The Santa Claus Revolution?

It appears news of Richard's book has reached even the ears of the Jolly Old Elf, for his Portland, Oregon incarnation has a very familiar accessory at hand. Please disregard the unfortunate man-bun on the big guy.

Of course, Santa's no stranger to these classics. Maybe thanks to The Typewriter Revolution, a few more will wind up under the tree this year?

Typewriters bloom in the desert

New Generation Revives Old Typewriters, Helps Keep Mesa Repair Shop Open

Great radio story about the typewriter renaissance in Arizona, including interviews with Bill Wahl (Mesa Typewriter Exchange) and Ryan Adney.

The insurgency reaches India

We've seen quite a few typewriter stories from India, but they tend to be melancholy ones about the end of typewriter production at Godrej, the decline of the traditional typing school and street typists, and so on.

Here's some good news, though:

“It feels great to be needed,” he says. “Kids these days are turning to, and enjoying, these machines everybody was getting rid of 15 years ago. If there was no appreciation for these machines, we would have shut shop. It gives us a real lift.”

Read the story here, with glimpses of several typewriter shops that are hanging on, and even thriving, in India.

"We prize our tools"

A story about Ed Skibba, who repairs typewriters in Milwaukee:

Wall Street Journal story calls us "vibrant"

"While the comeback has been spurred in part by a vibrant online community (whose blogs and websites are collectively known as the 'typosphere'), people of all stripes are rediscovering the virtues of a manual typewriter."

Kids at the keys ... on the front page

Read the story here.

"Security with a portable typewriter"

A small item from the New York Times.

The link goes to a 1995 story about Smith-Corona's bankruptcy. Today Smith-Corona is still in business, but not the typewriter business — it makes labels for industrial use. The company logo cleverly combines a Corona 3 with a scan code used on labels.

Royal Typewriter Becomes Sentient, Invades Internet

...or more correctly, San Francisco Chronicle pop culture editor Peter Hartlaub found at least one  Royal KMG down in the photo archives, and wrote a blog entry on it. In a move that should surprise nobody here, it types right away, with nary a hiccup.

What's more, it's started tweeting (@NewsTypewriter) perhaps channeling the spirit of SF's beloved Herb Caen, who put his own Royals through their paces. Is this one of his castoff machines? It would be interesting to dig out the provenance.

I can personally attest to the good quality of a KMG. A trip to a local repair shop like California Typewriter might be all this typer needs for another half-century of function.

Palm Beach Post story

This Palm Beach Post story on the endurance of typewriters has lots of good closeup photos with interesting (though occasionally inaccurate) captions.

Schreibmaschinen!

Follow up to deek's post a few days ago: typewriters are getting serious attention in privacy-minded Germany. Here's one of several similar stories on the topic.

Word on the Street in Washington

Typewriters hit the streets in Everett, Washington:

More information here.

Typewriters in the Mainstream News

I was certainly surprised to see this article pop up. I am curious as to what sort of "special typewriters" the Kremlin is using, but they put in an order for just over $14,000 worth of electric typewriters recently.

Slow Type - a story in the East Bay Express

Type-ins, Nietzsche, the typewriter insurgency, California Typewriter, Ton Sison, Richard Polt, QWERTY, Herb Permillion, Terry Gilliam ... this is a good story!

Check it out here.

A typewriting journalist in Geneva

A seldom-heard noise is emanating from a small cubicle at the far end of Press Room One at the Palace of Nations, the imposing home of the United Nations in Geneva.

It's the sound of metal keys clattering against paper, punctuated frequently by the muted ping of a small steel bell.

Gordon Martin, UN Correspondent for Vatican Radio, is writing his latest dispatch on the day's developments at the Geneva 2 peace talks on a 40-year-old Remington Performer manual typewriter.

Full BBC story here.

More on India's street typists

"Every morning, as he has for the past 34 years, Ajay Kumar Nayak walks to a busy footpath outside Calcutta's high court. He sets up a rickety wooden table, places a battered plastic chair behind it and then carefully places his 15-year-old typewriter on the table."

