZZyZGd0rbvZDJJ2KfUjFQ

Abbey, Sound Plastics Tax Lawsuit

In 1951 Norm was a member of the Audio Engineers Society:
http://www.aes.org/aeshc/docs/aes-members-1951.pdf
JACOBOWITZ. NORMAN B. (M). Chief Engineer. Abbey
Record Corp., 70 Fleet St., Jersey City 6. N. J..
DIgby 9-1392; 278 Van Nostrand Ave., Englewood. N.J.,
ENglewood 3-0180


http://altlaw.org/v1/cases/842625

Ira reflects:
I barely remember Sound Plastics, but have a clear recollection of the tax dispute and Norm's anger over what F&G were pulling. The case angered him in a way I had never seen, although it was still Norm's mild mannered reaction. He said it cost him $50k to prove he didn't owe the taxes.
He had a lawyer, but I can't remember his name - you might. It was the tax dispute that soured Norm on continuing to own Oak Street, and property in general. He sold the Tenafly home as a result of his monetary losses, moved to Tiburon, and didn't buy again until they moved to Pacifica. It's quite revealing to see Norm was completely right in his assessment and encouraging to know he was vindicated.

Google Search:

352 F2d 466 Foxman v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue ...

openjurist.org/352/f2d/466/foxman-v-commissioner-of-internal-revenue

Sidney L. Cramoy, New York City, for Norman and Laura Jacobowitz. ... was then trading under the name of Abbey Record Manufacturing Company, hereinafter  ...

352 F.2d 466

https://law.resource.org/pub/us/.../352.F2d.466.14981.15059.15061.htm...

Sidney L. Cramoy, New York City, for Norman and Laura Jacobowitz. ... was then trading under the name of Abbey Record Manufacturing Company, hereinafter  ...

FOXMAN v. COMMISSIONER | Leagle.com

leagle.com/decision/...1526.../FOXMAN%20v.%20COMMISSIONER

Prior to 1954, Abbey Record Manufacturing Co. was a partnership composed ... day of May 1957, between NORMAN B. JACOBOWITZ, hereinafter referred to as  ...

[PDF]

http://davelindastourdefrance.blogspot.com/2007/12/horace-grennell.html

http://www.discogs.com/label/547466-Abbey-Record-Manufacturing-Co-Inc
Early in 1954 the partners agreed to enter the business of manufacturing 12-inch long playing records, known as LPs. A related venture commenced by Jacobowitz, Foxman, and Grenell (Horace Grenell), individually, was represented by Sound Plastics, Inc., a corporation in which each owned one-third of the stock; it was engaged in the business of manufacturing "biscuits" or vinyl forms used in the making of records.

Abbey Record Manufacturing Co., Inc.

Profile:

Defunct pressing plant located in New Jersey. Pressed for labels such as: Elektra, American Recording Society, Music Treasures Of The World, Prestige etc.
Founded 1948.
Abbey Record Manufacturing Co. was a partnership composed of Norman B. and Laura Jacobowitz and two associates, engaged in the business of custom manufacturing of phonograph records. Prior to 1954 the partnership, manufactured primarily 10-inch 78 r.p.m. records on contract for various companies. Early in 1954 the partners agreed to enter the business of manufacturing 12-inch long playing records, known as LPs. A related venture commenced by Jacobowitz, Foxman, and Grenell (Horace Grenell), individually, was represented by Sound Plastics, Inc., a corporation in which each owned one-third of the stock; it was engaged in the business of manufacturing "biscuits" or vinyl forms used in the making of records.More 

Contact Info:

1 Central Avenue
East Newark, NJ

Novel Based on Nikola Tesla

UVM graduate, Samantha Hunt, has become an expert on Nikola Tesla.
She has written The Invention of Everything Else, a novel based on the life of the 'mad genius.'

Seven Days had a piece on her visit to the Flying Pig Bookstore in Shelburne.

