The Challenge of Being

Oh Baby Celebrating #TypewriterDay 2018 with a Swiss friend #hermes #typewriter #vintage #typography

A post shared by Michael P. Clemens (@mpclemens) on Jun 23, 2018 at 7:19am PDT

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I think my "new" blogging methodology is to try to remember my password every 6-9 months or so, post, and then vanish into the fog again. The good Professor Polt has commented that social media looks like it's usurped straight-up blogging, and I'm certainly guilty of that, though I've also given myself a hard diet from it. Except for Instagram (follow, like & share!) I have all but dropped off the Social Media train -- or is it trainwreck? -- and I attribute that to making me feel happier, too. But I'm still here, cyber-stalking as one does on teh Cyberz.

I will say that despite there being fewer voices in the blog world, the typewriter community at large feels even larger and livelier than ever. The Yahoo groups are still (still!) hanging on, and there's no shortage of restorers, resellers, and admirers out there. It's heartening, because I feel like we've adapted as a community, even as the winds of what's "cool" have changed. For myself, I do claim a much longer personal history with the image than with the written word. I truly didn't get "in" to writing until joining up with the Typewriter Brigade all those (Duffy) Moons ago.  So my gradual upgrading of a better phone and camera, and obsessively snapping pictures of office buildings and random architectural details is nothing new. It's just easier to share: practically frictionless, like social media was designed to be.

One massive disadvantage to willfully dropping off social media -- and perpetually being bad at blog upkeep -- is that I cannot pester people remotely and incessantly for personal gain. If you're still in the NaNoWriMo Typewriter Brigade, you may know that I attempted some Bravery last year and asked people for donations and dressed up and carried a typewriter to San Francisco on a train and talked with strangers and had a great time. I count all of these as Major Achievements, especially the dressing-up part. And I'm doing it again, or am hoping to:

I'm fundraising to attend the NaNoWriMo Night of Writing Dangerously, held in San Francisco. It took me a decade of self-convincing to believe that I could do it, and now I'm trying to stamp out that regret by going back. Last year I took a travel 'writer, and my hands and arms paid dearly. This year, we type in style -- I'm thinking Olympia SM9 -- and damn the consequences and possible hernia.

But I need your help...

I have a fundraising page set up, and all proceeds go to the fine folks at NaNoWriMo.org for their educational programs and outreach. I wrote more about it on the page, it's goofy and pleading, just like me in real life. If you're able to contribute even a small amount, I and the NaNo folks, would be most grateful. U.S. contributions are tax-deductible, and if you're a lapsed Wrimo, this is a good way to help out an organization and promote the Typosphere. I was the only typewriter-bearer in the ballroom last year, and I made a welcome racket (seriously: so many people complemented me on the industrious noise.)

Thank you in advance for your support, and I hope you all have a delightful Typewriter Day.

Impact

Preparations began the night before...










As usual, the joy of pulling together a typecast is tempered by the cringing horror at my inability to spell. In my defense: it was early, I had not had coffee yet, and I had just hoofed it up a couple of hills to the pre-selected spot. But what a view! That's Mount Diablo, in the San Francisco Bay Area. There are far worse places to sit and be inspired on a summer morning, even without proper caffeine dosing beforehand.

As Richard rightly points out, this invented celebration has taken on a life of its own. I never expected that well into the 21st century we'd be fetishizing typewriters with wirelessly-connected pocket computers. It's a funny old world. But of course QWERTY and its cousins live on strong in our pockets. We're all carrying a piece of Sholes with us, and I don't think anyone's ready to say farewell to their keyboards just yet, physical or virtual. It's hard to get attached to a poem that's been "swiped."

Typed on a Smith-Corona Corsair Deluxe

Easily Suede

Aside from the obnoxious wrinkle in the paper, I think it looks pretty good.



And it certainly cushioned the blows, too. And no punch-outs on my paper, either. Now we see how it does in the face of a 30-day marathon typing extravaganza.

