Thirty Lines in Soho

A cramped attic workshop in Soho, London, on a January night, a bare bulb, at the left a spinning disc with small round lenses and three glowing valves, at the right a large matt black disc on a base of stacked battered boards, a brown handwheel, behind the disc a narrow upright frame of frosted glass glowing with a tiny flickering orange-red image in coarse stripes, the man, a man of thirty-seven, untidy fair hair, round wire spectacles, tweed jacket, bending toward the frosted glass, his face in three-quarter view, two visitors in black evening dress seen from directly behind, faces turned fully away.