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

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

An Unconventional Typewriter Day

Unconventional, because I had the day off! I spent little of the actual day typing as we're entertaining company, and with all due respect to Mr. Sholes, I didn't want to spend it all in front of the keys. I'm looking forward to catching up on everyone's creative endeavors.

As for me, I delved back into colorcasting, this time using crayons on some erasable onionskin that I picked up, thinking that the thinner paper and the special coating (?) might make a more carbon-paper-like surface. In the end, I prepared four sheets with alternating stripes of colors, and then used each to type something "conventional": a few lines of the exploits of the Quick Brown Fox, a thank-you note to Mr. Sholes, a shout out to World Typewriter Day, and the reminder to all Good Men that Now Is The Time.

Scanned and placed inside the letterforms of Richard Polt's Sholes & Glidden font, itself a scanned piece made from the handiwork of a far more famous and literary Clemens...




Only too late did I realize how well the lighter wax would work on darker paper: maybe next year!

Using the thinner paper as a base layer for the wax worked well, and I turned the touch control on the typewriter all the way down to the lightest touch. Lots of punch-outs on the closed letters, as you would expect, so another colorcasting lesson was learned: always use an open-bottom typewriter! My table was covered in colorful, waxy confetti when all was done.

Typewriter Day 2013

From L to R: youngest on the pimpwriter, me on the SM3, middle child on a Silent-Super

Practicing the alphabet, a postcard for the insurgency, and a letter to Grandma. How did you spend your Typewriter Day?

Happy Typewriter Day

It's Typewriter Day today, the anniversary of the first U.S. Patent by Christopher Latham Sholes, and a good enough reason as any to celebrate the establishment of the machine that transformed writing, business, and the lives of thousands (millions?) over many decades.

Today is also, I later learned, what would have been Alan Turing's 100th birthday. It's just as arguable that Turing's work also transformed writing, business, and the lives of millions.

Though neither man can get sole credit for the invention (and later perfection) of their creations, both stand out in their respective fields, and you wouldn't be reading this -- nor I writing it -- without their work. I'd like to think that both would have appreciated the natural contrariness and DIY-ish-ness of the Typosphere, too.

I started today off on a decidedly curmudgeonly tear, ripping down advertising that appeared to have magically affixed itself to the street light poles in my immediate neighborhood. I consider this sort of thing vertical litter, and feel that I have just as much right to remove ads stuck to a public pole as the originator had to post them. (More, in fact, since I'm sure they are violating codes.) After stuffing the accumulated paper into a nearby garbage can, I happened to look down and notice how much the metal covers on our local residential water lines look like a certain Sholesian invention.

In honor of both these gentlemen, today I will be typing something and it will be cryptic. I'll say no more right now...

Have a grand day, everyone! Don't forget to share the outcome of your own celebrations over at the Typosphere.

Happy Typewriter Day

The scene for today's Typewriter Day celebrations. I've got video to splice together of the actual typing, such as it is. It was very difficult to pack up at the end of my lunch hour and head back indoors.

Babied

My morning walking companion, determined that a leaf blowing across the street is actually a squirrel, and thus demands a halt in our walk for a stare-down.


Typed on a 1943 Hermes "baby"

Play "Misty" For Me

Typewriter Day 2009

June 23, 2009

That's tomorrow, folks. Any plans for some public typing? How about finally sitting down and working on that thing for Strikethru's type journal? Me? Looks like I may be celebrating with jury duty. No cell phones or cameras or doodads allowed... wonder what they would think about a Corsair Deluxe?

Update: Decided not to tempt fate and upset the deputies and left the typer at home, and wouldn'tchaknowit, I sat today. I've got a typecast in mind when the case is over in a day or two, kindly raise a type-bar for me in the meantime, everyone!

It's Almost Here

Typewriter Day 2009, that is. If you're a member of the Italian Orthodoxy, you might have celebrated this back at the end of April, but there's enough typer-love in this world to celebrate on June 23rd as well, a.k.a. the anniversary date of the U.S. patent granted to Christopher Scholes. I have to admit to being a little over-planny with last year's celebrations as it seemed to require as much coordination and general fussing than other projects in the news, and with apparently less overall success.

Any ideas for this year? I like the public typing component of it, especially as one of our number has shown it to not only be easy, but entertaining as well. I still like Olivander's find of a letter-writing-service for imaginary persons, and judging by the comments in the post, this idea got a few of you thinking how you might burn through your fabulous stationery supply.