Hunt was mentioned in a recent New Yorker magazine article about the Hotel New Yorker, where Tesla spent the last years of his long life.

I didn't get to Hunt's talk, but I did get to pick up a copy of her book later.

Public Radio's Studio 360 did a show on Tesla. There is a segment with Samantha Hunt reading from her book.

There is much interesting stuff at the Studio 360 page. For instance, Tesla invented radio well before Marconi built one that worked.

MetaFilter also has links to Tesla information.

Here is a transcription of a booklet and autobiography.

David Bonner's Revolutionizing Children's Music

I noted earlier that somewhat over a year ago I got an email from David Bonner, who was writing a history of children's records based around Horace Grenell. The book has been published by Scarecrow Press. I got a copy and it is well-written. It fills in a bunch of the details about the record business that I was not really aware of.

"About the same time (1951-1952), Grenell entered into the pressing plant business. In partnership with David Foxman (affiliated with the New York-based Raleigh pressing plant) and Norman Jacobowitz (engineer at Carnegie Hall Recording), he co-owned and managed the Abbey Record Manufacturing Company. Under the Abbey umbrella, Desto Music, Inc., existed as a music production company, with another Abbey-related company, Arco Music, Inc., operating as the official producer of Desto Records. Located in East Newark, New Jersey (and later moving to nearby Kearney), the plant pressed records for an eclectic assortment of independent labels, including Audio Fidelity, Elektra, Riverside, Roulette, and Westminster. Abbey, along with the RCA Victor Custom Record Division, pressed records also for CRG."
Bonner, 2007, Page 129


My memory of Abbey was that it existed in Jersey City well before Grenell got involved. Norm had two partners, Jascha Zayde, a staff pianist with WQXR (who died in 1999), and Joe Brodie, a dentist who did my dental work. I would take the bus into Manhattan to his office on Broadway above 180th. Norm chose the name Abbey because it came early in the alphabet. Someone looking for pressing services would call him first.

Norm always had playful business names. Sound Plastics was a triple pun -- a sound business on Long Island Sound that made plastic for the sound recording industry.

Martha Jacobowitz

I was looking for my cousin Martha Jacobowitz.
So I Googled the name. I got a list of people murdered on Kristallnacht:
http://www.kristalnacht.org/list/j.html
Lots of Jacobowitzes

Movin' Blues

The very first thing that happened in the new office was that I flushed my keys down the highly efficient toilet. They are already in Lake Champlain I have been informed.

Lost: Honda key, Kryptonite lock key (recently replaced due to recall), and new UHC door key. These are all replaceable.

Update: . The folks at Kryptonite have a replacement program for lost keys. You tell them the number, and they send you a duplicate key. It doesn't always work. Although these two keys have the same number, their configuration is different.

FAHC got me a replacement office key right away.

The Straw Market Rediscovered

Saul sent me a link to notes from the world premiere of The Straw Market, a play by William Jay Smith, the Writer in Residence at Hollins College in Roanoke, where I was pursuing a masters' degree in psychology. http://www.blackbird.vcu.edu/v5n1/gallery/smith_wj/synopsis.htm

The award winning poet Henry Taylor was a grad student in the creative writing program. He wrote the program notes.

David Jacobowitz, from Psychology, grew astonishingly from his initial uncertainty—“I don’t think I sing very well,” he said at an early meeting with Bill Smith—to the great energy with which he sold the songs he sang.

Saul & Eli will remember these lyrics:

Florence in the spring

Is such a lovely thing

It makes you want to sing—

Florence in the spring:

This is a great find. I'm going to play with it.

........

Bridges on the Arno—

In all the world there are no

Other rivers like the Arno!

Florence in the spring!

The play begins with the Cowboy singing a voice-over before the curtain opens. On opening night the microphone failed. I had to sing the introductory song way too loud for the mood.
If I had known that Stephen Spender and Catherine Ann Porter were in the audience I would have plotzed.