Impromptu Birthday Bash Type-In

Post-Script: The niece's husband tried his hand at the little Olympia SF, and he blazed away using the middle finger of each hand. It turns out his first book was written, years ago, on a larger Olympia, using the same typing style.

He asked her why a typewriter, isn't a computer more efficient. Her answer was something along the lines of wanting to get into typing again; she also has a desire to do some serious writing, and feels a typewriter would suit her best, as least in the initial phases.

They both live an hour up the highway in Santa Fe; I told her in my letter that should she need ribbons or other assistance, just call.

I think she made the right choice of the SM9 as a serious writing tool. Nothing wrong with the Smith-Coronas, except they're older, have seen a harder life.



I also had her try Adobe Rose, the Royal QDL, seen above next to the Brother Charger 11, which still had its lid attached, one of her other choices. Unless portability were her main concern, she was wise to steer clear of the Brother, as it's not nearly as easy to type on.

She made some interesting observations about the feel of the keyboards of these various machines. The spacing of the keys, and slope of the keyboards, has a lot to do with typing comfort, as she wisely discerned; to her, the SM9 felt easier than the Hermes 3000.



Above is the 1930 Underwood Portable with a roll of paper; we used it during the birthday party for people to type comments upon. Always a great machine to have handy.



This morning I stopped in at Rust is Gold, a new coffee shop + artists collective, on Eubank near Constitution, with the Olympia SF, for some blog writing and coffee slurping. Fun was had, and I struck up a conversation with a fellow patron who was interested in the typewriter. I didn't have business cards with me, so typed him one on a scrap of paper.

The Changing of the Guard

Post-Script: I like these kinds of simple pieces. They're conversational, like sharing to a larger audience just a little bit of how typewriters fit into one's day. Nothing fancy or presumed, merely about rotating one's typewriter usage. I wonder if Jay Leno does this, tweeting about taking some car from his collection out for an afternoon spin.

As a typewriter fanatic, I think it's important to type frequently, even if it's nothing profound or earth-shattering. Just get one's fingers on those keys, hear the snap of the type slugs hitting paper, hear the ding of that little bell at the end of the line, smell the machine oil exude from that shiny instrument of literary creativity. Keep in touch, even if it is just about swapping machines, or some other mundane part of one's life.

Others might think differently. They might ask of us why would we go to the trouble, especially with something so ordinary and relatively unimportant as this little one-pager sent off into the aether. I think it's most important to answer the question of "Why type?" by the simple response of "Because." Because I can, certainly. Because I have a selection of functional, beautiful machines to choose from. Because it's "Me-Powered." Because it's fun: we are far enough removed from the days of typists toiling away at their typewriters in the drudgery of the mid-20th century office environment that bringing one of these to life by the animation of our fingers somehow brings us to life, too.

I think typecasting makes blogging more satisfying. It's one thing to bang out a little nothing note to the world directly on one's computer, but quite another to do so with a scan of a paper artifact that reveals so much more than the mere words themselves. And it takes some effort, more so than hitting the "enter" key. So, to paraphrase that old Hallmark greeting card slogan, "When you care enough to send the very best, send them a typecast."

Teutonic Type-Off

Post-Script: Yes, I know the title's inaccurate, since neither the Hermes nor Smith-Corona can accurately be termed "Teutonic;" but I needed an alliterative title and that was the first thing that came to mind. This was a fun comparison to do on a windy and cold Sunday morning. As I indicated in the concluding remarks above, it serves as an informational test that might help me decide for or against any potential future typewriter purchase I might consider. I don't see myself buying another Galaxy-series machine, for example; not because they're bad machines, but because I already have a nice one, and they're rather large - and both H3Ks are more preferable. I'd rather, if the opportunity presented itself, consider another Silent or Silent Super model, in a different typeface and body color, since these are smaller, more portable machines. And should another Hermes 3000 come my way, I'd be hard pressed to pass it up, especially if it had a different typeface.

Another thing to consider in conclusion are the sample-to-sample variations between otherwise nearly identical machines. While there are subtle differences between my two Hermes 3000s, they're pretty close together in quality, which is as one would expect of a machine made to exacting standards - as long as they've been treated gently throughout the years. The Nekkid-Riter, it should be noted, came to me in much worse condition than the blue H3K, which was purchased from a typewriter shop some years ago. Despite those differences in condition and provenance, both machines type very nicely, which says something significant of their design and construction.

Typefaces are another point of comparison, even between identical models, as evidenced by my two Hermes presented herein. This becomes another reason to consider purchasing what would otherwise become a redundant member of one's collection, if the typeface were more pleasing as compared to a machine already in one's possession. This was one main reason why I decided to sell off the older, standard-carriage Olympia SM9, as the typeface was less pleasing to me.

