Bay Area Type-In: Photos and Type Samples

In roughly chronological order:





Sadie's information card which I typed up in advance. I don't know exactly what the etiquette is for identifying one's own machines. I thought I should be prepared, though, in case anyone asked what age my machine was (they didn't.) You can see Sadie in the foreground, the typecast page about to be used with my ramblings. Richard's Twolympia in the middle, and Carolee aka "Good Mail Day" pecking away on a Smith-Corona that she adopted from yours truly.

I brought a box of these little paper squares for samples and for sharing. I'm glad I did, since it let me compile something of a group of "trading cards" for all the machines I tried out. It also gave me a chance to forget to change the margin on more than one machine, as you'll see.

* * *







I am not afraid of the paint can when used to trick out a typewriter. I figure they shouldn't have to go through their retirement with the same office-drab paint they came into. But I don't have the chops (yet?) to completely remove all the panels and have the whole thing done. This machine... audacious. And perfect, for the size of the typeface. I love it.

* * *

This next one was clearly in the look-but-don't-touch category:



I wish the lighting and my own camera skills could have been more compatible. These simply do not do the machine or the rings justice.




Never used, these rings. Still in the original box.



How do you top a museum piece like that? MORE TYPING.

* * *



Hubris = typos. Remember that. It's actually not a German keyboard. Richard and the shop folks were taking and making guesses. Attention Bob Messenger: you are needed on the West Coast!





* * *

Lots of flitting around at this event: the Cole-Steel was on the same table as the Continental, near the camera here:



The Olympia was more toward the back. I know that I tend to comment on noise of these machines. There was a heady din through most of the day. A wonderful, metal-on-paper din.





Some of the Royal 10, which had been rebuilt at some point in its past. The glass panels had been removed and replaced with plastic (?) with the textured finish. I love the service label in the shift key. Here it is, getting a workout from Tony M.



And some attempts at unusual angles:





* * *

I tended to move at random from machine to machine. My attempt at typing "The quick brown fox" (positionally) on a Cyrillic (?) Good Companion was not filled with promise.





* * *

An Adler travel machine was set up in the back, and was one of my first brushes with the documentary crew. Props to them for managing two guys with cameras and a boom mic in a space made smaller by all the tables and typists.



The Hermes was by the front door, next to the sign-in Underwood standard. Adwoa would surely have passed it by without a second glance, but it stood out here, battered and dusty though it was.

* * *

I got a chance to take Richard's Twolympia for a spin. A risky move (for him) given my proclivities for these machines. He had some handy excuse about the carriage not stopping all the time, but I think this was just a self-preservation move on his part. NEXT TIME, POLT. NEXT TIME.



* * *



Olivetti vs. Olivetti vs. Facit! The winner? I may have to go with the script Olivetti, to be totally honest, though the Facit was something else.



* * *

Around the middle of the event, we heard some kind words from the owners of the shop, who were pleasantly pleased that they had to dig out their old tools once again, and were amused at the variety of machines that are now walking in the door. I think there were at least two customers not part of the type-in that came in to the shop. Not bad for a Friday afternoon with a sketchy-looking crowd hanging around the place.


Our hosts and some shots around the shop...


Around the room for introductions.








No table space? Play it where they lie.


Right in the front window, like a beacon of awesome. So. Shiny.


Oh Ames, how we miss you.


Old and new, working together.

* * *

And at Richard's comment ("Hey, did you see their workbench?") I naturally stuck my nose behind the magic screen...









* * *

Finally -- and sadly! -- it was time to get a little last typing in and head home. A final comparison type sample, and a few parting thoughts.





Get turned on to typing at California Typewriter!

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

Stapler Week

Wait, I missed stapler week in the Typosphere?

DAMN

IT



My own humble contribution to the photoset. Found (of course) while thrifting. This is a #3 Swingline, a shorter, stubbier version of the desk-sized #4. It's in amazingly good shape, and I use it at work regularly.



I love that even something as mundane as an office stapler appeared to require aerodynamic styling, possibly to coordinate with the other things on the desk...



Some of that design aesthetic lingered on long after staplers and typewriters became angular metal and plastic:

Fatherly Advice, and Peanut Butter

Well, it's not exactly a vacation right now, preparing for Christmas with three kids. Most of my week was spent shuttling my eldest child to and from his end-of-semester exams, or final shopping, or wrapping. Any non-perishable goods not nailed down tend to get wrapped and stowed under the tree around here in these final few days, and attributed to the dog. "Peanut butter! Just what we needed!"