The Fringes

The original typing spot, more comfortable than it looks



Pro tip: make sure your ribbons aren't dry before Typewriter Day, and allow settling time if you must re-ink. Splotchiness aside, it was good to get fingers on keys again, and I attracted only a small amount of attention from a group of passing students out early on campus. Summer sessions must be starting up since I saw more people during my half-hour typing walkabout than I have in the last three weeks. Or maybe it's just the attractive magic of the day.


The backup typing spot, once the aural assault began

The Corsair still surprises me for being less-awful than I imagine it to be. For this purpose, it's just about perfect as it is light enough to carry, with the enclosed plastic body and sealed bottom keeping it free of dents and making it suitable for just about any surface.


How convenient: waist-level typing stations with their own outlets for your coffeepot

Typed on a SCM Corsair Deluxe, nee Skyriter

That Magical Age

Typed on a very Muggle-ish 1952 Skyriter


It's alarming to me how out-of-practice I've gotten at typing. Typos, dropped words... you'd think we were in the middle of NaNoWriMo. Which, incidentally, is approaching at an alarming pace: even faster than my kids are growing, it feels like. I hope to get some more limbering-up typecasts in during the next month.

High, Concept

For as long as it lasts, here's the exhibit in question, but a quick interwebs search can find you information about numerous concept cars, including ones that should have been in my toy car collection, if oil embargoes hadn't spoiled everyone's fun.

Typed on a 1952 Smith-Corona Skyriter

Reflexes, Resonance, and Focusing on Infinity

See note for photo pedants, below


* GAS = Gear Acquisition Syndrome, a plague of the camera enthusiast





It's been far too long since I pulled out a typewriter and whipped up a typecast. I hope not to stray too far from what I consider to be the core act of a Typospherian. This was banged out on the first machine I had at hand, a locally sourced Olympia SM3. It's good to see that I have not forgotten how to make typos, though all the shadowing does tell me that I'm slow to get my hands out of the way of the keys. "Argus" is the camera brand, not "Argo" as my brain insisted. Other typo corrections are left as an exercise to the reader.

I see many of the blogs in the 'sphere are turning cameraward now. Maybe it's just because summer is approaching here in the U.S., and so one's thoughts turn naturally towards being in a dark room splashing around in cool water. The natural pungentness of the homebrew Caffenol-C developer does mean, though, that your dark room should be well-ventilated. (And while we're on the subject, ye gods do my kids look little in those old photos. Five years!)

Other photo bloggers: what are you using for fixer? Seems to me that was the only part of the process where I had to "go commercial" and just used a fixer concentrate. When that finally ran out, I set everything on the shelf again, and then evidently got busy for half a decade.

Film really is tremendous fun, and black-and-white developing is a large part of that. It's alchemy, pure and simple, turning light and microscopic silver particles into art with nothing more than coffee and soap.

The Argoflex EF (says the Internet) is a metal-bodied version of the earlier Bakelite model E and some variants. It's pretty heavy, reminiscent of the Argus C3 "brick" camera that shares the same simplicity and meshed-gear design. It's a basic design, compared to the far fiddlier -- and honestly, much nicer -- Rolleiflex cameras that I inherited from my late grandfather. I would not be afraid to take the Argoflex out to the beach, for example. It does take 620 film, but true to the Typospherian spirit, modern 120 film can be wound onto old 620 spools to fit.

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Note for photo pedants: yes, I know this is not how one technically uses the infinity mark on the lens. Although this may be how one sets it for getting the focus coupling sorted out.

For those not in the know, you line up the marks on the lenses with the setting of the aperture -- the opening -- to find out the depth-of-field of your photo. Closing the aperture into a small opening allows a broad depth-of-field, or basically a photo that's in focus for a much of the distance (think landscape shots.) For sweet "bokeh" effects or to bring one area of the picture into focus, you open up the aperture and line up the marks accordingly. Aperture settings are marked in pairs on manual focus lenses. On this camera, the aperture settings are:

18 12.7 9 6.3 4.5 | 4.5 6.3 9 12.7 18

If I were set up for a real photo, that infinity mark should be lined up over one of these settings. For philosophical reasons and because the light was better :-) I put the infinity mark at the central line.