What say all of you?

Errata

• Like a dolt I missed World Pinhole Day this past Sunday. This from the guy with a drawer full of various junk-store cameras, including at least one that has been converted to pinhole use. I even bothered to put it on the site links, too. Argh. I had intended to redo the pinhole plane on my crappy Bell & Howell plastic junker -- the hole is off-center, which bothers me more than I'd like to admit.

• Speaking of days, did you realize that it's supposedly Manual Typewriter Day today? Yeah, me neither. That's the bad news. The good news is that tomorrow, all those decorations will be half-off, just in time to prep for your own Typewriter Day festivities (June 23, don't forget!) A Typewriter Day in April? Sounds like an excuse to sell more greeting cards to me.
• From the gotta-try-this department, I stumbled into the recipe for "Caffenol" film developer, made from kitchen ingredients like instant coffee and washing powder. This just sounds too cool to ignore, despite the long develop times and the reported mega-stink that it makes. Of course, real developer is no bouquet of roses, either. Those zany kids and their chemistry knowledge.
  

Sowing Ephemera

I've been thinking more about Typewriter Day 2009, and I think Olivander's inadvertently hit on a great theme for this year's type-0-bration. It removes the anxiety of typing drivel over someone else's work, but still gives your fingers and ribbons and keys a workout. I like it, and highly encourage you all to elect Olivander as your 2009 Typewriter Day Parade Marshal.

The only idea I've been able to come up wth somewhere is one that I stole from... someplace* on the Intertubes. One of the joys of coming into old typewriters or cameras or the like is the random bits of ephemera that sometimes are floating around in the case. My most recent acquisition of an old camera bag, for instance, included the lenses and such that I actually wanted, but also three cloth bags meant to hold a roll of exposed film and be mailed back for processing. Mailed where? Who knows... there's no address, but it's a neat thing nonetheless. Old film is even better, if you can find it. Whole flickr sets are devoted to this form of random treasure-finding.

Better still, though, is found writing. Marginalia in secondhand books, newspaper clippings pressed inside pages, the works. All fascinating stuff to the retro-minded. The only problem with it is that there's so little to go around. And so here I sit, with typewriters and paper and pens and pencils all around me, and nary a project in sight... hmmm. If only I could somehow share that joy of finding ephemera... double hmmm...

So I'm distilling the idea of a themed, typewritten letter with the joy of finding something personal in an unexpected place. Specificaly, I'm going to type up a bunch of stealth bookmarks and -- on the sly --"salt" books in the library and secondhand shops around me with these slips. Random phrases, lucky numbers, torn fragments from a Dear John letter. And it should keep this idle mind busy enough to stay out of serious trouble until June.

* One of the problems with subscribing/scanning/reading so many blogs is that I have a lousy memory for where I read a really neat thing, and rather than be able to link directly to it, I tend to natter on (like this) about this great idea I read... someplace... and can't give credit. So if you see this somewhere else, it's likely that's where I stole it.

Traveling typewriting lives!

Just a quick update. Last summer's Typewriter Day experiment lives on,or at least part of it is sitting with me. My own meager attempt has come full-circle, and I've got at least one other in my hands now. In retrospect, the "traveling fiction" idea may have set the bar a bit high, as I'm already sweating how to add to Olivander's in a suitable way, and we had a number of folks who had to defect for one reason or another. What an electric thrill, though, to get something in the actual mail, typewritten on onionskin. I'm pleased to be able to add a little from my own hoard to the bottom of the stack. We'll have to find some suitable way to mark June 23rd again this year. Any ideas?

Snippets of news

A couple of things of interest today:

Just when you thought it was time to put away the banners and bunting, the Typewriter Day celebration continues! Despite events both unfortunate (a few drop-outs) and fortunate (a wedding and a major move -- both for the same person) I believe all of the T.D. packets are still accounted for, with one making the cross-country trek as I type this, hopefully to arrive on Western shores... soonish. Everyone think positive thoughts for the postal service and pray for mild headwinds.

After a bit of technical hysterics, the NaNoWriMo.org site is up and going again, and hopefully for the duration. All Typewriter Brigade members and supporters are encouraged to join up and become one with the collective. There is no escape.

