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Sunday 15 July 2012

Exposed! My Typewriter Shame

A kind of Aladdin, with his Lamp,
 his Cave and some of his Typewriters
Canberra's Sunday Times newspaper, on the morning of the typewriter exhibition opening, wanted to nail me in my lair. The idea of the picture story was, "What was let out? What is left behind?"
This once orderly-stacked storage unit, one of four, is in a complete mess, after months of rampaging through it, looking for buried treasures to include in the exhibition, or to use for posts and typecasts. But it never really was an Aladdin-style magic cave of wonder, my torch no wonderful oil lamp conjuring a typewriter genie, and this is no story of 1001 typewriters. Sometimes I did dig out a long-forgotten gem, and there may still be some there. In the main, however, these are typewriters I had planned to sell or otherwise offload, and never got around it to.
See the story online here.
"Look, I really am going to tidy it up one day. But in the meantime, where else am I going to put them?"
"Now where's that Oliver portable gone?"


9 comments:

Ton S. said...

This is so cool and amusing, Robert.
First time for me to see typewriters hanging from the ceiling! I'd like to forage in that room and steal me some minty green Lettera 32 haha.

Scott K said...

Ha ha ha ha... I didn't you know your storage had become such an issue!

L Casey said...

Wow. I love that it is one of four storage units. That is dedication.
The first picture is hysterical. You honestly look like you are mining for typewriters underground.
Great article. Thanks so much for sharing and I hope you exhibition is going as well as planned.

Richard P said...

Ha! Great photos. I can relate, on a small scale -- I had to put about 120 machines in storage while my office was remodeled and now they are making their way back. Keeping track of these objects and physically shifting them from one place to another is a challenge. But that's why we love them, right? Their physicality?

Robert Messenger said...

Thank you Ton, Scott, Ken and Richard. I am so relieved to know you guys can see the funny side of this. It is a shambles, but as Richard implied, it still has its great joys. Richard Amery is always digging me in the ribs about the mess in my sheds and storage units.

shordzi said...

That's awesome & hilarious --> looks like you are floating in space - ZERO GRAVITY!!

Rob Bowker said...

First look I thought you were juggling! Great photos - as long as YOU know where everything is, right?

Nat said...

I looked at your first picture and wondered if you really had your typewriters hanging off the ceiling... then a thought came saying "maybe it's one of those cool upside down pictures where the typewriters are really right way round and Mr. Messenger is actually upside down."

It's too early in the morning for me.

Congrats on the great article! :)

Bill M said...

Great article. You have a wonderful storage area. I like the suspended machines. I never knew you had so many typewriters!