A word of fatherly advice for any parents of young children: you'll get endless entertainment by tossing out the "what shall we get mommy for Christmas" routine, and instead taking your child to the local junk store (99-cents-only, or the like) and turning them loose to pick out gifts. There is never a bad time to do this -- my own father is a firm believer in the Christmas Eve shopping trip. ("No lines, and the choices are easy!") My wife and I have been alternately gifted with some really magical things over the years as a result that reveal far more about the psyches of our offspring than any battery of tests might reveal. I suppose wrapping up dry goods and blaming the pets says a lot about me, too.

* * *

I've held my nose and plunged back into my NaNo draft. It's... not as terrible as I'd thought. Rough in parts, and full of the usual amount of flailing, tangential asides, and shifting character names and motivations. I've got to do better by this draft, and try not to let it get added to the growing stack of "to edit" pages archived in boxes. Perhaps I'll leave a few chapters out for Santa with the milk and cookies and see if he'll give me the gift of a critical eye this year. Anyone else dipping toes into the creative waters before the year is up? I'll start banging the "I need beta readers" drum here before too long, I hope, and I'm always happy to do a novel exchange.

* * *

The San Francisco Bay Area Type-In is prepped and ready: 2pm on the 27th at California Typewriter in Berkeley. I treated myself to a replacement camera about a month ago after the flash died on my old one, so I plan to show up with paper, typewriter, and an itchy shutter finger. I also plan on chaining myself to the nearest SG-1 and not leaving until they cut me loose and haul me away. I figure that's pretty exciting stuff, and only regret not causing a bigger scene the last time a documentary crew rolled through town. I'll be rectifying that, don't worry. Typosphere: please start collecting bail money now.

* * *

The kids are counting down the days, and hours, and probably seconds until they get to unwrap all those new, mysterious gifts under the tree. ("Saltines?") I'm counting down the days until I get to meet Typospherians face-to-face and enjoy a little typewriter time, and to get away from what will surely be known as the Saltines-and-Peanut-Butter Riots of 2013. If you're looking at the calendar with dread and anxiety and an unfinished gift list, the dad in me recommends a quick trip to Heifer International to support families in need around the world. Maybe it's not as great as a trip to the dollar store or a festively wrapped jar of jalapeño peppers -- for New Year's nachos! -- but it can make an actual difference in someone's life. No matter what your beliefs or how you might celebrate the passing of the old year and the start of a new, why not take a look?

* * *

Hope to see many of you on the 27th, and for those I don't, Merry Christmas!

Holiday Musings on Time, and Tunnel Vision, and Typing

I'm on vacation, technically. It began Friday evening at 5:30 local time, when I closed down the windows, lowered my standing desk to normal height -- because I live in earthquake country and am paranoid -- did a last scan around the office for any thing I'd need over break, turned off the phone and lights, scanned the office again (see paranoia, above) and left. The last two weeks have a been a blur. The American Thanksgiving holiday in November is not pinned down to any specific date, but rather falls on the fourth Thursday of the month, and this year the placement of days put it as late as it can possibly come.

Thanksgiving marks the beginning of The Holiday Season, when all the retailers kick into overdrive with sales to entice you in to the stores while you're still digesting your holiday meal or, in an alarming trend this year, in lieu of it. I suspect that many of the Typosphere are cut from similar cloth: if not purely anti-retail, then at least I would expect a lot of us are anti-retail-hype, and would sooner drop a typewriter on our feet repeatedly than sacrifice our minds, bodies, and sanity for the promise of a cheap(er) TV or tablet. All you needed to do was camp out in a parking lot for a few days in advance. Happy holidays!

Well, not me, of course. First because I don't buy into the hype. Second, because I can't understand the mindset of people who do buy into the hype and they scare me. Third, because I'm usually up to my earlobes in work and projects, which was the case again this year. 2013 was a success for us at work, I'd say, assembling something of a working process or pipeline of software out of fairly disparate staff and skills, and producing finished projects with release schedules and test plans and impressive-sounding buzzwords. Sitting, as I do, near the starting end of the pipeline, though, I need to get enough things set up for my peers to be able to do their jobs while I'm out. I've been wearing a face that hopefully conveys something along the lines of "I'm very very busy right now and I'd love to talk to you/blog for you/type on you/stop and eat a meal but ask me again in mid-December." Everyone and everything in my orbit has seen The Face. But as of Friday evening, I packed up The Face and headed home.

