An Ideal Adventure

Post-Script: We ate breakfast at the hotel cafe, then after loading up our gear and checking out, we headed over to the eCommerce Goodwill to pick up Kevin's Ideal model A2. I was surprised when I saw it, since Kevin has lately been collecting ultra-portables, but this one is a wonderfully crafted machine from 1901. I'll have to do a more detailed review of it once it's cleaned.

From the Goodwill in Tucson we drove over to Mesa, a two-hour drive, and spent most of the day at Mesa Typewriter Exchange with Bill Wahl and Ted Munk. A fun time was had, as Bill spent the majority of his time talking with Kevin about the Ideal, and Ted entertained me with a show-and-tell from Bill's ultraportable collection. I really need a cameraman to do a more thorough job of documenting these encounters, as I barely had time to shoot much footage with Bill.

Also, had I not been feeling so under the weather we might have stayed the evening and spent more time with Bill & Ted; but we got on the road by 4PM, and arrived home by 11:30 at night.

I'm still recuperating today, and feel like I may have to call in sick tomorrow. Oh well, so it goes.

I enjoyed using the Silent-Super for this trip, despite it being heavier than a Rocket or Skyriter. The new rubber rollers really make a difference. This is the closest it's come to functioning like a new machine since it was, well, new. A far cry from its origins as a grungy, stinky, broken typer. I've probably spent more time over the years working on this one machine than any other in my collection. But now it runs like it should. Good bones, good design.

Road Typing

Post-Script: We arrived home this evening after enduring a loooong line of traffic in Gallup, NM, due to a traffic accident; it added about an hour to our trip.

It was nice having the Rocket back, after Bill did his magic to it. I did a bit of journal typing at the hotel breakfast room before we left. One of the wait staff stopped and told me she loved the sound of the machine, and was surprised at how small it is. Along the way we stopped in at Common Grounds Coffee in Payson, AZ for a cuppa, where I worked a bit on this article, during which a fellow patron also commented on the typewriter. She mentioned that she had an old pink Corona back home, I encouraged her to break it out and start using it.

While my wife drove the first leg of the journey back home, I tried writing in my journal (with the new Rotring 600 mechanical pencil), but the vehicle's movement made my handwriting even more sloppy than normal. Another good reason to do road typing instead. I like the feel of the machine on my lap, as I pause, look out the window and think about my next line of text. There's no hurry, as the miles fly by; and the machine is plenty patient - it's not like batteries are being spent.

It was great seeing Ted, Bill, Cameron and Erik again. This business of smuggling typewriters back-and-forth across the Continental Divide could get risky, but no black helicopters were noted. I prefer the drive rather than flying, despite the time it takes, as I don't want to risk flying with typewriters; plus, there's more junk you can stuff in your car than what the airlines would allow you to take onboard.

Okay, time to start uploading video footage and see what kind of story I can piece together.



We brought our entire espresso kit with us. Because that's what you can do when you drive instead of fly. When you're coffee snobs like us!




Sometimes it's the little things that count. (Holbrook, AZ)

Mr. Smith From Corona

Post-Script: Perhaps it's the feverish summer weather (actually, it's been rather nice in the high desert this week), or because it's July and with it comes the commemoration of both the Trinity Test and Roswell. I'd like to think, being the rational person I am, that in 1947 the only nuclear-certified and combat-experienced bomber squadron on the world, the 509th Composite Group, happened to be stationed at Roswell Army Air Base. And over in White Sands they were beginning to test German V2 missiles. So perhaps there's nothing more to it, right?

What else happened in 1947 besides (supposedly) Roswell? How about the National Security Act, that created the CIA and NSA. How about the US Air Force becoming its own military branch. Or the US was (supposedly) "enjoying" a global monopoly on nuclear weapons, that would only last another two years. Lots of changes in a short period of time.

But if you're a sci-fi fan like I am, and also a typewriter nerd, you can't help but notice that Corona typewriters and the town of Corona, NM share a common name. And Corona, NM happens to be near one of the supposed crash sites of the 1947 incident. So, naturally, this story comes together with that in mind. This is becoming a theme for my fiction, what you might call typewriter insurgency fiction. Is that yet a thing?

One thing I love about sci-fi is it doesn't have to be realistic, though in order to be successful it does rely on realistic characters.

This is my entry of Typing Assignment No.18, on the theme of sci-fi. If you're so inclined, write up a one-page sci-fi story on a typewriter and post a scan of the piece to a publically-accessible photo hosting website, then post the link to your image in the comments section of this YouTube video. Deadline is this coming Sunday, July 29. I hope to see your story in the upcoming review video. Until then, keep watching the skies, and be careful out there!

Story first-drafted on SCM Skyriter, completed on Royal QDL.

