Dunk cookies and read poems with the typosphere

Here's a shout-out to typospherians Zac Burlingame (An *sshole With A Typewriter) and Sam Feller (Awkward Engineer), who are launching Kickstarter projects.

Zac is publishing a poetry chapbook and Sam has created The Ultimate in Cookie Dunking Technology. You can pledge as much or as little as you like to support their projects.

Be a movie star

 8kkrf-3702013344@gigs.craigslist.org ^[?] 

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Posted: 2013-03-24, 9:20PM PDT

Casting for Feature 'Typewriter', actresses and actors needed 22-35

"Typewriter" is a new Motion Picture from Award Winning Director R. Hall. The project will be a feature film about an author named Eddie, who is currently at work with a crime novel. It's set to take place back and forth from his experiences in real life and how he transcribes them in parable onto his page. He's also probably the last person on Earth to use a typewriter. We are planning on shooting a "Pitch Trailer" for the film to gain financing for a September shoot. Our planned budget hopes to be a tad more than $100,000. If cast, we'd like you to help shoot the pitch trailer with us and once we get financing, come back on board and shoot the whole movie. And yes, if we get our proposed budget you will get paid :)

Please send your headshot and resume for consideration

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• it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
• Compensation: no pay

Posting ID: 3702013344

 

Posted: 2013-03-24, 9:20PM PDT

 

Edited: 2013-03-24, 9:43PM PDT

 

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Hunter S. Thompson on typewriting

INTERVIEWER What is your instrument in composing? You are one of the few writers I know who still uses an electric typewriter. What's wrong with a personal computer?

 THOMPSON I've tried. There is too much temptation to go over the copy and rewrite I guess I've never grown accustomed to the silent, non-clacking of the keys and the temporary words put up on the screen. I like to think that when I type something on this [pointing to the typewriter], when I'm finished with it, it's good. I haven't gotten past the second paragraph on a word processor. Never go back and rewrite while you're working. Keep on it as if it were final.

—Source

Thanks to Amy Freeborn.

Vintage Sounds at NPR

NPR (National Public Radio in the U.S.) is running a series on "Vintage Sounds" -- the disappearance of the sounds of old technology. They're looking for contributions from the public, if anyone happens to know someone with access to a noisy hunk of old machinery. Gee, I might be able to find one around here somewhere...

The first piece ran on Monday and was about film cameras: you can hear the audio and read a transcript on their web site.

To contribute, fill out their contact form with "Vintage Sound" in the subject line.

https://www.fuzeqna.com/npr/includes/customer/npr/custforms/contactus.aspx

Ton's New Piece: Typewriter Redivivus in the Age of iPad

Our own theologian-collector Ton Sison wrote this wonderful column for the New Theology Review. 

Signs of the Times: Typewriter Redivivus in the Age of iPad

Take a read it's a great piece.

I am constantly amazed at the intellectual heft in The Typosphere. Among our ranks we can count philosophers, theologians, authors, artists, craftsmen, teachers, students, engineers, mothers, and fathers. With every creative endeavor we create beautiful homilies to these ancient and striking mounds of springs and levers and metal. It's wonderfully humbling to be counted in such estimable company.

So Ton, congratulations on your article!

Typewriter Rental Anyone?

Don Descoteau/News staff

So here is a business based around our beloved typewriters. It even has a really catchy name, Regional Assembly of Text and a website to boot! I really wish there was something like this around where I live.

Richard Polt Gets Love from the Chicago Tribune

I enjoy seeing typosphere-related sites and people get a little exposure. This morning I just happened to look around at my "typewriter" crawler and this popped up. Very cool mainstream shout-out!

Holy Typosphere

Is our typosphere moving closer to the skies? As has been reported, the newly elected Pope Francis  bought an electric Olivetti typewriter in Germany in the 1980s, and has used it for his personal correspondence since. Another prominent typewriter user! And a little blessing can't be wrong, can it?

Pope Francis (typewriter missing in the picture)

Filling a gap

These comments by Ken MacLeod should be of interest to us all:


Filling a much-needed gap 

One of the major problems for writers is that the machine we use to write is connected to the biggest engine of distraction ever invented. One can always disconnect, of course - there's even software that locks out the internet and email for selected periods - or use a separate, isolated computer, but I think something more elegant as well as radical is needed. 

What I'm thinking of is some purely mechanical device, that took the basic QWERTY keyboard with Shift and Return keys and so on, but with each key attached to an arrangement of levers connected to a physical representation of the given letter or punctuation mark. These in turn would strike through some ink-delivery system - perhaps, though I'm reaching a bit here, a sort of tape of cloth mounted on reels - onto separate sheets of paper, fed through some kind of rubber roller (similar to that on a printer) one by one. The Return key would have to be replaced by a manual device, to literally 'return' the roller at the end of each line. Tedious, but most writers could do with more exercise anyway.

Corrections and changes would be awkward, it's true, but a glance at any word processor programme gives the answer: the completed sheets could be, physically, cut and pasted. Someone more patient, less easily distracted, and more mechanically savvy than myself would have to develop such a device, and maybe already has - for all I know, the patent may be gathering dust. Now, its time has come. There's a huge gap in the market for it. 

I tell you, someone's going to make an absolute fortune from this. 


See the original post with comments here.