Typewriter Dramatics

Imagine having some guests over to your house. As the conversation evolves someone, perhaps that guy from your office who keeps trying to show you various "apps" on his iPhone, turns a glancing eye to your den.

"What's that?" says Chad (because they are all named Chad) pointing to the desk.

You respond, "That? It's something very special. I keep it covered to protect it."

"Does it have apps?"

"No."

You stand up and your guests follow you to the den. Snapping on the lamp, you take the cover and with a dramatic flourish you remove it to reveal a pristine Royal Quiet De Luxe.

The silence is cut by Chad (because he's just so annoying), "So, no apps?"

***

Paul emailed me a few days ago to let me know that he tried making one of the typewriter covers that I wrote about in a very Typewriter Cover-themed blog post. Here it is. In addition to the wonderful email, Paul sent a picture of his handiwork.

Quite nice quilted cozy.

Needless to say, I am overjoyed that the "pattern" proved to be a success. Good work Paul!

3rd Phoenix Type-In

Showing Off

I think I might have mentioned it a while ago, but Mrs. Magic Margin, Baby Magic Margin, and I moved to a new house. It's much bigger than our old house and the perfect place for a growing...typewriter collection! Mrs. Magic Margin was adamant that I have a place (out of the way) that I can display a respectable number of typewriters. After some thinking, we bought my favorite bookshelf from IKEA; Expedit and assembled it in what we call "The Typewriter Room."Each box in the bookcase is just barely large enough to hold a standard Royal-size portable typewriter. Pretty much every example from my collection fits. The only exception is the Facit. I have it set on top of the bookshelf along with a Royal Model O to give the top a visual balance. See for yourself in the photo-set below and please excuse me for showing off.

The Complete Adney Collection

U.S. Navy Aristocrat

This little three needs some polishing.

A new addition to my collection.
The platen is frightfully hard.

The trusty Model 7 gets a high spot.

My first typewriter.

Another shiny one.

The tawny twins.

An Artist's Brush

An Oldie from the Archive

Please enjoy this graphic from last year's Valentine's Day.

Peter, You Rock!

I also snapped a few pictures from my third hour class. It was a very type-tastic day!

Representative Commendation

I came to school to find this letter from Arizona State Representative Debbie McCune Davis. I must be sure to type a thank you note.

 

Welcome to Magic Margin

Some of you, no doubt, are visiting for the first time. Welcome. Typewiters are wonderful machines and I love to share them. So, please look around. If you click on the links to the side you'll find a smattering of our classroom collection, links to other typewriter sites, and an archive of posts for this blog. You'll find some serious stuff, some fun stuff, some interesting stuff, and some absolutely silly stuff.

The original concept behind The Classroom Typewriter Project was to have students write without distraction. Computers have become distracting devices the divert our attention from quiet inspiration and real reflection. The typewriter is still the perfect machine for getting ideas neatly presented on paper. Moreover, the typewriter requires the author to be aware of GUMS (grammar, usage, mechanics, and spelling) because a typewriter has a way of making your literary missteps very public.

To bring you up to speed on what has happened I have aggregated some of the older posts from this blog. These will be helpful in understanding the goals and what I wanted to do.

1. The original proposal sent to the nascent typosphere: http://magicmargin.blogspot.com/2010/08/classroom-typewriter-project.html

2. The Hypothesis: http://magicmargin.blogspot.com/2010/08/hypothesis.html

3. The Process: http://magicmargin.blogspot.com/2010/08/process.html

4. Some results: http://magicmargin.blogspot.com/2010/09/results-of-weekly-typewriter-inventory.html
and http://magicmargin.blogspot.com/2010/09/weekly-typewriter-inventory-analysis.html andhttp://magicmargin.blogspot.com/2010/10/analysis-and-monks.html andhttp://magicmargin.blogspot.com/2010/12/young-truth.html

The Stradivarius of Typewriters