Bay Area Type-In: A Typecast and First Impressions

(click to embiggen)

Just a quick post of the typecast that I started at today's Type-In at California Typewriter in Berkeley, courtesy of the magical organizational powers of Richard Polt and the documentary crew, and of course our hosts. At the end of the event, Richard pointed out that three hours seemed like it would be too long -- in the end, they flew by. I got my hands on some prize machines, at least long enough to get type samples and some photos, which I hope to post tomorrow. Highlights certainly include the animal-key Remington, the 6-cpi Smith-Corona painted in pink glitter, and all the worthy machines lining the shop walls. A chrome Lettera! A gilt Royal Quiet de Luxe! Three-banks galore! Arrrrgh! The temptations were great indeed.

Best of all, though, were the people: putting actual faces to names I've only read online, or voices to those faces that I've only seen in profile photos. (If that makes any sense.) Oh, and a Fun Fact! I was not at all successful in appearing cool and collected around of the camera, and am sure that I babbled and rambled mercilessly. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. Honest. I don't talk that fast in real life. Sometimes I even make sense.

In all, a grand event, and I'm very grateful to Herb, Ken, and Carmen for opening their doors, laying out the tables, and keeping the room humming on coffee and cupcakes. There was music in the air today, folks, and it was lovely.


Typed on Sadie, freshly waxed and cleaned with a brand new ribbon

Fugue (For Marilyn and Dolly)

This typecast is web-enhanced for your convenience: see the bottom of the page for end-notes and links.


















* "hopelessly blurry," not "hopefully blurry"

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End-Notes:

1. "Tommy" by The Who, in case you're not familiar. I mean, what else would you listen to for a trip to a pinball place? Proof that it was kismet: "Pinball Wizard" started up just as I got into a parking spot. Half the album for the drive in, half for the drive out. That's how you know when something is Meant To Be.
2. You can roughly lump machines around how they display scores. Some of the very early machines just used lamps behind painted numbers, making the score an integral part of the artwork. Later machines used reels with numbers on them, and then segment displays (like a digital watch) and then ultimately a grid of pixels, which I think are actually neon, not LED, though I would imagine the technology of LEDs has improved enough to make those viable, too. I'm not fully "up" on the latest play technology. I do know that one of the last acts of Williams Pinball (before folding) was the creation of a platform called "Pinball 2000" which uses a very old optical trick known as Pepper's Ghost to appear to project a computer display on or over the playfield. They have one of these at PPM, but I find the display distracting -- like trying to play golf and watch TV at the same time. Some things were not meant to be. I think modern makers are going back to having just light displays on the table, and saving the fancy tech for the backglass, which is where you want it -- to attract new players and their loose change.
3. Damn, that was a long end-note. Dolly Parton, via the Internet Pinball Database. (IPDB.org) The "backglass" picture gives you some idea of the taste level of this machine.
4. Marble Queen, and it's just as unbelievable in person.
5. Dragonette, showing that it's not just Chinese knockoffs that have cornered the market on sound-alike names. Our fair damsel is tied to a chair (of course!) and being given the third degree by a Sherlockian-type character. Also unbelievable.
6. Captain Fantastic and Wizard! Wait, didn''t Ann-Margret play his mother? Oedipus! may have been a horrible name for a pinball.
7. Slick Chick is irresistible to the ladies. Check out the almost-Bugs-Bunny on the lower playfield.
8. Real example: I have Funhouse in various electronic forms. It features a ventriloquist's dummy on the table. Well, just the head. (Those of you with clown/dummy aversions should skip the rest of this note.) It's called "Rudy," for what it's worth, and Rudy heckles you and factors in to some play modes. What you miss on a TV or tablet game, though, is that Rudy is big. Like, real-dummy's-head big. It's like a child's head is stuck in the machine... and the eyes move. You miss all of this nightmare-fuel on recreated versions. Also, PPM's Rudy has a broken eye, so he's slightly cross-eyed all the time. More funny than scary. Mostly.
9. Seawitch, a one-word name, not two as I have it. A fine example of how mixing up the playfield can make a novel game. Boy, is this one fun.
10. Laser Cue. Because ROBOTS AND LASERS THAT'S WHY.
11. Mystic. The eye and pyramid on the backglass are photo-realistic, which is even more unnerving given the normal cartoony illustrations of the table art.
Second footnote #11... The first real pinball experience I can recall is Haunted House which I blogged about indirectly in the very early days of Clickthing.  It may not have been my first ever machine, but it's the one that sticks with me in my memory as being Completely and Totally Awesome. Probably doesn't hurt that I was about 11 or 12 at the time I played it, maybe younger. That table is regularly asked for in app form by fans who had the same near-religious experience as I did: some even as adults, I gather. It is reportedly an utter nightmare to maintain, with a complex electrical system that required two sets of circuits (and hence flipper buttons) and has ton of features and parts that are hard to source, access, and repair. Supposedly, you can buy one of these, set it up, and just listen to it fall apart. I may be making that up. Maybe. During my formative teen years on summer vacations I played games like Cyclone and Pinbot and High Speed, all of which I played today for that nostalgia boost ("I can't believe it's been 25 years" etc.) but nothing can take the place of that first pin.
12. Time Machine. No mention of badgers on IPDB, though.
13. CSI, for what it's worth. Far better: playing Doctor Who multiple times, to retroactively make my nerdy Whovian teen self happy.

