Anna Jane Grossman is the author of Obsolete: An Encyclopedia of Once-Common Things Passing Us By. Out this week, it’s a compendium of essays that take a thoughtful and often funny look at the technologies that our society loves and leaves behind. Happily, she agreed to share a round-up of some of her favorite examples of reuse. Today: the clunky old TV.—Ed.
Tube televisions, also known as CRTs, have been around as long as television has. Today they look large and imposing, but for most of the twentieth century, no one complained about them. The bulky SONY Trinitron was so beloved that in 1973 it was even granted an Emmy award. Early this summer, however, the analog TV signals were shut off across the country, and digital TV took over. Those who had older tube sets could buy adapters in order to keep their faithful boxes working, but with the price of slick, slim digital televisions dropping every day, many people have opted to toss the obsolete sets. Some, however, are honoring their faithful behemoths by finding new uses for them.
My friend Heidi, owner of the store HiHo in Gardiner, NY, took a beautiful Hoffman TV from the 1960s, gutted it, and made into a bed for Humphrey, her beloved Yorkie. It’s in the back of the store—he goes there to escape all the people who come in to contemplate his extreme cuteness. Really, isn’t escape the whole point of TV?
Etsy’s ScienceKitty made this lovely brooch out of an old TV tuner. In the days before remotes, children were forced to get up and crank these dials to save their parents the trouble of moving.
Etsy maker Luxfordst created this clever pocketbook out of a transistor Sony TV. You can look crafty and work your biceps all in one go.
With a little hacking (and the purchase of a Ybox2 kit developed by Uncommon Projects) an old TV can display a static image fed from the web. Use it as a funky digital clock or as a display for slide shows. Or, you can check the weather. Kind of like old times, actually: Remember when you used to turn on the TV to see if it was going to rain?
You’d like to be the next Jacques Cousteau. You’d also like to never have to leave your couch. Solution? Fit a custom-made fish tank inside your old TV cabinet, then sit back and watch the nature. Really, you could just think of it as educational programming.
TV innards are sold as ornaments over at LunaClayDesign ’s shop on Etsy. Brits refer to TVs as “Tubes” because older TV’s pictures were created thanks to ray-shooting cathode vacuum tubes…which just happened to look exactly like snowmen.
Want more? Check Anna Jane’s blog or for heaven’s sake, buy the book.
