True to type: Why writing machines will never die
Here’s a weird notion: in this age of constant technological progress, the best typewriter ever made has already been made. No one is pushing the frontiers of platen engineering, or scheming to build a better carriage release lever. In fact, the last typewriter f actory in the world, in Mumbai, closed in 2011.
But even though the revolution may not be typewritten, the machine has a growing legion of fans and users, some of whom were inter- viewed by director Doug Nichol. His film takes its name from a small typewriter repair shop that remains stubbornly open on San Pablo Avenue in Berkeley, Calif., and whose story serves as the spine of the film. Here are five things we learned from it.
The first modern typewriter was not a financial victory for its makers, who sold their design to Remington, which took it to commercial success. But the 1874 Sholes and Glidden machine lives on in the QWERTY keyboard, which among other things allows you to spell the word TYPEWRITER using only the top row of keys.
Type writer inventor Christopher Latham Sholes was a proponent of women’s rights, and the first generation of typing- school graduates were mostly women, who found better paying work as “typewriters” ( later known as typists) than as domestic servants or in other “female” jobs of the time.
Tom Hanks is perhaps the world’s most famous typewriter enthusiast, able to converse about the crisp sound of a Smith- Corona, or the uncomfortable rise on the keys of an Olympia. He has been known to give machines from his vast collection to friends who express an interest — only to visit them and find the typewriter displayed under glass on a shelf rather than out in the open, ready to use. Hanks notes that with a typewriter you can make a document that will last forever. “And if it’s a good idea, the idea will last forever too.”
Not all typewriter enthusiasts want to keep the machines in working order. Artist Jeremy Mayer takes them apart to reassemble into sculptures, and loves the sensual curves to be found in many of their parts. And the Boston Typewriter Orchestra makes music with them, sounding a bit like a performance of Stomp.
As long as it doesn’t catch fire, a typewritten note is an excellent way to store data. Musician/ typist John Mayer notes that his old hard drives, while ostensibly preserving data, are really quasi- wastebaskets, since he never looks at them, and they eventually become unreadable by newer generations of computers. Speaking of musicians, there’s a great clip of Bob Dylan composing lyrics on a typewriter, fingers flying and head bopping as though he’s playing a piano. ∂∂∂½
California Typewriter screens Jan. 11 and 12 at the Bloor Hot Docs cinema in Toronto. Director Doug Nichol and Canadian typewriter collector Martin Howard will participate in Q& As after the screenings.