#Tinderbox

[petermorwood]

More on pre-electricity lighting.

Interesting to see this one pop up again after nearly two years - courtesy of @dduane, too! :->

*****

After experiencing a couple more storm-related power cuts since my original post, as well as a couple of after-dark garden BBQs, I've come to the conclusion that C.J. Cherryh puts far too much emphasis on "how dark things were pre-electric light".

For one thing eyes adjust, dilating in dim light to gather whatever illumination is available. Okay, if there's none, there's none - but if there's some, human eyes can make use of it, some better or just faster than others. They're the ones with "good night vision".

Think, for instance, of how little you can see of your unlit bedroom just after you've turned off the lights, and how much more of it you can see if you wake up a couple of hours later.

There's also that business of feeling your way around, risking breaking your neck etc. People get used to their surroundings and, after a while, can feel their way around a familiar location even in total darkness with a fair amount of confidence.

Problems arise when Things Aren't Where They Should Be (or when New Things Arrive) and is when most trips, stumbles, hacked shins and stubbed toes happen, but usually - Lego bricks and upturned UK plugs aside - non-light domestic navigation is incident-free.

*****

Here are a couple of pics from one of those BBQs: one candle and a firepit early on, then the candle, firepit and an oil lamp much later, all much more obvious than DD's iPad screen.

Though I remain surprised at how well my phonecam was handling this low light, my own unassisted eyes were doing far better. For instance, that area between the table and the firepit wasn't such an impenetrable pool of darkness as it appears in the photo.

I see (hah!) no reason why those same Accustomed Eyes would have any more difficulty with candles or oil lamps as interior lighting, even without the mirrors or reflectors in my previous post.

With those, and with white interior walls, things would be even brighter. There's a reason why so many reconstructed period buildings in Folk Museums etc. are (authentically) whitewashed not just outside but inside as well. It was cheap, had disinfectant qualities, and was a reflective surface. Win, win and win.

*****

All right, there were no switches to turn on a light. But there was no need for what C.J. describes as stumbling about to reach the fire, because there were tinderboxes and, for many centuries before them, flint and steel. Since "firesteels" have been heraldic charges since the 1100s, the actual tool must have been in use for even longer.

Tinderboxes were fire-starter sets with flint, steel and "tinder" all packed into (surprise!) a box. The tinder was easily lit ignition material, often "charcloth", fabric baked in an airtight jar or tin which would now start to glow just from a spark.

They're mentioned in both "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings". Oddly enough, "Hobbit" mentions matches in a couple of places, but I suspect that's a carry-over from when it was just a children's story, not part of the main Legendarium.

Tinderboxes could be simple, just a basic flint-and-steel kit with some tinder for the sparks to fall on...

...or elaborate like this one, with a fancy striker, charcloth, kindling material and even wooden "spills" (long splinters) to transfer flame to a candle or the kindling...

This tinderbox even doubles as a candlestick, complete with a snuffer which would have been inside along with everything else.

Here's a close-up of the striker box with its inner and outer lids open:

What looks like a short pencil with an eraser is actually the striker. A bit of tinder or charcloth would have been pulled through that small hole in the outer lid, which was then closed.

There was a rough steel surface on the lid, and the striker was scraped along it, like so:

This was done for a TV show or film, so the tinder was probably made more flammable with, possibly, lighter fuel. That would be thoroughly appropriate, since a Zippo or similar lighter works on exactly the same principle.

A real-life version of any tinderbox would usually just produce glowing embers needing blown on to make a flame, which is shown sometimes in movies - especially as a will-it-light-or-won't-it? tension build - but is usually a bit slow and non-visual for screen work.

*****

There were even flintlock tinderboxes which worked with the same mechanism as those on firearms. Here's a pocket version:

Here are a couple of bedside versions, once again complete with a candlestick:

And here are three (for home defence?) with a spotlight candle lantern on one side and a double-trigger pistol on the other.

Pull one trigger to light the candle, pull the other trigger to fire the gun.

What could possibly go wrong? :-P

*****

Those pistol lanterns, magnified by lenses, weren't just to let their owner see what they were shooting at: they would also have dazzled whatever miscreant was sneaking around in the dark, irises dilated to make best use of available glimmer.

Swordsmen both good and bad knew this trick too, and various fight manuals taught how to manage a thumb-shuttered lamp encountered suddenly in a dark alley.

There's a sword-and-lantern combat in the 1973 "Three Musketeers" between Michael York (D'Artagnan) and Christopher Lee (Rochefort), which was a great idea.

Unfortunately it failed in execution because the "Hollywood Darkness" which let viewers see the action, wasn't dark enough to emphasise the hazards / advantages of snapping the lamps open and shut.

