Brilliant (40 page)

[>]
 "All this pushbutton stuff": Quoted in McDonald and Muldowny,
TVA and the Dispossessed,
p. 30.
"To a farm girl": Quoted in Jellison,
Entitled to Power,
p. 149.
"I would never": Quoted in
Rural Electrification on the March,
p. 70.
The advancing electric lines: John Bisbee, conversation with the author, August 2008.

C
HAPTER
14: C
OLD
L
IGHT

[>]
 "Practically every illuminant": E. Newton Harvey, "Cold Light,"
Scientific Monthly,
March 1931, p. 270.
"Today we are producing": Charles Steinmetz, quoted in "Scientists Racing to Find Cold Light,"
New York Times,
April 24, 1922, p. 5.
"A 60-watt bulb": Paul W. Keating,
Lamps for a Brighter America: A History of the General Electric Lamp Business
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1954) p. 5.

[>]
 "What a preposterous": "Nikola Tesla and His Work,"
New York Times,
September 30, 1894, p. 20.
"Here you have": Harvey, "Cold Light," p. 272.

207 "At sunset the firefly": Walter Hough,
Fire as an Agent in Human Culture,
bulletin no. 139, Smithsonian Institution (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1926), pp. 197–98.

[>]
 "There were at first": Quoted ibid., p. 196.
"I think it is possible": Steinmetz, quoted in "Scientists Racing to Find Cold Light," p. 5.

[>]
 "The road to Tomorrow": E. B. White, "The World of Tomorrow," in
Essays of E. B. White
(New York: Harper & Row, 1977), p. 111.
"Only selected parts": Hugh O'Connor, "Science at the World's Fair—Rise of the Illuminating Engineer,"
New York Times,
June 11, 1939, p. D4.
"As night fell": Helen A. Harrison, "The Fair Perceived: Color and Light as Elements in Design and Planning," in
Dawn of a New Day: The New York World's Fair, 1939/40
(New York: New York University Press, 1980), p. 46.
"bore an uncanny resemblance": Ibid.
"Even the drabbest": Ibid., pp. 46–47.

[>]
 "It's easy to see": Keating,
Lamps for a Brighter America,
photo, insert after p. 184.

C
HAPTER
15: W
ARTIME
: T
HE
R
ETURN OF
O
LD
N
IGHT

[>]
 "The earth grew spangled": Antoine de Saint-Exupéry,
Night Flight,
trans. Stuart Gilbert (New York: Century, 1932), p. 8.

[>]
 "Experience has shown": Quoted in Williamson Murray,
War in the Air, 1914–1945
(London: Cassell, 1999), pp. 69–70.

[>]
 Those in the steel industry: Terence H. O'Brien,
Civil Defense
(London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office and Longmans, Green, 1955), p. 229n.

[>]
 Without streetlights: Ibid., p. 322.

[>]
 "From different angles": Vera Brittain,
England's Hour
(New York: Macmillan, 1941), pp. 213–14.

[>]
 October 15 saw: Angus Calder,
The People's War: Britain, 1939–45
(New York: Pantheon Books, 1969), p. 168.
"Whatever part of London": Brittain,
England's Hour,
p. 121.
"the clatter of little": Calder,
The People's War,
p. 170.
"Yet another raider": Graham Greene,
The Ministry of Fear,
in
3 by Graham Greene
(New York: Viking Press, 1948), p. 19.
"Over the night": Brittain,
England's Hour,
p. 113.
"[They] had taken over": Henry Moore and John Hedgecoe,
Henry Moore: My Ideas, Inspiration and Life as an Artist
(London: Collins & Brown, 1999), p. 170.

222 "And amid the grim": Ibid.
"a pure and curious": Elizabeth Bowen, quoted in Calder,
The People's War,
p. 173.
"What surrounded us": Hans Erich Nossack,
The End: Hamburg, 1943,
trans. Joel Agee (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), PP. 37–38

[>]
 "There is said": "Mission Develops U.S. Civil Defense,"
New York Times,
February 14, 1941, p. 6.

[>]
 "Get off the streets": "Fog Blanket Aids in Blackout Test of All Manhattan,"
New York Times,
May 23, 1942, p. 1.
"The crowds melted into,": Ibid., pp. 1–2.

[>]
 "As the lights came on": Ibid., p. 2.
"For every undraped window": "London Lights Up Somewhat Hesitantly; War Habits Persist After End of Blackout,"
New York Times,
April 24, 1945, p. 19.
"The few householders": Ibid.

C
HAPTER
16: L
ASCAUX
D
ISCOVERED

[>]
 "I made myself": Marcel Ravidat, quoted in Mario Ruspoli,
The Cave of Lascaux: The Final Photographs
(New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1987), p. 188.

