Monday 24 December 2018
Joe's Typing Assignment #20 - Pet Peeves
Well, after a long hiatus, mostly procrastination coupled with life, I have finally got back to it. So here we are, the entry to this month's JvC Typing Assignment.
If Joe ever reads this, let me just say thanks to him for putting these on, he gets only the satisfaction of reading the wide and varied submissions, and puts a lot of work into running this in addition to his 'Not a VLog' series among many other interests.
If you haven't read or visited Joe's blog, please take a gander, the link is on the right of my blog here.
I used my Smith Corona Silent-Super in Desert Tan, one of the colour series that Smith Corona put out in competition to the Royal Quiet De Luxe. While the Royal QDL's in colour are more expensive and collectible, you can still get almost all of the colours for much cheaper than their competitors. And you can NEVER go wrong with a Smith Corona from this period, they are solid machines.
And without further ado, my submission.
Link for the original size
Friday 7 December 2018
Saturday 29 September 2018
A new Olympia SM3 or Another Olympia SM3
The moss green SM3 in its as received uncleaned form
You can see above how the x,c,v keys sit lower than the others.
Mmmmm, nothing like a segment to appeal to those of us who enjoy symmetry in mechanical devices
The original rubber spacers removed from the SM3
Friday 28 July 2017
My Brother's Typing Assignment #5
I was happy when my brother called and asked what I was doing one day. I just happened to be finishing up Typewriter Assignment #2 and was telling him how it worked. He expressed an interest and I quickly seized upon it to try and convince him to get involved.
It just so happened that when we had last been together, I bought a trio of Olympia typewriters (a 4, 5 and 9) and could only take one home on the plane, the rest he was generous enough to drive home and we would connect later on to get them back.
Although he wanted to use the SM5 with its smooth white painted finish, the ribbon was dead and he didn't have any replacements. The SM9, a more restrained (and less exciting) grey keyed unit was accessible and still had some ribbon life. I encouraged him to use it and talked him through releasing the carriage lock over the phone. He figured out the rest.
Now although he wasn't able to do #3 and #4, I was surprised last week when he sent me #5. So I am happy posting this on his behalf.
Good work bro! And I look forward to seeing more.
Here is Pat (Patty) Bohanga's Typewriter Assignment #5, typed on an Olympia SM9.
It just so happened that when we had last been together, I bought a trio of Olympia typewriters (a 4, 5 and 9) and could only take one home on the plane, the rest he was generous enough to drive home and we would connect later on to get them back.
Although he wanted to use the SM5 with its smooth white painted finish, the ribbon was dead and he didn't have any replacements. The SM9, a more restrained (and less exciting) grey keyed unit was accessible and still had some ribbon life. I encouraged him to use it and talked him through releasing the carriage lock over the phone. He figured out the rest.
Now although he wasn't able to do #3 and #4, I was surprised last week when he sent me #5. So I am happy posting this on his behalf.
Good work bro! And I look forward to seeing more.
Here is Pat (Patty) Bohanga's Typewriter Assignment #5, typed on an Olympia SM9.
Joe's Typewriter Assignment #5
Well its time to complete and submit Typewriter Assignment 5 for Joe Van Cleave's awesome typewriter program. I unfortunately missed the last two, and while I still plan to complete and post them, its been a busy summer so far and I was unable to get time to bear down and focus on completing them within the timeline.
So far I have enjoyed the variety of assignments which we have been given, its a nice balance between fiction and non, allowing the ol' brain to flex a bit. Writing is fine, I have always enjoyed it, but doing it on a typewriter adds a certain amount of joy again and adds a touch of artistry.
Anyhow, this weeks assignment was to write something with the oft-used (over-used?) 'It was a dark and stormy night', originally penned (unfortunately not on a typewriter) by Edward Bulwer-Lytton in his 1830 novel Paul Clifford. Over the last couple centuries, it has been parodied to the point where now you could never use it if you wanted any sort of seriousness given to your writings.
As with all of Joe's assignments, how to write on something with so much potential and possibility and do it on one page? Aha! Such is the joy of planning and thought. On a computer you can cheat by closing up your spacing, shrinking the font and generally using legitimate tools to maximize your content. Not so on a typewriter!
Well thats not quite true. No one ever said you had to use a standard 8 1/2 x 11 page. With a typewriter, if you are lucky enough to have some to choose from, you can choose a typewriter with a smaller font, and utilize a larger paper format. And voila! You have more room to stuff all of your wild ramblings.
I tried using my 1936 Corona Standard, which has the smallest type of any of my collection, and while it strikes the paper well, there is a problem with the escapement somewhere which I haven't had time to resolve prior to this assignment.
The escapement doesn't always allow the little floating 'dog' out, holding it in place. The resultant situation on the page is like a car crash, the letters all type into the same spot as if they hit an invisible wall on the page, and you end up with a black blob where an eloquent and flowery word should have gone. Its too nice of a typewriter NOT to use, I have to get it fixed, but this problem outstrips my knowledge at this point.
