Monday, April 2, 2012

Typewriters: The Long Farewell

Suzanne Fischer writes a little essay about the typewriter resurgence in this piece in the Atlantic, titled "The Long Farewell: Typewriters as Objects of Nostalgia." And this:
As a historian who cares about objects, I'm pleased by this new appreciation for typewriter aesthetics, and I'm hoping it will mean a decline in keychopping. Keychopping is the arguably pernicious practice of removing a typewriter's keys to make jewelry or to decorate olde-tyme projects. To typewriter enthusiasts and collectors, keychoppers are the enemy, destroying the integrity of typewriters and rendering them useless scrap.

4 comments:

  1. "Things persist." A very fine little essay.

    I am amazed to see that the typewriter resurgence has already reached the level of "cliché" and "ubiquitous." Will our 15 minutes be over soon?

    I see the author is a curator at The Henry Ford (museum), which I believe has a fine typewriter collection.

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  2. Nice article.

    If I could only get out of the Edison part of the museum.

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  3. I'm working out my thoughts on a video I saw today wherein a woman referred to a beautiful SC Sterling (late 50s) as "a genuine hipster typewriter".

    As much as that hurts to hear I'm taking solace in the fact that if the hipsters do indeed have reign as of now it should become passe in short order. They have the attention span of fruit flies.

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  4. Fine little article. I didn't even know it was fad now when I bought my little SC Skyriter.

    Ewww. Hipsters.

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