for speaking in solitude...

"a book is something one opens and closes; it does not come seek one out and impose solitude on one. radio, on the other hand, is certain to impose such solitude. not always, of course. it would be no use listening to this kind of program in a dance hall or someone's drawing room. it must be listened to not necessarily in a coalman's hut, though that would be ideal, but one's own room, in the evening, when one is alone, at a time when it is one's right and duty to instill in oneself calm and repose. radio has everything required for speaking in solitude. it needs no face.

the listener, then, is there before the set, in a solitude that is not yet established. it is the radio that establishes it around an image that is not just his property alone but everybody's, a human image, one that exists in every human psychism. nothing picturesque, no entertainment. it comes in the wake of sound, in the wake of well-formed sound..."

gaston bachelard, radio and reverie, 1971 (photo: 1925 rppc of a.c. philips, age 83 years, with a wireless radio)