Professor Remington's Rummage Sale & Type-In

After a long and very hard winter, our neighborhood was almost giddy this weekend. One the first Saturday of June we hold our giant, all-households rummage sale.  It was a most perfect day: sunny and with a slight breeze.

I had thought this might be a good time to move out a smaller portion of my typewriter collection; machines I don't use too often. And since typewriters are such a curious (and inexplicable!) thing to most folks, I decided that my alter ego, Professor Remington might need to make an encore appearance to explain and inspire (here was her first appearance).

I sorted through my machines. It was almost bittersweet. There is a core set of older machines which I love and use often. But even those I don't use as often, I had good memories of: of their finding, of the person who'd given them to me, even of the letters I'd written using them. (Yes, Typospherians can be a most sentimental lot.)  In the end, I culled about half for the sale, 12 machines in all.

I priced them from $10 to $80. I wasn't looking to make money but neither did I want to undervalue them. Plus, I wanted to make sure kids could afford some of them them since it always seems to be the younger ones who are most intrigued by these beasties.  The 1930s-era desktop LC Smith (from my 93 year-old Auntie B!) was priced highest. It needs a cleaning but, remarkably, everything works!

The event opened at 8am and there were people at my table from the very first moments!

The first sale of the day was to this gentleman, who already owns one machine. He likes to write with them, he said. He left with the Facit TP1.

Children were the most excited. It was especially fun when a Mom or Dad would take over showing them how the machines worked. They were so excited to share a bit of their past (and their know-how) with their kids.

One Dad bought a machine (an Underwood Leader) for his 12 year old daughter. "I don't know what it is," he said, "but she finds them fascinating!" Methinks this is one Dad who will be Number One Dad for awhile. I sure hope so! It was a very cool thing for him to do.

This lady and her children were very excited to get a family machine. (I am not sure who was more keen on it though, Mom or kids!)  We talked a long time about how to use it and I gave them a basic rundown on how to care for their new word-maker.  And they were very kind to let me take their picture.*

A few other families held mini type-ins as part of their day.

By mid-afternoon, a total of 6 machines had found new homes. Each buyer was formally welcomed into the Typospherian Community, provided with a 3-page handout on how to care and maintain their new machines, and given a Professor Remington business card.  A very good Saturday indeed.

 

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* NOTE: It is the policy of this blog not to post the faces of children unless their parent(s) have given me permission to do so.

Professor Remington Makes the Front Page!

Above the fold!

 

One does not often get the chance to say it, but here I go: I made it to the Front Page this morning! 

A few weeks ago I received an email from Meg Jones, reporter for our local Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.  She'd seen the recent NBC News item on the resurgence of typewriters and became curious about the typospherian scene here in Milwaukee. Right outside the offices of the Journal Sentinel is a plaque commemorating Christopher Latham Sholes, she told me: "Of course I was interested!" she said.

"The first typing machine created by Sholes, a Wisconsin state legislator and editor at the Milwaukee Sentinel in the 1860s, was wooden with piano-like keys. He continued to work on the invention, refining the typewriters manufactured at Kleinstubers machine shop, one block north of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel building." [from this morning's article]

(I didn't know that Sholes was an editor for our local paper back then! Somehow I feel this typewriterly obsession of mine has come full circle.)  

She googled typewriters AND Milwaukee, and my post about last year's Summer Solstice Type-In came up.  Like any reporter worth her salt, she tracked me down and asked if she could call.  And like a good librarian, I said, "Sure, I have lots of info you could use for a story." 

Meg called, we talked for about 30 minutes.  Then, offhandedly, she asked, "So how many typewriters do you have?"  "Well," I says, "about 25."  Then came that amusing nano-second pause and Meg asked, "Would you mind if I came over to your house to see them? Oh, and could I bring a photographer?"

That lovely little request turned into one heck of a fun few days.  I got out ALL my machines, something I'd never done.  We put an extra leaf in our dining room table and I was able to get almost all of the machines onto it (3 had to go on the sideboard).  We put up the Professor Remington billboard and a small display of typewriter-related 'accessories.'

Mike De Sisti, Multimedia Picture Editor at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, came by one afternoon for still shots and video.  He seemed to enjoy seeing the machines as much as I enjoyed showing them! I had fun watching him do his job as well. (I used to do in-class and in-office video work of my lectures when I taught for the University of Pittsburgh's School of Information Sciences, so I was curious about the cameras and other technology he used for his work.)

