Tactile

Tactile (pronounced tak-til or tak-tahyl)

(1) Of, pertaining to, endowed with, or affecting the sense of touch.

(2) Perceptible to the touch; tangible.

(3) Capable of being touched; tangible (archaic).

1605–1615: From the Middle French tactile, from the Latin tāctilis (tangible), from tāctus, past participle of tangere (to touch)), from the primitive Indo-European root tag (to touch; to handle).  The construct was tact(us) + ile.  The –ile suffix was from the Latin –īlis (neuter -ile, comparative -ilior, superlative -illimus or -ilissimus; the third-declension two-termination suffix), from the Proto-Italic -elis, from the primitive Indo-European -elis, from -lós.  It was used to form an adjective noun of relation, frequently passive, to the verb or root.  The meaning "of or pertaining to the sense of touch" is attested from the 1650s.  Tactile is an adjective; tactility is a noun.

Work of art: 1992 IBM (Blue Label) Model M keyboard.

In the few decades computing has been a mainstream activity, there has been such a variety of hardware, operating systems, languages and software at various points in the application layers, that there’s little general agreement about what’s best in any particular field but most with any exposure to the IBM Model M keyboard agree it’s probably the finest keyboard ever made.  Even those not attracted to the tactility which is its most obvious feature (and there are those who prefer a “squishy” to a “clicky” keyboard) will usually concede the build quality is exceptional, compared especially to some of the sad devices bundled with systems in recent years.  It shouldn’t be surprising IBM was able to build something like the Model M keyboard at scale given the company’s decades of experience in engineering a construction and there are Model M nerds prepared to believe all those years were but preparation for what was required to make the tactile devices. 

1973 IBM Selectric with three elements (golfballs).

International Business Machines (IBM) began in New York in 1888 (adopting the IBM name in 1924), its early core-business mechanical “tabulating systems” for accounting and time-keeping and by the 1930s, some of the mechanical engineering used in these systems was applied to typewriter technology after it acquired the tools, patents and production facilities of Electromatic Typewriters of Rochester.  The result of the R&D effort was the Model 01 IBM Electric Typewriter which was released in 1935 and became the first really successful electric typewriter in the US, the beginning of a line which, in 1961 produced the IBM Selectric, famous for its “element” which the rest of the world called the “golfball”.  The almost spherical “golfball” (which appears in some IBM documents both also as “typeball”) contained the impressions of the letters which struck the ribbon and was interchangeable with other made with other font sets.  That was not a new idea, other manufacturers using the principle of interchangeability in the late nineteenth century but with “type wheels” which were larger and tended to be fragile, the three-dimensional “golfball” both more robust and, having to travel a smaller distance per key stroke, permitting a faster typing rate.  It was with the Selectric that the evolution of what became the Model M keyboard really began.

1984 IBM Model F keyboard; the IBM mouse of the era was a ghastly to use as it looks.

The first version of the definitively tactile, stand-alone IBM keyboard was the Model 14 which, although most associated with the original IBM PC-1 released in August 1981, had actually debuted with the System/23 Datamaster (1981-1985), a short-lived corporate workstation which proved a dinosaur, unable to compete with the IBM PC, the success of which was also the death knell for the earlier 6580 Displaywriter (1980-1986) which had actually enjoyed some success as a hefty and expensive but capable corporate word-processor.  The Datamaster, introduced just five weeks prior to the PC-1, used the same Model 14 keyboard, initially with an 83 key layout and the nerdiest of nerds note its technical superiority over the Model M in that it uses a buckling spring over a capacitive PCB (printed circuit board) rather than the later membrane.  The Model F remained in general production until 1985, being then built in limited numbers (by both IBM and Lexmark) until 1985 and was notable for innovations such as the revisions to the layout to accommodate the PC-AT protocols and the availability of specialized models with as few as 50 or as many as 127 keys.

Customized IBM Model F keyboard with LED module.

Model F aficionados can be snobby, pointing out even IBM admitted one of the design objectives with the Model M was to reduce manufacturing costs but their attraction is real, the intricacies of the Model F intriguing and their labour-intensive production process does mean nothing like them is likely again to be made.  The internal assembly uses two curved metal back-plates and the PCB is flexible, thus also curved when attached to the back-plate and while just about every other keyboard's curves are simulated by the molding of the keycap profiles, the Model F's curve is integral to the frame, thus allowing all keycaps to be the same shape and size, a great advantage for those who like to tinker and customize.  Freaks customizing keyboards are perhaps less frequently found than once they were but still exist in dark rooms living on pizza and Coca-Cola.  Snobbery or not, the freaks do have a point (up to a point) because the mechanical advantages are real.  The capacitive design is superior, requiring a lighter actuation force and delivering a crisper feel and a slightly sharper feedback; it’s also more robust, IBM guaranteeing each key with a MTBF (mean time between failure) of over 100 million key-presses, a reasonable life even for the most productive trolls.  The switch from PCBs to membranes meant these characteristics were to some degree toned down in order to lower manufacturing costs although the MTBF was still rated an impressive 80 million.

1988 IBM Model M keyboard (122 key version).

Pace the freaks but the Model M is preferable, if for no other reason than simply because it (more-or-less) standardized the core keyboard layout (most others now conform) and in use, the tactility is little different from its predecessor.  Regarding the layout, the case can be made that the Model F’s location of the function keys to the left may actually make more sense but the planet has settled on the Model M layout.  Introduced in 1985 with the 3161 terminal, the PC-compatible version appeared in 1987 when it was included with the PS/2.  In use the Model M is a solid (9 lb (4 kg)) tactile experience which feels little different from the Model F and users have a long time to become accustomed to that feel; the keyboards, the oldest of which are now some forty years old, appearing not to have a life expectancy, many in continuous use for decades and a servicing ecosystem exists should any parts need to be replaced although it’s said rectifying the consequences of spills (of coffee, red wine, G&Ts etc) is a more common request.  The best source for the tactile IBMs is ClickyKeyboards.

