RALPH:

I just discovered your site today and was interested in your brief discussion about Edweard Muybridge's photos of the trotting horse. They are famous worldwide and you may be interested in how they came to be.

They were part of an experiment in what became "stop-motion" photography. The experiment was set up to answer a long-standing question. The information below comes from

http://photo.ucr.edu/
photographers/muybridge

"On June 15, 1878, a clear and sunny day in Palo Alto, California, amid a gathering of art and sports journalists, Eadweard Muybridge photographed the first successful serial images of fast motion.

"The subject of these photographs was the trotting horse, Abe Edgington, harnessed to a sulky. The horse was owned by railroad builder and former governor, Leland Stanford. Proven was Stanford's theory that during a horse's running stride, there is a moment of suspension where no hooves are touching the ground.

"What had begun as a topic of unresolvable debate among artists and horse enthusiasts now launched a new era in photography."

--- Louise Power

Go to the review in question

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[The following letter,
from California artist Pete Blind,
arrived in our mailbox on
10 June 2005]

Shit:

We're up der now. September song all year long.

Maching gun Quatrains!

Rat-a-tat world wide

BUNKER HUNKER FLUSH Feats don't fail me now:

Scratchin' fer a few lines just like you.

The mess of the gods now confined to this little aluminum pot.

--- Yr. fren,
Pete