 The green dino on the right found a new home that day too!

The topic of collecting came up.  It got to be a joke for the entire day that while I had these many machines I resisted being called a collector. "The only other thing I've actually, intentionally collected," I told Mike, "is plastic dinosaurs." (In my next life I want to be a paleontologist!)  So I was delighted to hear that Mike's 4-year old daughter is a BIG dino fan! WooHoo! I'd found the perfect recipient for a tall stuffed dino I'd gotten almost 20 years ago in California. Watching Mike leave our flat, with all his camera equipment hanging all over him and the dino tucked under his arm is definitely one of my more special memories of that afternoon.

 Hanging with The Media, a.k.a. Mike De Sisti

[From Mr. De Sisti's Pulitzer Center profile] "Mike De Sisti has been the multimedia picture editor at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for four years. He oversees multimedia production and training, shoots general still assignments and works on the picture desk as a picture editor. His love of video storytelling started when he was 9 with his first 8mm camera. He has documented several major professional sporting events, including the Super Bowl and the MLB All-Star Game, as well as several presidential races. De Sisti graduated in 1996 from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale with a fine art photography degree."

Mike recently took this and these other photos of the Canada Goose who chose to build her nest this year right on one of our main downtown bridges! You can see more of his work for JSOnline here.

Meg Jones stopped by later that evening. Having googled her beforehand (I'm a librarian, recall, we love to know stuff!), I knew what she looked like and that she'd done some fine work on Wisconsin soldiers and veterans. What I didn't know was what a delight she is to talk with. We chatted for almost two hours, and she got to play with some of the machines. 

As someone who does not do well talking and taking notes, I was impressed by Meg's easy style of interviewing.  She had a small notepad (yes, just like you'd think a 'real' journalist would!) and wrote without much looking at her pen and managing to keep up a friendly and curious flow of conversation all the while. 

I was especially pleased to show her the Smith Corona Skyriter and Facit TP1, both machines favored by journalists.  (In the video for the JSOnline story, the machine she is using at the end is the Skyriter.)

Meg Jones checks out a Smith Corona Skyriter.

Meg Jones in a much more dangerous situation.

[from this JSOnline article] "Journal Sentinel reporter Meg Jones sits atop a sandbag bunker to transmit photos, story and a weblog from the roof of Patrol Base Olson in Samarra, Iraq, in 2005."

See the complete article, "Meg Jones' work in the trenches is honored." at this link.

You can look over some 100 or so items by Meg at the JSOnline at this link.

Rather than swipe all of Meg and Mike's good work, I am going to send you over to the story at the newspaper's site to read the tale, see all the very cool photos, and watch the video. Click on the image to see the article.

Hats off, and many thanks, to Top-Knotch reporter Meg Jones and Ace Photographer, Mike De Sisti!  I had a blast that afternoon and now my Mom gets to brag on one of her kids!

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p.s. The Oliver 5 referred to looks like this:

 Image source/credit

p.p.s  And the NBC News video, in case you missed it:




 

A Summer Solstice Type-In

Summer Solstice at Stonehenge (England)

Image from BBC

It was a fine if somewhat cloudy June 23rd in Madison, Wisconsin. I, brother Architect, niece Hoja, and friend Whimsey joined the Friends of Starkweather Creek SASY Neighborhood Association community as we all celebrated the Summer Solstice. The biannual event (they also do a Winter Solstice party) is a collection of picnicking, music, puppetry, playing, and, at the moment the sun sets, a bonfire -- all in a lovely setting on the shores of Lake Monona.

 Puppets being made before the event.  

For more pics and stories, see the Procession of the Species site here.

Thanks to my Head Roadie and Chief Grip (aka my Beloved Spousal Unit) the Type-In set and equipment were well-packed for the trip to Madison. 

Our section of the park was along the lakeside. We four -- Architect, Hoja, Whimsey, and myself -- set up in a line.  Hoja described it as a Utopian Strip Mall! 

Architect & Whimsey played an old timey photography team. Their set was a grandly painted canvas backdrop and a fanciful camera (designed & built by Architect). 

Schematic for backdrop                                           Painting of the backdrop

The event always includes a Grand Procession with many people in costumes and many large puppets. Their camera booth was hopping all afternoon.

 

The costumes, masks, and giant puppets were wonderful!  

