Typewriter Day events 2018! Phoenix, Traverse City ...

Who's celebrating Typewriter Day, June 23?

We know of two type-ins for the occasion, one on June 23 in Traverse City, Michigan and one the next day in Phoenix, Arizona. What else do you all have planned?

Happy International/World/Galactic Typewriter Day/Days/Week!

It's Typewriter Day! Plenty of activities are on deck for the weekend, but if you've got the time and inclination, pull out a machine and celebrate today.

I packed up the Corsair and some paper in a messenger bag last night and hauled them up a hill to a local park this morning, for a typecast to come. Pro tip: Corsairs are light, but still not terribly light when packed in a messenger bag with paper and hauled up a hill. I'm accepting any and all donations of a Groma Kolibri for next year's hike. (QWERTY if you've got it.)



How are you marking the day/days/week?

Typewriter Day 2016... and beyond!

Just a reminder to all the folks out there in the Typosphere that June 23 is our quasi-official celebration of International Typewriter Day. I feel like there's a lot more going on this year than in years past. I see lots of events, type-ins, and all kinds of impromptu communities forming around this magical machine, many posted here.

How are you planning to celebrate this year? For 2015, I hauled my trusty plastic SCM Corsair over to the local community college and played dodge-em with the leafblower brigade as I bashed out a chunk of typographic doggerel.

I'm aiming for something more peaceful and scenic this year:



With all the recent type-ins and gatherings, maybe we need to extend the scope a bit. International Typewriter Week, anyone? Me and the Corsair are up for it.

International Typewriter Day 2015

It's just a week away, Tuesday, June 23, the anniversary date of the U.S. patent filed by Christopher Latham Sholes and company for an "Improvement in type-writing machines" which is a good enough reason to throw a type-party at the midpoint of the year.

Any plans for marking the date this year? Share in the comments!

Typewriter Day 2014

Yes, it's coming up yet again! I got smart this year and put it on my calendar, so there's no chance of it sneaking up on me unawares. Now I have plenty of time to be under-prepared.

I think we're up for a little challenge this year, so by the power vested in me by Blogger.com's admin panel, I hereby declare the "theme" of Typewriter Day 2014 as Type Unconventional, and a more awkwardly-worded phrase I could not hope to have dreamt up.

Your challenge, dear Typospherian, is to mark the passage of Typewriter Day -- Monday, June 23rd -- by using a typewriter in an unconventional manner: be that typing on something other than 20# white or even bypassing paper altogether or working with a broader palette than red and black. It may mean "extreme typing" a la the extreme ironing movement. Or heck, a whole art installation.

These are just ideas, of course, and as stringent and strict as the 'sphere... which is to say, not very much at all. No judging, no prizes, just a chance to unbend your brain a little and celebrate Mr. Sholes' world-changing idea.

Typewriter Day 2013

Egad! It's nearly Typewriter Day! One hundred forty-five years since Sholes was awarded a patent for this lovely drawing that morphed into the machines we know and love.



The date sneaks up on me each year, preceded by a nagging sensation that something important is happening in late June... but what could it be? Clearly this is a serious oversight on behalf of the calendar markers of the world. June 23, everyone -- that's this coming Sunday.

I know a certain Mad Professor of Typewriterology who has a collection of missives from about the 'sphere. In honor of the recent non-shocking revelations about government-run data harvesting and wireless eavesdropping, how about marking the day with a typed postcard or letter to the good doctor, or to your own favorite rabble-rouser?
 
Please document the occasion with a photo, video, podcast, engraving, crayon sketch, or some other bloggable means and we'll gather them up and post on the page here on the site, linking back to you.

Bonus Typosphere Points* will be awarded for incorporating one or more of the following elements into your work:

• Colorful ribbons or other means of tarting up the result.
• Cryptic messages, symbols or iconography. Double points if a government bureau actually intercepts and intercedes with your missive (and owns up to it.)
• The wearing of tinfoil headgear or other hilarious folk remedies for shaking off the mind-control rays of The Man. Triple points if you manage to attract black helicopters overhead with your typing.

No time to waste, everyone!

* No monetary value. No redemption. No shirt, no shoes, no service. No woman, no cry.

Post Your Typewriter Day Links Here

Hey everyone -- I should update the "Typewriter Day" page to reflect the 2012 events, and I'm far too busy/lazy to scrube through everyone's blogs. Can you please post a comment with the link or links to your celebrations/blog posts/acts of typewriter awesomeness?

As with any major holiday (ahem) the celebration didn't strictly have to take place on Saturday. Show-and-tell time, everyone!

Typewriter Day 2012

Typewriter Day: June 23, 2012

Thought I forgot, didn't you?*

Typewriter Day 2012 is this Saturday. Last year we had a trans-global virtual type-in with video and noise and suitable amounts of goggling at some members' superior finger-speed.

This appears to be the year of the occupier, so how about something a little more insurrectionist (within the bounds of civility, that is)? What would be a suitable radical activity/celebration for the 'sphere this year?

• Leave a copy of the Typewriter Insurgency Manifesto rolled into the platen of a plastic electronic wedge at your local thrift mart
• Strap a portable to a bike and try a little mobile art, a la Type Rider Maya Stein
• Stage a little poetry in the park
• Type on a train
• Peck out a postcard
• Send something personal back to junk mailers

What do you say, Typosphere?

 * To be totally honest, I might have come this close to forgetting.

"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.

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.

Typewriting Around the World?

Quick, before Blogger melts down again!

A few years ago, I got all ambitious over on Clickthing and declared an elaborate celebration of Typewriter Day, known to mortals as June 23. This is the anniversary of the date when Christopher Sholes received the U.S. patent for his device that in time grew to become the one we know and love.

Inspired by shordzi's excellent videos, I wondered... do you think we could get everyone to shoot a little video of themselves typing on June 23rd? Perhaps write up a little bit about where you were, what you were typing, etc.. Post on your favorite video-sharing site, and we can make a gallery here after the fact.

What say you all?