note | Chris Aldrich

A warm and cozy mid-century office setting for reading and writing. Angle down on a 1960s 20 gauge steel double pedestal tanker desk in gray with blue drawers. On the center of the desk is an open book on a book rest behind which sits a desktop filing cabinet with 5 thin drawers for paper, a sock monkey, a line of papers and books in a row of Princeton files, a two drawer card index as well as three other smaller desktop card indexes. On top of the two drawer index is a gray 1957 Remington Quiet-Riter typewriter with green keys and on top of a writing drawer pulled out of the left side of the desk sits a gray 1949 Royal Quiet De Luxe with black glass keys. At the edge of the desk is a stainless steel anglepoise lamp. Behind the desk are some sheer curtains and two windows which flood the room with lots of light.

Today’s reading and writing desk. ^{[1][2][3][4][5]}

White index card with the following quote typed onto it in blue elite typeface:
If I had to keep only one typewriter, if I had to get rid of them all and only had one left... There is a version of this Smith-Corona which is the the Silent Smith-Corona. [...] Somewhere around whenever they started making this, the Smith Corona Silent and various other models that have the same silhouette. The rise on the keys is just almost perfect—going from an N to a Y requires almost nothing. The size of the type is not too big and not too small. But listen to the solidity of the action [types]. This is a solid, solid piece of machine. That's got beautiful highlights like the stripes here and there. The colors are good. I love the green keys. I would probably say that this with a good case would be the one typewriter I would take. And that's why it's kinda out [on my desk] right now. I rotate this one into use an awful lot. [He types: clack, clack] I confess. [clack, clack again as he types.]
—Tom Hanks, in California Typewriter, 2016

Yellowed catalog page with photos of 5 portable typewriters labeled A-E with blocks of corresponding text below to describe them all and provide their list prices. The headline over the description reads: PORTABLE TYPEWRITERS.. NEW post-war models

Digging into some typewriter pricing history, I found a copy of the 1949 Sears Spring/Summer Catalog, which lists a version of my 1949 Royal Quiet De Luxe typewriter (Sears SKU: 3 NM 4584T with Pica Type) for $95.08 on page 285.

Converting 1949 dollars to 2024 using an inflation calculator indicates this is now worth $1,247.75. Considering that I got it for less than the original sale price in 2024 (including shipping) and that it works as well now as it did then, I feel like I got a pretty solid deal.

For comparison the competing portable models in the catalog included:

Royal Arrow $84.48
Smith-Corona Clipper $84.27
Smith-Corona Sterling $89.57
Remington Portable $84.27
Remington Portable with Tabulator $89.57
Underwood Leader $63.40

They also listed the Tower, a standard size desk typewriter, for $99.00 saying it was just a few dollars more than the portables.

For further comparison, the prior year, the 1948 Smith-Corona Clipper, a model of which I also own, was listed for $76.85. Adjusted for inflation this would be $995.96.

A blue library book charge card with space for the book title at the top and fields for date and issued to below. Typewritten, it reads: Polt, Richard The Typewriter Revolution: A Typist's Companion for the 21st Century Countryman Press, Woodstock, VT, 2015 Under DATE column it reads: 2024-04-29 Under ISSUED TO column it reads Intro, ch1, ch2 At the bottom in small blue type original to the card is the ordering information: BRO DART CAT. No. 23-115 PRINTED IN USA

Some how it felt sacrilegious to post it to Goodreads.com and not to type my status update for Richard Polt’s poetic paean to typewriters.

Typed white index card that reads: "You left your typewriter at my Apartment // straight from the tortured poets department // I think some things I never say // Like, "Who uses typewriters anyway?
... // I laughed in your face and said, // You're not Dylan Thomas, I'm not Patti Smith." //--Taylor Swift, The Tortured Poets Department
Dylan Thomas used an Imperial Good Companion. // Patti Smith used a late 60s/early 70s Smith-Corona portable. // --Chris Aldrich, tortured poet

Tortured poets Dylan Thomas and Patti Smith both used typewriters. I still use several too.

Shadow of a colander held up in the sunshine at the peak of the eclipse. The multi-pinhole camera shows a flower pattern of sun circles with a small bite taken out of each of them by the occlusion of the light by the moon all focused onto a concrete background.

I saw hundreds of images of the eclipse today, but none remotely similar to mine. While thinking back on how I imaged the eclipse with my “pinhole colander camera”, I realize that so much of my life is informed not only by science, but the science of cooking.

Two small black metal L-shaped bookends with their packaging card

I’d mentioned that my Steelcase card index came without the traditional card stops/follower blocks at the back of the drawers. Needing a solution for this, I’ve discovered that my local Daiso sells small, simple bookends for $1.75 for a pair and they’re the perfect size (7 x 8.9 x 9.2 cm) for the drawers. These seem to do the trick nicely, though they do tend to slide within the metal drawers without any friction. Giving them small rubber feet or museum putty from the hardware store for a few cents more fixes this quickly.

Here’s a version of the timeline of some of the intellectual history I presented today at the PKM Summit in Utrecht. I’m happy to answer any questions, or if you’re impatient, you can also search my online digital repository of notes for any of the people or topics mentioned.

It covers variations of personal knowledge management, commonplace books, zettelkasten, indexing, etc. I wish we’d had time for so much more, but I hope some of the ideas and examples are helpful in giving folks some perspective on what has gone before so that we might expand our own horizons.

The color code of the slides (broadly):

orange – intellectual history
dark grey – memory, method of loci, memory palaces
blue – commonplace books
green – index cards, slips, zettelkasten traditions
purple – orality
light teal – dictionary compilations
red – productivity methods