The Antidote to Writer’s Block
Amazing 1925 invention — lost to history in 1926 — has returned!
Been staring at a blank laptop screen for hours? Wastebasket overflowing with crumpled balls of paper? Can’t even write a grocery list? If so, you may be suffering from every author’s worst fear—the curse of writer’s block!
But read on for exciting news.
In 1925 a tinkerer named Hugo Gernsback invented a foolproof cure for stuck writers. The “Isolator Helmet” eliminated all outside distractions by enclosing the author’s head in a peaceful cocoon of silence. Eyeholes revealed only the blank writing pad. Pure oxygen flowed from a tank to sharply focus the mind.
During the spring of that year two washed-up authors begged Gernsback for a chance to try the helmet. He gave them each one week. They immediately wrote best sellers.
Then something odd happened. By 1926 the Isolator Helmet disappeared. Eleven original helmets had been built — yet suddenly there were none. Next the technical drawings went missing at the U.S. Patent Office. Rumors began to swirl that a Literary Deep State was involved.
Fortunately, all is not lost.
A few months ago I was killing time in a Bowery thrift shop and spotted a stack of old Science and Invention…