This might be a fun test to do with my ultra-portable machines, so look forward to that in the coming days.

Typewriter Video Series: Part Two

Post-Script: I left the iPad to upload the video, late yesterday evening, and went to bed. This morning I checked the results and upon initial playback on YouTube the video was stuttering and lip sync was terribly off (by several seconds at least), which considerably disheartened me, as that implied I'd have to delete the video and start over from scratch. But then I had the good sense to check it on my laptop PC, and much to my relief it played fine. The problem appears to be the iPad itself, a continuation of the same sort of problems I was having while performing the edit yesterday.

So afterwards, I hard-booted the iPad and it subsequently played the video just fine. I realize now what caused the problems. Prior to yesterday's edit, I deleted from the iPad all the video footage, audio clips, project files and finalized video from last week's introductory episode (which I normally do, to make room for the new project), but failed to hard-boot the tablet afterwards. As such, it must have still allocated memory space for those now deleted files, so once I loaded onto it the new files for this week's video, it was running out of temporary work space in memory. Just another lesson learned, something I'll have to add to my document on how to edit video on an iPad.

I'm not certain if I like the video style I applied to the footage in-camera. It's called a "high dynamic" feature, which renders the highlights and shadows with more detail in the kinds of high-contrast lighting that often creates harsh tones on video cameras. It certainly does render the scene with more detail in what would otherwise be harsh, overly dense shadows, helpful in that I was wearing a hat and my face would otherwise have been partially obscured in shadow; and the highlights don't appear to be blown out, but the color is a bit too vivid for my taste. Unfortunately, the iMovie software for the iOS platform doesn't provide for adjustment of video properties like color saturation and contrast, so I may have to do more experimentation with in-camera adjustments.

I know I made some mistakes in my dialog, and should have re-shot some of the scenes. In particular, at one point I confused the "half-space" feature with "half-line advancement". And I didn't mention the middle, mimeograph stencil position on the ribbon selectors, nor did I make mention of the platen clutch button on the left platen knob of the Olivetti. Then there's the whole subject of segment shift versus carriage shift, which explains the difference in the ribbon color selector switch positions between those four machines. But I have opportunity to cover those features in a subsequent episode involving how to load paper and type.

As indicated in the typecast above, I had initially included scenes that detailed how to use the half-space feature, enabling the insertion of a missing letter into an already typed line, but it got deleted from the project in an effort to shorten the running time to below the 15 minute limit, required by iMovie and YouTube. I'll just have to make an even more detailed episode at a later date, dedicated to this feature; which will also reinforce my desire to have shorter-length segments, easier for me to edit and probably easier for you to watch, as well.

I've found it a challenge wearing two hats at once, involving both technical production and creative content, as on the one hand I have to concentrate on dialog once in front of the lens, but otherwise have to focus on setup of the camera and audio recorder, and review of the results between takes, all the while trying to ignore passersby in the park who might want to strike up a conversation or otherwise distract me. But this is the fun of being a one-man video shop, certainly challenging but also rewarding when it does work.

Typecast via Olympia SM9.

Mission Accomplished

Post-Script: A funny thing happened toward the end of our Starbucks meet-up. We had been sitting at a table by the front entrance when another dad, with teenage son, stopped by to talk with us on their way out, with the dad indicating that the boy had no idea whatsoever what that device was on our table; he had to explain the concept of typewriters to his son, it was so absolutely foreign.

Talking with my wife later this afternoon, we found it to be both "funny ha-ha" and "funny strange," how something as familiar to our background as typewriters could be such an absolute unknown to someone much younger. Which serves as reminder of our responsibility to impart to our progeny as much of the world of our youth as possible, for these sorts of verbal lore are how cultures and civilizations endure. And also serves as a warning, of how easy it is to lose the thread of one's generation, and how such rapid changes are brought about by technological and social forces seemingly beyond our control.

I made mention to the SM9's new owners that, should I succeed in planning an Albuquerque Type-In later this year, I'd let them know, in case they wanted to participate. In any case, I think it's safe to say that the Insurgency has felt a great strengthening of The Force.

Typecast via my new-style, wide-carriage Olympia SM9. But I hope this recent newcomer to the herd doesn't get a big-headed ego and think he now rules the roost; in a few days or weeks he'll get relegated to the closet for a spell, to be replaced at the typing table with another family member, at which time he should gain a bit more humility.

PPS: During our afternoon patio chat (what great weather we're having), we discussed how manual typewriters need no electrical power outlet or batteries, unlike cell phones, where one has to constantly worry about how many "bars" one has left. Then I looked over at the Olympia and noted that it always has 44 bars; 44 type-bars, that is.

