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Thursday, 30 January 2014

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

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6 comments:

  1. TonysVision30 January 2014 at 03:15

    Oh my gosh, Robert, these are all wonderful, engaging photographs. Fun to pour over for details, to guess the time, and (once again) to puzzle over who, in most cases, the typists are. You have a wizard's skill for discovering them. Hopefully you will relent at some point and let us know, for example, who that is in the flight jacket in Paris, the Irish recumbent writer, the lady on the ladder, and especially the crazed eyed fellow in the suit in la la land.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ted30 January 2014 at 03:23

    The suit in La-La land is William S. Burroughs :D

    What that flat-headed cat-looking thing in the second pic is beyond my ken.

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  3. Richard P30 January 2014 at 06:54

    These are all fabulous!

    Russia: Continental?

    I saw a similar scene in Prague when I was there in 1990 shortly after the Velvet Revolution (though I don't recall any typewriters in public use).

    ReplyDelete
  4. Mark30 January 2014 at 08:50

    As someone who loves typewriters, and hates Burroughs (they made me read Naked Lunch in college, lala-land indeed) this post was such a delight!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Bill M30 January 2014 at 11:15

    Those are some really wonderful photos. The detail of black and white is hard to beat.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Don Lampert30 January 2014 at 11:44

    The "enroute" photos interest me, being an ocean liner, and railroad nut. I was thinking the other day as I lay in bed -I wonder how many typewriters a large ocean liner like the Queen Mary, Normandie, or the Rex, would have had in onboard service??! Aside of course from portables brought on by say several thousand passengers. Some of the larger liners like the Normandie carried 1972 passengers, and the Rex 2358 guests. The Queen Mary in the early years of the 1930's carried a crew if 1000, of which 110 were officers, who presumably needed to fill out numerous reports during each crossing. I'm going to my research books to see if I can get a sense. I'll let you know. Thanks as always for your great work!! Don L

    ReplyDelete

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