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Thursday 30 January 2014

Young Typospherian Heads for Germany's Typewriter Country

The Australian Capital Territory's population of Typospherians will be temporarily cut in half tomorrow when young blogger Jasper Lindell ("DHIATENSOR") sets off from Canberra for Freiberg in Germany.
Jasper will be away for two months on a student exchange trip. He will be celebrating his 16th birthday in Germany.
Jasper's parents put on a farewell event for friends and well-wishers at his home this evening and it was a chance for me to see Jasper's typewriter collection and the very impressive set-up in his "Typospherian's office".
Some of Jasper's prized possessions
Jasper's dad John made him the Olympia sign
The Nippo P-200 I gave to Jasper after our Type-In here a few weeks ago.
My going-away gift was a T-shirt inviting Jasper's German hosts to offer him some additions to his collection.
Outside, as Canberra's second heat wave of the year (it's rare that we even get one!) allowed some respite from the 100 plus temperatures of earlier in the day, Jasper's dad John treated us to delicious pizzas baked in his backyard pizza oven.
While the pizzas were baking, I sneaked inside to get some photos of Jasper's own slice of typewriter heaven:
 Jasper put together this very fine Hermes 3000 from two or three spare parts machines I gave him. He's done an excellent job with it.
 A "hi" to Ryan Adney in far-off Arizona.
 Jasper's mum made this fantastic wall plaque herself. 
The talk of the night was how Jasper was going to get typewriters back from Germany. Freiberg is close (18 miles) to two great old typewriter cities, Dresden and Chemnitz, so the chances of Jasper finding some treasures over there would seem to be good.
Freiberg is a university and mining town in Saxony, the administrative centre of the Mittelsachsen district. Its historic town centre has been placed under heritage conservation and is a chosen site for the proposed UNESCO World Heritage Site known as the Ore Mountain Mining Region. 





Typewriters All Over the World: An International Kaleidoscope

Alderney, Channel Islands
Australia
(It is a kangaroo, right?) 
Belgium
Brazil
Czechoslovakia
(Prague Spring, 1968)
England
(Oh, to once more stand in front of a typewriter shop!)
and
France
and
Germany
Greece
(Yes, it's Aussie George Johnson, Leonard Cohen's then mate)
Indonesia
Ireland
(Well, they're Irish writers, OK?)
Italy
Japan
Liberia
New Zealand
(Barry Crump)
Nigeria
Pakistan
Russia
(Go on, name the machine)
South Africa (1954!)
Sweden
and
Turkey
USA
In the air
At sea
By rail
On the street
At the zoo
In prison
(I'm not making this stuff up!)
And, finally, in La-La Land

Wednesday 29 January 2014

Pete Seeger and The Lion King

Orpheus Myron McAdoo, the inspiration behind Solomon Linda's
original version of The Lion Sleeps Tonight.
McAdoo is buried in Waverley Cemetery, Sydney.
Solomon Linda, left, with his Evening Birds in 1939
The Tokens
The Weavers perform Wimoweh at Cafe Society Downtown, New York, on July 17, 1951. The group is, from foreground, Ronnie Gilbert, Pete Seeger (significantly on banjo), Lee Hays and Fred Hellerman on guitar.
Orpheus McAdoo with the The Virginia Concert Company and Jubilee Singers in Australia.
McAdoo's Sydney grave, above, and his death certificate, below:
 Solomon Linda and the Evening Birds
Solomon Lindy's daughters:
 Adelaide
 Delphi
 Elizabeth
 Fildah