#Pneumatic Tubes

[newyorkthegoldenage]

Francis J. Hunter, foreman at the General Post Office, is shown as he puts the first batch of mail in the new pneumatic tube couriers, October 25, 1932. The high-speed couriers traveled up and down the city at a mile a minute, carrying a total of 6,000,000 letters daily.

Photo: Associated Press

[terebelli]

Pneumatic tubes connecting 23 post offices in New York City. Late 1800’s through 1950’s.

[amycvdh]

“Finishing a post and hitting send, shooting it down a complicated system of pneumatic tubes” via BlueSky

[doctorlavender]

The Border of Hermes | Close to the Sun

[trevlad-sounds]

Wednesday 20 September Mixtape 374 “Summer Stone”

Experimental Library Instrumental Wednesdays, Fridays & Sundays. Support the artists and labels. Don't forget to tip so future shows can bloom.

Secret Circuit-Ripe Ready 00:31

Pneumatic Tubes-Summer's End 04:49

The British Stereo Collective-In the Tall Grass (from The Ghosts of Fleet Forest) (New Mix) 06:29

Pete Jolly-Leaves 07:43

Oscar Rocchi, Franco Godi-Fantastica 09:20

Piet Van Meren-Stoned 11:40

Satoshi & Makoto-Crawl Up 14:06

The Sorcerers-The Horror 16:49

Peel Dream Magazine-You Really Mean It? 20:26

Roedelius-Sonnengeflecht 21:22

Moon Mullins-Over the Marine Parkway Bridge 24:36

Belbury Poly-Earth Lights 28:23

Bravo Tounky-La Bonnette 32:45

Trevor Bastow-Chopping Block 35:28

[poem-today]

A poem by Natalie Shapero

Long Week Talking

I am ashamed to keep thinking of death  as a chute that connects to the garbage. I know  I should picture it more like the pneumatic tubes 

at banks of the past: you put in your name  and your paper and up you go. I know a bank 

should be the operative metaphor  for every facet of existence, every time. I’m sorry 

I haven’t more regularly made reference  to a bank. When I fail to liken something to a bank,  that’s how I can tell I’m tired. That’s not me, 

I assure everybody. That’s the long week talking. Time  for bed. Time for the window, the hectoring sky, 

the streetlight bright as the bright saved people  see before they die, but I don’t die.

Natalie Shapero

Listen to Natalie Shapero read and discuss her poem.

Natalie Shapero says of her poem: There was a sense in which I didn’t want to write another poem about death, but there was also a sense in which I did want to do this, and so I settled on a first line that, taken on its own, serves as a kind of apology, or at least an introductory, undermining gesture. Read together with the lines that follow, though, it just goes ahead and does the thing it says it’s ashamed of doing. I guess I like to have it both ways.

Copyright © 2023 by Natalie Shapero. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 4, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets. 

[l0vegl0wsinthedark]

Solution:

Also:

Baby zoom zoom straight into your lap

I think it would be pretty sick to have pneumatic tubes (like at bank drive thrus) in my house but I can't come up with a single use case for them in a residence. though thinking about it conjured the idea of putting an empty cup from my desk in one to send it to the kitchen sink, where it would be thrown with force and shatter on impact. and that's pretty funny.

[apathmakerstale]

We regressed as a culture when pneumatic tubes went out of style and we didn’t iterate on them.

[laejoh]

Phones were fixed to individual tables, and above many was a lighted number. Singles needed only to look around the room until a fetching stranger caught their eye, note the number, and then direct a message to that table.

But for those who were too shy to pick up the phone, the pneumatic tubes offered a perfect alternative. The tubes were built into the handrails, and one was located at each table. The nightclub provided paper on which to scrawl notes. Patrons only had to specify where they wanted their missives sent. Like messaging on a dating app, but with—you know—tubes.

Many provocative notes were passed around, but eager flirters needed to be careful—“messages sent by tube [were] checked by female ‘censors’ in the switchboard room” in an early form of comment moderation.

[mapsontheweb]

The New York Pneumatic Tube Mail Network at its height pre-WWI, with over 27 miles of tube. It operated from 1897 to 1953, and was replaced by cheaper cars and trucks.

[acmeoop]

Quitting Time “Jane’s Driving Lesson” (1963)

[radarsteddybear]

The fact that LeBeau fits inside a dumbwaiter would suggest that I, too, would fit inside a dumbwaiter. Unfortunately, there aren't enough dumbwaiters in my life for me to test this hypothesis.

[mooncustafer]

They definitely had pneumatic tubes everywhere in those days so yeah, why no buttered rolls, 1943?!

The Baltimore Sun, Maryland, January 24, 1943

[maretriarch]

as soon as i learn to drive i can start taking opening instead of midshifts which will free 2+ hours of walking commute to and from work which is 51 minutes each way if im not hauling ass, (45 if i haul and NO pokemon which is becoming a VICE) not including me changing in/out of my walking clothes vs work clothes, if i need to get any groceries or stop anywhere, do anything, etc) which will mean i can start going to the cheaper grocery stores instead of the ones closest by, i can start going to the gym bcs im averaging like leaving the house at 8:30am and coming back at 8:30pm and im just not good enough at my routine yet to like minmax the time requirements and this isnt even including like...hobbies including sitting down for the 40 minute 3d modeling tutorial which is bamboo torture and ive tried sitting down mu white ass down multiple times to watch it but i guess id (bumper sticker voice) RATHER BE LONG DISTANCE HAULING CANS OF GREEN BEANS HOME ON MY BACK

[incorrect-hs-quotes]

Jade: do we HAVE to steal the banks money? :( cant we steal something else?

Dirk: Like… Do you want to rob the bank for chairs??

[jigencaps]