United States Patent # 4,118,611 Buckling Spring torsional snap actuator. Harris, 1978:

It will be appreciated with regard to the figures that depression of the key button 1 moves the key button and its stem 6 into the housing 3, creating longitudinal compression and lateral deflection of the helical compression spring 2. An initial counter-clockwise moment is exerted on the rocker member 4 which is approximately equal to the force F times the distance between the pivot point 8 of the rocking member 4 and the center line of the spring. The upper end of the helical spring 2 is held squarely against the key button 1 by a clockwise moment created by a force equal to approximately F times the diameter of the spring divided by two. The rocker member 4 will initially be held firmly over the contacts 5A and 5B. As the lateral motion of the center of the helical compression spring 2 increases, both the top and bottom reaction moments in spring 2 are decreased because F is transmitted through the center section of spring 2. Shortly after these moments approach 0, the rocker member rocks to a position squarely over contacts 5A and 5C and the top of spring 2 rocks about the right hand edge of its topmost coil. The constraints upon the depression column spring have changed from an initial end clamped condition to an end clamped-pinned condition. This sudden change provides the tactile response of the key and is accompanied by a sudden rocking action of the rocker member 4 which creates an acoustic feedback as well.

The "buckling spring torsional snap actuator" is the core of the Model M’s charm.  Unlike mechanical switches that are depressed straight down like plungers, the Model M has springs under each key that contract, snap flat, or "buckle," and then spring back into place when released.  This provides the audible “click” so associated with the model and which some don’t like but for those who become accustomed to typing on one, it’s hard to go back to anything else; they have the feel of a pre-modern (circa 1980 and earlier) Mercedes-Benz.  Because of the physicality, typing on a Model M is a tangible experience; like a typewriter, the tactility and the feedback of the click gives every letter a physical presence.

IBM Model M user Lindsay Lohan in Life-Size (2000, Walt Disney Television).

NASA's Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility (LSLF) is a repository and laboratory facility at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston.  Since 1979 it's housed geologic samples returned from the Moon by the Apollo program missions to the lunar surface (1969-1972).  The facility preserves in a secure vault most of the 842 lb (382 kg) of lunar material returned to Earth as well as some other material and the associated data records.  The facility also contains clean-environment laboratories so samples can be processed and studied in a contamination-free environment.

The LSLF houses the only eight lunar rocks (some nearly four billion years old) on earth available to be touched by the general public.

The LSLF also includes an IBM Model M keyboard and PS/2 PC (it’s not known if it’s running PC-DOS or OS/2) in an exhibit which is a replica of a room in the Space Centre during the 1980s.

Layout Model F, PC & XT, (1981).

Layout Model F, PC-AT (1984).

Layout Model M, 3161 Terminal (1985) & PS/2 (1987). 

Molyneux

Molyneux (pronounced mol-un-ewe)

(1) A habitational surname of Norman origin, almost certainly from the town of Moulineaux-sur-Seine, in Normandy.

(2) A variant of the Old French Molineaux (an occupational surname for a miller).

(3) An Anglicized form of the Irish Ó Maol an Mhuaidh (descendant of the follower of the noble).

(4) In law in the state of New York, as the “Molineux Rule”, an evidentiary rule which defines the extent to which a prosecutor may introduce evidence of a defendant’s prior bad acts or crimes, not to show criminal propensity, but to “establish motive, opportunity, intent, common scheme or plan, knowledge, identity or absence of mistake or accident.”

(5) In philosophy, as the “Molyneux Problem”, a thought experiment which asks:”If someone born blind, who has learned to distinguish between a sphere and a cube by touch alone, upon suddenly gaining the power of sight, would they be able to distinguish those objects by sight alone, based on memory of tactile experience?”

Pre 900: The French surname Molyneux was from the Old French and is thought to have been a variant of De Molines or De Moulins, both linked to "Mill" (Molineaux the occupational surname for a miller) although the name is believed to have been habitation and form an unidentified place in France although some genealogists have concluded the de Moulins came from Moulineaux-sur-Seine, near Rouen, Normandy.  Despite the continental origin, the name is also much associated with various branches of the family in England and Ireland, the earliest known references pre-dating the Norman Conquest (1066).  The alternative spelling is Molineux.

The "Molyneux Problem" is named after Irish scientist and politician William Molyneux (1656–1698) who in 1688 sent a letter to the English physician & philosopher John Locke (1632–1704), asking: Could someone who was born blind, and able to distinguish a globe and a cube by touch, be able to immediately distinguish and name these shapes by sight if given the ability to see?  Obviously difficult to test experimentally, the problem prompted one memorable dialogue between Locke and Bishop George Berkeley (1685–1753 (who lent his name, pronounced phonetically to the US university) but it has long intrigued those from many disciplines, notably neurology and psychology, because sight is such a special attribute, the eyes being an outgrowth of the brain; the experience of an adult brain suddenly being required to interpret visual input would be profound and certainly impossible to imagine.  Philosophers since Locke have also pondered the problem because it raises issues such as the relationship between vision and touch and the extent to which some of the most basic components of knowledge (such as shape) can exist at birth or need entirely to be learned or experienced.