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Hey Teeritz! The machine you're thinking about is Hercules, which is a jumbo-sized machine that plays using a pool ball instead of a steel ball. If you like slow, prone-to-break machines, you'll love Hercules! Proof that novelty alone doesn't make a good table.

Black Knight is a classic table, and should never be uttered in the same sentence as Hercules. I have played the former in real life, and once was enough. The latter was out of commission at PPM, so I hope to get a shot at it next time.

Those of you with some sort of electronic computing technology and a yen for the silver ball should run-don't-walk to The Pinball Arcade. They're doing an excellent job of digitizing these machines, even if they don't manage the life-sized creepy talking doll heads. Can't have it all, I guess.

Prelude

I suppose there's the easy comparison with both machines containing bells, too, although most mechanical noisemakers except the extra-ball/replay knocker have been replaced by stereo sound. Nobody dares touch that knock, though. It's just an electromagnet that smacks a piece of wood in the cabinet, essentially, but it's one of those funny little holdovers form the past -- like QWERTY? -- that can't be changed, at least not easily. To get rid of that component is to lose some of the pinball-nature of the table.

PPM has a website with hours and photos, in case you ever find yourself in the Bay Area and need an afternoon of amusement. I bet they'd have no problem staging a type-in.

Typed on an Olympia SM3

Finders and Keepers, a Refocusing

Wow, sorry about the line spacing. That's shockingly bad, even for the low standards of this blog. The Baby's advance mechanism doesn't mesh quite as cleanly as it should, and disuse isn't helping. It deserves better than the neglect that's been heaped upon it.

In case you can't read the post: if you're local and have requested a machine or three, let's figure out a pickup. If you're not local, get me your shipping details. If you don't yet know what I'm talking about, check out the previous post. Next stop for unclaimed machines is likely the TYPESWAP Yahoo group.

What's more embarrassing that the pile of unopened and unfamiliar cases is the stack of boxes sitting around with typewritten drafts within. Not that the drafts are anything special, mind you -- "shockingly bad" could apply here, as well -- but they (and the Nano Rhino what begat them) also deserve better.


Typed with difficulty on a 1943 Hermes Baby

Choices

Typed on "Sadie", 1954 Underwood De Luxe Quiet Tab