Posts Tagged ‘typewriter’
“Some assembly required”*…
Photographer Todd McLellan disassembles things. As the Smithsonian explains in the web intro to an exhibition of his work…
What makes a watch tick? How does a sewing machine stitch? Where does an iPod get its shuffle? For those who have ever asked questions like these, Things Come Apart is a revelation.
Through extraordinary photographs, disassembled objects and fascinating videos, Things Come Apart reveals the inner workings of common, everyday possessions. Images of dozens of objects explore how things are designed and made and how technology has evolved over time. For example, the individual components of a record player, a Walkman, and an iPod illustrate the technical changes in sound reproduction over the years, and images of the parts of a mechanical and digital watch demonstrate different approaches to timepiece engineering.
As a visual investigation of design and engineering, Things Come Apart also celebrates classic examples of industrial design like the sewing machine, the mechanical pencil, and the telescope. Additionally, the exhibition explores ideas about reuse, repair, and recycling….
More on the exhibit (with examples) at “Things Come Apart” @smithsonian; Even more on McLellan’s website (and at @Todd_McLellan).
* the frequently-encountered qualification in advertising and product packaging
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As we take it apart, we might recall that it was on this date in 1843 that Charles Thurber was issued the first patent for a typewriter that actually worked. The forerunners of typewriters had been around for some time; the first known patent was issued in England in 1714, but for a machine that never worked and was never manufactured. Thurber’s “printing machine” did work– but was so slow as to be impractical. He patented an improved (but still painfully sluggish) version a few years later… then moved on. Typewriter development continued in other hands, but slowly. It wasn’t until the late 19th century (and the introduction of a QWERTY keyboard design as a standard) that typewriting became a wide-spread practice.
“There is a similarity between juggling and composing on the typewriter”*…
… and indeed making art with a typewriter…
Jeremy Mayer challenges the notion that typewriters’ creative output is confined to the written word. The artist scours shops and trash bins near his Bay Area studio for analog processors in disrepair that he then disassembles, sorts, and reconstructs into metallic sculptures. His previous works include symmetrical assemblages, anatomical recreations, and an ongoing series of birds, the most recent of which are shown here. Mayer builds every piece solely from original parts rather than soldering or gluing, and some sculptures, including the black crow with a Corona-brand typewriter logo on its back [above], feature spring-like components that allow the creatures to bob their heads.
Mayer is currently at work on a few large-scale reliefs, a kinetic lotus, skull, and additional birds, and you can follow updates and news about purchasing pieces on his Instagram. For more about his practice, check out the 2016 film California Typewriter, which documents his work alongside other enthusiasts…
More at “Vintage Typewriters Are Reassembled into Amazing Metallic Bird Sculptures by Jeremy Mayer,” in @Colossal.
* Tom Robbins
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As we reassemble, we might recall that it was on this date in 1935 that the world’s first parking meter (Park-O-Meter No. 1, AKA “the Black Maria”) was installed on the southeast corner of what was then First Street and Robinson Avenue in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The design, by Holger George Thuesen and Gerald A. Hale, was done for Carl Magee, who patented and installed the device.
Magee, a journalist who’d earlier helped expose the Teapot Dome Scandal, and whose day job in 1935 was editor of the Oklahoma City News, is perhaps best remembered as coiner (more accurately adaptor, from Dante) of publisher E.W. Scripps Company’s motto: “Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way.”
Magee and the Meter (source)
“Isn’t Baldwin a well-known pervert?”*…
Your tax dollars at work: the FBI’s files on James Baldwin…
Baldwin was “Jimmy” to most of his friends and to himself as well when he meditated on the various aspects of his personality. The numerous “strangers called Jimmy Baldwin,” he observed of his own diversity, included an “older brother with all the egotism and rigidity that implies,” a “self-serving little boy,” and “a man” and “a woman, too. There are lots of people there.” This secret FBI summary made the mistake of treating variations on Baldwin’s name and identity as a set of potentially criminal pseudonyms. For the Bureau, “James Baldwin,” “James Arthur Baldwin,” “Jim Baldwin,” and “Jimmy Baldwin” were “aliases” needing correlation and correction.
More memos on “aliases,” sexuality, and The Blood Counters at: “A look inside James Baldwin’s 1,884-page FBI file.”
* J. Edgar Hoover
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As we shake our heads, we might recall that it was on this date in 1868 that Christopher Latham Sholes, Samuel W. Soulé, James Densmore, and Carlos Glidden received the first patent for a commercially-made typewriter. This early version looked like a piano with ivory keys for the alphabetical keyboard. The patent was sold to Remington & Sons who began production and later developed the Remington Typewriter with the now standard Qwerty layout.
“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain”*…
The Wizard of Oz, alphabetized.
* The Wizard of Oz
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As we strive for order in all things, we might recall that it was on this date in 1714 that English inventor Henry Mill was granted a patent (UK #395) for an apparatus “for impressing or transcribing of letters singly or progressively one after another, so neat and exact as not to be distinguished from print, very useful in settlements and public records”– generally agreed to be the first description of a typewriter, the device that revolutionized the ability of creative minds worldwide to put their thoughts into print. Mill never actually manufactured a typewriter for sale; in fact, it took many years to develop a truly functional prototype– the first of which was probably built by the Italian Pellegrino Turri in 1808 for his blind friend Countess Carolina Fantoni da Fivizzono. Indeed, most early typewriters were aimed at giving the blind a means of communicating in print. It wasn’t until the late 19th century (and the introduction of a QWERTY keyboard design as a standard) that typewriting became a wide-spread practice.
“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed”*…
If New York, as E.B. White said, is a city that “never quite catches up with itself,” no one may be more aware of it than [Paul] Schweitzer. He is believed to be among the nation’s last typewriter repairmen, and he largely rejects computers, iPhones, laptops, and even credit cards in his workplace. Like a speaker of a vanishing language, he laments the loss of his tribe.
“There are fewer and fewer of us that do this,” he said. “Years ago, if you looked at the yellow pages, there were six pages of typewriter companies in Manhattan. Now, there’s us.”…
The poignant– and powerful– story of “The Last of the Typewriter Men.”
* Ernest Hemingway
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As we tap away, we might send darkly humorous birthday greetings to Samuel Barclay Beckett; he was born on this date in 1906. A novelist, poet, and theatrical director, Beckett is best remembered as the playwright who created (with Eugéne Ionesco) what Martin Esslin dubbed “The Theater of the Absurd.” His Modernist masterpieces– Krapp’s Last Tape and Waiting for Godot, for instance— had a profound influence on writers like Václav Havel, John Banville, Tom Stoppard, and Harold Pinter. Beckett was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969.
No mean typist, Beckett turned out typescript for James Joyce (to whom he was an assistant in the 1920s), for the French Resistance during World War II, and of course, for himself.
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