The Molineux Rule in the the adversarial system 

The Molineux Rule comes from a decision handed down by the Court of Appeals of New York in the case of People v Molineux (168 NY 264 (1901)).  Molineux had at first instance been convicted of murder in a trial which included evidence relating to his past conduct.  On appeal. the verdict was overturned on the basis that as a general principle: “…in both civil and criminal proceedings, that when evidence of other crimes, wrongs or acts committed by a person is offered for the purpose of raising an inference that the person is likely to have committed the crime charged or the act in issue, the evidence is inadmissible.”  The rationale for that is it creates a constitutional safeguard which acts to protect a defendant from members of a jury forming an assumption the accused had committed the offence with which they were charged because of past conduct which might have included being accused of similar crimes.  Modified sometimes by other precedent or statutes, similar rules of evidentiary exclusion operate in many common law jurisdictions.  It was the Molineux Rule lawyers for former film producer Harvey Weinstein (b 1952) used to have overturned his 2020 conviction for third degree rape.  In a 4:3 ruling, the court held the trial judge made fundamental errors in having “…erroneously admitted testimony of uncharged, alleged prior sexual acts against persons other than the complainants of the underlying crimes because that testimony served no material non-propensity purpose.” and therefore the only “...remedy for these egregious errors is a new trial.”

Harvey Weinstein and others.

Reaction to the decision of the appellate judges was of course swift and the opinion of the “black letter” lawyers was the court was correct because “…we don't want a court system convicting people based on testimony about allegations with which they’ve not been charged.”, added to which such evidence might induce a defendant not to submit to the cross-examination they’d have been prepared to undergo if only matters directly relevant to the charge(s) had been mentioned in court.  Although the Molineux Rule has been operative for well over a century, some did thing it surprising the trial judge was prepare to afford the prosecution such a generous latitude in its interpretation but it should be noted the Court of Appeal divided 4:3 so there was substantial support from the bench that what was admitted as evidence did fall within what are known as the “Molineux exceptions” which permit certain classes of testimony in what is known as “character evidence”.  That relies on the discretion of the judge who must weigh the value of the testimony versus the prejudicial effect it will have on the defendant.  In the majority judgment, the Court of Appeal made clear that in the common law system (so much of which is based on legal precedent), if the trial judge’s decision on admissibility was allowed to stand, there could (and likely would) be far-reaching consequences and their ruling was based on upholding the foundations of our criminal justice system in the opening paragraphs: "Under our system of justice, the accused has a right to be held to account only for the crime charged and, thus, allegations of prior bad acts may not be admitted against them for the sole purpose of establishing their propensity for criminality. It is our solemn duty to diligently guard these rights regardless of the crime charged, the reputation of the accused, or the pressure to convict."

The strict operation of the Molineux Rule (which this ruling will ensure is observed more carefully) does encapsulate much of the core objection to the way courts operate in common law jurisdictions.  The common law first evolved into something recognizable as such in England & Wales after the thirteenth century and it spread around the world as the British Empire grew and that included the American colonies which, after achieving independence in the late eighteenth century as the United States of America, retained the legal inheritance.  The common law courts operate on what is known as the “adversarial system” as opposed to the “inquisitorial system” of the civil system based on the Code Napoléon, introduced in 1804 by Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821; leader of the French Republic 1799-1804 & Emperor of the French from 1804-1814 & 1815) and widely used in Europe and the countries of the old French Empire.  The criticism of the adversarial system is that the rules are based on the same principle as many adversarial contests such as football matches where the point of the rules is to ensure the game is decided on the pitch and neither team has any advantage beyond their own skill and application.

That’s admirable in sport but many do criticize court cases being conducted thus, the result at least sometimes being decided by the skill of the advocate and their ability to persuade.  Unlike the inquisitorial system where the object is supposed to be the determination of the truth, in the adversarial system, the truth can be something of an abstraction, the point being to win the case.  In that vein, many find the Molineux Rule strange, based on experience in just about every other aspect of life.  Someone choosing a new car, a bar of chocolate or a box of laundry detergent is likely to base their decision from their knowledge of other products from the same manufacturer, either from personal experience or the result of their research.  Most consumer organizations strongly would advise doing exactly that yet when the same person is sitting on a jury and being asked to decide if an accused is guilty of murder, rape or some other heinous offence, the rules don’t allow them to be told the accused has a history of doing exactly that.  All the jury is allowed to hear is evidence relating only to the matter to be adjudicated.  Under the Molineux Rule there are exceptions which allow “evidence of character” to be introduced but as a general principle, the past is hidden and that does suit the legal industry which is about winning cases.  The legal theorists are of course correct that the restrictions do ensure an accused can’t unfairly be judged by past conduct but for many, rules which seem to put a premium on the contest rather than the truth must seem strange.

Papilla

Papilla (pronounced puh-pil-uh)

(1) In anatomy, (1) a nipple-like protuberance on a part or organ of the body, (2) a vascular process of connective tissue extending into and nourishing the root of a hair, feather, or developing tooth, (3) any of the vascular protuberances of the dermal layer of the skin extending into the epidermal layer and often containing tactile corpuscles & (4) any of the small protuberances on the upper surface of the tongue often containing taste buds.

(2) In botany, a small fleshy projection on a plant; any minute blunt hair or process occurring in plants.

(3) In engineering and related fields, any small, nipple-like process or projection.

1400-1450: From the late Middle English, from the Latin papilla (a nipple, teat), the construct being papula (a pustule, pimple; a swelling) +‎ -illa (the diminutive nominal suffix).  Source of all was the primitive Indo-European imitative root pap (to swell).  From the anatomical beginnings, the meaning was extended to botany and mechanical engineering, the generalized meaning of a "nipple-like protuberance" attested from 1713, the sense of "a nipple of a mammary gland" documented from the 1690s.  The noun plural is papillae.

