Dead media catalog

I like to poke around on Flickr. This is a spooky photo of dead typewriters found in a dark room at Hunter's Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco. Here is a closeup on a few of those machines. This photo collection puts the image in a larger context.

On Flickr, you'll see a lot of typewriters in a slick, stylized context, true to their current status as literary fashion accessory. Personally, I prefer images like the ones above, where we see typewriters languishing in their once-industrious native habitats.

Flickr is full of interesting links to fading media; this small catalog lists familiar defunct data storage devices that have, in a handful of years, taken vast quantities of unrecoverable secrets along with them as they languish in basement storage crypts. This group shows the eerie beauty of photographs taken with obsolete, low-fi cameras, somehow capturing the aesthetic of passed time in the current moment.

More generally, this group captures the skeletal remains of faded Americana. I find it a sobering collection.

Typecast: Survivalism

Scenes from a blackout

Typewriter paper is here!

A huge thanks goes out to Duffy Moon for sharing a box of his typewriter paper stash with the offices of Strikethru (Duffy, it FINALLY wound its way through the corporate mail labyrinth!). The next typecast I fire off will be typed on a page of vintage 8.5" x 13" Eagle onion skin paper, complete with red legal ruling down the margins. You can thank Duffy for increasing the authenticity of your retro experience here on Strikethru.

A "lifestyle of temporary ownership"

An interesting counterpoint to the interview with Jake Shivery of Blue Moon Camera, in which he calls out the unsustainability of disposable technology, is this news item about TechForward, a company that offers a guaranteed buyback plan for defunct electronics with the aim of "encouraging people to live that lifestyle of temporary ownership."

Technology and sustainability is, as most of us know, a serious issue. I am not sure how I feel about a company that encourages "temporary ownership" while at the same time ostensibly offering proper recycling facilities for the millions of functional gadgets that marketing has convinced us are useless.

I guess it's the acceleration of obsolescence that is really the most chastening thing; within the lifetime of millions, we've gone from investing, repairing, and sustaining devices for a lifetime of use to a frantic cycle of upgrades and discards packing landfills to the rafters and leaching chromium and lead into the soil and water supply. It's kind of horrifying if you think about it, which is why mostly we try not to, myself included.

Note: I removed a ramble about America and capitalism, realizing that you, the reader, may in fact not be American. This is the ramble that Duffy and myself are discussing in the comments.

Typewriters in the news

Thanks goes out to Strikethru reader Bostian for providing the following links for your enjoyment: an article about Ace Typewriter of Portland, Oregon, and an interview with Jake Shivery of Blue Moon Camera and Machine (where I bought my Agfa Ansco box camera). As I am sure I've mentioned, they also sell typewriters, being a full-spectrum retailer of retro technology. "Disposable technology is not sustainable. And I think it’s a harbinger of where culture goes wrong and eventually leads to decline," says Shivery, of things like $1,900 Apple powerbooks that last three years... cough cough.

Bostian has some experience with Ace Typewriter-- feel free to tell us about it if you get a chance. I think typewriter repair shops are fascinating.

Typecast: Get more done, have more fun

The last page in the typewriter

Check out this article from 1983 in Time magazine, by Roger Rosenblatt, a rather unbereaved obituary to the machine, in which he observes "...mainly one will miss the manual machine simply because it has been around so long." Is that why you've oiled up and dusted off your Smith Corona?

Typewriter magnets

I know Christmas is over, and we all have too many knicknacks sitting around the house as it is, but I am personally trying to stop myself from buying these typewriter magnets from boygirlparty.com. I would have definitely included these in my typewriter fan gift buying guide had I found them in time for the holidays.

The same site also has typewriter buttons, a vinyl wallet, and assorted other items featuring a typewriter design. Check it out.

In search of typecasts

Does anyone know of another site where there is regular typecasting going on? I've linked to a couple at left in the links list, but I roam the intertubes every so often to see if there are other typecasters out there and have not found many yet. Stumbled on this getting the typewriter religion story today, and this blog post; I always enjoy personal rambles about people's own history with, or rediscovery of typewriting. This one is my all-time favorites. Who is this guy? He's great.

Plan to update the site this weekend, this is just a themeless, non-typewritten ramble in the meantime.

Happy Friday.

Typewriter more, laptop less

This article, a couple of years old now, makes a claim I've heard here and there that there is a mini-movement of artistic young persons who have taken up the typewriter as a sort of literary fashion statement. I don't doubt it; I was a literature major once, and that is exactly the kind of thing a 20 year old college kid who sits around reading 19th century literature would do to suggest a certain hipster je ne sais quoi.

In other news, my arm is killing me: my updates and creative endeavors in general have been a little hampered by a recurrent repetitive stress arm thing that comes along every few months and renders my right arm into a dead weight that tortures me at 3:00 am with stabbing pains unresponsive to various over the counter medications. Think it's time to get out of the technical writing racket? Or maybe I should just stop using the laptop while slouching in an old Ikea Ektorp armchair with deflated stuffing while trying to write. All of this argues for using the typewriter more and the computer less, which I always find challenging to do for various reasons, which brings me to solicit your experience: what do you use your typewriter for, and how do you make the choice to use it in place of your computer? I'm thinking one of my main challenges is lack of dedicated desk space: for anything involving heavy machinery, I'm faced with a temporary setup at the dining room table.

Excuses, excuses. It might be time to start creating monthly typewriter assignments. Who's with me? Poetry? Short stories? Grocery lists? Blog posts?