This TV screencap (can't get a better one, the DVD won't run in a computer drive) shows what I mean.

In fact, like the photos of the BBQ, this image - and entire fight - looks even brighter through "real eyes" than with the phonecam. Just as there can be too much dark in a night scene, there can also be too much light.

*****

One last thing I found when assembling pics for the post were Folding Candle-lanterns.

They were used from about the mid-1700s to the later 20th century (Swiss Army ca. 1978) as travel accessories and emergency equipment, and IMO - I've Made A Note - they'd fit right into a fantasy world whose tech level was able to make them.

The first and last are reproductions: this one is real, from about 1830.

The clear part was mica - a transparent mineral which can be split into thin flexible sheets - while others use horn / parchment, though both of these are translucent rather than transparent. Regardless, all were far less likely to break than glass.

One or two inner surfaces were usually tin, giving the lantern its own built-in reflector, and tech-level-wise, tin as a shiny or decorative finish has been used since Roman times.

I'm pretty sure that top-of-the-line models could also have been finished with their own matching, maybe even built-in, tinderboxes.

And if real ones didn't, fictional ones certainly could. :->

*****

Yet more period lighting stuff here, including flintlock alarm clocks (!)

[valseorcstra]

Siouxsie Sioux In ‘Candyman’ Music Video, Directed by Clive Richardson. circa.1986//Tinderbox.

[sowhatifiliveinfukuoka]

Siouxsie (Siouxsie & The Banshees)

Edenhal, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (1986-04-23)

[moodboardmix]

Tinderbox Residence, Tinderbox, Tazmania, Australia,

Designed by Studio Ilk Architecture + interiors

[bitter69uk]

“At a point where some were ready to write off the band as aging, lazy veterans, they came back with Tinderbox, one of their strongest LPs in years. [John Valentine] Carruthers fits in well, his rich playing stylistically similar to both [Robert] Smith’s and [John] McGeoch’s; the rhythm section is as steady as ever. The big plus is punk’s original princess herself – Siouxsie’s voice has never been so warm and tuneful as it is on tracks like “The Sweetest Chill”, “Cannons” and the great single “Cities in Dust.””

/ From The Fourth Edition of the Trouser Press Record Guide (1991) /

Released on this day 39 years ago (21 April 1986): Tinderbox, the seventh studio album by English punk royalty Siouxsie and the Banshees. This one is a sacred text and eternal sentimental favourite of mine dating back to my teens. That naggingly catchy minimalist opening toy piano of “Cities in Dust” immediately plunges me back to “alternative night” at Oliver’s Bar at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario in the eighties. (I inevitably would have been wearing black cut-off jean shorts and a black pocket T from The Gap). In addition to the mighty Pompeii-inspired “Cities in Dust”, I love second single “Candyman”, with Siouxsie reflecting on childhood sexual abuse (“And all the children, he warns, "Don't tell" / Those threats are sold / With their guilt and shame / They think they're to blame for Candyman …”),  the gloomy and macabre “This Unrest” (“This unrest crucifies my chest / Without anaesthetic it cuts / Through tumorous flesh ...”) and “The Sweetest Chill”, with lyrics that suggest something Gomez would vow to Morticia (“Fearing you but calling your name / Icy breath encases my skin / Fingers like a fountain of needles / Shiver along my spine / And rain down so divine …”). Now sing along with me: “Hot and burning in your nostrils / Pouring down your gaping mouth / Your molten bodies, blanket of cinders / Caught in the throes …” Pictured: portrait of Siouxsie by Pierre Terrasson, 1986.

[deimos-phoboss]

Like "Rhythm 0" performance but sexual. What would you do to a girl?

[illustration-alcove]

Hans Christian Andersen's The Tinderbox, illustrated by Viktor Chizhikov.

[twunkthoughts]

Oh but we, couldn’t staaaaay together

I knew this wouldent laaaaaast forever

Forever, just one more time, then never

This is the laaaaaast string to sever

[classicfilmpunk]

Siouxsie and the Banshees - Cities in Dust

[crmsnmth]

Tinderbox

My soul is a tinderbox and her eyes are a match She lights me up and I light the fire that keeps her warm Who needs a soul anyway?

And when she had gotten through every piece of it to keep her warm

She left.

[impoliticwestie]

Tinderbox Cafe, Ingram Street, Glasgow, 2024.

[valseorcstra]

Siouxsie and the Banshees, Tinderbox (1986)

[yourfavealbumisgender]

Tinderbox by Siouxsie and the Banshees is a Lesbian!

requested by anon

[g0thm00n]

[iketatum]