The derived forms include the noun papilloma (a tumor resembling a nipple) from 1866, a modern Latin hybrid, the construct being papilla (nipple) + the Ancient Greek oma (tumor), the adjective papillary (of, pertaining to, or resembling a nipple) from the 1660s, the noun papilledema (also papilloedema) (a non-inflammatory swelling of the optic disc) from 1908, from papilla + edema, from the New Latin edema, from Ancient Greek οἴδημα (oídēma) (swelling), from οἰδέω (oidéō) (I swell) and the noun pap (nipple of a woman's breast), a creation of the late twelfth century, a truncation of pappe, first attested in Northern and Midlands writing, probably from a Scandinavian source (not recorded in Old Norse but noted in the dialectal Swedish as pappe), from the primitive Indo-European imitative root pap (to swell), source also of the Latin papilla and the Lithuanian papas (nipple).  It’s speculative but pap is thought to be ultimately of infantile origin.

Variations of grease nipples.

Designed as entry points for lubricating oils, grease nipples are permanently installed by a threaded connection to which a grease gun attaches, the pressure supplied by the gun forcing a small captive bearing ball in the fitting to move back against the force of its retaining spring.  The valve that opens under pressure allows lubricant to pass through a channel and be forced into the voids of a bearing or whatever is to be lubricated and, when pressure ceases, the ball returns to its closed position.  The ball excludes dirt and functions as a check valve to prevent grease escaping back out of the fitting, functioning thus as a one-way, non-return valve.  The ball is almost flush with the surface of the fitting so that it can be wiped clean, reducing the debris which would otherwise be carried with the grease.  The convex shape of the fitting allows the concave tip of the grease gun to seal from many angles, yet with a sufficiently tight seal to force the pressured grease to move the ball and enter the fitting, rather than simply oozing past this temporary annular (ring-shaped) seal.  Grease nipples are commonly made from zinc-plated steel, stainless steel, or brass.

Lindsay Lohan static.

The patent for the first grease nipple was granted in 1929.  Before grease nipples existed, bearings were lubricated in ways that tended to be maintenance-intensive and often provided less effective lubrication.  For example, a typical machinery bearing of the nineteenth and early centuries was a plain bearing with a cross-drilled hole to receive oil or grease, with no fitting at its mouth, or at best a cap or cup.  Often lubricant was delivered under no more pressure than gravity or a finger push might provide; oil flowing into the hole, grease pushed in.  While grease guns existed to feed the grease with higher pressure, fittings were not as good and didn’t seal as well as those used than today, nor were they as widely used.

Lindsay Lohan moving.

Since the 1920s, the ever-growing dissemination of sealed bearings has made the use of grease fittings less common.  Sealed bearings are lubricated for life at the factory, sealed so lubricant is not lost or contaminated by fluids or anything abrasive.  Grease nipples however are far from obsolete; much machinery is built with them because, provided what is usually minimal maintenance is attended to, this type of bearing and lubrication setup is cost-effective, simple, and long-lasting.  However, neglect of maintenance does shorten a lifespan.  Grease fittings are rarely found on today's consumer goods because maintenance-free products have more sales appeal but they still exist on many automobiles and are more common still on industrial, agricultural, and mining equipment where shaft diameters exceed ¾ inch (19 mm) and in electric motors with an output greater than about 5 kw.  Grease nipples are particularly numerous on marine engines because, in addition to providing lubrication, pumping grease into a fitting on a motor or other unit exposed to water expels moisture that would otherwise cause corrosion.  This can be of critical importance in machinery exposed to salt-water.

Rumble

Rumble (pronounced ruhm-buhl)

(1) A form of low frequency noise

(2) In video game controllers, a haptic feedback vibration.

(3) In the jargon of cardiologists, a quality of a "heart murmur".

(4) In the slang of physicians (as "stomach rumble"), borborygmus (a rumbling sound made by the movement of gas in the intestines).

(5) In slang, a street fight between or among gangs.

(6) As rumble seat (sometimes called dickie seat), a rear part of a carriage or car containing seating accommodation for servants, or space for baggage; known colloquially as the mother-in-law seat (an now also used by pram manufacturers to describe a clip-on seat suitable for lighter infants).

(7) The action of a tumbling box (used to polish stones).

(8) As rumble strip, in road-building, a pattern of variation in a road's surface designed to alert inattentive drivers to potential danger by causing a tactile vibration and audible rumbling if they veer from their lane.

(9) In slang, to find out about (someone or something); to discover the secret plans of another (mostly UK informal and used mostly in forms such as: "I've rumbled her" or "I've been rumbled").

(10) To make a deep, heavy, somewhat muffled, continuous sound, as thunder.

(11) To move or travel with such a sound:

1325-1375: From Middle English verbs rumblen, romblen & rummelyn, frequentative form of romen (make a deep, heavy, continuous sound (also "move with a rolling, thundering sound" & "create disorder and confusion")), equivalent to rome +‎ -le.  It was cognate with the Dutch rommelen (to rumble), the Low German rummeln (to rumble), the German rumpeln (to be noisy) and the Danish rumle (to rumble) and the Old Norse rymja (to roar or shout), all of imitative origin.  The noun form emerged in the late fourteenth century, description of the rear of a carriage dates from 1808, replacing the earlier rumbler (1801), finally formalized as the rumble seat in 1828, a design extended to automobiles, the last of which was produced in 1949.  The slang noun meaning "gang fight" dates from 1946 and was an element in the 1950s "moral panic" about such things.  Rumble is a noun & verb, rumbler is a noun, rumbled is a verb, rumbling is a noun, verb & adjective and rumblingly is an adverb; the noun plural is rumbles.

