Typewriters Galore

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap Tap. Zing! Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. 

That is me typing on my typewriter when I was eleven years old.

I'd found it at a garage sale in my development. All I could think was "WANT." So, I rode by bike home, dug up the cash, and hurried back over to buy it. When I got it home, I hooked it up and it didn't work. Then I fiddled--not something a kid should probably do with an old piece of machinery if she actually wants it to ever work again, but somehow after cleaning the ribbon, taking out pieces and putting them right back in, I got the keys to pound out some inked letters on paper. I wrote poems, plays, random prose. I loved that thing. To this day I don't know what happened to it. I remember that it stopped working and I needed to replace a part, but I never did. I think my mom threw it away after that because it was just gone.

Ever since, I have been dying for a "new" typewriter. I was ecstatic when I was at "journalism camp" at Northwestern the summer between my junior and senior year of college, we were required to do type our articles on Smith Coronas. I'll gaze into store windows when an typewriter sits up front until someone literally drags me away. I reblog photos of typewriters whenever possible on Tumblr. I adore them. I don't know what it is.

So, naturally, when Flavorwire posted a great slideslow of fun typewriters that are currently on the market last week, I drooled.I I saved the link for later second and third viewings, and of course, for purchase potential. Then today, another typewriter-related article from The Atlantic was sent to me by a friend, this time discussing more than just regular old typewriter options. This time, it focused on 25-year-old guy who, after finding a typewriter on the side of the street one day, decided to find a why to hook it up to a computer:

Jack Zylkin, an engineer, hooks antique typewriters up to modern computers and tablets to create functioning writing machines -- and then sells them on Etsy. It's almost a perfect storm of hipster obsessions. Vintage? Check. Handmade? Check. iPad? Check. Open source? Check. Et cetera. You might be tempted roll your eyes, but watch this documentary from Etsy's Handmade Portraits series and see if he doesn't convince you that there's something extremely satisfying about merging antique machinery with glossy, networked devices. The video was produced by Jenny Schweitzer, who provides more background on the project here. 

See the original post HERE

I don't know if I would want one necessarily, though it is pretty damn awesome.

I will have to ponder this further.