On NPR, Tom Hanks admits typewriters have taken over his life

http://tinyurl.com/6h6emt3

The Typewriter (In the 21st Century)

You might have heard something about a documentary crew doing some filming at the type-ins in L.A. and in Phoenix. They've expanded their travel plans, and have updated their presence on teh Intertubes.*

You can follow them on The Twitter at @LATypewriter, stalk them via the almighty and all-seeing Facebook, or go Old Skool CERN-Style and just visit their web site. You might even recognize a few 'spherians in the mix.

* Die-hard retronauts are still waiting for information on the nearest Western Union office or carrier pigeon roost.

"Typewriter Day" page is up

Hi all, I just finished gathering up what links and videos and photos I could find for the Typewriter Day 2011 celebration (commemoration? type-in?) Rather than make it a post, I went ahead and gave it top billing as a page: here it is.

I'm sure I've missed one or more of your videos or photos, which was purely unintentional. Please leave a comment if I missed you -- it's never too late to be added in. I tended to go for videos first, and then blog entries if I couldn't find or figure out how to pull the video out. If your computer can handle it, try playing all the videos at once to imagine what we'd sound like in one room. :-)

Thanks for participating, everyone: it was fun for me, knowing that thanks to Christopher Sholes, somewhere around the world on Thursday, there was a person sitting down at a typewriter to record footage of their hands to share on the Internet. It's an amazing world we live in.

15 vignettes, 30 (one) days.

So!

As many of you know, I love vignettes. Small portraits of a moment, a place, a time. So, to help with writing the many essays that will be coming this summer, I want to introduce a challenge.

15 vignettes, thirty (one) days. 15 snapshots, related or unrelated--it doesn't matter. The challenge starts July 1.

Indicate your interest in the comments. I look forward to seeing the vignettes you all come up with--I for one will be posting my 15 on arsdecarta.

Cheers

Art

Sub-Aquatic Typing

Have you guys seen Jason deCaires Taylor's underwater sculptures? They're all pretty keen-o, but his The Lost Correspondent might pique your interest that much more. Now, I wonder what kind of typewriter one uses under the sea...

Typewriter Day 2011: Schedule of Events

• TIME: Whenever you can
• PLACE: Wherever you are
• EVENT: Type

Typewriter Day 2011 is nearly upon us. Take a typewriter and camera in hand tomorrow and share a little digital postcard with the rest of the typosphere.



Typewriter Day NAQ (Never-Asked Questions)

What should I type?

• How about a letter to someone else in the typosphere?
• Got a friend with you tomorrow? Have a speed-typing contest with pangrams.
• Puzzle-masters take note: you've got an assignment due.

I'm shy/not photogenic/a vampire: I don't want to film myself.

• There's good precedent for only showing your hands. (Barbie typewriter not required.)

OK, fine, but then what?

• Upload your video/photo gallery/radio interview to your favorite sharing service. Tag it, if you can. Post a link here in a comment. Check out the other links that have already been posted, and then wait for the super-mega-after-the-fact-roundup-post here.
• Any public sharing service will do, as long as we're allowed to link to the content. Embeddable content would be better, but not required.
• If you have a Yahoo address and a typewriter blog, you can request to join the "Anablogger Archives" group that I administer. Please include the URL of your blog so I can sort out the real requests from the random ones. Flickr can host videos as well as slide shows, though be aware of their upload limits for free accounts.

"Tag it?"

• Most services allow you to attach keywords to uploads. TypewriterDay2011 was suggested in the comments, and I think this sounds excellent. Feel free to use a hashtag if you're tweeting, too. #TypewriterDay2011

Anything else?

• It's a little late now, but I think t-shirts decorated with Sholes' patent drawings would be an excellent idea. Any typospherian who is both highly creative and independently wealthy is encouraged to follow up on this. (Click the above image to jump a Sholes patent.)
  

One Week Until "Typewriter Day"

Just a quick reminder to have a camera and typewriter on hand for next Thursday, June 23, to commemorate Typewriter Day in your part of the Typosphere. Here's the original post about it. Try to get shots or video of yourself (or others!) typing -- in public, at home, at the library, at work, wherever you may be, and upload them so they can be shared here. Show a little QWERTY love for Christopher Sholes.



Of course, he's not the only one with his hands in the works, so to speak. Have you been reading Robert Messenger's outstanding On This Day In Typewriter History series? He's weaving a fascinating web on his blog, with regular, fact-filled updates. Clear your calendar and start reading.

Cincinnati Type-In

I just got confirmation that we'll be able to have a type-in at Sitwell's Coffeehouse in Cincinnati, Ohio on Saturday, July 2, 4-6 pm.

I'd like to hear from those with experience: what are some good ways to publicize a type-in? What are some dos and don'ts that you've learned? Thanks!

Click this image to download a PDF poster.

Seattle Outdoor Type-In

I've purchased a space at the Capitol Hill community garage sale this Saturday. I'll have a table set up with typewriters for anyone to come by and use. If you're in the Seattle area, consider stopping by. It's going on from 10-3 at the corner of Federal Ave E and E Republican St. Should be plenty of parking around there, if that's what you're into.

Capitol Hill Garage Sale Day 2011

Spotted at Wired: Olivetti graphics

Handsome, no? (linked to a flickr set from ninonbooks)

Isaac Asimov's strikethroughs

via Letters of Note.

Your Monthly Update

• For the stats junkies: 2,969 pages viewed in the month of May, with most of the traffic coming to the roll-call post and originating from the U.S., though Japan is making a strong showing thanks to Matt Cidoni's radio interview. Typewriters on the radio, it's the new big thing.
• Also in traffic numbers: a strange one-day surge of traffic from Russia. My paranoid sysadmin senses tell me that this was some kind of potential spam attack or scrape, as no actual pages or posts were heavily hit (and I saw the same surge on clickthing.) Everyone make sure to compute safe.
  
• There was a type-in in Los Angeles on May 22: anyone have pics? Video? I found this article about it, but it's pretty light. Any LA typecasters out there?
• Perhaps she's too humble or sleepless to post here, but Cheryl at Strikethru is making noises about another edition of Silent Type... with a twist. Have you see the first two editions? They are excellent, despite my own contributions. You should check them out.
• Typewriter Day is just three weeks away. If you can, please consider filming yourself or others doing a little typing that day (hands-only is fine if you're modest.)
• Several new bloggers are showing up in the blogroll and on the map page. Please feel free to post any that you find, even as a comment to posts like this one. Membership in the Typosphere can be involuntary and unexpected...

Updated: Richard linked to the video from the LA event, but I missed it.