Opening cut from studio trailer for Lindsay Lohan's film Freakier Friday (Walt Disney Pictures, 2025) available on Rumble.  Founded in 2013 as a kind of “anti-YouTube”, as well as being an online video platform Rumble expanded into cloud services and web hosting.  In the vibrant US ecosystem of ideas (and such), Rumble is interesting in that while also carrying non-controversial content, it’s noted as one of the native environments of conservative users from libertarians to the “lunar right”, thus the oft-used descriptor “alt-tech”.  Rumble hosts Donald Trump’s (b 1946; US president 2017-2021 and since 2025) Truth Social media platform which has a user base slanted towards “alt-this & that” although to some inherently it’s evil because much of its underlying code is in Java.

The Velvet Underground and Nico

Link Wray’s (1929-2005) 1958 instrumental recording Rumble is mentioned as a seminal influence by many who were later influential in some of the most notable forks of post-war popular music including punk, heavy-metal, death-metal, glam-rock, art-rock, proto-punk, psychedelic-rock, avant-pop and the various strains of experimental and the gothic.  Wray’s release of Rumble as a single also gained a unique distinction in that it remains the only instrumental piece ever banned from radio in the United States on purely “musical” grounds, the stations (apparently in some parts “prevailed upon” by the authorities) finding its power chords just too menacing for youth to resist.  It wasn't thought it would “give them ideas” in the political sense (many things banned for that fear) but because the “threatening” sound and title was deemed likely to incite juvenile delinquency and gang violence.  “Rumble” was in the 1950s youth slang for fights between gangs, thus the concern the song might be picked up as a kind of anthem and exacerbate the problems of gang culture by glorifying the phenomenon which had already been the centre of a "moral panic".  There is a science to deconstructing the relationship between musical techniques and the feelings induced in people and the consensus was the use of power chords, distortion, and feedback (then radically different from mainstream pop tunes) was “raw, dark and ominous”, even without lyrics; it’s never difficult to sell nihilism to teenagers.  Like many bans, the action heightened its appeal, cementing its status as an anthem of discontented youth and, on sale in most record stores, sales were strong.

The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967).

Lou Reed (1942-2013) said he spent days listening to Rumble before joining with John Cale (b 1942) in New York in 1964 to form The Velvet Underground.  Their debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico, included German-born model Nico (1938-1988) and was, like their subsequent releases, a critical and commercial failure but within twenty years, the view had changed, their work now regarded among the most important and influential of the era, critics noting (with only some exaggeration): "Not many bought the Velvet Underground's records but most of those who did formed a band and headed to a garage."  The Velvet Underground’s output built on the proto heavy-metal motifs from Rumble with experimental performances and was noted especially for its controversial lyrical content including drug abuse, prostitution, sado-masochism and sexual deviancy.  However, despite this and the often nihilistic tone, in the decade since Rumble, the counter-culture had changed not just pop music but also America: The Velvet Underground was never banned from radio.

Rumble seat in 1937 Packard Twelve Series 1507 2/4-passenger coupé.  The most expensive of Packard's 1937 line-up, the Twelve was powered by a 473 cubic-inch (7.7 litre) 67^o V12 rated at 175 horsepower at 3,200 RPM.  It was best year for the Packard Twelve, sales reaching 1,300 units.  The marque's other distinction in the era was the big Packard limousines were the favorite car of comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953), a fair judge or machinery.

The rumble seat was also known as a dicky (also as dickie & dickey) seat in the UK while the colloquial “mother-in-law seat” was at least trans-Atlantic and probably global.  It was an upholstered bench seat mounted at the rear of a coach, carriage or early motorcar and as the car industry evolved and coachwork became more elaborate, increasingly they folded into the body.  The size varied but generally they were designed to accommodate one or two adults although the photographic evidence suggests they could be used also to seat half-a-dozen or more children (the seat belt era decades away).  Why it was called a dicky seat is unknown (the word dates from 1801 and most speculation is in some way related to the English class system) but when fitted on horse-drawn carriages it was always understood to mean "a boot (box or receptacle covered with leather at either end of a coach, the use based on the footwear) with a seat above it for servants".  On European phaetons, a similar fixture was the “spider”, a small single seat or bench for the use of a groom or footman, the name based on the spindly supports which called to mind an arachnid’s legs.  The spider name would later be re-purposed on a similar basis to describe open vehicles and use persists to this day, Italians and others sometimes preferring spyder.  They were sometimes also called jump-seats, the idea being they were used by servants or slaves who were required to “jump off” at their master’s command and the term “jump seat” was later used for the folding seats in long-wheelbase limousines although many coach-builders preferred “occasional seats”.

Rumble seat in 1949 Triumph 2000 Roadster.  The unusual (and doubtless welcome) split-screen was a post-war innovation, the idea recalling the twin-screen phaetons of the inter-war years.  Had they been aware of the things, many passengers in the back seats of convertibles (at highway speeds it was a bad hair day) would have longed for the return of the dual-cowl phaetons.  

