Philo … Gubb? Never heard of him. Nor, in all my years—make that decades—as a reader of detective fiction, had I come across, or become aware of, Ellis Parker Butler (1869–1937), the writer who brought Philo Gubb—“a tall, thin man, with the face and gait of a flamingo,” a paperhanger with a hankering for “deteckative” work—into a flurry of being. Not until recently, that is.
Generally, I do not mind stumbling onto what might have been got at with greater ease and efficiency through methodical research. I am aware that any perceived surprise on my part—that “Eureka!”-inducing moment of discovery—may be owing to an absence of assiduity. That said, some of the most memorable encounters are made by chance, along circuitous routes.
In the case of Ellis Parker Butler and his brainchild Philo Gubb, though, I regret not having made the acquaintance of either of them sooner, given that this particular route led me back, unexpectedly, to the early days of broadcasting, about which Butler had much to say that might have been of interest and use to me in Immaterial Culture, my study of so-called old-time radio.
Now, Immaterial Culture does not pick up on the story of broadcasting until the network days of the late 1920s. To gain an understanding how radio evolved, a look at prehistoric transmissions, albeit largely in the absence of sound recordings, is nonetheless instructive. You cannot expect to “get” the cream of old-time broadcasting if you neglect an inspection of the cat’s whiskers for traces of same.
Harry Heuser 