In my hole in the basement there are exactly 1,369 lights. I've wired the entire ceiling, every inch of it. And not with fluorescent bulbs, but with the older, more-expensive-to-operate kind, the filament bulbs. An act of sabotage, you know. (Page 7, Prologue)What does this implicate? 1,369 light bulbs is a hell of a lot of light bulbs. Assuming that the light bulbs used were GE's Mazda light bulb, which used 50 watts of power and were prevalent from 1909 to 1945, this array would come out to 68450 watts, or 68.45KW. Furthermore, assuming that this part of the story takes place in the 1930's, the average cost of electricity was 6.08 cents/KWHr, meaning that it would cost 6.08 cents to light a 1000 watt light bulb for 1 hour. Adjusted for inflation, this becomes 87 cents/KWHr; most electricity today is priced at around 11 cents/KWHr.
To power all of the narrators light bulbs for just one hour would cost nearly $60 in today's money. The cost of powering all of the light bulbs for 8 hours a day, 365 days a year would cost a staggering $173,890 (or $12,152 in the narrators time). That's enough money per year to buy not one, but TWO "ultra-luxury V-16 Cadillacs!"
How much space do the light bulbs take up? The narrator claims to have only setup the ceiling (the walls are coming next) with the 1,369 bulbs. Assuming that the bulbs used are Mazdas, which are 7.75 inches long by 3.25 inches in diameter, the array would come out to be 37 by 37 bulbs. If there is only 1 inch between each bulb, the dimensions of the ceiling needed would be approximately 13 by 13 feet (not including space for the holders or wiring). These lights had less than 10% efficiency (45 watts go to heat, 5 go to light) and would produce just over 60KW of heat. Going out on a limb, this would be equivalent to having 15 of these "Premium Large Muffle Furnaces" all opening into one room. Toasty!
Although "stealing power from the white companies" sounds really cool, it would probably just end up frying the narrator to a crisp in his hole. Maybe he should have just bought two Cadillacs instead.
This is great. Was this inspired by the xkcd 'what if' blog? the wiring for this would be pretty impressive. Also, the uv radiation would be pretty high with old lightbulb shielding technologies, so skin cancer may also be eminent for the narrator.
ReplyDeleteHonestly the weirdest thing for me is the fact that Ellison specifically picked the number 1,369 light bulbs. It is seems so incredibly arbitrary (I'm probably just over thinking it). 1,369 is 37 squared, so I guess he could have a nice little square pattern on the ceiling, though it seems like the narrator would be the kind of guy to avoid nice patterns. The narrator at that point in the book reminds me of the vets in the Golden Day. He's so strange, you're wondering the whole time if he's crazy or joking.
ReplyDeleteI'm really hoping that the reason he picked 1,369 is because it equals the cost of two Cadillacs. As guess who owns two Cadillacs, Bledsoe, and knowing Ellision and how far he will go for a metaphor or symbolism, this almost seems plausible. Perhaps it is representative of the Narrator saving a person from being a Bledsoe each year, or maybe it is some other symbolism. Whatever it is, it would be really interesting to ask Ellison, why 1369?
ReplyDeleteThis post lives up to the blog's title to a degree I never could have imagined. So much research into aspects of this novel that have probably been ignored by a half-century of English departments!
ReplyDeleteOne thing I have noticed, in images from the recent stage adaptation of the novel and in the re-created setting in the documentary we'll watch after we're finished reading it, is that no one comes *close* to actually including over a thousand lightbulbs. It's one of those numbers that sounds large and creates a certain impression, but it's hard to take it too literally. (Like so much else in this novel.)