The US use of “rumble seat” comes from the horse & buggy age so obviously predates any rumble from an engine’s exhaust system and it’s thought the idea of the rumble was literally the noise and vibration experienced by those compelled to sit above a live axle with 40 inch (1 metre-odd) steel rims on wooden-spoked wheels, sometimes with no suspension system.  When such an arrangement was pulled along rough, rutted roads by several galloping horses, even a short journey could be a jarring experience.  The rumble seat actually didn’t appear on many early cars because the engines lacked power so weight had to be restricted, seating typically limited to one or two; they again became a thing only as machines grew larger and bodywork was fitted.  Those in a rumble seat were exposed to the elements which could be most pleasant but not always and they enjoyed only the slightest protection afforded by the regular passenger compartment’s top & windscreen.  Ford actually offered the option of a folding top with side curtains for the rumble seats on the Model A (1927-1931) but few were purchased, a similar fate suffered by those produced by third party suppliers.  US production of cars with rumble seats ended in 1939 and the last made in England was the Triumph 1800/2000 Roadster (1946-1949) but pram manufacturers have of late adopted the name to describe a seat which can be clipped onto the frame.  Their distinction between a toddler seat and a rumble seat is that the former comes with the stroller and is slightly bigger, rated to hold 50 lbs (23 KG), while the former can hold up to 35 (16).

1935 MG NA Magnette Allingham 2/4-Seater by Whittingham & Mitchel.  Sometimes described by auction houses as a DHC (drophead coupé), this body style (despite what would come to be called 2+2 seating) really is a true roadster.  The scalloped shape of the front seats' squabs appeared also in the early (3.8 litre version; 1961-1964) Jaguar E-Types (1961-1974) but attractive as they were, few complained when they were replaced by a more prosaic but also more accommodating design.

Although most rumble (or dickie) seats were mounted in an aperture separated from the passenger compartment, in smaller vehicles the additional seat often was integrated but became usable (by people) only when the hinged cover was raised; otherwise, the rear-seat cushion was a “parcel shelf”.  The MG N-Type Magnette (1934-1936) used a 1271 cm³ (78 cubic inch) straight-six and while the combination of that many cylinders and a small displacement sounds curious, the configuration was something of an English tradition and a product of (1) a taxation system based on cylinder bore and (2) the attractive economies of scale and production line rationalization of “adding two cylinders” to existing four-cylinder units to achieve greater, smoother power with the additional benefit of retaining the same tax-rate.  Even after the taxation system was changed, some small-capacity sixes were developed as out-growths of fours.  Despite the additional length of the engine block, many N-type Magnettes were among the few front-engined cars to include a “frunk” (a front trunk (boot)), a small storage compartment which sat between cowl (scuttle) and engine.

Synesthesia

Synesthesia (pronounced sin-uhs-thee-zhuh or sin-uhs-zhee-uh)

(1) In neurology and psychology, a neurological or psychological phenomenon in which a particular sensory stimulus triggers a second kind of sensation.

(2) The association of one sensory perception with, or description of it in terms of, another, unlike, perception that is not experienced at the same time.

(3) In literary theory or practice, an artistic device whereby one kind of sensation is described in the terms of another.

(4) In medical diagnostics, where a sensation felt in one part of the body as a result of stimulus that is applied to another, as in referred pain.

1892: From the Modern French or the New Latin, from Ancient Greek σύν (sún (with) or syn (together) + αἴσθησις (aísthēsis), (sensation; feeling) from the primitive Indo-European root au (to perceive) + abstract noun suffix -ia.  The word was modelled after existing construction anaesthesia.  Traditional spelling in the British Empire was synæsthesia but the US form synesthesia appears now global.  The meaning in psychology relating to the senses (colors that seem to the perceiver to having odor, etc.) is from 1891.  Synesthesia & synaesthete are nouns, synaesthetic is an adjective and synesthetically is an adverb; the noun plural is synesthesias.  

Clinicians have two categories of synesthesia: projective and associative.  Those who project see actual colours or shapes when stimulated whereas associators will feel an involuntary connection between the stimulus and the sense that it triggers.  For example, in the form chromesthesia synesthesia (sound to color) a projector would listen to a piano and see a purple shape whereas an associator might respond to the music by thinking it “sounds” purple.  There are a number of types of synesthesia, the best known of which grapheme-color synesthesia or the association of colours with letters or words.  In auditory-tactile synesthesia, certain sounds can induce sensations in parts of the body and debate continues about whether the near-universal reaction(s) induced by finger nails on a blackboard indicates synesthesia is a spectrum condition or this example is endemic in human physiology.  Lexical-gustatory synesthesia is the phenomenon of certain tastes being experienced upon hearing certain words.  Mirror-touch synesthesia is where someone feels the same sensation another person feels such as when a synesthete sees another touched on the arm; the synesthete involuntarily feeling a touch in the same place.

Logically, every possible combination of experiences which can occur can be a type of synesthesia.  Like a syndrome, something need not be wide-spread to be a type of synesthesia, it needs just to be specific: someone with the grapheme-color variant might see "Lindsay Lohan" as Lindsay Lohan.  Simultanéisme was a short-lived, early twentieth century movement in French poetry.  The writers aimed to achieve a kind of “simultaneousness of image and sound”, to represent or reproduce human sounds mingled with other sounds (ranging from birds & land mammals to those heard in cityscapes including the then novel automobile).  An attempt to form complex and dynamic onomatopoeiae, types of synaesthesia and kinaesthetic images, the finest surviving examples are in La Trilogie des forces (The Trilogy of Forces, 1908-1914) by the movement's founder Henri-Martin Barzun (1881–1973) and Naissance du poème (Birth of the poem, 1918) by Fernand Divoire (1883-1951).