[>]
 "We raised the lamp": Ibid.
"Like a trail": Ibid., p. 189.
Scientists and archaeologists: The names of the chambers of the Lascaux Cave and the figures in them are from Norbert Aujoulat,
Lascaux: Movement, Space, and Time,
trans. Martin Street (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2005), p. 30.

[>]
 "in a prairie": Ibid., p. 191.
"The lights were never": Ruspoli,
The Cave of Lascaux,
pp. 180, 182, 183.

P
ART
IV

[>]
"Science tells us": Vladimir Nabokov,
Pale Fire
(London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1962), p. 193.
"Nothing, storm or flood": Ralph Ellison,
Invisible Man
(New York: Random House, 1995), p. 7.

C
HAPTER
17: B
LACKOUT
, 1965

[>]
 "...we have built": Robinson Jeffers, "The Purse-Seine," in
Rock and Hawk: A Selection of Shorter Poems,
ed. Robert Hass (New York: Random House, 1987), p. 191.
By 1960, on the twenty-fifth: Statistics on Rural Electrification are from
The Rural Electric Fact Book
(Washington, DC: National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, 1960), pp. 3, 56.

[>]
 "It is scarcely": R. R. Bowker, ed., "Electricity," no. 12 in The Great American Industries series,
Harper's,
October 1896, p. 728.
"In times of normal": Paul L. Montgomery, "And Everything Was Gone," in
The Night the Lights Went Out,
ed. A. M. Rosenthal (New York: New American Library, 1965), p. 19.

[>]
 "A slight variation": John Noble Wilford and Richard F. Shepard, "Detective Story," in
The Night the Lights Went Out,
p. 84.
"is like a game": Matthew L. Wald, Richard Pérez-Peña, and Neela Banerjee, "The Blackout: What Went Wrong; Experts Asking Why Problems Spread So Far,"
New York Times,
August 16, 2003,
http://www.nytimes.com
(accessed May 3, 2007).

[>]
 "Because the relay": Wilford and Shepard, "Detective Story," p. 86.

[>]
 "In the New York State system": Donald Johnston, "The Grid," in
The Night the Lights Went Out,
p. 75.

[>]
 "I don't know why": Quoted in Montgomery, "And Everything Was Gone," p. 23.
"'The Chinese'": A. M. Rosenthal, "The Plugged-in Society," in
The Night the Lights Went Out,
p. 11.
"through the minds": Ibid., p. 14.

[>]
 "I could see": Quoted in Montgomery, "And Everything Was Gone," p. 20.
"like hamsters": Quoted ibid., p. 24.
"glided down more": "The Talk of the Town: Notes and Comment,"
The New Yorker,
November 20, 1965, p. 45.
"As usual New Yorkers": Rosenthal, "The Plugged-in Society," p. 12.

[>]
 "The more efficient": Wolfgang Schivelbush, quoted in David E.
Nye,
Technology Matters: Questions to Live With
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007), p. 163.
"It was a beautiful": Quoted in Paul L. Montgomery, "The Stricken City," in
The Night the Lights Went Out,
pp. 37–38.

241 "We still knew nothing": "The Talk of the Town," November 20, 1965, p. 44.
"as if the darkness": Ibid., p. 43.
"the men, working without": Montgomery, "The Stricken City," p. 44.
"Two matches, carefully tended": "The Talk of the Town," November 20, 1965, p. 45.

[>]
 "The moonlight lay": Ibid., p. 46.

[>]
 "The turbine generators": William E. Farrell, "The Morning After," in
The Night the Lights Went Out,
p. 66.
"Unfortunately many": Gordon D. Friedlander, "The Northeast Power Failure—a Blanket of Darkness,"
IEEE Spectrum,
February 1966, p. 66.

[>]
 "As power became available":
Report to the President by the Federal Power Commission on the Power Failure in the Northeastern United States and the Province of Ontario on November 9–10, 1965,
December 6, 1965, p. 29,
http://www.blackout.gmu.edu/archive/pdf/fpc_65.pdf
. "New York Cancelled": Bernard Weinraub, "From Abroad: Smiles, Sneers, and Disbelief," in
The Night the Lights Went Out,
p. 119.
"Ralph Morse, who had": George P. Hunt, "Trapped in a Skyscraper,"
Life,
November 19, 1965, p. 3.

[>]
 "Everybody recognizes everybody": Farrell, "The Morning After," p. 65.
The subsequent Federal Power:
Report to the President,
pp. 43–45.