One Last Hoorah

Post-Script: It's funny how something as seemingly mundane as a typewriter can bring back so many memories from long ago. In the case of this particular machine, its so-called "techno" font reminds me of having taken several computer programming classes, in high school in the early 1970s (Basic, Fortran and Algol). We typed each line of our program onto individual IBM punch cards, one line of code per card. Along the top edge of the card could be the plaintext equivalent character for each set of punched holes below. This style of printing, from a dot-matrix printer, is somewhat indicative of this Olympia's, hence the remembrance.

In the course of preparing the typewriter for sale, I decided to type up a "brief" instruction sheet of the machine's various controls, along with its care and feeding. It will also serve as an example of the machine's typing quality. Well, that "brief" instruction sheet is now three pages, and of course I could have gone on and on.

Being as how I have some spare correction tape cartridges (from one of my spontaneous office supply store binges - yes, I need a 12-step program), I'm going to include one along with the machine. And for another $3 I'll include an unopened 100-sheet pack of the Mead "general purpose" typing paper that I purchased online several months ago. Because I'd like to make the new owner's typing experience go as well as possible.

Which reminds me, I got an email today from a person in Albuquerque who found my blog online and has a question about a Smith-Corona Silent typewriter, of the same color and model as one I own. So that's kind of neat, now I'm starting to answer typewriter questions.

The top photo was made some years ago using my old Lumix G1, in the front courtyard late in the day. Because of the time of day, the brown stucco house and brick-colored courtyard paving, its very warm in tone, which the camera somehow rendered rather vividly, but I made no attempt to correct the tones; I have a whole set of these typewriter portraits, from that same day, on my Flickr stream, and rather like them.

Just in Case

Post-Script: I must also make mention of the fact that these SM9s are "half-space" machines, meaning that as the typebar is moving up toward the platen, the carriage moves one half space, then another half space as it returns. This means that it is capable of inserting a missing character from an already printed word, as is evidenced in the word "local" in the seventh paragraph. To accomplish this, the errant word is first erased, then the carriage moved to the last letter of the previous word. Then the space bar is held down as each successive letter is printed. About half the machines in my collection have this feature, which I've come to appreciate, given the errors common to my typing.

Just in case you might think that I've gone off the deep end, gushing with pride over the acquisition of a battered suitcase, my wife, whose opinion in matters of aesthetics I trust more than mine, approves.

I did a bit of online research on this Hartmann Skymate suitcase, and it appears to be the pigskin version. There appears to be a significant history behind this brand, which I had not previously appreciated. Also, if online prices are any indication, I might have gotten a good deal on this.

Photos via Fujifilm X10.

Mighty Fine Find

Post-Script: I installed a two-color ribbon purchased via Amazon, and noticed afterwards a bit of ink smudging happening, which you might have noticed in the typecast piece. I suspect it's the ribbon, not the typewriter. Late yesterday evening I felt I needed some typing therapy, and sat out in the patio room with the L.A.R.O.P. (Little Arse Roll of Paper) mounted to the wooden tray table, and did some stream-of-consciousness typing. Normally the imprint upon this thin automotive masking paper is rather faint, but with the combination of this typewriter and the smudgy ribbon, it gave a very dark impression - which impressed me!

I'm also aware, being the owner of a small collection of manual typewriters, that I really don't touch-type all that often on these machines. Part of the reason is because, for blog articles needing to be scanned, I treat each piece more as a finished work of letterpress, and so use a careful two-fingered method, so as to impart as clear of an imprint as possible. However, I get the sense that this SM9 might be a good candidate as a touch-typing machine, due to its snappy action and overall great condition. So that late-night L.A.R.O.P. session served as an opportunity to get a bit of manual touch-typing practice in, and it was a good experience. I am aware in doing so that my ring and pinkie fingers are in need of a bit of training; which can only happen with more practice.

Lacking a carrying case, I've been thinking about what to do when the time comes that I might want to transport it. Of course, one solution is, having a good assortment of portables, to simply use a smaller machine when desiring to type out and about. But still, there is the fact that this one will eventually get swapped out in usage rotation with another, and so storing it safely in my closet becomes an issue. I think I'll go do some more thrift/antique store shopping and find one of those hard-cased Samsonite suitcases, that seem all too plentiful; perhaps I can manage to install some kind of makeshift bracket inside, for mounting to the typewriter's undercarriage. There is also the possibility that the hard case for this machine might still be at the store I purchased this from, perhaps mislaid, and so it would warrant a return visit.

Photos via Lumix G5.