As a child, I can remember the amorphous stretch of time between Thanksgiving and Christmas as being interminably slow, making paper chains to count down the days (one link per day) and begging for the tree and the trimmings and the lights to somehow will the holiday into arriving faster. As a parent of children, the karmic wheel has turned, and my own kids are wondering why I still haven't hung the stockings up this year, or when all the bins are leaving the middle of the family room so we can start stacking presents up. (The answer is: I haven't found the bin containing the stockings yet.) Being sapped with projects certainly made the time pass, and maybe now that I'm away from work I can again experience the luxury of waiting, of having nothing better to do than to look forward to something.

I don't believe that for a moment, of course. I have plenty to do, not the least of which is locating that damn bin. I want to pull my 2013 NaNo draft out of hibernation and see how good or bad it went, when looked at as a whole. I admit to a certain level of tunnel vision or selective memory with the draft: the ending was odd, and I recall the last quarter or so, but it will be like a fresh, raw text when I sit down to it. I think making The Face offed a few brain cells. We'll see what that looks like. There's shopping to be done and cookies to be made, and my kids are still finishing up school this week, too. Everyone else gets to stop making their Faces by next Saturday, and then our calendar is blissfully blank and tranquil.

Ah, except for a week after this coming Friday, which Richard "The Mad Professor" Polt has declared a San Francisco Bay Area type-in. I'm excited to attend, since I'm sure I'll need some time away from my darling children and their post-holiday hysteria, and I get to meet what looks like a sizeable chunk of the Typosphere. I've got a typewriter to polish up for sure, maybe something photogenic? We'll put our best faces forward.

Thankful

Our Thanksgiving holiday just happened here yesterday -- for readers outside the United States, it's an annual celebration of food, family, and televised (American) football. This year it's also been the unfortunate victim of the capitalistic tendency to get amped up about Christmas and the Christmas shopping season, to the point where stored were open on Thanksgiving Day, a concept that would have been unheard of just a few years back. You won't find me huddling in a parking lot line, waiting to join a mob rushing for cheap TVs -- no surprise -- since we still try to keep Thanksgiving around here as sane and low-key as possible. I"ve had my share of quiet ones, and I've had my share of busy ones, where every relative and friend of the family has a plate piled high and is pushed into any available seating they can find. Both kinds are excellent, but I can't think that camping out since Wednesday night -- yes, really -- is the way to go, not even in the mild late fall weather of California. Sorry, retailers: I'm eating leftover pie this morning with a coffee and being grateful for my family.

As is traditional in our house, and in many others, we go around the table before Thursday's big meal and each say something we're thankful for. Watching my kids roll their eyes at dad's dorky traditionsis just another gift I'm giving to them, one that I hope they'll remember and continue with their own families when they're seated around their own family tables someday. I usually point out that I'm thankful for them, and for time off from work, and for not going shopping, and for my wife's excellent cranberry sauce and for pie (I tend to cut loose in the pastry-baking department.)

And of course, dear Typosphere, I'm thankful for you all. For your expertise and experience, your good humor, your scholarship, excellent photography, and general cleverness. I'm thankful for NaNoWriMo and the chance to cut loose in the creativity department (always trying to finish before the pies) and I'm always thankful for the Brigade and their goofy madness. I'm thankful that we're able to rise above and shrug off labels like "hipster" and support one another without being egotistical or exclusive about it. I'm thankful for repair shops and repair links! I'm thankful for yard sales and church basement sales and thrift stores, and am equally thankful for the strength not to bring home every orphan machine. My wife is thankful for that, too.

Normal operations should be starting up again here next month. My NaNo draft is done, my brain is relaxed, and I think work might be getting back to a more normal pace again.

The Horizon from 46,425*

I can't see it yet, but I can feel it... the end of the NaNoWriMo sprint. The end of the story, and the end of the early-morning wake up call. Characters have changed, plots have shuffled around, details have filled themselves in. I'm just channeling the muse, trying to keep the plane level and the course as straight as possible.

Honing in on the horizon. That's me.

* Wordcount estimate puts me with about 3,500 words to go. OCR counting says I crossed the line a day and a half ago. I'm going with the estimates, because I know how many typos are keeping the Rhino aloft right now.

Impermanence

Written with a Moleskine 2B pencil.