For many reasons, as a literary device, synaesthesia in the twentieth century became much analysed and discussed with the critics even managing to build theories although it was not at all novel, innumerable writers of prose, poetry and non-fiction for millennia having synaesthetic references in their texts.  It’s a familiar feature of everyday speech, mentions such as “a heavy silence” or a “black look” being commonplace and there are no pedantic literalists who complain when a music critic writes of the “darkening voice” of the aging soprano.  So it’s a mixing of sensations, the concurrent appeal to more than one sense; the response through several senses to the stimulation of one and while as an intellectual exercise than can be made complex, in everyday life it’s just the way people think.

In the medical literature the French term synesthésie had appeared at least as early as 1864 but that was of bodily reflexes and co-sensations rather than the neurological condition and the first use in English in the modern sense is thought to appear in a translation of Jules Millet’s (1965-1982) doctoral thesis Audition colorée (Colored hearing) in which he differentiated synesthésie (for all kinds of combined senses) from those specifically associated with links between colors and sounds.  At the time, scientists and physicians in the English-speaking world were still using the borrowed French term pseudochromesthésie, a long word with a brief history.  In 1848, French physician Charles-Auguste-Édouard Cornaz (1825-1911) was the first to give a name to what would come to be known as synesthesia, calling it hyperchromatopsie (perception de trop de couleurs) (hyperchromatopsia (perception of too many colors)), the rationale for that being Dr Cornaz regarding the condition as the opposite of the well-documented chromatodysopsie (chromatodysopsia (color blindness); the term was the precursor to what would become hyperesthesia.  Dr Cordaz's coining fell into disuse after biographically otherwise obscure French physician Ernest Chabalier in 1864 published a paper using the term pseudochromesthésie (or pseudochromesthesia) (false colour-sensation) which enjoyed general adoption before being supplanted by synesthesia.

However, although the scientific study may have been embryonic, the idea was not and three lines from Charles Baudelaire’s (1821-1867) sonnet Correspondances (Fleurs du mal (Flowers of Evil, 1857)) are illustrative of what was a common technique from the factory floor to the academy:

Les parfums, les couleurs et les sons se répondent.

II est des parfums frais comme des chairs d'enfants,

Doux comme les hautbois, verts comme les prairies,

Those translating Baudelaire into English did take a few interpretative liberties with his work but the synaesthetic imagery (mostly) was preserved:

The scents and colours to each other respond.

And scents there are, like infant's flesh as chaste,

As sweet as oboes, and as meadows fair,

Cyril Scott (1879-1970), Baudelaire: The Flowers of Evil (1909)

Colour and sound and perfume speak to him.

Some perfumes are as fragrant as a child,

Sweet as the sound of hautboys, meadow-green;

F.P. Sturm (1879-1942), from Baudelaire: His Prose and Poetry, edited by Thomas Robert Smith (1880-1942) (1919)

sound calls to fragrance, colour calls to sound.

cool as an infant's brow some perfumes are,

softer than oboes, green as rainy leas;

Lewis Piaget Shanks (1879-1935), Flowers of Evil (1931)

Perfumes there are as sweet as the music of pipes and strings,

As pure as the naked flesh of children, as full of peace

As wide green prairies

George Dillon (1906-1968), Flowers of Evil (1936)

So are commingled perfumes, sounds, and hues.

There can be perfumes cool as children's flesh,

Like fiddIes, sweet, like meadows greenly fresh.

Roy Campbell (1901-1957), Poems of Baudelaire (1952)

Perfumes, sounds, and colors correspond.

There are perfumes as cool as the flesh of children,

Sweet as oboes, green as meadows

William Aggeler (1904-1974), The Flowers of Evil (1954)

Perfumes and sounds and colors correspond.

Some scents are cool as children's flesh is cool,

Sweet as are oboes, green as meadowlands,

Jacques LeClercq (1891-1971), Flowers of Evil (1958)

Perfumes, colors and sounds answer one another.

There are perfumes as cool as the flesh of children,

Sweet as oboes, green as prairies

Wallace Fowlie (1908-1998), Flowers of Evil (1964)

So perfumes, colors, tones answer each other.

There are perfumes fresh as children's flesh,

Soft as oboes, green as meadows,

Geoffrey Wagner (1927-2006), Selected Poems of Charles Baudelaire (1974)

So perfumes, colours, sounds may correspond.

Odours there are, fresh as a baby's skin,

Mellow as oboes, green as meadow grass,

James McGowan (1938-2014), Flowers of Evil (1993)

Perfumes, colours and sounds respond.

Odours fresh as the skin of an infant,

Sweet as oboes and green as a meadow,

Beverley Bie Brahic, Invitation to the Voyage (2021)

Wassily Kandinsky, color, shape and music

Winter Landscape (1909), oil on cardboard by Wassily Kandinsky.

In Russian painter and art theorist Wassily Kandinsky’s (1866–1944) particular synesthesia, color and music inextricably were tangled and so precise was it that he associated each note with an exact hue and it was so intrinsic to his being that he once observed: “…the sound of colors is so definite that it would be hard to find anyone who would express bright yellow with bass notes or dark lake with treble.”  It meant his experience of music was heightened, indeed defined, by the range of visual perceptions which shifted with every note.  The music of Richard Wagner (1813–1883) has had its consequences, good and bad, and it was his vivid visual response to a performance of Richard Wagner's (1813–1883) Lohengrin (1850) at Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre that he abandoned his successful career as a lawyer and devoted himself to the painting which had been his hobby.  Accepted as a student at Munich’s Academy of Fine Arts, he later described the Wagnerian transformation of his life: “I saw all my colors in spirit, before my eyes. Wild, almost crazy lines were sketched in front of me.”  Wagner has led astray a few troubled souls but he guided Kandinsky along a good path; the world can gain much from having more artists but probably has enough lawyers.

