Pouring one out in honor of Simon Winchester, one of my favorite authors. He had a fantastic way of finding a through-line of story in non-linear topics.
Tag: obituaries
Rest in Peace: Typewriter Repair Legend Duane Jensen (August 21, 1961-January 25,2026)
Just a few hours ago, Faye shared some sad news.
Most of us might only be able to recognize his voice, his patient hands, and his preference for lacquer thinner, but all of us are richer in typewriter knowledge because of Duane Jensen’s kind sharing of his craft by way of his spectacularly helpful Phoenix Typewriter YouTube channel.
A bunch of us both watch and provide links to his library of typewriter repair videos on a daily basis. Many of us know how to tear down and build up a typewriter because of his tutorials and years of work. Once you attempt to repair a typewriter for yourself, you’ll realize how skilled he was to be able to simultaneously film his work while he did it. (I swear he had six hands….) He also patiently dispensed (and still asked for his own repair advice) on a regular basis on Facebook.
Thousands of his repaired machines will continue to give people joy every day. He’ll be missed terribly in the typewriter community, but fortunately some of his work and his spirit will continue live on online.
For those who don’t know him as well (yet), here’s an article about Duane from last year: Meet one of the few people in America who knows how to fix manual typewriters, and an excellent podcast from September 2024: Charm Type Repair podcast w/ Duane Jensen of Phoenix Typewriter.
Because it was his usual sign off, I feel obligated to quote him:
Phoenix Typewriter, Good Day!
—Duane Jensen
His struggles with writer’s block led him to create a process that favored an expressive, personal approach over rigid academic conventions that often stifled students.
For those interested in writing methods, Peter Elbow’s work can be seen as an interesting shift in pedagogy from the 1970s. Interestingly it relies on pieces of practices pre-dating him which inform commonplace book and related zettelkasten methods.
For my own files, from the obituary, it looks like he was using an IBM Selectric I in some of his early work.
David L. Solin passed away this morning after several trying days in hospice care. We spent most of the day with him yesterday as he struggled to hold on, but his body ultimately gave out.
I was just a few blocks from the nursing home going to see him when I got the call that he had passed away at 9:44 AM. After spending much of the last 4 years with severe dementia, its a relief that he’s left us, undoubtedly for a better place.
His memory will be a blessing.
Los Angeles is having a bad day. Both Tommy Lasorda and Tom LaBonge have died.
When the business icon died in a fire last week, questions abounded. The answers seem rooted in a Covid-period spiral, where he turned to drugs and shunned old friends.
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Tony Hsieh, the retired CEO of Las Vegas-based online shoe retailer Zappos.com, who spent years working to transform the city's downtown area, has died. He was 46. Hsieh was...
Alex Trebek has died at the age of 80.
He presided over live morning shows for four decades, emceed 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire' and served as Joey Bishop's late-night sidekick.
Now that Regis and Hugh Downs have both passed away within weeks of each other, I’m wondering which living person now has the record for most time in front of a camera?
ATLANTA (AP) — John Lewis, a lion of the civil rights movement whose bloody beating by Alabama state troopers in 1965 helped galvanize opposition to racial segregation, and who went on to a long...
Thank you Mr. Lewis for your courage and leadership.
Carl Reiner, the writer, producer, director and actor who was part of Sid Caesar’s legendary team and went on to create “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and direct several hit films, has …
The last of the old school Borsch Belt is disappearing…
When Toni Morrison died I remember seeing headlines that read something like “Beloved Author Dies, Age 88”. I suspect he saw them, and so Gordon Korman smartly wrote a book entitled “Notorious.”
He made profound contributions to number theory, coding theory, probability theory, topology, algebra and more — and created games from it all. He died of the coronavirus.