This is an image of The Isolator, purportedly invented by Hugo Gernsback the science fiction pioneer, and clearly, loon.
I haven’t dug into this, so it’s possible this is a hoax, but at the source website, this madness is taken at face value:
The “Isolator” is designed to help focus the mind when reading or writing, not only by by eliminating all outside noise, but also by allowing just one line of text to be seen at a time through a horizontal slit. via A Great Disorder
As the author at A Great Disorder points out, this “solution” for the problem of distractions perhaps takes the solution a little too far. Only allowing the author to see through one tiny slit seems especially mental. Particularly for those of us who, in the 21st century, have atrophied memories, and are incapable of keeping the previous line in our head. How can we maintain paragraph continuity, let alone the continuity of an entire novel?
I imagine The Isolator is the perfect piece of equipment if you want to write some kind of dadaist masterpiece.
Or, if you suffer from even minor claustrophobia, a complete breakdown.
On the other hand, the air supply arrangement does offer certain possibilities…
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