Smuggling Typewriters to Phoenix

Post-Script: Yes, we had fun. Do you blame us? No. But you should be jealous. The thing to do is organize your own Type-In, build your local typewriter community. After my first visit to the Phoenix Type-In several years ago I was inspired to start similar events here locally. Because no one else was going to do it, and I want to see a vibrant community closer to home.

I posted an overview of this event, the embedded link is below. I'll also be posting follow-on interview videos, stay tuned for that.

What do you talk about when you're driving cross-country with a fellow typewriter nerd? Typewriters, obviously. Sometimes the conversation goes far afield. Like when Kevin was driving and I was daydreaming, and came up with the idea that perhaps I could figure out how to build a prototype typewriter out of mainly wooden parts, something a crafty person could do at home with basic tools. Wood, some metal bits, strings or wires. What would be the point, you ask? Why, to start a DIY typewriter movement, of course. People more skilled than I would 3D print the parts, but I see it essentially as a piano-like mechanism. Start simple: upper case only, perhaps carbon paper at first to negate the need for a ribbon system. An all-mechanical device, bigger than a real typewriter at first. Maybe sell kits that people could assemble. Would I actually do this? Hard to tell. I'm a dreamer, always coming up with hair-brained ideas. Maybe you can take this idea and run with it.

I spent a bit of time this morning, between editing video, working on the Skyriter. It took a lot of degreasing and cleaning to get it running right, plus I had to fix the line advance problem. It's pretty good now, except a few letters are not perfectly aligned. But for an elite (12 CPI) machine it has a pretty decent imprint, so I probably won't mess with it further.

Here's that video I mentioned:

Phoenix Type-In Preparation

Well, it's almost that time. Time to hit the road and make the drive, over the Continental Divide, into Arizona, to attend the 2018 Phoenix Type-In. I've attended this event once before, several years ago, and was inspired enough that it prompted me to start organizing Type-In events here in ABQ.

This time I'll be accompanied by fellow typewriter nerd Kevin K., who will also be bringing a small assortment of typewriters from his collection.

Last week I began the preparation work for attending this event. Not only did I have to decide on which machines to bring, but also on my agenda is doing video interviews of some of the more notable members of the Phoenix contingent of the Typosphere. So I had to assemble a video kit capable of doing 2-person interviews, including those what-if items like spare batteries, memory cards, etc. Because Murphy is alive and well, especially when on the road.

It's expected to be rather warm in Phoenix (understatements being my forte) and this being the off-season, we booked a nice hotel room for a good price. Still, I hope we don't have heat-related issues. There are common-sense steps to take, like don't leave sensitive items in the car when parked outside. And bring plenty of water for the trip.

Kevin and I had discussed making a thrift store tour of small towns on the way to Phoenix, just in case we find some hidden gem of a typewriter waiting to be snapped up. A quick perusal online reveals a handful of thrift stores in Flagstaff. We might still do that, though stopping in every small town on the way is not my first priority. Still, it might be fun to do a bit of thrifting, just in case.

Along with the typewriters and video gear, I'm bringing some typing paper rolls and associated paper roll holders, for people to try out. I've also made a new holder just this week, for using 2-1/4" adding machine paper. Trying it on my Royal QDL, that has an elite-sized typeface, it will permit 22 character-wide lines, sufficient for things like short poems. I'll also be taking the 1/32" thick rubber sheet, which can be threaded into a typewriter behind a sheet of paper and used for dampening the sound of a hardened platen roller. I'd like to get peoples' feedback on how it works in their various machines.

It will be fun meeting once again those typewriter nerds I otherwise only see online. See you there.

Love Me Forever: Phoenix Type-In Ephemera Surrealist Poem

Today I was delighted to see Ted Munk's posting of typewritten ephemera from the 2016 gathering of the Typeratti in Phoenix, Arizona. This stuff is great because there's an element of randomness to it, as some people just type whatever comes to mind, along with typographical errors; and some more purpose-felt compositions. But there's also an element of surrealist poetry to the idea of collecting an assortment of semi-random writing, from a disparate swath of humanity, and finding some subconscious connection as it is assembled together.

Today I went through my man-bag, after having returned from the Type-In, and found that I had also collected a small sampling of such ephemera, which I am presenting herein. Since my Blogger template limits images to 650 pixels wide, I normally limit my images to that width; but I've decided to break the template in this case. Enjoy.

Smuggling Typewriters to Phoenix

Post-Script: This posting serves as a kind of experiment for mobile blogging, in that both the lead photo and typecast were taken with this iPod Touch camera, the photo using Hipstamatic and the typecast cropped and tweaked in the camera's edit feature.

Once the images were emailed to my Flickr stream, grabbing the links was challenging, as you need to use the desktop version of Safari (a hidden feature accessed by pressing the retry button), then highlight the entire URL, a kludge of an operation that seems to eventually work if you hold your mouth just a certain way, and the phase of the moon is correct. Or maybe my fingers are too stubby and I need to learn the iOS touch gestures better.