Composition VII (1913), oil on canvas by by Wassily Kandinsky.

Whether Kandinsky would have become an artist had he not been a synaesthete can't be known but music certainly drew him to become a certain sort of painter.  His path artistic path he explained by saying: "A painter, who finds no satisfaction in mere representation, however artistic, in his longing to express his inner life, cannot but envy the ease with which music, the most non-material of the arts today, achieves this end. He naturally seeks to apply the methods of music to his own art."  Music he called "the ultimate teacher" and it critical to the development of especially his abstract works; noting the way the Viennese composer Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951) had abandoned tonal and harmonic conventions in his compositions, he rejected the figure or recognizable object in favor of shapes, lines, and discordant colors which he deployed overlaid on texture to create a rhythmic visual experience which as closely as possible emulated in a two-dimensional space the emotional response he’d experienced when hearing the sounds.  Unsurprisingly, Kandinsky gave many of his paintings musical titles, such as Composition or Improvisation and it wasn’t unusual for critics to use phrases like “Kandinsky’s symphony of colors”.  Kandinsky also perceived color also had the ability to touch the feelings of the viewers, yellow able to disturb while blue awakened the highest spiritual aspirations.  That may have been mapping his experience as a synaesthete on to those not able to enjoy the gift but it was certainly an insight into his visions.  In 1911, Kandinsky published Über das Geistige in der Kunst (Concerning the Spiritual in Art) in which he defined the three types of painting: impressions, improvisations and compositions.  Impressions were based on an external reality while improvisations and compositions depicted images summoned from the unconscious, compositions the more formal of the two.  The treatise is one of the landmarks in the theoretical foundations of abstraction and remains an important contribution to an explanation of the techniques with which art can be constructed in an attempt to evoke psychological, physical, and emotional responses.

Improvisation 35 (1914), oil on canvas by Wassily Kandinsky.

As well as the works in which he explored the implications of his synesthesia, Kandinsky painted in other styles including Post-Impressionism, Expressionism, Abstraction, Landscape, Cityscape, Genre, Marina and Allegory.  Although he did paint people in recognizable form (including self-portraits), had Kandinsky painted Lindsay Lohan he’d likely not have been drawn to depicting her in a realistic likeness, attracted instead by the colors he’d have associated with the metaphorical “sound” of her once tempestuous lifestyle and the actual sounds of the music she created.  Quite what might have been colors and shapes of the involuntary visual experience he’d have enjoyed while hearing of her adventures or listening to her tunes is of course speculative but in his 1911 treatise he did map out a quite strict vocabulary linking specific colors to musical instruments and emotional states.  From that would emerge a constellation of colored planes and rhythmic lines, a Lohanic portrait best assessed as a musical composition, visual elements corresponding with timbre, pitch and rhythm.

Black Lines I (1913), oil on canvas by Wassily Kandinsky.

From his visual lexicon, it’s possible to imagine how a visual symphony of Lindsay Lohan might have appeared, her distinctive red hair drawn not as naturalistic strands but, because of the his association of vermilion with the sound of a trumpet, (someting cross-cultural, Dr Johnson (Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)) once describing the color scarlet to a blind man as “the clangour of a trumpet”) there’d likely have been intense, sharp, angular geometric structures or aggressive, flaming slashes of red slicing across the canvas.  Thematically, it would be a “loud” work, suggestive of something sudden and explosive but there would also be “quieter” elements, Kandinsky associating a light, powder blue with the sound of a flute and ultramarine or cobalt with that of a cello or the deeper tones of an organ.  There might have been interlocking concentric circles and smooth, floating curves of blue weaving through the sharp red angles, the “cool” blue tones not balancing but clashing with the “hot” reds, representing both the rhythmic layers of her music and the more melancholy undercurrent of a life lived under the microscope of the tabloid press.  Superficially incoherent because of fragmented geometric shapes and intersecting diagonals, the tension between colors would have created an emotional dissonance, visual “chords” at once seductive and unstable.

Violet (1923), colour lithograph by Wassily Kandinsky.

It’s likely Kandinsky would have been unable to resist so obvious an artistic possibility as Lindsay Lohan’s famous freckles, representing as they do in music a staccato percussion.  On canvas, this would have been translated into a scatter plot of sharp dots peppered not in a defined pattern but randomly, as naturally as they appear on skin.  Kandinsky thought dots (in the sense of “representations of points”) as the ultimate minimalist entity implying a sudden, sharp beat or a silent pause; either way, there would be a spray of rhythmic, percussive dots jumping across the canvas, one’s interpretation of that an element in deconstructing the whole.  While his techniques were multi-layered, he did claim in one aspect there was simplicity because: "Everything starts from a dot."  Shapes being signifiers of an inherent spiritual weight, there would have been triangles because he imagined them as possessing aggressive, forward-moving energy; they would appear with circles representing the soul and peace.  The darkness in her life would have been conveyed by chaotic, clashing black lines and there would also be yellow, a color the artist described as “frenzied” and capable of “violently bothering" the viewer.  All this would typically be “played out” by interactions on the “charged, expectant silence” of a solid, white background.  A viewer would perhaps not recognize even a hint of a human presence and the work would be understood only if the title made explicit Lindsay Lohan was the subject.  Even then, some notes from the artist would be helpful because, while a set of emotional and musical impulses orchestrated in color would be a familiar language to other color-music synaesthetes, the level of abstraction would for others make it mysterious and probably weird beyond immediate understanding.