Speed and Accuracy
Sunday, April 27, 2008
I'm assuming she didn't have to perform her outstanding typing skills with her feet or in that bathing suit during the contest. I don't know, though. This appears to be her ninth win.
This makes me think of my grandmother. She was a 21 year-old mother of five when she got The Telegram during WWII - no skills, no high school diploma. The Army sent her to business school to learning typing and dictation to support all those fatherless children. I don't imagine it paid for much, but it did throw my war-widow grandmother in the path of a few unmarried professional men.
That's how it was done, really. I seriously doubt Gram's typing skills netted that doctor she soon married. I believe she relied more on youth and an uncanny resemblance to Jane Russell. I also believe that's what the Army had in mind all along.
Post-war, typing skills were many times the means to a happily married end. She'll tell you that herself. She'll also tell you the times called for being gainfully married, so it definitely mattered where a girl did that typing. Gram says she typed like the wind, but in the end it was more important which sweater she wore to the office. A mother of five had to be practical about such things.
If you'd like to test your words-per-minute, try this online typing test. You'll be tested on your laptop rather than your Remington, but at least you don't have to wear a bathing suit.
One Street Typewriter-Poet and My Retirement Plan
Thursday, April 24, 2008I'm in grading-mode right now and have banned myself from All Things Distracting. I saved this little ditty a few weeks ago for just such a moment. I'm thinking about retirement and moving to Eureka Springs forever so I can be a typewriter poet in front of the cafes. If gas gets any more expensive, I may have to find a folding table and get to work sooner. Enjoy the video.
Typewriter Repair Shops - Chicago and St. Louis
Thursday, April 03, 2008Independence Business Machines - Chicago
Jones Typewriter Company - St. Louis
Typewriter Art and Glubdrubdrib
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
A little typewriter installation art from Simon Patterson and there's quite a bit going on here. I'll let him tell you -
"I constructed an enormous wall mounted ‘typewriter’ sculpture: Consisting of a giant keyboard on one wall and painted in the United Nations colours of blue and white were keys spaced out in a line on the other three walls spelling out the typing exercise,‘The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog’, that contains all the letters of the alphabet and therefore, potentially, all meanings expressable in the English language. Above some of the keys, placed apparently randomly, were the names of the permanent members of the Security Council, the present and former Secretary-Generals of the UN and some of the places visited by Captain Lemuel Gulliver - the protagonist of Jonathan Swift’s Gullivers Travels.With General Assembly, the juxtapositions of Jonathan Swift, nationhood and nonesense was a way of playing with the various meanings of the word ‘assembly’. It refers to the General Assembly of the United Nations, assemblage sculpture of the 1960’s and 1970’s, assembling people together in an auditorium/arena or gallery. I wanted to show how side by side with place names such as Lugnagg or Glubdubdrib from Gulivers Travels, UN Secretary-Generals’ names such as Boutros Boutros Ghali or Dag Hammarsköld might also seem like a nonesensical language. You are allowed to laugh."
Oh my. I believe that's a politically resonant Olivetti Lettera 32. I could be wrong.
I'm fascinated with the idea that "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" contains the potential for the whole of the English language. I hope no one used his comma key as a coaster at the opening.
Math-Less Typecasting 101
Tuesday, April 01, 2008(This typecast brought to you on a 1967 Olympia Socialite, as yet unnamed.)



















