The Farnsworth Confession

You've heard of The Farnsworth Invention, now you can watch The Farnsworth Confession:

Mr. Farnsworth here should take heart from the Broadway version of the story.  According to the play, Philo Farnsworth's invention was flawed by a fatal "light problem," and really wasn't very useful.  And the Farnsworth character says near the end that an unnamed engineer at RCA (who left something baking in an oven too long) really "made the first television."  So, according to the play, the Farnsworth family is off the hook for the scourge of television.  It's really The Sarnoff Invention.

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[Jeffery J. Rahn]

Genius of Green Street*

I sit down to watch his invention nearly very night
often falling asleep in front of its screen and dream of my own images

like the one of the Red man that stands alone in a forest of snow
ready to sacrifice his life to save his soul
and the soul of the world

then there’s the one of my father prostrate in front of the refrigerator
dying on the floor and me there to comfort and forgive him

Phil’s invention is much like that mechanism inside our head
that’s turned on when we go to bed

The Genius of Green Street takes the heat for everything
He’s the cause of all our social ills and the reason we take to many pills

But when David McCallum comes on the television and begins talking about him
tears come to my eyes as it becomes clear how connected we all are

tears when I realize my worst fears are no imagination
tears when I hear the cries of kids caught in wars zones
or casualty figures coming back from Vietnam

tears when I see Neil Armstrong and
Buzz Aldrin showing us our potential

Phil is the genius of green street he gives me hope
when I see the slope of the moon and mars.

8/2008

Jeffery J. Rahn

*A plaque honoring Farnsworth as The Genius of Green Street is located on the 202 Green Street location of his research laboratory in San Francisco, California.
* Serena Bastian ( Philo’s Mom) was Grandfather’s Aunt