So I went the other way and pulled out my 1959 Smith-Corona Galaxie II in Driftwood Grey.
It types with a chunky echo like you are typing inside a tank. And its a tank too so....anyhow. It works well though and gets the job done.
I decided to really go old-school and typed this assignment on some old Southwood 8 1/2x13 RACERASE onion skin, an excellent albeit light paper which the SCM couldn't properly advance through the roller, requiring me to tug at it each new line to make sure it lined up.
Anyhow, here is my Assignment which I will submit today. Because it was put on a cockle finish onion skin (maybe not the best option for typecasting) but I wanted to try it once.
Any comments are welcome!
So far I have enjoyed the variety of assignments which we have been given, its a nice balance between fiction and non, allowing the ol' brain to flex a bit. Writing is fine, I have always enjoyed it, but doing it on a typewriter adds a certain amount of joy again and adds a touch of artistry.
Anyhow, this weeks assignment was to write something with the oft-used (over-used?) 'It was a dark and stormy night', originally penned (unfortunately not on a typewriter) by Edward Bulwer-Lytton in his 1830 novel Paul Clifford. Over the last couple centuries, it has been parodied to the point where now you could never use it if you wanted any sort of seriousness given to your writings.
As with all of Joe's assignments, how to write on something with so much potential and possibility and do it on one page? Aha! Such is the joy of planning and thought. On a computer you can cheat by closing up your spacing, shrinking the font and generally using legitimate tools to maximize your content. Not so on a typewriter!
Well thats not quite true. No one ever said you had to use a standard 8 1/2 x 11 page. With a typewriter, if you are lucky enough to have some to choose from, you can choose a typewriter with a smaller font, and utilize a larger paper format. And voila! You have more room to stuff all of your wild ramblings.
I tried using my 1936 Corona Standard, which has the smallest type of any of my collection, and while it strikes the paper well, there is a problem with the escapement somewhere which I haven't had time to resolve prior to this assignment.
So I went the other way and pulled out my 1959 Smith-Corona Galaxie II in Driftwood Grey.
I decided to really go old-school and typed this assignment on some old Southwood 8 1/2x13 RACERASE onion skin, an excellent albeit light paper which the SCM couldn't properly advance through the roller, requiring me to tug at it each new line to make sure it lined up.
Anyhow, here is my Assignment which I will submit today. Because it was put on a cockle finish onion skin (maybe not the best option for typecasting) but I wanted to try it once.
Any comments are welcome!
Sunday 25 June 2017
Joe's Typewriter Assignment #2
Well, as is my usual way, I posted my first assignment too late to make the cut. If this was a marked paper, I would have again gotten a talking-to by the Prof. As it is, there is no grading, no judgement, so we can just look ahead to the next sunrise and start again.
Joe issued Typewriter Assignment #2 today, and you can read about it on his latest blog post.
The sheer variety of possibilities that one can write about in response to Joe's assignment is what excites me about the typewriter. Writing is fun, but writing on a TYPEWRITER! Whoo-eee, that changes things completely! To many, writing is writing is writing. But the sheer creative excitement I feel when a new thought, story or picture pops into my mind is amplified by the sensory and tactile pleasure at being able to execute it with ink ribbon, type-bar and paper. You SEE it when it hits the paper, and you have made a commitment, something that we as a society sometimes seem to have a problem with.
Alas.....
This assignment was planned and executed on a 1959 Olympia SM4, a nice clean unit I recently bought from Don Nathan, the guitar/typewriter chap out on the West coast whom I met during a recent trip to visit family. I ended up buying three Olympia's from him, this SM4 with beautiful rust/brown crinkle paint, a smooth white SM5 and a dull but solid 1969 grey keyed SM9. Thanks Don! (You can find the link to his eclectic blog on the right)
Anyhow, here is the SM4
And here is my assignment for submission. This time, its in EARLY!
Here for the original
Joe issued Typewriter Assignment #2 today, and you can read about it on his latest blog post.
The sheer variety of possibilities that one can write about in response to Joe's assignment is what excites me about the typewriter. Writing is fun, but writing on a TYPEWRITER! Whoo-eee, that changes things completely! To many, writing is writing is writing. But the sheer creative excitement I feel when a new thought, story or picture pops into my mind is amplified by the sensory and tactile pleasure at being able to execute it with ink ribbon, type-bar and paper. You SEE it when it hits the paper, and you have made a commitment, something that we as a society sometimes seem to have a problem with.
Alas.....
This assignment was planned and executed on a 1959 Olympia SM4, a nice clean unit I recently bought from Don Nathan, the guitar/typewriter chap out on the West coast whom I met during a recent trip to visit family. I ended up buying three Olympia's from him, this SM4 with beautiful rust/brown crinkle paint, a smooth white SM5 and a dull but solid 1969 grey keyed SM9. Thanks Don! (You can find the link to his eclectic blog on the right)
Anyhow, here is the SM4
And here is my assignment for submission. This time, its in EARLY!
Here for the original
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