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?

Call me Lucky

Intelligent Fatigue

By request, a typecast from my Remington Ten Forty (as yet unnamed) temporarily borrowing Norma Jean's own ribbon. Annoying as the donut-style spools may be, at least they are interchangeable. As you can see, some type slug cleaning may be required here.

The Twofer

I've become much happier since deciding that I'm really a sucker for pity-case typewriters, especially ones that would be hopelessly bent and maimed by the hands of bored children in tow behind their mothers at the thrift store. I'm providing a service here, honest!

Strange Brew

Hey, it worked!

Not that I should be too surprised. Despite the unlikely-sounding recipe, the chemistry is founded on some solid science, published in a few places besides the interwebs. But still, seeing is believing, as they say. And now I'm sure you're burdened with questions, which I will attempt to address:

Q: What am I looking at here?

A bunch of firsts. I recently bought a 100-foot roll of inexpensive black-and-white 35mm film from Freestyle photo and wound it onto recycled cartridges from Walgreens, using a bulk film loader from the thrift store. First time I'd ever used a bulk loader, or handled that much film in one go. I just finished shooting my first homemade roll of the stuff today.

In the true retro-tech DIY spirit, I also made a batch of Caffenol C developer out of mostly-common household ingredients, and following the spotty and conflicting directions on the Internet, developed this roll tonight.

Q: Caffe-whatnow?

"Caffenol," a jokey name for this particular blend. Recipes are varied, and some call for the addition of vitamin C -- hence Caffenol C --to speed up the development process and give clearer negatives. My Super-Sekrit Recipe (don't tell!) is:

For one roll of 35mm film:

• 1 round teaspoon of vitamin C powder (acetic acid, from the health food store)
  
• 2 round teaspoons of washing soda (a.k.a. soda ash, or sodium carbonate) This is not baking soda.
  
• 4 round teaspoons of the cheapest instant coffee available (regular, not decaf)
• 8 oz. of water at 68 degrees F/20 degrees C

1. Mix coffee with about half of the water in a container.
   
2. Mix vitamin C and soda ash with remaining water in another container. Caution: this becomes fizzy
3. Stir both until all powder/coffee is totally mixed into the water
4. Combine both mixtures and let stand 10-15 minutes for "micro-bubbles" to settle
5. Develop 12 minutes, agitating twice per minute for about ten seconds per cycle. Without the vitamin C this step reportedly takes 20-30 minutes, and the negatives come out a tad foggy.
   
6. Use a water stop bath, um, until the water is clear? Didn't time this step.
7. Use commercial film fixer for recommended time (I did 3 min.)
8. Wash in water, add drop of Jet Dry and hang in shower to dry overnight (see above pic)

Q: While you were talking, I Google'd Caffenol. I hear that it smells bad. Really?

You really need to experience it for yourself. My initial reaction was "Ugh. Oh God. Ugh." It smells so reasonable before it's all mixed together.

I think it smells like coffee and old grease. My son said it smelled like "liquid [explicative]" right before he was sent to his room. It's bad, but not clear-the-house bad. Next time, I'm going to mix it up before I roll my film onto the spools, so I'm not in the same room during its 10-15 minute "breathing time." Phew.

Q: What's the science behind this?

Something about the caffeic acid in the coffee being the developing agent, which is in a higher ratio in instant coffee, due to the cheaper beans used and the roasting process. The soda ash helps goose it along, and the vitamin C boosts it a bit more. Keebler-elf magic and chicken entrails, as far as I'm concerned. But it works. Those negatives look great, certainly on par with the stuff I developed years ago in D-76, or whatever it was we used in class.

Q: Speaking of D-76, why not just buy commercial developer? It's faster, more consistent, and cheaper.

Oh, come on. I use typewriters and fountain pens. Why do anything easy? Besides, it's insanely cool, not just unrolling the film from the spool, but knowing that every part of that process was controlled by me.

Just try it.

Q: What's next?

Once the negatives are dry, I'll put them into some sleeves and see if I can rig up a digital-camera-scanner setup. There's a cereal box near me right now that might make a great daylight lightbox. Stay tuned, coffee achievers.

UPDATE: A few results...

click to embiggen

All softness in these edges of these images is due to my terrible "handoscan" technique (aka, negatives up against the window). I'm amazed how good these look. As a whole, they're a bit dense, but I think that's due to operator error, not the developing process.

Sounds Wonderful

Right now, stop what you're doing and listen. Hear anything?

If you're at home, you're probably surrounded by various neighborhood sounds. The springtime sounds in my suburb are made by the swarms of lawn-care crews running ungodly leaf blowers, chasing invisible clippings into adjoining yards for their service to clean up. (Does no one besides me mow their own grass these days?) If you're in an office, you've likely got the drone of some air-moving machinery, a slight hum from your computer and the light fixtures, and maybe some traffic noise if you're lucky enough to be placed near a window. What's it sound like by you, right now?

Personally, I can't handle silence. I need something happening in the background to work, and at least since college, that "something" has been music, supplied then by hauling my Walkman and a couple of cassettes down to an isolated study carrel, and now by CDs piped through my computer's speakers. Even having the volume down low is better than no sounds at all. And I've added a thrift-store travel alarm clock to the mix -- mechanical, of course -- just for the steady tick-tick-tick it makes in the background. I need this noise, to keep me grounded in the real world. Coding datbases is a solitary, silent existense, and I guess I need a little reminder where I really am when my head is full of tables and queries and joins.

There's a discussion going now on one of the mailing lists about musical typewriters: not typewriters that make music, but that are designed for printing it onto the page. Maybe what I need here is my own typewriter music -- a regular click-tap-click of a machine being put through its paces, measuring and marking off ideas like this little clock measures off the seconds. Sounds wonderful to me. Anyone up for sitting nearby and providing me with a little mechano-musical accompanyment? The pay's not great, but the audience is rapt.