Realizing that my participation in the T.B. may upset a few denizens of my house (read: everyone) while I'm banging out my nightly 1,667 after bedtime, I'm going to make a felt typing pad to act as a cushy barrier between the bottom of the chosen machine(s) and the writing surface of choice. Watch this space for thrilling updates of the knitting variety.

Finally, typecaster "Desert Loon" has posted pictures of his new daughter, and I have to say that she may be the third most beautiful little girl on the planet (after my own two, natch.) Click on over and get your awwww on.

It's Typewriter Day!

One hundred forty years ago today, Christopher Latham Sholes was granted the first United States Patent for a typewriter, a fact that we celebrate! He is also responsible for unleashing QWERTY upon the world, which may not be celebrated quite as loudly.

Few patents from 1868 have such a presence in modern times. If you have a typewriter, dust it off, get those fingers on the home row, and type up a note of thanks to dear old Mr. Sholes.

Dear you

• Typewriter Day topic
  

Celebrating Typewriter Day: a modest proposal

Spring is here, and the thoughts of young typists have turned once again to... random acts of clacktivism. Monda found it and Strikethru picked it up and of course being a complete Control Freak, I will now attempt to drive it into the ground. NaNoWriMo is over five months away as I write this, but Typewriter Day is approaching fast -- only 32 shopping days left! -- and I think the fingers of Duffy's Typewriter Brigade grow restless. What to do?

In the spirit of various Internet traveling [item] projects (journals, cameras, etc.) I'd like to propose traveling type-writing, rules as follows:

Prerequisites:

• You must have in your possession a typewriter, or be able to lay hands upon one by June 23 a.k.a. Typewriter Day a.ka. the 140th anniversary of the first U.S. typewriter patent to Sholes.
• You must be able to use said typewriter.
• You must be able to send and receive mail, and be willing to pass your address to one other typist via email or other channel, and pass your general location to me at traveling.type at gmail . com for route planning.
• You must be able to "sign up" someplace appropriate online. I like the NaNo topic linked above, though members don't need to be NaNo-ers.
• You must be able to afford postage.
  

Process:

1. One June 23rd, take your typewriter and two blank pieces of paper to a public place. (Note for the shy: "public" can be interpreted as you like. Surrounded by your cats in your living room is fine.)
   
2. Insert one piece of paper into your typewriter and Type Something Incomplete. Ideas: start of epic poem, short story, ode to someone walking past, ode to your typewriter, crazy luddite ranting, a treatise on the political inclinations of your cats.
3. Remove paper from typewriter. Gasp in horror at typos and grammar flaws and stilted language and oh-my-God-did-I-really-write-that moments. Take deep breath and put down paper. Have a glass of wine or other Fortifying Beverage as needed.
   
4. Insert other sheet of paper into typewriter, placing a LOG heading on it. Leave a little author's biography or whatever meta-information you like: where/when you typed it, reactions of the public, ideas or apologies for the next author.
5. The tough part. Gather up your sheets of paper and place in envelope. Mail to next typist on the list which will have been worked out in advance. Wait patiently for different letter to arrive from previous typist in chain. Repeat steps 2-4, appending your own genius to those that have gone before you: add to the main page, add to the log. If you complete a page, please number the page before starting a new one. Repeat until your own first pages come back to you. Gasp in wonder at finished product.
   

Considerations:

• Please aim for a prompt turnaround. One week, perhaps?
  
• Don't bundle up different works and send them en masse to the next author. Handle them as they come in, send them out one at a time. This involves a lot of mailing and postage fees (one stamp per bundle at least.)
• Don't write pages and pages and pages when it's your turn, try to keep the contributions (and postage) reasonable.
• Follow the "yes, and" improv rule. That is, when you receive a packet from previous typists, be sure to contribute in the spirit of the thing. Take what's gone before and add to it. Don't kill off characters or hopelessly mangle the hard work of those gone before. Always think "yes, and" then something else...
  

Enough rule-forging for now... discuss!

UPDATE: I have set up a new email account for this project since it's generated some interest. If you want to play, please send a note from your preferred contact email with your general location (e.g., state or province and country) to traveling . type at gmail . com This handles the "sign up online" requirement, so I've struck it out.

ANOTHER UPDATE: I appear to be an idiot, as I selected a name just one letter off from the Travelling Type (two els) blog and email address. Heartfelt apologies to the original TT and for any confusion.