[>]
"We are in much worse": "The Talk of the Town: Notes and Comment,"
The New Yorker,
August 15, 1977, p. 15.
"The end came": Russell Baker, quoted in Bernard Weinraub, "Bewitched and Bewildered," in
The Night the Lights Went Out,
pp. 124–25.

C
HAPTER
18: I
MAGINING THE
N
EXT
G
RID

[>]
"Regard the light": Dan Flavin, "'...in Daylight or Cool White': An Autobiographical Sketch,"
Artforum,
December 1965, p. 24.

251 "Permanence just defies": "Dan Flavin Interviewed by Tiffany Bell, July 13, 1982," in
Dan Flavin: The Complete Lights, 1961–1996,
ed. Michael Govan and Tiffany Bell (New Haven, CT: Dia Art Foundation / Yale University Press, 2004), p. 199.
"Oil had become": Daniel Yergin,
The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991), p. 588.

[>]
 "It's very sad": Quoted in "The Talk of the Town: Other Lights,"
The New Yorker,
December 10, 1973, p. 40.

[>]
 "This winter as the nation": Jonathan Schell, "The Talk of the Town: Notes and Comment,"
The New Yorker,
December 10, 1973, p. 37.
"Night's coming was": Baron Wormser,
The Road Washes Out in Spring: A Poet's Memoir of Living Off the Grid
(Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 2006), p. 9.
"A few guests": Ibid., p. 11.

[>]
 "Light did not materialize": Ibid., p. 10.
"We simply must balance": Jimmy Carter, speech, April 18, 1977, "Primary Sources: The President's Proposed Energy Policy,"
American Experience,
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/filmmore/ps_energy.html
(accessed May 2, 2008).

[>]
"We're working to create": Jeffrey Skilling, quoted in Steven Johnson, "New New Power Business: Inside 'Energy Alley,'"
Frontline,
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/blackout/traders/inside.html
(accessed December 2, 2008).

[>]
 "You probably couldn't": Jeffrey Skilling, quoted in Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind,
The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron
(New York: Penguin Books, 2004), p. 281.
"You know what": Ibid.
"They should just": Quoted in "Enron Trader Conversations: 'Pow-erex and Bonneville...,'" Ex. SNO—224, pp. 5–6,
Seattle Times,
February 4, 2005,
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2001945474_webenronaudio02.html
(accessed September 27, 2009).

[>]
 "I used contemporary": Steven Watt, conversation with the author, October 2008.
"the most significant": U.S. Department of Energy,
The Smart Grid: An Introduction
(Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Energy, n.d.), p. 5.

261 "Imagine all the south-facing": Bill McKibben,
Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future
(New York: Times Books, 2007), p. 145.

[>]
 "Energy is at the core": Richard E. Smalley, testimony to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Hearing on Sustainable, Low Emission, Electricity Generation, April 27, 2004,
http://www.energybulletin.net/note/249
(accessed October 18, 2008).

[>]
 "From about 1990": Brian Bowers,
Lengthening the Day: A History of Lighting Technology
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 190.

[>]
 "It took me almost": Gavin Hudson, "Korea Shines for Compact Fluorescent Use,"
EcoWorldly,
January 9, 2008,
http://ecoworldly.com/2008/01/09/brilliant-asia-cfls-are-turning-korea-on
(accessed March 11, 2009).
"You wake up": Quoted in "Making the Switch (or Not),"
New York Times,
January 10, 2008, p. D6.
"No, the light quality": Ibid.

[>]
 "Do not use": "What If I Accidentally Break a Fluorescent Lamp in My House?" Maine Department of Environmental Protection, Bureau of Remediation and Waste Management,
http://www.maine.gov/dep/rwm/homeowner/cflbreakcleanup.htm
(accessed April 11, 2009).

[>]
 "The candle does not": Gaston Bachelard,
The Flame of a Candle,
trans. Joni Caldwell (Dallas: Dallas Institute Publications, 1988), p. 37.

[>]
 "The candle will burn out": Ibid.
"the unique combination": "Reproduction Light Bulbs," Rejuvenation: Classic American Lighting & House Parts,
http://www.rejuvenation.com/templates/collection.phtml?accessories=Reproduction%20Bulbs
(accessed May 3, 2009).

C
HAPTER
19: A
T THE
M
ERCY OF
L
IGHT

[>]
"I wanted to investigate": Michel Siffre,
Beyond Time: The Heroic Adventure of a Scientist's 63 Days Spent in Darkness and Solitude in a Cave 375 Feet Underground,
ed. and trans. Herma Briffault (London: Chatto & Windus, 1965), p. 25.
"This morning I was": Ibid., pp. 154–55.