In fact, the Remington is about 60 years old, and has survived all those decades on the streets of Calcutta. A tribute to the durability of our beloved machines!

See the bittersweet BBC story and video here.

Typewriters vs. espionage: the trend grows

Full story here.

Notice that this website borrowed an image from one of our prominent typospherians!

Zeitgeist update

Beautiful image, huh?

It was created by Carsten Schmitt by typing on a film negative. Read more here.

In other news from around the typosphere, 96-year-old repairman Manson Whitlock passed away recently after a brief illness. He fixed typewriters for over 80 years. This modest but determined man earned himself a place in typewriter history and was honored with obituaries in the Washington Post and New York Times as well as the local New Haven Register. Thank you, Mr. Whitlock.

St. Louis typewriter project makes NPR news

A typewriter for the "What The Hell Is St. Louis Thinking?" project sits in the city's Central West End neighborhood. Poet Henry Goldkamp wants passers-by to stop and share their thoughts — without the luxury of a "delete" key.


I've mentioned the excellent project "What the Hell is St. Louis Thinking?" on this site before. Now it's getting national attention.

Read and hear the NPR story here.

Older story and video

Facebook site

Project 88 update

From journalist Keith Sharon:

This is my column that appears in today's OC Register. It's behind a paywall, so I'm sending it in full to you. Please post on Typosphere, if you feel so inclined:

Last November, I bought an old typewriter on eBay with the intent to save the world one, old-timey letter at a time.

We text too much instead of talk. We tweet when we don’t have anything to say. We blurt instead of compose.

Much of this is fueled by the quickness and anonymity of the web.

I set out to start a resurrection of real communication with my Smith-Corona 88 Secretarial (circa 1950s). I called my typing efforts “Project 88,” taken from the number of different characters the old, gray 88 produces.

Then, right out of the gate, I blew it. I wrote letters to celebrities.

I’m still waiting for my first celebrity response.

When I first wrote about my experiences, on March 17, I proclaimed the death of letters. “If you want to be ignored by people you admire … type them a letter.”

Turns out I was admiring the wrong people.

I received my 500th old-fashioned, snail mailed letter on Aug. 16. Thank you Rob Bowker of Wallingford, England, for your nice letter in which you described the “Local fields, normally so tranquil and lying under birdsong, are growling to the thunder of combine harvesters …”

For those not opposed to a little math, that’s exactly 100 letters per month. In the newspaper business, where old-fashioned letters are dwindling faster than cassette tapes did, that’s an explosion.

When I started Project 88, I could have never guessed where it was going. First, it was an abject failure. Then it was a local success with letters pouring in from around Orange County; schools, senior centers, offices, jails, kitchen tables. Letters were written on dusty typewriters pulled from garages. They were written with fountain pens; No. 2 pencils.

Then it became a bigger success. I started writing a weekly column (it appears Tuesdays in the local section) called “Mail Bonding.” Get it? I’ve heard from a total of 15 states – so far. Many letters came from the “Typosphere,” an online community of really cool and eccentric letter writers. I got a letter from England. Then two from Australia. Now I’ve got about 70 pen pals around the world.

Then I had lunch with Laura and Catherine Stevens of Newport Beach.

That’s when I learned a new lesson about success.

•••

Laura Stevens, who is Catherine’s mom, was one of my first pen pals. She sent me a letter about her long-ago love affair with Hans, a late 1970s-era member of the Swedish rowing team. She shared the letter with her daughter, who had never known about her mother’s romantic past.

Catherine, 12, wrote to me with a No. 2 pencil, thanking me for helping to open a chapter of her mom’s life and asking if I could recommend a good typewriter. I wrote in a column that Catherine didn’t need to get a typewriter. She was doing just fine with her pencil.

