Notes
Short content: a microblog of status updates or short notes
The next book for the Dan Allosso Book Club is Roland Allen‘s The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper (United Kingdom: Profile Books, 2023).
For those interested in intellectual history, here’s a chance to join a long standing book club full of inveterate note takers/zettelkasten-ers, educators, and lifelong learners. Those interested in the topic are encouraged to join us.
To join, reach out to Dan Allosso for access to the book club’s shared Obsidian Vault and/or ping me for the Zoom link for the discussions to be held on Saturday mornings at 8:00 – 10:00 AM Pacific over the coming month.
Once upon a time…
How do you keep track of your typewriter collection?
- Do you keep a simple typewritten list?
- Do you use a spreadsheet?
- The Typewriter Database?
- A period-appropriate card index?
- Tags on your machines on the shelves?
- Via your blog or web page?
- All of the above?
- Keep track?!? I enjoy tripping over them all over the house.
- Other?
What data do you keep on them?
How big was your collection before you decided you needed to do something?
My commute patterns changed dramatically last year and the Eaton Fire catastrophe has decimated the first half of 2025 for me, so I’m trying to get back to my old Huffduffer habits for more focused content consumption versus doomscrolling. Sadly, it seems the tagging system has been disabled/disappeared? It was one of my favorite discovery features…
In season 4, episode 3 “Scallop” of The Bear (FX, 2025), the inimitable Rob Reiner shows up as a business consultant by the name of Albert Schnurr. In his introduction, he’s wearing a black baseball cap featuring a typewriter. A line drawing/outline, it looks a bit like a Corona 3 to me. It’s definitely not the Royal KMG his father was famous for using.
Happy International Typewriter Day! Today commemorates the date in 1868 when Christopher Latham Sholes was granted a patent for the first commercially successful typewriter.
What are you doing to celebrate? I’m writing about the typewriter market to help out beginning collectors.
Spent some time tonight typing up notes from the type-in on Saturday for the typosphere. Should have a post about it all soon.
Spring flowers next to the 1961 Royal FP typewriter.
My current collection of 9 standard typewriters clocks in at 289.6 pounds (131.6 kg). Which one(s) should I take to the type-in at Vromans Bookstore this Saturday, May 10th at 1:00pm?
Which machines are you bringing?
Front row (left to right): ’51 Remington Super-Riter, ’56 Remington Standard, ’55 Royal HH, ’58 Royal FP (gray, 16″ carriage), ’57 Royal FP (gray)
Back row (left to right): ’45 Remington 17, ’50 Royal KMG, ’61 Royal FP (yellow), ’77 Olympia SG3
My first baseball scorecard in ages, but also my first typed scorecard with format courtesy of Lou Spirito of Thirty81 Press. Besides a few examples by Lou himself and one I saw from Tom Hanks on March 29th, I may be the third person doing this?! It pulls together two spectacular pastimes and creates a lot of fun!
Industrial typewriter cleaning
Following the Eaton Fire catastrophe, our house is finally being cleaned. While the duct cleaners were here, I thought I’d break out a dirty Olympia SG3 and use the 175psi air compressor and industrial 300 pound air filtration to “dust” my machine. I now want one of these for the typewriter workshop!
People have previously asked about getting rid of the musty smell that some portable typewriters and their cases can have. Some have asked about ozone treatment, but since there’s a hydroxyl generator in the house for the next week, I thought I’d run a test on my mustiest and smelliest typewriter. Follow up details to come next week.