I will post pics of the Procession of the Species soon.

Hoja hosted Mz. Mimsy's Tabernacle of Tea ("Potions, Portents & Perfumes"), a tent filled with pillows, good scents, and relaxation. The tent - with walls created with decorative fabrics - served up a variety of teas in fancy teacups accompanied by bikkies.  

She reported the traffic of visitors was good.  The festival had much action and noise.  People were glad to find this little oasis to take a respite from it all.

Professor Remington

I, in my persona du jour -- Professor Remington -- hosted a Type-In booth. This event was planned before I knew it was National Typewriter Day.  It was a perfect lead-in sentence, though, when people wandered up all curious about why I was doing this.
 

 (L) Decidiasus Canus (Latin trans: The Lazy Dog)

(R)  Vulpes Velox (Latin translation: The Quick Fox)

The previous week I'd designed and painted the Professor Remington billboard.  It proved the perfect advertisement for passersby.

Because I was going on the road with this for the first time, and because I didn't know precisely what the park site was going to be like, I created this schematic of how I hoped I'd be able to set things up.

As it was, time considerations and a rather gusty wind off the lake prevented me from putting up the tent.  No worries, though.  Things looked pretty grand as it was.

Thanks to Madame H, I had two wonderfully funky and old desk top machines which I staged at a separate table.  I set a copy of the Typewriter Insurgency Manifesto on the platen roll of each.

 

It didn't take long for the festival-goers to wander by.  There seemed to be four kinds of folks.

Parents and their Children.

The neat thing about the families that stopped by was the excitement of the parents as they showed their kids the machines they used before computers. I didn't have to do much there as the parents quite happily became the teachers. 

Teenagers and Young Adults.

Not surprisingly, the typewriters were total magnets for teens and 20-somethings.  A little shy most of them were, but once I persuaded them to sit down and showed them the basics of how the machines worked, their enjoyment was reflected by their serious intensity.

The Old Hands.

Then there were the much experienced typists.  When they saw the machines, they smiled and laughed. You knew them right away: they immediately placed their hands confidently on the keys -- fingers correctly positioned -- and, after a few false starts, muscle memory kicked in and they were typing away again as they always had.

The Soloists.

There were a few visitors that struck me by their quiet focus and delight.  They walked in almost invisibly and waited for a machine to become available.  Once seated, they became completely absorbed, undisturbed by the bustling action all around.

This lady below purposely chose one of the two machines with a black/red ribbon.  She typed for quite awhile.  At one point, she paused.  I happened to be standing there and, since that machine had been acting up, asked if all was well.  She just smiled and said very softly, "I am writing a love letter."

These two young lads (below) came back several times.  The one on the left was completely fascinated.  "I am going to get one of these." he told me.  So I gave him the business card I'd made up for the occasion with the link to the info I've created  for this blog.  And I took more time than I did with most of the kids to show him how to do a basic hands-on test of a machine to make sure everything was in working order.  

I made sure he tried all of the machines, telling him that he wanted one that "felt good" when he typed.  "You'll be tempted to buy the first one you see," I said.  "If it's a good one, then go for it.  But don't be afraid to wait and look a little more."  You'd think I'd been telling him how to trick a leprechaun out of his pot of gold, so intensely did he listen!

The display machines drew a lot of interest as well. One man was a photographer and was quite intrigued by the older Underwood.  He took pictures for at least 10 minutes. 

All told, the Summer Solstice Type-In welcomed 70-80 visitors.  They were excited and took lots of camera-phone pictures of each other typing. They came by before I finished setting up and stayed until the light faded five and a half hours later. As I was putting the machines back into their cases at the end, one young lass begged if she could "please type just a little more."  I put her at the far table with a machine and told her, "I'll put that one away last."

So, our little Utopian Strip Mall was just that for the afternoon. People rested in the Tea Tent; had their portraits taken with a fantastical camera in front of the beautiful backdrop; and discovered -- or rediscovered -- the wonders of typing.

Many thanks to 

Jennifer B. for the loan of the folding tables and rolling dolly; 

my sister Song for the use of the canopy tent; 

Madame H and her sister for the two display typewriters; 

brother Architect for the chairs; 

nephew Quicksilver and passerby Mr. D for helping me reload my car at day's end; 

-- and ever and always -- 

my Beloved Spousal Unit, who continues to find such entertainment in my creative projects.