Enter Robert O’Brien of Huntington Beach. He typed me a letter:

“In your column of June 4, you indicated that Ms. Catherine Stevens would like to acquire a typewriter. I think she will most likely get more use and enjoyment out of this machine than I will, so with your assistance I would like to give it to her.”

He said those typed words were his “final spin” on his Royal Safari portable typewriter.

So I passed his contact information over to the Stevens family.

Toting his big blue-boxed Royal, Robert met Laura, Catherine and her friend Olivia at Polly’s Pies in Huntington Beach. He brought the owner’s manual.

“I’ve seen typewriters before, but now I think they’re cool,” said Catherine, pink tints in her blonde hair.

Robert showed them how to use the old contraption. He said they had to use “substantially more effort” to push the keys than they were used to.

As her mom and Robert talked, Catherine started typing. When they looked at the page, it said:

“Can we get pie?”

It was Catherine’s first-ever typed sentence.

Catherine ordered chocolate cream.

When they got the typewriter home, Catherine proudly showed it to her 15-year-old sister, Lauren.

“She thinks I’m a loser,” Catherine said.

Laura doesn’t remember precisely when the idea came to her. Early this summer she suggested that her daughter type letters to people. Catherine thought it was a great idea. But who?

Laura quickly thought of Crown Cove, a senior living center in Corona del Mar. Laura’s great aunt, Margaret Byard, had been a resident at Crown Cove until she died in 2011. Laura remembers visiting there, and how many of the residents didn’t have much contact with the outside world.

The Crown Cove Pen Pal Project was born.

Laura contacted Jessilyn Gaujardo, the Crown Cove activities director, who oversees 75 residents. She was thrilled. And so were some of the residents.

“A lot of people don’t take time for people who are slower than a quick text,” Jessilyn said. “The residents didn’t believe that anyone wanted to communicate with them at first. It’s kind of sad.”

But Catherine and a couple of friends wrote letters introducing themselves and asking the elderly residents to write back. Jessilyn read the letters aloud to the 12 people who showed interested.

•••

On a recent Wednesday, Catherine got her first four letters from Crown Cove residents.

Wynn Griffith wrote: “We at Crown Cove really enjoyed hearing your letter from July thirteen. It was written very well and I enjoyed hearing from a twelve year old young lady!”

Catherine said the best part of receiving letters from the residents was when they talked about their own childhoods.

“This will give them a sense there is someone to talk to,” Catherine said.

Catherine plans to meet with an expanding group of friends to compose letters.

And the residents plan to make cards to send to Catherine and her friends.

“We’ll keep it going back and forth,” Jessilyn said.

Laura thinks the good feelings go both ways.

“Not only am I super proud of her, the most rewarding thing is that she’s having fun,” Laura said.

“You never know what is going to happen when you connect with people.”

MAIL ME A LETTER:

Project 88 began when I bought a 1950s era Smith-Corona 88 typewriter on eBay. Eighty-eight is the number of characters it produces. If you are so inspired, write to me. If you use a typewriter, great. If not, use a computer, a pen, a quill or a chisel and slate. The point is to communicate. Try to avoid angry topics (maintaining civility is the only way this will work), and I’ll try to write back.

My mailing address:

Keith Sharon

Orange County Register

625 N. Grand Ave.

Santa Ana, CA 92701

Nine Years Might Have Been an Exaggeration

Here's a review of of DVD release of The Typewriter in the 21st Century, the closest many humble Typospherians may ever come to our fifteen minute allotment of fame. In the interest of full disclosure, I think I overstated the lifespan of that laptop and under-estimated the age of the typewriters. Doing arithmetic on-camera is stressful!

<soapbox>

Given the recent stink about the U.S. government's warrantless snooping security-minded PRISM program, I don't think the 'sphere is above inviting those partial to privacy into our fold. Typewriters: good for marshaling your thoughts, documenting them, and keeping them out of the hands and eyes of Uncle Sam, too. A shame the story didn't break sooner, or Chris and Gary could have also played up the paranoia angle. I, for one, look outstanding in a tinfoil hat.